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Tommy was climbing around the temple, playing, Wilbur’s cries to stop unheard to the child.
“Tommy! Get down from there!” Wilbur yelled as Tommy attempted to climb up one of the pillars.
“Fuck you Wilbur!” Tommy said, who cared about some random god person who hadn’t shown up in however long.
Wilbur sighed, running after his brother. They only had each other left and had been staying at a building nearby that had been run by the staff that helped run the temple, which is what led to them being here.
Tommy stuck his tongue out at Wilbur. Wilbur saw a man coming down the hall, and ran to his brother.
“TOMMY INNIT. COME DOWN HERE NOW.”
Tommy jumped at the anxiety evident in Wilbur’s voice and obliged, as he had never heard Wilbur that scared before. He slid down and ran to his brother’s voice. Wilbur quickly grabbed Tommy’s hand and booked it down the hall. The person didn’t look like anyone working at the temple, so it was probably the best option to run.
“Hey! I’m not gonna hurt you!” The man called walking after the two brothers.
Wilbur acted like he didn’t hear the stranger, and continued to run.
“Who’s that?” Tommy asked as Wilbur booked it around one of the corners.
“I don’t know, and that’s why we’re running.”
“He said he wasn’t going to hurt us though.”
“Our parents said they wouldn’t leave us, and yet they did,” Wilbur replied.
Tommy looked at the ground, tears forming at the edge of his eyes, “D-don’t talk about that, Wilby… I just wanna see mom again.”
“Oh Tommy,” Wilbur muttered, slowing down a bit, “I’m sorry.”
The man approached, wings on his back, “Hey,” the man said softly.
Wilbur stood between the man in Tommy, either not noticing, or just ignoring the man’s wings, “who are you?”
“I’m Phil, Yeah, my namesake is from a god. I just want to know what two kids are doing here without any parents in sight.”
Wilbur glared at the man, “You’re being really weird.”
Phil chuckled, “I get that a lot.”
“Can you be our parents?” Tommy asked innocently, looking up hopefully at the man.
“TOMMY! You don’t ask stuff like that! especially not to strangers!” Wilbur said, turning to his younger brother.
“Why not Wilbur, he’s kind, and,” Tommy whispered the last part “He looks like one of the gods, doesn’t he?”
Wilbur sighed, “Well, what if the gods dont exist!?” He yelled, “If they did we wouldn’t be here alone! Mom and Dad wouldn’t have left us!” Tears were forming at the corners of Wilbur’s eyes.
“Hey, kid, I know for a fact that the gods are real, and I think they’ve been watching over you and your brother.” Phil said, kneeling down to meet Wilbur’s eye level.
“I don’t believe you!” Wilbur replied, his voice wavering slightly due the stress of, y’know, some random stranger being weird.
Phil sighed, and just, tiredly stretched out one of his wings, it was covered in feathers as black as night.
Tommy gasped, “Wilbur can he be our crowfather?”
Wilbur just stood there, wide-eyed, confused at what he saw before him.
Phil smiled, looking at the two young kids, “Would you like to see the gods?”
“How? Can we? I want to!” Tommy sputtered out, almost bouncing, “Wilbur can we? Please?”
Wilbur wasn’t entirely sure of what to do or say, on one hand, this sounded like a kidnapping situation, on the other hand, if this person was a god would he get pissed off if Wilbur took Tommy and ran? What would happen once they got to the.. to the end? Was that what it was called?
“Uhhhhhh….. Sure,” Wilbur choked out, and Tommy started bouncing up and down again, ecstatic.
“YAY!” Tommy yelled.
Phil chucked, and lightly ruffled Tommy’s hair, “alright, I think teleporting can make humans a bit nauseous, so you might want to calm down a bit.”
Wilbur held Tommy close and nodded, hesitantly approaching the man, or god? Phil, just Phil.
It felt like being sucked into a whirlpool, everything spinning, and Wilbur tried to scream but he couldn’t. Then, everything stopped, and the air was colder.
“Welcome to the end,” Phil said, right as Tommy puked.
“Tommy!” Wilbur yelped, ignoring his own nausea.
“That was to be expected, I’ll clean it up.” Phil laughed a bit.
Wilbur shot Phil a look as he held Tommy closer. Wilbur would never forgive himself if Tommy got hurt.
As Phil backed up a bit, two people? Gods? came over, one walking, and the other flying. The flying one’s wings were mostly red, but had splotched of many different colors, mostly yellow and blue, but there were other spots with different colors. He was wearing a red jumper, and had messy sandy blonde hair. The other was wearing a suit and had a mustache.
“Hey Grian, Mumbo! We have some visitors today!” Phil called.
Wilbur recognized that first name, Grian, was the name of the literal god of death. Wilbur took a cautious step back, absolutely terrified.
“Oh Phil, you didn’t tell me you brought kids!” The winged one said, “They’re probably terrified of me,” He added quietly.
Phil sighed, “I know, but they were alone,” he bent down ruffling Wilbur’s hair, “and I didn’t want to leave these two alone, to, well, you probably know why.”
Grian nodded, smiling. “Yeah, I can see that.” He looked at Tommy, who was sitting on the floor, scared of Grian. Grian thought for a moment before bending down to Tommy’s eye level, “Hello!” He said, trying to not seem incredibly threatening.
“A-are you gonna k-kill me?” Tommy stuttered, and Wilbur grabbed his brother’s shoulder.
“Nope,” Grian replied, “Phil would probably get really mad if I did.”
The other person caught up to Grian and Phil, a small gadget in hand. It looked like some kind of door, and Wilbur was tempted to touch it, looking at it curiously. “Oh, Phil, who's this?” The stranger said, looking at Wilbur.
“This is Wilbur and Tommy,” Phil replied, “They were alone in one of the temples, they’re orphans.”
“What’s that?” Wilbur asked.
“Oh! It’s a waterfall door, I just need to add the water, then it should be finished.” Mumbo replied
“Cool!”
“I think I should probably take these two to my house, not to be rude, but Grian, mate, I think you’re scaring them,” Phil chuckled.
“Fair enough.” Grian responded, smiling at Phil and then Mumbo.
Phil waved goodbye to the two, before picking up Tommy and Wilbur and walking off. Wilbur smiled and felt safe for the first time since his parents left him and Tommy.
After what had only felt like a few seconds Phil set Wilbur and Tommy down outside of a rustic-looking cabin, there was a nest of crows just outside one of the windows. Wilbur opened the door, running into the house, where row upon row of chests laid, each full of things Wilbur had never seen in his life.
“You two should probably head to bed, there’s two spare rooms upstairs, you two can either have your own room or share a room,” Phil said, “the room at the end of the hallway up there is mine.”
Tommy and Wilbur looked at each other, they didn’t wanna be separate. “Ok,” Wilbur said, Grabbing Tommy’s hand and the two ran upstairs and ran into the first room, where a large bed was placed into the corner. Wilbur helped Tommy into the bed, not bothering to take their clothes off. As soon as Tommy got settled, he was fast asleep, and Wilbur soon followed, dreams filling their minds.
The two didn’t know what was going to happen, but they were almost certain that they would like it here.