Chapter Text
There's something living in the woods.
Techno knows this. He’s eleven, and Phil says he’s very smart for his age. There are many somethings living in the woods: sparrows, and robins, and bears, and fish, and squirrels, and deer, and sometimes, if it’s just rained and he’s very very lucky, he can find a cool frog to bring home to Phil and Wilbur.
There is no word Techno knows to describe this thing.
It sits across from him, coughing into the moss, arms all splayed out on the soft grass beneath them.
“That’s not fair,” it whines. “We’re banning that. No more throwing rocks.”
The scrapes on Techno’s legs sting, even in sweet, sweet victory. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s basically cheating,” the creature says, voice warbly. “That one—” It gags. “That one doesn’t even count as a win.”
“Get better at dodging,” Techno offers, helpfully.
Even though its glossy white mask doesn’t betray any emotions, he just knows the creature is scowling at him.
He isn’t afraid. He knows it won’t hurt him—not seriously hurt him, the bruises on his crossed arms remind him. Every Sunday for the past month and a half, Techno has told Phil and Wilbur he’s gone out to play in the woods. Every Sunday for the past month and a half, he and the woodscreature have spent a full hour chasing each other through the forest with everything they’ve got until one of them relents and begs for mercy.
Or does something dumb that makes them automatically lose. Say, getting hit in the ankle by a well-thrown rock and roll down a whole hill while screaming their head off.
It’s a fun little system.
The creature sighs, claps its hands once, and starts propping itself up. “Okay, okay. Fine. Congratulations, and all. I’ll get you next week.”
Techno moves to do the same and feels about eight things pop at once. “You won’t. You’ll die, and I’ll have to tell Phil I murdered a woods-monster.”
Abruptly, the creature stills. “Phil?”
“My dad,” Techno explains, his traitorous cheeks blushing the same shade of pink as his hair. “Kinda.”
It makes a little strangled noise behind its mask, like Techno’s just called it something horrible. Well—he had called it a monster. But that’s just the truth, and something his sparring partner has never taken offense to before.
“You’re calling the Angel of Death Phil? ” It blurts, aghast.
Techno blinks. “You’re calling my dad the Angel of Death?”
“Obviously. That’s his title,” it replies, a little scathingly. “How are you not dead?”
Techno has no idea what that means. Or, frankly, where the creature has seen Phil before.
But, because the first rule of subterfuge is to always pretend you’ve got a better grasp on the situation than you really do, Techno settles for giving the creature a lazy shrug. His shoulders ache at the movement.
“I guess I’m just better at dodging than you are,” he says.
“You look like chewed up bubblegum. He should be able to hunt you down from miles away.”
Techno arches an unfortunately pink brow. “You should feel lucky he’s not trying to hunt me down right now. I’m not s’posed to be out here, you know. If he’s the Angel of Death or whatever he’d probably smite us both.”
“You know,” he continues helpfully as the creature watches him in shell-shocked silence. “Like, pow. Blam. Poof.”
He wiggles his fingers a little for effect.
“You’re deranged,” it says, mildly.
“You’re trying to convince me Phil’s an angel, but yeah, sure, I’m the one who’s outta his mind—“
“—he’s a god! And you’re nothing to scoff at either, you know!”
That’s…a piece of information Techno is just gonna have to file away for a late night crisis later.
“Um,” he stalls, eloquently. “I don’t know, actually. He’s just got wings.”
“Vulture wings,” the creature stresses.
He supposes Phil’s wings do kind of look like a vulture’s. They both have...feathers?
“Oh, wow,” it says, while Techno’s busy contemplating the nature of Phil’s wing-shape. “He’s taught you absolutely nothing, huh? You’re like—you’re like a little vulture egg that’s gonna get completely scrambled at the first sign of trouble.”
“There’s something wrong with you,” Techno deadpans.
The creature huffs, and stands. “Well, yeah, clearly,” it agrees amiably.
Then it dusts itself off, adjusts its summer-green robe, and starts walking deeper into the forest.
It favors its left leg, Techno notices. It wobbles as it jumps over a fallen log.
When Techno doesn’t follow, it glances back, and his eyes meet the black circles painted on its mask. “Well?” it calls. “You want an explanation or not, Technoblade?”
He hesitates.
“How far are we walking?”
“Not far,” it promises, easily. Techno thinks of spiders in their webs and the flies that crawl right to them.
He looks at the creature again, raking him up and down with critical eyes.
It’s all lopsided, stance unbalanced and awful. Still caked in grass and dirt from its fall, too.
Even the weakest fly could probably take it, so long as it was caught unaware.
Techno sighs. “I have to be home by dark,” he says, and follows.
★★★★★
Techno will not be home by dark.
“Run it by me again,” he demands, idly wrapping and unwrapping the bandages trailing up his arm.
“Fine,” the creature— Dream— replies. “I’m Dream.”
“Yeah, I get that. Keep going.”
Dream pulls up his mask just enough to shove a handful of berries under it. “And I serve Dream, who told me to take my sister and me to these woods.”
“And Dream isn’t you?”
“Isn’t and is me. It’s like I’m a jar. And also the thing in the jar. And we’re both called Dream, but I used to not be Dream. But we’re also the same person, now, really.” His voice is cheerful, like he thinks he’s making any sense at all.
“There really is something wrong with you,” Techno replies, and crosses his legs beneath him to make room for Dream’s pet baby. She stumbles over the spot where his ankles just were, and her tiny arms shoot out to make sure she doesn’t fall face first into the ground.
Instead of wailing, she makes a sound like a furious animal and glares daggers at the dirt.
“Anyway,” Dream continues, like his baby sister isn’t pretending to be a raccoon a foot away from him, “Your…dad...can tell you the rest. There’s a reason the three of us are here.”
Techno blinks. He wishes he had enough time to start another round of gladiator with Dream. That requires so, so much less thought than this conversation. “You, your sister, and Phil?”
Dream groans. “Me, Vulture Wings, and you. Drista’s nothing special. She just bites.”
“You’re calling your sister—”
“Drista. Like a mix of ‘Dream’ and ‘sister’. It’s catchy!”
The toddler in question doesn’t even twitch when her ‘name’ is said. Good , Techno thinks, vindictively. Stick it to the man.
Their conversation lulls, after that. Dream won’t tell him any specifics about what the three of them have in common, and at some point, Drista grows bored of gnawing on her own fingers and wanders into the woods.
“Should we chase after her?” Techno asks.
Dream shrugs, and cranes his neck owlishly towards the woods behind them. “She’ll be fine. I’ll protect her.”
“From here?”
“Yes, from here. Geez. What, did you think I was gonna run off and pick her up? Right in the middle of our lunch?”
The lunch in question was a pile of ripened berries, oddly fresh meat, and nuts, all laid out neatly on a pristine blanket Dream pulled out of a stump in the middle of the woods. All that’s left of it are purple stains on Techno’s fingers and a streak of juice on the edge of Dream’s mask.
(The bones, Dream had plucked from his hands and crunched up in his mouth.
There are certain sounds Techno could probably go the rest of his life without hearing more than once, and he thinks Dream might be trying to create a whole disc’s worth.)
“Well,” Techno hums. “If your sister gets eaten by bears, that’s on you. I’m absolvin’ myself of responsibility. Get a leash for her, or something.”
At that, Dream kicks him in the shin.
Techno locks eyes with Dream. Well—he makes an attempt to. Dream’s a few inches shorter than him, and his stupid white mask prevents Techno from really glaring at him.
He tries anyway.
“I think I’m all rested up,” he says, and his mouth puffs up with a little extra mass as his tusks pop.
It’s a clumsy gesture; part of the art of intimidation that he hasn’t quite perfected yet. Blood trickles into his mouth as one of his tusks jabs at his bottom lip.
(A drop runs down his chin, too. Techno hopes his expressions errs more on the side of threatening than deeply uncomfortable.)
To his credit, Dream doesn’t shrink away from him at all: “Congrats?”
Okay. New plan.
“Ten,” Techno instructs, rolling his shoulders.
Dream tilts his head to one side. His head tips just a degree too far to look natural.
Techno has had an hour and a half of explanations, and a month and a half of encounters in the woods, but that gesture alone confirms everything:
Dream isn’t human.
(To be fair, neither is Techno.
Maybe Dream’s on to something about the three of them.)
A beat of silence, and Dream’s mask tips the other way to gaze at the horizon through the trees. The thin line splits the sun in half, letting gold and red light flood the forest.
Because Phil raised him with manners, Techno offers Dream a courteous reminder: “Nine.”
“How long do you think this’ll last?” Dream asks, wasting precious seconds of Techno’s very gracious head start.
“Not long,” Techno promises, easily. He thinks of spiders in their webs and the hands that tear right through them.
Dream glances at him, and then over him.
And then, shrinking in on himself, stills.
“Oh, no,” he breathes, his mask’s dark eyes boring into something over Techno’s shoulder. “Oh, Techno. I’m so sorry.”
Techno’s blood turns to ice.
His first thought is: Phil is going to absolutely slaughter me.
His second: Or a bear. There are definitely bears out here. Dream’s going to let me die to a bear, just because he’s mad that I’m super good at aiming rocks at ankles.
Slowly, carefully, he turns around.
The forest is empty.
“Dream,” Techno grounds out, tusks garbling his speech, “what did you see out—”
By the time he whips back around, Dream, too, has vanished into thin air.
His voice bounces between the trees up ahead, unabashed and gleeful: “Ha! You’re an idiot, Technoblade!”
Of course.
With a sigh, Techno breaks into a sprint and follows.
★★★★★
Forest god in a jar or not, Dream is still, as far as Techno can tell, a child. Eventually, he slips up and comes crashing out of the treetops with a scream that really ought to make whatever god he’s worshipping leave him out to dry, stat. It’s just plain embarrassing.
So, Techno wins, with a sharp stick to Dream’s throat and blood still dribbling down his chin.
Good. That’s three in a row now and a very respectable winstreak.
“Bye!” Dream calls, sounding more than a little bitter as he waves Techno off. “Something’s pulling us here, I promise!”
Techno doesn’t doubt that. He just hopes they don’t tear in the process.
★★★★★
Here is a truth: Technoblade is not a big believer in luck.
Things happen, whether Techno would like them to or not. Even if he hadn’t chosen to stay out hours past all normal conventions, the moon should still be full, and the forest should still be filled with night-monsters that might help delay Techno’s return home to a left-on porch light and a furious maybe-angel.
It’s not.
Soft, full moonlight illuminates all the little creatures that scurry out of his path and the occasional hootowl, but the forest is curiously devoid of any zombies, skeletons, spiders, End Men, or—and thank the gods—creepers.
Monsters enjoy the moon. Something about the tides of power, and the undead liking the only light that doesn’t burn them up, and other reasons Techno isn’t supposed to be out past sunset.
Here is a guess: Techno’s trip home being creepy-crawly-free has something to do with Dream.
Everything’s too still for it to just be Techno’s luck (which, even if it is real, has never been very good in the first place), and that means there’s something else at play here.
Dream . Dream is at play, he reminds himself. And there’s no telling if it’s a good thing to be under his protection.
Though Phil tries to hide those stories away, Techno has spent more than one late night tracing his fingers over tales of mercenaries and soldiers, of conscriptions and paid paladins. Protection doesn’t come without a price, and that’s not something that can be lucked out of.
When Dream demands his fair share, it will surely cost more than a handful of berries and a platter of chicken.
Or maybe, Techno’s just being paranoid.
The only things Dream’s demanded from him so far have been a few spats in the woods, which aren’t half as much a price to be paid as they are a hobby—the kind of thing Wilbur has a dozen of, and Techno is always gently urged to get.
This is a hobby.
It’s not a great hobby, and it might extract a price from his mortal soul, someday, but it is very much a hobby .
Really, if he thinks about it, Phil has no reason to be mad. Techno’s branching out.
(Techno tips his head to gaze at the moon, low and full in the sky. Somehow, he doesn’t think that argument will go over well.)
When he exits the forest, he takes a sharp turn right, towards the village. It’s a roundabout way to get home, but Techno doesn’t believe in walking the path most taken, or whatever. He also doesn’t believe in Dream’s power to protect him throughout the whole walk home, and he’d much rather have the security of the village’s ever-lit torches than rely on powers he’s not even certain Dream really has.
The second he makes it to the village, the sky splits open with rain.
Luck must be real, actually. Because Techno’s is the absolute worst.
He peers up at the sky from under narrowed brows, like he can glare the raindrops right back into their dark clouds. Immediately, he’s rewarded with a raindrop to the eye for his efforts, and curses at the top of his lungs.
(It really does feel good to do that, every once in a while.)
The only reprimand Techno gets comes in the form of a gash of lightning splitting the sky just as suddenly as the rain had.
Here is a lie: Techno remains perfectly calm at the sound of thunder.
When Phil had first taken him out of the Nether, Techno had never touched water in his life. He doesn’t think he needed to; even though he’d always looked a good bit different from the other piglins, he doesn’t remember ever feeling the need to drink until he entered the Overworld.
All of those early days are hazy, worn soft by time. He only remembers snatches of them—they’re the kind of memories made of the same material as waking dreams, where, no matter how hard he tries to focus on them, they slip right out of his grasp.
Still, Techno remembers his first rainstorm, and this one is worse . Logically, he knows that there’s nothing to be afraid of water-wise, but this time there’s no wing nor roof to shield him from the rain.
He doesn’t want to think on that any longer.
This is fine. It’s fine . Techno isn’t a baby, and he’s definitely not afraid to be on his own in the dark, in the middle of a storm that blows strands of wet pink hair into his eyes and mouth.
The storm will pass, and he’ll keep walking home.
Even though he’s only spent a second reminiscing, he’s already soaked to the bone. Thunder booms again, as if to remind him to get a hold over himself and seek shelter.
When he was little, he’d take any opportunity to duck behind Phil, hiding under a wing or behind a leg. It’s a babyish thing, which is why Techno doesn’t do it much, but that never seems to matter, anyway. Wherever they’ve gone, and no matter how small he’s been, people have called Techno frightening.
Maybe it’s true; Phil, Wilbur, and Dream are the only ones that don’t jump back, even if just a little, when they see him.
Techno is frightening. It does not mean that he’s brave.
The only thing Techno can duck under now is the edge of some villager’s roof, so he does, sprinting better than any Hypixel champion as he bolts under the few feet of dryness the overhang on the villager’s door allots him. Every ache and bruise he’s collected through the day pulse as one as he slouches up against the wood.
Theoretically, he could knock.
He resists the urge. He might’ve broken Phil’s rules about curfew and fighting, and eschewed the unsaid instruction to not give out personal information to baby gods in the woods, but ignoring the laws of stranger-danger is something that’s just a little too far.
Techno curls in on himself, shifting to sit on his heels, and comes face to face with an infant.
It’s just a shock of blonde hair, really, splitting the dark the same way lightning’s just cut open the sky. Their little head is buried in their arms, whole body squished tight into the doorframe.
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Techno’s barely competent at interacting with Wilbur, who’s less than a year younger than him, much less—
That shouldn’t be his primary worry.
This is a baby. Alone in the middle of the night and a horrible storm.
Techno takes a deep breath and reassesses the situation.
Even though the little thing had to have heard him scream just a minute ago — which Techno feels rather bad about now, considering he might’ve just taught a baby its first swear — they don’t appear to have noticed him intruding on their little space. Which is...good. He thinks that’s probably good.
It gives him a second to formulate a plan of action, and give the baby another glance over.
It’s tiny. Its chubby little fists are balled, and all Techno can see is fluffy blonde hair, puffed up despite the water pouring down from the sky.
Oh. Oh.
Techno knows what this is, and he’s going to murder Dream next time they meet.
“Drista?” he hisses.
It only takes a moment for her to jolt up, blue eyes wide and puffy.
“Huh?” she exclaims, tiny mouth an ‘o’ in shock.
Techno gives the baby another once over, and immediately feels stupid. Not just because Drista’s name is awful—but because this child’s only similarity to her is being small and blond.
It’s also a little boy.
“Sorry,” Techno says, blinking. “Wrong baby.”
The baby—no, toddler—scrunches up his face in a way that Techno thinks is supposed to be threatening. His face is red in the torchlight.
“I—“ Techno starts, and feels his head spinning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take up your space.”
He’s apologizing to a baby for sitting in the same doorway as him.
This is the worst day of his life.
The kid bares his teeth, and puffs himself up to his full height. He’s taller than Drista, but not by a whole lot.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Techno assures him, hands splayed. “Do you—are you old enough to speak? Can you talk?”
The toddler does not respond.
What would Phil do?
“You’re alright,” Techno repeats, feeling horribly lost. He’d willed his tusks to retreat long ago, but he still reaches up to pat at his mouth, just in case they’ve popped without him realizing it.
His fingers meet bone. They have .
In a way, Techno is grateful for the slip up. There’s no fear coming off of the tiny ball of fury in front of him.
“Oops,” he says. “I know I look scary. I don’t mean to, and my tusks don’t even do anything, so—“
The kid shouts something unintelligible.
Then, stamping his foot: “No! No, no. Go ‘way.”
Huh. So the little thing can talk. He’s just not saying any words Techno particularly wants to hear.
Sensing (temporary) defeat, Techno huffs, and starts working his jaw so his tusks slot back into their proper place.
At age eleven, they really shouldn’t have a mind of their own. Unfortunately, nothing about Techno’s body seems to care to listen to reason. He’s a half-piglin that looks mostly like a person, but also enough not like a person that people are afraid of him. Plus, his color palette makes him look like a fairytale princess dipped in strawberry preserves, which is apparently not something that endears people to him.
Though there’s not much he can do to hide his eyes or hair (or, as Wilbur calls them, “his freaky elf ears”), he tries his hardest to keep his tusks under wraps.
It’s a work in progress. Techno’s had an awful hard time keeping anything under control, recently.
He glances down at the bruises dotting his knees. The woods are supposed to be his outlet for that. The fights with Dream sate the beehive in his veins, and a good rumble is as intoxicating as it is exhausting.
When they’re finished, everything rests for a little while.
Then, it builds up again.
Slow, creeping, like drops of water filling a pond. Right up until the feeling boils over, and makes his heart pound with the need to—
Techno doesn’t know what exactly the feeling wants him to do. Only that it’s too powerful to resist.
But it can be soothed, a little.
At the start, he’d just gone to the backyard and torn up fistfuls of grass. Wilbur’s interest in playing in the mud with him dwindled fairly quickly, and Techno was left alone to rip and tear at the earth. It worked well enough; destruction feels good , and turns the humming into a gentle, calm, buzz.
Phil’d found out, of course. Techno’s grassless patch was getting pretty sizable, led to a gentle lecture about appropriate places to garden and a confiscation of his spade. Then he’d woken up to find the space outside his and Wil’s window occupied by a box full of dirt and some seeds.
Planting things doesn’t calm the feeling. But it’s rather nice to see them grow.
After that, he’d slunk around the house, ‘accidentally’ dropping plates and carving up the furniture with silverware. When that stopped being enough, he’d resorted to chasing the rabbits in the woods and hoping they weren’t slow enough to be caught.
When it was really bad, he’d ask Wil to spar with him.
He doesn’t do that anymore.
After a second, Techno shakes his head like it can dispel those thoughts, and refocuses on the little thing in front of him. He’s shaking a little, but that might just be from the cold.
“Zoned out for a second,” Techno explains, like Toddler knows what that means. ”I’m not gonna leave you, though,” he tells him, shaking his head.
“Go ‘way.”
“Why?”
“Go ‘way.”
“Uh, nope. You’re out of luck on that one.
Because little kids are born dramatics, Not-Drista scrunches his face and inhales a gulp of air, balling up his tiny fists at his sides.
Techno prepares for a shitshow.
He gets one.
The baby shrieks —it’s a noise like metal on metal, the clash of sword against bone. Or maybe it’s closer to End Men, and the horrible cry they give when Techno stares too deep into the darkness and locks eyes with something that never intended to be beheld.
It’s an awful noise. Worse still because it’s familiar.
Techno blinks a raindrop out of his eye and Wilbur is in a heap in the field behind their house.
There’s a bright red mark down the side of his jaw, and Techno cradles the offending weapon - a wooden sword, carefully hewn and sanded by Phil just for him - rather than his brother’s hand.
“That was on me,” he explains, lamely. “I thought you were going to duck.”
Wil’s limbs splay out like a pelt. He nods bravely, even though Techno can see the tears clinging to his eyelashes.
“I didn’t think you’d actually—,” he pauses, and his eyes dull. He waves a hand. “—well, you know,” he says, and Techno does.
“Sorry,” Techno apologizes, again. The word claws at his throat.
Wilbur’s voice wavers, but he offers up a watery smile. “Don’t worry about it. I think it’s high time to do something else.”
And then, after a moment of cautious, deliberate thought: “Unless you wanna have another go? You can’t win every round we play, surely .”
The concept of sparring again sends Techno’s stomach turning, and draws a hasty disagreement from his lips. No matter how his heart had leapt in his chest at the moment of impact, and savored the crack that followed—
It’s not worth it. There’re other outlets for that need, there’s; there’s sparring with Phil, and hacking at trees, and the boy from the woods, and—
Techno blinks again, and his home melts away.
That’d been ages ago--a month and a half, already. Wil’s face cleaned up in a few days, and he doesn’t bring it up ever, so Techno has no reason to dwell on it.
He shouldn’t be seeing it when his eyes slide shut.
In front of him, the toddler makes a quiet rumbling noise, and Techno’s attention snaps back onto him.
“Cool growl,” he offers, hoping the residual terror still thrumming through his head doesn’t peek into his speech.
He’s rewarded with another growl in response.
“Mhm. I can do that too, you know,” he says, reaching fruitlessly for some common ground that’s not doorway space.
No dice.
Techno doesn’t know very much about children, but he’s not dumb. Snot drips from the kid’s nose, and his eyes are red-rimmed and tired. This isn’t like Wilbur, who even in his most inconsolable moments can be reasoned with. And this isn’t like Dream, who settles things with sticks and rocks and sharp-tipped fingernails.
This is a little boy who’s exhausted and alone, and out with no adult to hide behind or cling to.
Techno can’t let that stand.
“Are you waiting for someone?” he asks.
The toddler’s blue eyes narrow.
“I’m not waiting for anybody,” he continues, even though his companion definitely didn’t ask. “I just need the storm to stop so I can go home.”
There’s no lunging, or wailing, or biting, so he’s going to chalk this up as a successful conversation, so far.
”How about your home? Did you get lost out here?”
“Nn,” Toddler replies, eloquently.
That’s something. Gods above, Techno has mastered this mutual-communication thing. The heavens should open up in praise of his Newfound Speaking Abilities, but definitely not with rain because he’s already had plenty of that tonight and if he gets any wetter he’s going to turn into a bog monster .
Or something like that.
“We can look for your house if you want,” Techno offers.
A sneeze. “Hgnme.”
Yeah, Techno is totally positive this kid’s going to be able to paint a word picture of where his family lives.
“Yeah. Hgnme,” he repeats, and sinks onto his knees a little further.
They lapse into quiet silence for a little while, interrupted by nothing except the splash of rain on gravel. Every time Techno hears a promising noise his head shoots up, but it’s just the kid sniffling or the village’s wooden houses creaking under the weight of the worst storm they’ve seen in a long, long, time.
Techno was right — the little thing is tired. The second he deems Techno unlikely to be some tusk-wielding maniac, he curls back in on himself, head drooping.
It only takes one more doggedly hopeful moment of reevaluation before Techno reaches the conclusion that’s been prickling at his mind ever since Not-Drista made his appearance.
Someone should be looking for him, and they aren’t.
That’s the only conclusion, really; this is a tiny child with tiny legs who couldn’t possibly go far on his own. Especially not in the dark. Not without someone noticing.
That steady drip, drip, drip turns into a river. Techno hates the thought of someone so small and vulnerable being left to fend for himself on the off chance a stranger might take pity on him and scoop him up into safe arms.
He will not leave this child’s safety to chance.
“Hey,” he whispers.
And then, after a moment of careful consideration: “Buddy. Kiddo.”
With eyes too wary for someone who can’t be more than two, Toddler raises his head.
“Can I pick you up? We need to look around for whoever’s lost you. And you probably shouldn’t walk by yourself, because—”
Hang on. Techno doesn’t actually know why Phil insisted on carrying him around so much. Huh.
“‘Cause you could slip on the rocks. Yeah,” Techno settles on.
“Up?” The kid mimics. He’d make such a good kenku.
“Mhm. Up. You down?”
Okay. That didn’t come out as intended.
“I mean,” Techno rephrases before the kid decides he’s a weird, jabbering threat again. “Is it alright if I pick you up? It’s probably warmer for you. If someone’s got you, I mean.”
For a moment, Toddler’s face scrunches up again. Techno holds his breath. Are all toddlers made of wet clay, or something? They’re so...squishy. Malleable.
“Okay,” he acquiesces, and lifts his hands skyward.
Clay, mud, Dream-god magic and bugs, whatever—Techno’s too busy thanking every god he knows the name of to care. Toddler wiggles his hands impatiently, and Techno’s not about to ruin his one shot at actually getting this kid to somewhere warm and dry tonight, so he scoops him into his arms with a grunt.
“Up,” Toddler remarks.
“Sure are,” Techno agrees, a little breathlessly. He gives him an experimental bounce on his hip. “Let’s go find whoever left you out here.”