Chapter Text
Philza Minecraft was a man of his word.
Most days at least.
He had fallen in love with a mortal woman and was connected almost at an instant. They needed each other, they were like the ocean and the moon. His wife, the stunning ocean, and him, the glistening moon. Sure, they could be something without each other, but together, they make each other more.
In her embrace, he felt on top of the world, that he could do anything.
He often questioned himself as to why he let himself fall for a mortal when he, an immortal, would only live on and on after her death. Why would the moon make a connection with the ocean when the ocean is soon to dry out?
Why would a man who had it all cut it down to the smallest thing?
He was the moon afterall, why would he need a small measly ocean on a different terrain than him?
Nonetheless, he loved her and promised her the world even when he had already seen it.
He promised his ocean the wild things of the earth they stand in and the cultivated view of his life with her. He’d pull her closer for hours and be with her if that was all she wanted.
Kristin wanted to see the world and Philza Minecraft was a man of his word.
Most days at least.
***
With all the power he had beheld in the palms in his hands, the greatest thing he had yet to forge was a child of his own blood. His wife had always wanted children.
Yes, ‘child’ with a ‘ren’ at the end implying many kin. He had always been hesitant with the topic, why would he ever have a child if they would only die? Let alone more children only meant more demise. But the look on Kristins face as she talked about them, it was like a fresh breath of air and Philza wanted it- no, he needed it.
So, they tried and succeeded for kids and the look on his wifes face had been a reward in itself. He wished he could make her face light up like that everyday. And so he tried. He would give his ocean the life she deserved, he would give her kids and love her until her dying breaths and then their children’s last breaths and so forth. He would crush the world if it meant to keep that smile.
The regular visits from the doctors had been going perfectly and the child was healthy and quintessential. Their child would and will be the best thing in a mere mortal's life and an immortal’s essence.
Philza Minecraft and Kristin Minecraft could only wait and hope for their child's arrival, they had prepared everything and more. This child will grow up happily and in peace, with the most loving parents they could ask for.
They would sing songs of pirates and sirens to get them to sleep and they would snuggle them up tightly with blankets their mother had woven for them and their clothes their father had sown.
Absolutely nothing could go wrong, the doctors deemed her healthy and they were composed and constructed.
Absolutely nothing could go wrong, they would reassure each other in the rough nights where nothing was bearable.
Absolutely nothing could go wrong, they read every book Phil could find. Every book about before and after birth, every book about child sickness and child care. And even books that wouldn’t even matter until their children were growing into a teenager. Everything was going perfectly.
Absolutely nothing could go wrong.
So, why did it go wrong?
Why had Philza lied to his wife?
Why were they visited by the very God who decides life itself?
***
A younger Philza Minecraft hadn’t always been the God of Flight, he had just been the God of Architecture, but Phil was and continues to be persistent.
He gets what he wants, and if you don’t give it to him? He’ll take it from you one way or another.
“I don’t see how making you a God of an element is beneficial for anything or anyone. If anything, it's detrimental.” The Omnipotent God had declared before the meager, lesser God. Their mask burning holes into Philza eyes, an unannounced staring contest. Could he even call them eyes? It was really just a big X.
The much shorter man fixed his green and white striped hat that sat perfectly on top of his golden hair and stifled a smile towards Dream XD, “My Lord, but I would find it very beneficial. Don’t you care about what your most dedicated personnel has to say and want?” His face screened a sly and tight smirk as he acted hurt and pained.
The green clad man made a sharp turn facing backwards and started to float away, “You’re hardly either of those things, if anything, Philza Minecraft, you’re a pest. A fly that I cannot swat away.”
“I find it harsh that you say those words about me, My Lord.”
“You ask to be blessed as both the God of Flight and the God of Architecture and I say no, it’s as simple as that, My Personnel.”
Philza stared at him with a cold smile and a hardening stare, “XD, you know more than anyone that I’ve followed you since I was shifted into my Godhood. I’m older than most if not all of the other Gods. I deserve this.”
XD hummed, “You deserve it so much you tried to steal it?” They raise an eyebrow.
“I only tried to steal it because I knew you would not listen. And here we are: I was right.”
The silence filled the room, reaching every corner. Dreadful as it was, Philza stayed quiet, refusing to be the first to talk. And so they stood facing each other, neither making a peep or a microscopic movement.
They might have been there for hours or even days, time seems so insignificant to Gods, they barely notice it has passed or not. But the time does come when motion comes to be, the God of Life is the powerful individual to make it.
“Your mouth will be your demise, Philza Minecraft. Your own words will cause you more pain than you could ever receive through the hand of another.”
Phil scoffed, “I’m sure it will, My Lord.” Sarcasm dripped out from his words as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his green haori hastily.
XD swipes his hand through the air. “You’re dismissed and free to go now, Philippe.”
“Of course,” For a moment longer, he didn’t move. The eyes of the mask once again burned holes in his eyes.
As he walks out of the God's palace of a home, he hears the voice anew, “What you have taken from me, Phil, will bite you in the future. I warn you now, old friend.”
The leaving man turns once more to look at the said God for one final time before descending down to Earth, his final home for a while.
The God of now both Flight and Architecture had places to be and people to meet.
Afterall, he now had the wings of a crow and an adventure to be flown.
***
A peaceful afternoon was held between a man and his pregnant wife, they sat in their room meant to dine in, a table set for only two. The cups filled with cooling hot tea and half eaten biscuits crumbled on their respective plates. The husband held a book based on parenting and was reading to the wife. She sat comfortably in the wooden chair with her eyes shut, her hands laid on above her stomach. She looked beautiful, the husband noted as he took glances up from his book to look at her.
In the moments before, they had talked about their soon to be born baby, feeling nervous as ever, as most parents did. They discussed names for their child, and from not knowing the gender, they both threw in male leaning names, female leaning names, and neutral names. They talked of the firsts their child would have, first steps, first words, and so on. As the days grew closer and closer to the assumed due date from the doctors, they never stopped trying to learn more about parenthood even with how much they panicked and worried.
As he read on and on, he found his words began to slur and the words on the page blurred, he found himself tired and taken by the look on his wifes face, she had already fallen asleep. What difference would it make if he fell asleep and embraced the sacred sleep as well then? The worst that could happen is back pain, but in the moment he felt peaceful.
He’ll take care of the dishes later when he wakes up and then after, he will wake his wife.
In the final few seconds awake, he had a sense of a calm mind and surroundings, but as he fell deeper and deeper, he felt a wave of dread. Before he could wake himself fully, he had been taken to the arms slumber and into the world of dreams.
“Hello, old friend.” A familiar old voice was heard from all around him but no matter where he looked, a field of white was only in view.
“XD?” He called out.
“Philza Minecraft, you have stolen from life itself. I warned you of the consequences, friend.”
This gained the sleep-tranced man a worried face and a panicked look around. “XD, whatever you’re going to do, please- I have a wife and- ”
“Philza Minecraft, don’t fret for your own well being, worry about your twin boys.”
Phil stumbled upon a stop and froze, “How did you- twin boys-? XD, how- what?” He stopped talking for a moment less to breathe. “What did you do to my wife?!”
“Your wife is fine, did you not just hear me say to be worried about your sons?”
“My sons, apparently, are in my wife, dickhead!” He shouted at the blank sky with his fists connecting with nothing.
“You hold too much resentment for someone who was warned about what your actions would cause.”
The father dropped to his knees and hung his hatless head, his hands catching it, “I was young and thought I deserved more than what I had, XD, please-” The powerless man felt a hand appear on his back and turned around causing him to fall on his back and hands.
There they were, the all mighty God of Life, he stood like a man in power would. The one hand of many that he had, the one that had disturbed him, was held out towards him, an offering.
He didn’t accept, he helped himself up.
“My Lord.. please. What did you do to my chi- to my sons?” He questioned pleadingly, his voice dripping with anxiety.
The mask, both of old and new fears, had stared at him. The bastard only stared and he's brought back to the day he had stolen the title of The God of Flight. It was their last conversation before Philza left for the skies of Earth. If he remembered correctly, the God of Life that stood and gazed before him had broken the silence and he prays he’ll do the same again as history repeats itself.
“Philza Minecraft, I have blessed one of your kin to be an ideal fighter. He will be skilled with weapons of the battlefield and agility of a warrior. In joint with perpetuity, like you.” His prayers have been answered with a gracious answer, but left one still standing.
“And the other twin, My Lord?”
“He will be ensured of horrid health and weakened states of being. He, along with his mother, will be mortal. Philippe, you’ve taken a gift not meant for you and now your child will bear the consequences. He’ll be lucky to make it into adulthood.”
Phil straightens his back and tightens his fists at his sides, “He did nothing to deserve this. Why can’t he join his brother and I in powerhood? Or make them both mortal, why make one suffer and the other succeed? ”
“I had given you your warnings and you chose to fly.”
The shorter man flexes his wings out and shoots dangerously closer to the other God, “Then punish me! What I had done has nothing to concern him, let alone punish him!”
No word is to come out of the other man.
“You’re sadistic enough, you choose to punish a child who hasn’t even been born?”
“He would die in time anyways, just like his mother.”
“You’re a cruel bastard, XD” Philza rasped out with his cracking voice, he had never thought he would ever show such vulnerability in front of his guv'nor. Yet, here he is and he hates it.
He hates how he feels.
He hates how he was the cause for his son's downfall who hasn’t even been blessed with life into this world. Who will never retain the delightment of savoring his life.
He hates how Dream XD knew exactly how to prick Philza in his heart using the dullest needle in the bunch.
He hates how he feels happy he will have at least one son to carry the burden of the mortals' lives and deaths with him.
But, he loves how he’ll have one constant in his life.
***
Philza wakes up in a haste, he feels himself heave himself off the chair onto the cold stone ground. His charcoal coloured wings wrap themselves around him, like a hug that reminds him of his days in his youth. When he had no worries and his mother would wrap him up in blankets as they watched the first snowfall of the season.
He opens his eyes slowly, searching for his wife who was seemingly blessed and cursed with the twins from Life itself.
Finding what he had been looking for, he got up in a swiftness, wings quickly flying backwards. Kristin had been laid on the floor, not yet awake, he only prayed it was because of the plague of tiredness had taken over and not for the other Gods' doings.
“My love?” He shook her, “Love? Kristin!” He gently yelled, shaking her yet again although he shook her a little harder than last, anxiety and fear building up in his system.
He stood up, his legs wobbly and headed to the door and opened it in a rush with his head then sticking out, “Please! Someone get the doctor! My wife is hurt!” He screamed and anyone that could hear, heard the fright in his voice. “Please!” He pleaded once more before leaving the door wide open and ran to his presumed injured wife, hoping someone heard him.
Once again, he sat next to his fallen wife, except he had taken her upper half and cradled it in his lap, his arms and wings pressed up against her. Worried if he ever let her go, she would plummet once again, fearing she would meet the God of Life again in whatever Hell they visited him.
“Please.. Kristin, I’m right here, I promise. I won’t tell another lie, I won’t keep secrets, I won’t let go of you. Please, My Love.. Please..” The way his hand had been positioned, he could feel her beating pulse yet that gave him no reasurement, if anything, it worried him worse.
The fact that she was still alive made him thrive, but it also brought the fact she could be the wrong victim of his past mistakes.
Maybe falling for her was a mistake in itself, for if he hadn’t, Kristin would be married to an equal for her; someone who would age with her, someone who could match her living experiences. Not someone who has lived lifetimes over and over, someone who will never experience death in the same way she will.
Yet, he still holds her close, waiting for her pulse to beat every moment it should. He waits for his ocean to rise.
With only the din of his breathing and panting, he was startled when the opened door was slammed to the wall and a familiar medic was shown and heard.
“Philza? What happened?” Like what Phil had done, the town's doctor slid down right next to his pregnant wife. What he had brought with him, his equipment, Phil quesses, was thrown towards beside him.
“I- I don’t know,” The God lied, “I was reading to her and we both snoozed off, I guess, and I woke up to her on the ground.” He breathes heavily, finally throwing his head up, meeting the doctors eyes, he shivers at the thought of the others eyes being XD’s.
Fuck.
“I’m going to need you to let her go, okay? I’m going to do just a list of things to check on her, she’ll be okay, I promise, Phil.”
Philzas eyes shine with tears glazing over, his hands shaking. “I-I don’t know if I-” he pauses to breathe, “-fuck! I don’t know if I can- Henry-”
Henry, the medic, removes his hands from his wife and brings them to the ones on his wife, “Phil, I can’t help with what is wrong with her if you don’t let go. We don’t even know what is wrong with her.” Phil freezes. “So please, let go of her.”
***
Kristin had woken to her back hurting like a bitch, the bed she was in clearly wasn’t hers and Phils back home. The last thing she remembers was the voice of her husband reading a last minute parenting book. But even then, she did not fall asleep in a bed, she had fallen asleep in the world's most uncomfortable chair they owned. She made a reminder to tell Phil to trash it when they could.
She opened her eyes to the dear sight of a worried Phil, “Kristin?” She stifled a yawn before leaning deeper into the hard pillow she had been resting on.
“My Love, you must wake up fully, you’ve been resting for two days.”
“Two days?” She spoke up, head still buried and her voice scratchy from no use in apparently two days.
She feels a hand be set onto her shoulder facing up, a comforting hand, she leans into. “Yes, My Love.” He laughs softly, a sound she could dance to any day of the week.
“And what if I don’t wish to wake?”
A laugh, louder than last, could be heard from wherever the hell they were, “Then I suppose I would be sad if my own wife doesn’t wish to see me.”
This time, it is her time to laugh, at first loud, then a bit fluffier for the pain it causes as she chuckled. She lifts her head up from the pillow and allows the help to be adjusted to sit up, the metal bar frame of the bed burying into the thin material of her clothing. “Are we in the medics building?” She asked.
Of all of the different moods of Philzas eyes she has seen through her years of knowing him, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen such sorrow and worry in them as she sees now. “Phil?”
“I have to confess something, my dear.”
Catching her by surprise, she fixes her once light gaze to an unprejudiced gaze. “What could that be, my crow?”
It’s quiet for a moment or two, time passes slowly for the mortal in the room. The immortal seemingly lost in his own mind. “Phil?” As quick as he was caught, he was realised. He muttered a quick ‘sorry’ before he went to speak his mind.
“I had angered… a specific god years ago. They had paid me a visit the day we were sitting and I was reading in my dream.” He stopped.
“Crow?”
“I had angered the God of Life, Kristin.” He let a tear run down his face, catching on the hair on his chin.
“The God of Life- Phil, what?” She shook her head, “Phil, what does this mean?”
He looked away before answering, his hands tightening on her own, “He cursed our sons, My Love.”
She looked at the man who wouldn’t return the favour, her mouth shut closed but had so much to say.
“Sons- what do you mean sons?”
But then it dawned on her.
She tore her hands from her husbands and they flew to her stomach, “Are- are you telling me-?”
“You’re pregnant with twin boys, My Lady.” Slowly, he turned his head to where his wife was sitting, but not yet staring at her. “Our sons- not even born yet, but I’ve ruined their lives.”
Although the immortal wasn’t gazing at her, the mortal was gazing at him. “What did you do, Phil? To the God?”
“I stole from him.”
Kristins scoffs a laugh, “What did you steal, Philza.”
Looking sheepish, he raises his hand to rub the back of his neck. “The status to be the God of Flight, I basically stole wings from him and a fancy title.”
“How the hell do you steal a status from God?”
“Well-”
“You know what? No, just tell me how you’ve already ruined our- our sons lives before I’ve given them life?”
Phil steals a look of hurt but it quickly turns to a look of understanding. “I... I’ve caused one of our sons to be strong and immortal, like me.”
His wife tightens her look, lowering her eyebrows, “And the other?”
He breathes, once again, heavily, and with one final look, throws the bomb of the statement into his wife's hands. “He’ll take to-
“-horrid health and weakened states of being-”
“- and he’ll be mortal, just like you, My Love.”
At first, Kristin says nothing. But it's almost more inferior than her yelling.
Then, it was slow tears falling from her face, they matched the teardrops from his own.
Last, it was his wife sumping into him, his plain white shirt soaked the second her face had met with it.
“He’ll live through birth, right?” She asks, muffled by the shirt.
He wraps his arms around his, comfortingly, and pulls her closer without hurting her or their children, “Yes. Yes he will, dear.” The God said he would be lucky to make it to adulthood, and maybe Philza was looking too deep into it, but maybe it implies he’ll at least live through growing up.
Growing up with a brother and a father who will always outlive him.
“Do you promise it, Phil? Swear it on my life! Keep your word that he will live to grow, Philza Minecraft.” Her pleading breaks his heart, but he simply cannot find himself denying a pregnant woman's plea for her sick child to live.
“I- I promise, My Love. He and our immortal will grow hand in hand together. I keep my word on my life,”
“No.” She backs up ever so slightly from the position of hugging her husband to look up at him.
He looked at her with confused lacing his eyes and worried in his face. “No?”
“Swear it,” His lady stops for a moment, a persistent look locked in her gaze, “Swear it on my life.”
“Kristin-” He began but was instantly cut off.
“No, Phil. Swear it on my life.”
Pausing, he doesn’t know what to say. The only option his wife is wavering, is the only option he does not want to accept. Why would he promise his lover's life for one that hasn’t been birthed? But, the only thing to keep his mortal happy was to agree.
So, with a dedicated look, he nods his head ever so slightly. “I swear it on- on your life, My Lady.”
Kristin, with the happiest look on her face, slowly went back into the hug from moments before. Her face was lit up and Phil had yet again achieved that special look on her blessed face, his wife wanted the world to live and Philza Minecraft was a man of his word.
Most days at least.
***
The night after Phil had confessed, they had cried. They had cried until they had no reason to cry other than it felt right. The crow-winged man had fallen asleep in the uncomfortable for the third night in a row, the previous nights he had refused to leave her side for longer than five minutes. He blamed it on being worried, which he was, don’t get him wrong, but it had been mostly based on guilt. Guilt for both what he had caused Kristin and what is about to cause his sons.
He was a walking man full of lies and guilt, they supplied each other and Philza both lives on it and loathes it with anything that isn't the named two.
But, after they had mostly checked her over, they had found it pointless to have Kristin go home when she had already been so close to the assumed birth date. So, the lovely couple fell into a slight, temporary routine at the medics building.
Since the town they reside in wasn’t highly populated, Phil had stayed in the bed next to his wife in the room lined with cots. Only, they pushed the beds closer, not to the point of them touching, but closer than before.
The estimated date for the children had creeped upon Philza, so when his wife seemed in pain and a little out of it, he called the medic in a panicked sense. The idiot didn’t realise his wife had gone into labour.
He assisted the best he could, up until his firstborn was in his arms.
As ugly as newborns could be, his son wasn’t any different. But, he held him in his arms tight, priding himself with the fact that this is his son. His own son of flesh and bone. This was his son. He could understand why mothers and fathers would threaten life itself for their children, not that he hadn’t already done that, but he now understands. He understands his love for his son.
His son, his son, his son.
His son who he’ll take to a sight worth seeing. Another trip around the earth could never hurt, he had done it with his ocean, so why not take the stars?
Tears couldn’t be held in any longer and he cried for his blessed kin. He doesn’t know how, but he knows this is his immortal son.
His immortal son who he was holding, not the son who was mortal.
He doesn’t know if he could bring himself to hold his cursed son.
Either out of fright or anger, he can’t find the reasons why.
He already feels so strongly for the bundle in his arms now, why can’t he bring himself to want to curse the God that caused the differences in his sons?
The baby in his arms isn’t silent, he cries and cries and all he can do is hold him close and pray, it doesn’t even faze him as his son's twin is out. And he isn’t crying.
His son’s twin isn’t crying.
“Phil- Phil-” It’s the doctor that’s talking to him, the medics assistants are flurrying around, like snowflakes on the first snowfall. Voices overlap each other in a haze, metal is being thrown onto a tray and he thinks he hears a prayer from an assistant. As if The God would help the one he punished. They're trying to help his son.
Oh.
His son.
He shushes the boy in his arms and turns his back from his wife on the cot and lets the professionals do their job to help the ill mortal who had just been born seconds ago and was already fighting to live.
But, the promise he made to his wife was that their cursed son was to live and he would be a damned man if he would allow himself to disappoint and disregard his wife's wishes.
“Do whatever you need to help him- please.” He looked at his wife, she had been panting like no tomorrow, sweat covering her face. She looked exhausted but still looked so determined for her son’s life.
If she could, he would too.
***
“You know, I don’t think we ever thought of names for them.You know, like, actual genuine names,” Kristin said, still in the medical cot, the twins are off with medics to be checked over, or in the second born's case, trying to continue to live.
He turns his mouth into a grin and hums a laugh, “Well, in our case, I don’t think we knew the gender until a few days ago. Let alone the fact we now have a set of twins.”
Copying his hum, she closes her eyes. “I’m thinking of Everard or Wilbur for our little champion who made it through today.”
Philza stares for a moment before shaking his head lightly, “Why might that be?”
“Everard means ‘Brave Boar’ in old English and Wilbur means ‘Wild Boar.”
“Why the boar theme?”
She opens her eyes and turns her head towards him, “They’re such a strong animal. Sometimes they’re really hard to kill, they’re tough, they make it through. I want him to remember that he will always make it through in the end.”
He hadn’t thought that mortals would ever go through such a process for a simple name, he wonders if his parents had done the same for him.
“Well, Everard might be hard for the boys to say when they grow up.” That is, if the little guy makes it through the night.
Kristin closes her eyes yet again and hums a slight tune, “Wilbur is such a dashing name, don’t you think? Wil for short?”
“And our other son?”
She pauses, “I haven’t given that a thought yet.”
He sighs before thinking, maybe twins with the same leaning names wouldn’t hurt would it? “What if we name them both one of those names?”
“Oh? You like my ideas, Mr. Minecraft?” She teases as he stifles a laugh.
“Why, my dear lady, of course I do. Your thoughts are divine and I’d give my wings just to see a small glimpse of your mind.” Philza plays along, seeing it makes her happy and he only ever wants her to be happy. And if naming their children after a wild animal does that, then so be it.
“I think Everard and Wilbur will grow up fine together.” She says, in the same pitched voice as her teasing voice.
“You think so?”
“I know so, my crow.”