Chapter Text
He didn’t mean to.
God, why was he so dumb? Stupid fucking bird-brain. It was a trap, of course it was, they had found him out and fed him the wrong information and he used that information to lead Techno and all their men to the Gates of Hell.
It was all his fault.
At least Techno made it out alive. At least— at least his friend? partner? co-commander had made it out. For all his mistakes, at least he made it out alive.
(and left Phil to rot)
He should have scouted out the area first, so it was only him that was caught in this hellfire and brimstone prison. He should have, but he didn’t, so now it wasn’t only him that was damned.
Sounds of the dead and dying shriek and sob, nearly drowning out the ringing that thrums in his ears. His fingers throb, for a reason that’s no less than entirely his fault. His talons scrap against the stone floor, adding to the cacophony.
He doesn’t deserve to cry. To sob. He bites down on his tongue as tears fill his eyes and inhales sharply, leading to a chain reaction of coughs, spasms, and jerks that run its course on his body. He is the Angel of Death, the Pied Piper of Souls, leading them to their demise.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
The ground is rumbling— if he weren’t pinned down by rocks and boulders, he might’ve been bouncing along the stone, like floating on waves in the ocean. oh, his wing—!
His eyes fixate on the feather in front of him. His feather, thrown unceremoniously on the ground. His eyes flood with newfound tears as black boots fill his vision, the feather falling apart with a crunch under the boots. The boulder pinning his wing down is wobbling, grating his bones together and he can’t help but scream as the weight is lifted and he is pulled up—
“Was it this one, Sir?”
“Aye, that’s him, the traitor. Bring him out.”
Gravel cuts into his skin and rolls into the feathers of his wings as he’s dragged away from the crescendoing cacophony. The screams cut off, one by two by three at a time, fading away, and then there is rope around his hands, binding his wings. He’s thrown and his head slams into a rock on the ground.
“Put him in the dungeon once we clear out the caves.”
I’m sorry.
He knows that no one will come for him.
Birds weren’t meant to stay underground. Birds weren’t meant for cages. This fact had been pounded into Phil through the patchwork of scars that crisscrossed across his body like a generations-old quilt. Every scar told a story; He had pinpricks on the palm of his hand from a mishap of an adventure when he was a child, hiding behind berry bushes deep in the forest during a game of hide-and-seek with friends. When he’d gotten peckish and decided to pick some berries, instead of picking them one by one, he decided— like the smart boy he was— to yank off an entire branch.
He howled as sharp thorns pierced the palm of his hands and burst out of the bushes, running and crying all the way home, the game forgotten. His father held Phil in his arms as his mother went to get bandages and ointment. After his crying subsided, then came time to pluck the thorns out, one by one.
Though he can’t remember the process, he remembers how when he buried his face into his father’s chest, unable to handle the sight of blood, he felt safe. Loved. He remembers how his mother whispered soothing words into his ear, though the words are always lost to the wind when he thinks about it now.
He had been put to bed with a kiss on the forehead and no less than three bedtime stories read to him that night.
Now, Phil raises his hand, the fingers gnarled and bent into angles he knows they shouldn’t be. His hand is soaked with a coating of blood, hiding the speckling of scars he’s sure was now covered by more recent wounds. His fingertips throb as blood sluggishly well up to the surface of his exposed nail beds. He closes his eyes, inhaling, as the smell of mold and decay fade away and blossom into the smell of dirt and soil and for a moment, he can pretend that the blood-soaked stone floor he was laying on is just wet clay.
He’s basking in the sun. The light shining over his closed eyelids was just the sun, making its way across the sky. His heart isn’t half-way out of his chest. It’s beating slow and steady. His breathing is controlled, calm, and quiet. He hears the keening of an animal somewhere. It’s trembling right next to him and the vibrations it makes are making him shiver too.
He’s outside, on the outskirts of some forest somewhere. His fingers are red with the juices of berries he had snacked on. He’s enjoying the sunlight as it shines so bright that when he opens his eyes, he is blinded. His wings are burning— his wings are burning—
Phil shrieks as fire sizzles against the sensitive skin of his wings. His fingertips— rubbed raw— paint five streaks of red across the dried burgundy floor as he wriggles against the foot pressed against his knobbly spine. Between the laughter above him from divine Gods and ear-piercing shrieks, Phil tries to mutter apologies between clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry — ”
What did he do this time? He was good. He had been quiet. He was still hurting, he always hurt. Wasn’t he suffering enough? No, he deserved this. He needed to suffer more, no pain, no agony he went through could make up for —
Fingers thread through his hair and he presses up against them before they twist and yank him upwards. Phil yelps as he’s thrown and distantly, he hears a snap as he lands on something bony and twisted on his back, fire flaring through his veins. His hand is outstretched, cheek pressed against his bicep as he stares forward and sees an oil lamp. Its tiny door is open, a tiny wick of flame dancing in its oil pool.
He dances as well, jerking to the beat of cracking bones, angry shouts, and thunderous steps. His eyes slip shut just as he sees a black boot rearing back and feels the overwhelming urge to apologize again.
Phil is pressed into a corner, wings trying and failing to shield him. Arms are raised to hide his head from sight. His wings twitch and flap, but when he tries to flex upwards, to rear his wings up and fluff out his feathers, knives dig into his back, take his breath away, and he can’t. Whimpers bubble out of his throat as he can hear a knife being sharpened— it’s going to cut him its going to cut into him, shred his skin, his flesh, carve him up like a roast pig —
The blood hadn’t even dried from the most recent cut along the bone that connected his wings to his back. Tears stream down a well-worn path cut through grimy cheeks. His hair is plastered to his head by sweat and water, though the water doesn’t do much to remove rusted blood from gold strands.
His chest rises and falls in short, quick increments. It’s never enough to soothe the never-ending desire for more air yet when he inhales deeper, needles prick into his heart and he can’t — he has to hold his breath and wait for it to subside. The stone feels cool against his clammy forehead. He’s hot, but he’s cold, maybe that has something to do with how yellow pus leaks out of open cuts every now and again.
He keens as rough hands tighten around one of his arms and pulls him out of his space, away from the comforts of cold stone and into the light where he will be kicked and hit and cut and fingers will pluck and tear pieces of his soul away.
He is forced to his knees and hands pull his wings apart, spreading them. His wingtips would have touched the edges of the stone cell he was in, had his feathers not been plucked and the rest sheared. Some had grown back misshapen and ugly , and, oh —
Cold metal lines itself up against those feathers and
snip
“I’m surprised he still has feathers left for us to cut.”
There are fingers threading through his other wing, the one that’s hanging limp.
“Well, birds molt. And I’d say that having wings makes him like a mascot, eh? If you ever need a stress reliever, you just come down here and pet his wings. It’s like having a dog without the commitment.”
“Some dog it is.”
There’s a pause. He sees black, broken feathers falling onto the ground.
“Take a look at your fingers.There’s more dirt and mold gathered your fingers than there is in the entire fuckin’ cave. It’s a nasty, mangy creature.”
“He was some sort of traitor, right? A double spy?”
“Yeah. No one really knows or cares. He’s been here longer than I’ve been.”
“Hm.”
There are fingers carding through his hair and he tilts his head into the gentle touch. He had a braid, once. Someone would do it for him, without fail, every morning while he braided their hair as well. His fingers twitched. There’s a scoff and suddenly he’s being yanked away from the touch and a keen rips out of his throat before dying as snips so much closer to his face are heard.
“Stick to the fucking feathers, man.”
Blood, dripping from his wings, soaks into his fallen feathers, joined by strands of speckled black, brown, red, and gold hair.
(what happened to the ash? the dust? where… )
He’s flying— soaring through the skies. He remembers going up as far as he could, like— like (Icarus?) like he was some sort of angel. He’d soar up and up and up and then drop down, down, down, only to spread his wings and catch himself last minute. Those few precious seconds of free-fall made him weightless. He was floating in the air, just before gravity set hold and he flared his wings out to—
“— ucking hell, get his wings under control!”
He’s yanked upwards, water dripping down his face, out of his nose, and he splutters as water forces its way out of his throat.
There are hands on his wings, pushing them down from their spread position. He’s forced to mantle his wings, though they’re folded wrong and bones press into each other in a way that would surely cause them to—
snap
Black spots dance across his eyes as his chest heaves, fighting for air. He can’t— he can’t—
A hand smacks the back of his head, shocking him into taking a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His jaw is grabbed and his cheeks are squished between two fingers as his head is wrenched to the side, to stare into the abyss.
The abyss is brown, he notes. His sight trails down to a carved mountain with two holes at the very bottom, which connect to a sloping valley that curves out to a spittle-spitting cavern that howls hot air into his face. The air is vibrating, but he can’t hear . His head is too full of static and some stupid of of his brain howls for comfort that he knows he’d never get (again).
He’s plunged back into the water bucket, his hands coming up to cling tightly to the edges. It’s a game that gets repeated again and again. His body spasms as his chest burns. He knows to keep his mouth shut, eyes squeezed so hard that his crooked eye-socket bone shifts downward. It takes a minute, then a decade, and an hour and he’s flying freely again, going through free-fall. He feels the sting of the cold winds against his neck and he takes a sharp inhale and—
The world tilts as he’s thrown to the floor, instinctively curling inwards as he vomits moldy water. There’s enough in him to tilt his head elsewhere and fall against the stone floor. There’s a thump as his legs raise then fall, but he can’t feel his legs.
He hears, and then feels the foot slamming into his hip however, kicking him while he’s down. He rolls over a couple of spaces and lays on the side that was kicked. It should hurt.
It doesn’t.
He can’t feel his fingers, his feet, or his hip. Some part of him knows it’s bad, being soaked to the bone and not being able to feel parts of himself, but other parts of him whisper, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.
it’s okay it’s okayit’sokay
Something behind him shifts and he keens and a flash of irritation burns away the numbness he so craves.
God, why can’t he just cut the two useless lumps of bone off his back.
He stares and all that stares back at him are burgundy stones. He knows there are four walls, but he can only see one from his angle. They waver, sometimes moving close enough that he can feel the hairs on the back of his neck raise and his body stiffen. The soft, downy feathers that lined his shoulders and back had been ripped out ages ago. Mold creeps against the corners and between the mortar joints of the bricks. When he inhales, they burn his lungs. When he exhales, they tighten up his chest.
Phil doesn’t sleep. He drifts and this time, he drifts into a memory much similar to this one where he couldn’t feel his limbs. Someone was rubbing the warmth back into them with calloused, yet gentle hands, huffing disappointedly at him. He had a blanket around his shoulders and a cup of something in his hands. He remembers smiling and laughing, two things he hadn’t done in a long time. The memory makes something burn in his chest, expanding and traveling up the length of his throat before it comes out as a soft ‘coo.’
His eyes are burning and he blinks as water from his right eye rolls down into his left. The warmth is gone and all that’s left is guilt.
He did something to that person. Something that led to this. He remembers explosions and being pinned and a feather— his feather — being thrown into his face along with an instruction for him to “Go to Hell, then.”
He’s in Hell now, isn’t he? He’s where he deserves to be.
He’s sorry .
His eyes slip shut.
Heat rolls over Phil, wrapping him a warm embrace. It wiggles itself into every crevice and nook of his broken body and smooths soothing balm. Though his head falls, it is cushioned. His wings twitch again and— oh.
His eyes snap open as he opens them fully.
It doesn’t hurt.
He twists and sees black plumage, unmarred by shears or fingers, cleansed of mold and dirt and blood—
He looks down at his hands and sobs. He can see the collection of speckled scars on his palm peek out from underneath an overlapping scar. Turning on the heel of his foot(when was he standing?), he sees an ink-black void, his wings blending in with the night sky. A breeze laps at his face— he reaches up and brushes hair out of his eyes.
He stands strong. He is whole.
My Angel.
No.
“... Kristin?” His voice wavers.
Philza.
Something about the way she says his name makes him drop to his knees. His shoulders shudder and he keens, wrapping his arms tightly around his body, his talons digging into the flesh of his sewn together skin.
“ Kristin .” He gasps, covering his mouth with his hand in a failed attempt to stop the blubbering sounds coming out.
The Lady of Death is silent as Phil’s heaving sobs fill the space they’re in. Him and her. She and He.
“Am I dead?” is the first thing that comes out of his mouth.
No. He can’t tell if she was sad or happy at that. He can’t see her. All there is, is an inky-black void. You’re on the brink of death. I am able to speak with you because of that fact…
“Oh.” He feels like a child. Of course he isn’t dead. Was this the end then? The end of Philza Craft, the Angel of Death finally claimed by his Death? Or will he have to go bac —
He doesn’t want to finish that thought.
You’ve suffered so much, my Angel . Her voice sounds like funeral bells tolling. I will put a stop to your suffering. One way, or another. I cannot let you suffer any longer.
“So you’ll kill me?” he whispers. That doesn’t sound so bad.
You’ll die anyway, without my intervention.
“Then?...”
There’s a pause.
I can give you a choice. I can let you die here, with me. You won’t even feel it, Phil. Or…
He didn’t want to hear the ‘or.’ ‘Or’ meant more blood spilled, more wounds to litter his body that will never heal, more hands to rip barely-grown feathers out of his wings (though that hadn’t happened recently, as there were no more feathers).
I can ask for the fulfillment of a favor. Many owe debts to me. I can ask for someone to whisk you away so you can be free.
His breath hitches.
He wasn’t worth that. Not now, not ever. Yet somehow, Kristin hears his thoughts.
You are worth it, my love. I had hoped that someone from the living world would intervene, but now, it’s time to take things into my own hands. Please, think it over. Tell me what you’d like.
If he dies, he’ll be with his wife. He’s missed her so much. This is his chance. If he lives ( but is free, so no more pain, no more suffering )... what is there to live for? He has no family, no friends, no home.
In Death’s domain, he will have someone who loves him. He will have a home.
“Let me stay.” He pleads— no, begs. He would grovel at her feet, if need be.
(He pushes Technoblade out of his mind— the man doesn’t deserve to be thought of by a failure like him. Techno has likely already moved on with his life, onto greener fields and better conquests. Hopefully Techno hadn’t been caught up with politics like Phil had been. He didn’t deserve what Phil had been victim to)
Of course.
The words echo with finality. What has been said shall now be written in the code of the universe and here, he shall be laid to rest.
“Do I just… wait?”
That’s right.
He lays on his back, relishing in the way he can wiggle his toes and spread his fingers as he stretches. He even lets himself chirp.
As the moments pass on, he speaks with Kristin, smiling and cheeks reddening. He laughs. His fingers brush against stubbly grass that grows in The End. Tall, violet trees flicker into existence. His Lady appears by his side, just as opaque as the trees, yet filling with color by the second.
In the middle of a wheeze, he thumps his fist down onto the grass and turns his head to the side, eyes falling on the de-saturated, yellow grass.
He hums, “I miss the grass. And regular trees.”
Kristin pauses.
I can allow for you to see them again. You can have one last trip to the world of the living. But you’ll be in pain again, if only for a moment.
“I’ll be fucking out though, right?” His voice is barely above a whisper. “And then I’ll be back here, with you.”
Always. I will always be your final destination.
He sucks in a deep breath. “May I… then? I know— I know it sounds ungrateful , but—”
You never sound like such a thing, my Angel. Never. You deserve the world and more.
His eyes water. He doesn’t deserve this.
“Are you sure? That— that favor will be used, right? I don’t know if I want to use it up like that. I’m just being selfish.” He says with a touch of self-deprecation.
You deserve the world and more
His Lady speaks with an air of certainty that he can’t find in himself to refute. Her gloved hand covers his own.
I’ll be here once you return.
He comes to with explosions.
No, no, not literal explosions. Pain wreaks havoc upon his body. Every wound, broken bone, missing piece of him screams. Joints crackle and pop at just the movement of him breathing. That’s not what matters now though. His fingers dig into the dirt beneath him. Real dirt. His wings are spread and he feels something hard and rough against the exposed skin of his back. His heart quickened— grass? trees?
A shadow is over him— he can see the speckled leaf patterns in the light of the sun . The sun ! He stretches his legs so that more than the soles of his feet can soak up the rays. It burns, but he adjusts. The warming flame of the sun couldn’t compare to the way [pain spread like lightning, shooting through his body]. He could close his eyes and die a happy man, right then and there.
Phil was a selfish, greedy man, though.
Just one walk. Just one.
With god-given strength, Philza rises. It’s strange, he notes, how his head is filled with fluff and his limbs are heavy, yet he’s still able to take a step no matter how badly his legs shake. He just wants one walk. One more journey before he leaps into the arms of his Wife. Sunlight kisses his skin. Strange, how he can feel that and not all the wounds carved into his body. His wings hang off his back— he hasn’t the strength nor the will to mantle them.
It’s so bright. His eyes are closed as he walks forward. It doesn’t matter where he is or where he’ll go. Even if he bumps into a low branch and falls, at least he’d have made this journey. One last journey before the End.
He wanders aimlessly, miraculously not bumping into anything. In fact, it’s like the trees are disappearing.
If he had opened his eyes, he’d have realized that the forest was thinning. If he had opened his eyes and looked to the dirt behind him, he’d have realized that he was leaving a trail of bloodied footprints, like a vengeful demon. If he had opened his eyes and looked, he’d see short fences lining the outskirts of a village.
Villagers worked over the bordered lands with their backs to the sun, bent over a hoe or a pick or a plant. All it takes is for one villager to lean on their hoe to catch a breath, to rest before returning to their arduous task. Their arm goes to wipe the sweat from their forehead, simultaneously shielding them from the sun. They twist, to stretch out their aching back and—
That’s when they see it.
It’s limping, walking sluggishly towards the village. It has two black, skeletal masses jutting out from behind its back. The thing itself has hollowed cheeks and its skin(?) is dark(unlike bleached white bones, which is peculiar), with blood smeared all over. God, how many villagers has it killed— how many will it kill?
The villager shouts, snapping others out of their meditative repetitiveness. Many scream and run, some towards and others into the confines of their homes. An elderly man storms out of one of the cottages, bow and arrow in hand and aims—
This is when Philza Craft raises his head. He sees the metal aimed at him, the vitriol in the man’s eyes and smiles.
Here, he thinks, is a good place to be laid to rest.
His journey will now come to an end, this journey, his finished symphony.
The world tilts and his vision blurs.
When he comes to, all that envelops him is inky darkness and he’s being held in the arms of his beloved. He weeps.