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His first clue should have been the birds. Crows were a common sight in the north; hell, they were a common sight across the whole SMP, being scrappy survivalists who could make a home in any locale. But while crows were a common bird, crows in the numbers Fundy was seeing were absolutely not, but unfortunately he failed to mark the significance.
In fairness, he was more concerned with not running into any of the larger residents of the boreal tundra, so he didn’t think he could be blamed for not really noticing the murder amassing around him.
~+~
“What’s that?”
Wilbur was sitting at the kitchen table, a sheaf of papers in his hand and a curious black bird hopping in front of him. He looked up at Fundy and waved him over, lifting his little son up to sit in his lap.
“It’s a letter from your grandfather, and one of his birdies that carried it to us.” He beckoned to the bird and it walked closer, talons clicking on the table. It was a little scary, and Fundy shied away from it.
“It’s not gonna bite you, don’t worry,” his dad said, soothing. “Your grandpa’s birds are always very friendly. They’re silly, and they play pranks from time to time, but they know you’re family. They’ll never hurt you.”
~+~
A crow swooped down and buzzed Fundy’s head; not close enough to actually come into contact with him, but close enough that he felt the rush of feathers on the tips of his ears. He cursed, catching his hat before it could fall into a deep snowdrift. He looked up, an annoyed yell right at the tip of his tongue, and it died before it could go anywhere.
The trees were full of crows. Dozens upon dozens of birds loomed from every branch like dread fruit.
Well, shit.
“What are you doing here, Fundy.”
Well, shit.
~+~
Shifting Fundy’s weight in his lap, Wilbur cut a thin slice of steak and handed it to the bird. Faster than Fundy could catch, it snapped the morsel up readily and nuzzled against his father’s hand.
“Go on, you rascal,” he said fondly, gently shooing the bird away after giving it a quick scratch under the chin. “I’ll find you when it’s time to send the reply.”
With a hoarse call, the crow fluttered to the open window and flapped out, leaving a couple stray feathers behind. Wilbur pulled Fundy’s attention back with a quick shake of the papers.
“I know I haven’t mentioned your grandpa before, you want me to tell you about him?”
~+~
Several yards away was a clearing, and Fundy could see through the trees that his grandpa had set up a small fire and was sitting by it, staring at him.
He looked well, all things considered. He was dressed warmly in several thick layers that padded and rounded out his wiry frame, blunting the sharp angles he had passed down to his son and grandson. His wings were out, mantled over his shoulders like a cloak, and the glossy black feathers reflected the firelight. The last time Fundy had seen him, there were still bald and half-molted spots in places; these wings were fully fledged and shining, only missing feathers in the gaps where scar tissue prevented them from growing.
(He had never minded the bald spots, when Phil would put a wing over his shoulders to keep him warm or above his head to keep the rain off.)
He was still wearing the same old hat, and Fundy felt a pang of fondness at the sight. He remembered a sunny afternoon on a pier, and Phil setting the hat onto Fundy’s head to keep the light out of his eyes. It was hard to hold on to that feeling with the cold, flat look the face beneath the hat was wearing, however.
“I’m just walking,” he said, feeling his shoulders start to rise defensively. “I haven’t crossed the fence line, I’m allowed to be here.”
Phil nodded mildly in concession, and didn’t say anything more. Fundy shuffled awkwardly, feeling the chill from the snow creep further up his legs the longer he stood still. He wanted to keep walking and get the hell away from here, and at the same time he wanted to sit next to his grandfather and spend the rest of the day talking about their projects.
He wanted things to be like they used to be.
~+~
“Your grandpa Philza,” Wilbur paused and laughed lightly to himself before rephrasing. “Your Grandza, let’s call him, is my father. He’s a builder, and a very good one besides. I have some drawings of the things he’s made that I can show you. And someday, when you’re bigger, we can go visit him and you can see the things he’s built for yourself.”
“What sort of things does he build?” Fundy asked, looking up at his father.
“Oh, what doesn’t he build? He has a huge homestead, and farms that harvest by themselves. He’s built castles in the nether, oceans in the end, and islands in the sky.”
“Why don’t we live with him?” Floating islands? He couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.
Wilbur laughed softly, resting his chin on his son’s head. Fundy twitched his ears because he knew it would make his dad laugh more, and he did, pulling Fundy into a tight, cuddly hug.
“I thought the same thing for a long time, but as I got bigger I learned that I couldn’t just live under my father’s wings forever. I wanted to see what the world was like, find out what I could do on my own, see what things I could build by myself.”
That made sense, but Fundy still frowned. He didn’t want to be far away! He certainly didn’t want to leave his dad, and said as much.
“Well I’m glad to hear it. But you’ll grow up someday, and when you grow up, you’ll make your own choices.”
~+~
Phil was cooking something in a pan over the fire; herb-sprinkled chunks of meat that was probably some freshly hunted rabbit, going by the pelt in the snow. The pan popped and sizzled in the resounding silence. Even the crows held their peace, waiting for something to happen.
He was holding a chunk of wood and a knife in his hands, and he looked away from Fundy to keep carving at it. It was almost like he wasn’t there, as far as Phil was concerned.
“How are you?” It was a lame conversation starter, sure, but Fundy’s options were to walk away, stand there in silence, or say something. And he wasn’t about to do the former two.
“Doing alright, thanks. Keeping busy.” He shaved a long sliver off the block and tossed it into the fire. The answer was laconic in a way Phil rarely was. The last time he was this short on words was back when L’Manburg still stood, and Fundy was standing in Phil’s house listening to the wind whistle through broken windows.
Shoving that thought to the back of his mind, he nodded enthusiastically. “That’s good, that’s good. Glad to hear it.”
Phil sighed angrily and looked up from his project to fix Fundy with a flat look. “What are you hoping to achieve here, Fundy?”
~+~
“But enough about that. Do you want to hear what your Grandza wrote you?”
“Yes please!” He could read all by himself, but he liked when his dad would read to him.
“Alright, here we go.” Wilbur cleared his throat and started reading.
“Dear Fundy,
“Hello! This is your grandpa Philza writing. I know we’ve never met before but your father has told me all about you. How are you? I hope you’ve been doing well. Are you excited for spring? I am! It’s so much easier to get around when it’s not snowing. I like to fly around from place to place, and the falling snow makes it much harder to see where I’m going.”
“He can fly?” Fundy interrupted. He felt a little bad because he knew it was rude, but the fact that his grandpa could apparently fly was way more important.
“He can, he’s got these huge black wings that let him glide for miles. He also gives the best hugs with them.”
Fundy couldn’t wait to meet him.
~+~
“I just wanted to talk to you, I guess. I didn’t plan on running into you, but since we’re here...” He shrugged.
“Was there something in particular you wanted to say?” Phil flicked the knife closed and stowed it in a pocket, wrapping the carving up carefully in a cloth and tucking it away as well. He set his elbows on his knees and waited.
For his own part, Fundy crossed his arms tightly and hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know. I miss fishing with you. I miss spending time together. I miss being a family.”
“I’m not the reason that stopped, Fundy.” Phil’s voice was hard, angry in a quiet sort of way.
“What does that even mean?” Fundy wasn’t the one that had been avoiding all interaction. He wasn’t the one who had moved away, wasn’t the one who stopped coming back.
That was the wrong answer, obviously. Phil’s hands clenched into fists on his knees, and when he spoke it reminded Fundy of the feeling of a storm rolling in.
“If you’ll remember, you’re the one who joined a hit squad, broke into my house and smashed it up, all the while acting like I was nothing to you, then dragged my best friend out of his home and tried to have him executed outside of my house! And now you have the gall to act like we can go back to the way things were before without ever acknowledging it!”
Phil never yelled at anyone. In all his time knowing his grandfather, he’d only ever heard Phil raise his voice to be heard, or in worry- never in anger.
“So what should I have done?”
“Come to me for help! I’d have protected you, Fundy! You’re my grandson. You said they pressured you. If you had come to me for help I’d have fought off the entire server for you. Instead...” Phil sighed, and didn’t finish his sentence, the bright flare of his anger apparently already run its course. He vaguely waved a hand towards the fire, letting that gesture say everything.
Fundy was a good grandson, until he wasn’t.
Wilbur was a good dad, until he wasn’t.
He didn’t know much about the relationship between his father and grandfather, but it ended with one stabbing the other.
These things ran in the family, it seemed.
“I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, Fundy. You’re your own person; you can make your own choices. But you can’t pretend like nothing has happened. You demean us both by doing that.”
~+~
With Fundy’s excited outburst finished, Wilbur picked up reading the letter again.
“I’ve enclosed a couple drawings of what I’ve been working on. Have you heard the stories about the sunken monuments under the sea? I found one and I’m draining it. I’ve built glass walls from the sea floor all the way up to the surface and gotten rid of all the water. I want to fill the building with flowers and colored glass, so when the sun shines down the whole place lights up with color.”
The next couple of pages were filled with drawings, and Wilbur spread them out on the table. Most of them were done in plain black pencil, with little splashes of color here and there.
The biggest drawing was of a building, drawn from a high-up view. It looked big even in the picture, and Fundy wondered how huge it was in person. How deep down was it? How long had it taken to get rid of all that water?
There were sketches of strange, one-eyed creatures with round spiky bodies, strange looking seashells, and dozens of different kinds of flowers. There was a picture of the glass wall, with the ocean on the other side of it. His grandpa had drawn fish swimming along, and crabs hiding in tangled kelp.
“Here, there’s a little bit more to the letter.”
~+~
Silence fell again, and Fundy met Phil’s eyes. Were they always so tired?
“It wasn’t to spite you, or anything.” The statement was an odd non sequitur, but thankfully Phil just waited. Fundy hadn’t picked at this scab in a long time. He’d been content to let the memory of the Butcher Army scar over and shift into the past. But maybe it had been abscessed this whole time, and needed to be opened to really heal.
“Techno did a lot of damage to L’Manburg, y’know? He was on our side for a long time and then he just turned on us right in the eleventh hour. So when Quackity proposed the Butcher Army, I joined. I was hurt, and angry, and it seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed like justice.”
Once the words started, the rest flowed easily. “And Techno needs to answer for what happened. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be okay with him, really. But we shouldn’t have done what we did to him, and more importantly what we did to you. It was wrong.“
~+~
“This is going to take a lot of time to build, but I’m having fun working on it. A little bit of progress every day really adds up! Soon I’ll be able to start planting flowers. Do you have any favorite flowers? I’ll be sure to plant some just for you.
“I love you very much Fundy, and I always will. You and your father will have to come visit me soon, there is so much I want to show you.
All the best, your grandfather,
Philza.”
~+~
Phil broke eye contact first, looking down and away. He coughed, and his face was hidden by the brim of his hat so Fundy couldn’t see his expression.
“Sit down. Have you had lunch?” Phil’s voice was strangely gruff as he patted a space on the log next to him.
Bemused, and more than a little startled by the sudden shift in tone, Fundy sat. “Uh, no, not yet.” He replied, remembering that Phil had asked him a question.
“Here, take some bread and some of this meat.” He pulled a big, crusty roll out of his rations bag and passed it to Fundy, who tore it open to hold the steaming meat he was suddenly being offered. As simple as the meal was, it was delicious, but the sudden change in tone was confusing. He ate without comment, wondering where this was going.
After a couple bites, he looked over at his grandpa to see his eyes bright with unshed tears.
“I never stopped caring, Fundy. And it hurt so much to feel like you had. You’re all the family I have left, you know?”
Oh.
It was easy to forget that, frankly. Phil always seemed so unassailable, so untouchable by the problems of the SMP. If something needed fixing, or a farm needed refining, or anyone wanted to know where to find a rare resource, it seemed like Phil was there with a smile. Fundy had been weathering his own disappointments and losses for so long he forgot that the day Phil arrived in these lands was the day his only child died by his hand. That he’d had a wife, however long ago, and parents of his own, who were all gone now.
Fundy took another bite to keep from having to say anything, and fought to swallow against the lump in his throat.
“We’re both gonna fuck up, Fundy. It’s inevitable. And we’re going to disagree. I mean, I don’t expect you to make peace with Techno just because he and I are friends. We just have to remember that we never stop being family.”
Fundy nodded, not trusting his voice to hold steady.
“Aw, come here,” Phil said, wrapping an arm over Fundy’s shoulders and pulling him close. Fundy went without resistance, tucking his head into his grandpa’s chest as he felt the warm weight of a wing wrapping around him.
They sat there like that for a little while, sniffling occasionally and very much not pointing out the tears they were each shedding. But slowly, and gently, the moment passed. Sitting up but not getting out of the embrace, Fundy smiled at his grandpa.
“So, what have you been building lately?” He asked.