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There was a time when the Void had been a welcome stillness in his life. It was a place of peace and beauty, once. The rift between worlds would open and sing and she would hold him in her arms and he would feel whole once more. The pain in his wings would fade, the harmonies would usher him through stars, and he would wake in a new world of her design. A new home, a new adventure, a new song to learn.
He sang the old songs like mantras, clinging desperately to the familiar rhythms in the silence. He tried to coax harmonies from his wings, but his feathers were still and frigid at his back.
The god shifted its grip on him, tendrils of inky void twisting just enough to cut off the chill from his wings. His song stuttered as the sensation was stolen.
After all this time, you still sing that song.
The god’s voice was loud in the darkness. It made his chest stutter, his heart skip a beat. The mortals of the world had once called him divine, but he was a pale star against galactic divinity.
“Yes,” he replied, voice scratching with static. His throat burned; each syllable was an icy shard dragged down his windpipe.
It must mean a lot to you, mortal.
“Yes,” he repeated. It is my world, my love, my hope, my everything, he wanted to explain. “Yes,” he sobbed, and he savored the sound as it stabbed through his core.
Were you the one who taught the world to sing?
“Yes,” he said. But not alone, not without help.
The god shifted its grip again, grip tightening across his eyes and throat, stealing the pain from his voice. It hummed, and the darkness vibrated with the sound.
Teach me.
He wanted to. He wanted to be released, to be free, to sing with the world again. He pressed against the liquid void, clawed at his ears, strained to hear anything except the god’s expectations as it loomed just out of sight.
“No,” he gasped.
The god was displeased, and it turned its gaze away from him.
The silence was stifling, the stillness suffocating. He counted the verses as he sang them. His voice strained against the bonds, but the ink let nothing through. The void was unforgiving.
He was so cold.
-----
He repeated his song three thousand times before he lost count, and continued singing even as his body remained numb.
He tried to remember what it felt like to breathe. The rise and fall of a chest and the steady beat of a heart were memories to him. He sucked in a breath of ink and exhaled void and no stars rose on his breath.
He started to count again.
He restarted at one thousand, four hundred. Then again at six hundred, twenty-seven.
This realm is beautiful.
He refused to stop his song to reply to the god.
There are stars for as far as our eyes can see, mortal. The stones are golden and smooth. The song is so loud here.
He wished he could hear it. The god’s voice was loud and pounding against his ears, and his soul cracked under the pressure of it. Still, he remained singing. A single voice in the silence; a melody without harmony.
I would let you listen if you taught me to sing.
He wanted to. He truly did. The god could feel his reluctance, the ink receding just enough for him to feel the world. For a brief moment, there was sound again, and the cracks spread across his resolve.
He grit his teeth and shook his head.
“No,” he hissed, and the ink dragged him under once again.
He longed to remember. He couldn’t figure out how long it had been since a memory had raced through his mind. He spun the illusion around himself with a practiced tongue, yet couldn’t explain what the world felt like. He couldn’t recall the sensation of fingers through hair, nor the feeling of stone underfoot. He knew, however, that he once reclined against stone and braided for hours, weaving stories to a boy who stood no taller than his hip.
They would sing, and the song was the one he sang now and he had to remember that song, no matter what.
So he continued to sing.
He sang and he remembered why he sang.
And he sang.
-----
And he sang.
And the void was still and cold around him.
His limbs were numb, his soul was tired, his body moved but he could not feel.
And he sang.
-----
Why was he singing?
He had to remember.
-----
“Why am I singing?” he asked.
Because the song means something to you.
“What does it mean?”
You never told me.
If it was important, he shouldn’t forget the song.
So he continued singing.
-----
Let me sing with you?
“No,” he replied. His voice scratched.
Why do you refuse?
I don’t know. His voice couldn’t form the words.
-----
The void was so still.
He was so cold.
Mortal?
The god’s voice was so loud, but he couldn’t cover his ears.
Mortal, why have you stopped singing?
I’ve forgotten the words, he wanted to say. “Please stay,” his voice said instead.
I will always be with you, Mortal.
“Sing to me?” he pleaded. Anything to break the silence.
I do not know how.
He could not feel the tears as they fell.
-----
He knew only a few truths: The void was silent, still, and colorless. The song was important, though he could not remember why, and he had long since forgotten the words. The god was not allowed to sing the song with him, no matter how much he needed to hear that voice, a voice.
The truths did not say he could not sing other songs with the god.
He couldn’t remember the important ones, anyway.
Surely he could teach the god nonsense.
Anything to break the silence.
-----
The god’s voice was beautiful.
It was not strong, nor was it sure, but it was sound. It was glorious sound.
While the god sang, he wasn’t alone in the darkness.
The god’s hold was gentle, the god took away his pain, the god sang to keep him company.
Still, the silent tears streamed down his face.
He was too numb to feel them.
-----
The song was important, he needed to listen.
He needed to remember something.
But what did he need to remember?
The god’s song was the void and the void resonated with the song.
He hummed along.
Anything to break the silence.
It was so cold.
-----
The god stopped singing.
The silence was back.
The god looked away.
He was alone.
It was so incredibly cold.
-----
The void pulsed, and it was the first thing he’d felt in as long as he could remember.
The god’s hold on him tightened, wrapped tighter around his ears and wrists.
Do not listen, dearest Mortal, the god said. He wishes to take you from me.
The void pulsed and danced and sound exploded from the silence.
The ink filled his ears and tried to stop it.
The music flowed through his soul.
He could feel the tears sliding down his cheeks.
They were cold, like he was.
-----
The god flinched.
He didn’t know how he could feel it, but he did. The god flinched backward.
The void surged around them, and the magic pressed against the tendrils of ink.
The world shattered into color and light and it was blinding and bright.
Someone spoke and it wasn’t the god.
Someone said a name he was supposed to remember.
The world was blurry and too bright and too much.
He knew that name.
That was his name.
And the smudge of pink at the edge of his vision…
The god’s grip tightened and his vision darkened and he could feel his body move.
Everything was too loud, too bright, too much.
He wanted to go back to the void, back to the darkness and the silence and the peace.
But he was supposed to remember.
That other voice was there.
Do not listen to him, Mortal.
The blur of pink came closer.
He was so cold, the song was too loud.
“-it’s me”
This was too much, too much at once, too much of everything.
Do not listen, stay with me.
“Phil, please…”
Something burned.
The god tried to pull him back as he looked down. He saw his hand, red and burning and too bright too hot he was on fire.
The god wrapped its hands around him tighter, ink covering his eyes, the song fading into void.
He didn’t want it to go.
There was a weight on his shoulder, and something pushed toward him, reaching through the darkness. Something warm and bright and too much to look at, too much to feel.
It resonated with a song that was so very familiar.
A song he thought he’d forgotten so long ago.
He tore at the chains around his body even as the god reached out with more and more.
The god’s anger was ice, but that song was fire and he wanted to be warm again.
His soul surged for that song, his voice straining to find the notes, the pain coursing through him in waves.
It burned, it hurt, he bled.
He felt.
The god screamed, and the sound made his soul crack and chip at the edges, but the world was there, waiting. The warmth was right in front of him, and he pulled at strands long dormant. His Void was there, and another voice sang along with the Universe, and it was her, and the world bled at its seams.
And she met him at the edge, like she always did, and the god recoiled at her presence.
If he was a pale star and the god was a galaxy, she was the Universe itself. He did not know the words to the song she sang, but he knew her and she knew him and she reached out with hands of molten plasma and pieced him together even as he shattered.
“You do not belong here. I suggest you be silent,” she said, and the god shuddered. She turned to him and brushed a hand along his brow, and the ink rolled away. She looked at him and smiled softly and it was the most brilliant thing he’d ever seen. “It is not his time, love,” she breathed, and he had not felt like this for as long as he could remember, “Take care of him, my angel.”
And she grasped the god at its very core and dragged it from the world, and the tendrils of ink finally slid away and his body was his again and the world claimed him once more.
He was heavy and cold and burning and the sensations were all familiar but new and his attention was clashing and the World was singing and her words still hung in his ears and he looked down and-
Brilliant ruby red met his gaze, and Philza’s breath caught in his chest. The air was ice as it raced down his throat, but the blood pooling on the ground seared his skin. And there, in the middle of the pool, was those eyes he could never forget.
Technoblade smiled, even as the light was fading in his star-brushed eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he croaked, and his throat was sore and the taste of blood blossomed on his tongue, but he couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry I almost forgot you.
I’m sorry I hurt you like this.
I’m sorry I failed you.
Phil grabbed at the magic Technoblade offered, brushing against it and desperately holding it tight. They didn’t meld at the edges, he wasn’t sure if he remembered how, but he held on as tight as he could and Technoblade let him.
Tears, inky and clear alike, mingled on Technoblade’s face, and Phil dug his fingers into pale pink hair. He let himself feel the silkiness of it, the burning warmth of the blood mixing in the strands, the sharp tugs where his fingers got stuck.
He hugged his friend close and let himself wail.
The Universe cried with him.
And her voice was gentle, barely audible in the distance. She was not talking to him, but she had before.
It wasn’t his time, she’d said.
She wasn’t here for him.
Something glimmered at the edge of his sight, a shimmering star in the night.
Phil tugged his hands free, digging through memories long since faded by void, and let his body move on instinct. He was shivering; both too cold and too warm at once. The music of the World was too loud, but the realm was too silent. The colors were too bright and too dim at once. Everything was too much, but that star was important. It was a goal, and he focused all of his thoughts toward it, blocking out as much of the burning as he could.
His fingers wrapped around something cold and firm that sang with faint magic. It was round and latched tight to Technoblade’s belt and it took three tries to get it detached, but soon he had it free.
The bottle was filled with a shimmering galaxy of a liquid. It was a nebula swirling pink and red and glittering like blood.
It took him four tries to undo the cork with shaking hands.
He poured half of it on the ground in the attempt, but he managed to drip the potion into the mouth below him.
Some instinct saved a few drops for himself, and the magic burned so swiftly through his veins that he dropped the empty bottle.
He laced his fingers back into hair, just to savor the feeling again.
The World settled into a soft song, and he coaxed his damaged voice to sing with it.
He had repeated the verse seven times when the body stirred and his new silence was broken by a soft voice.
“Phil?” Technoblade’s voice was almost as broken as his own.
He stared down and smiled and cried and forced his voice to work.
“Hey, mate.”
The laugh the words drew forth was the sweetest song he had ever heard.
“Good to have you back,” Technoblade breathed, and the words harmonized with the song around them.
“Glad to be back,” Phil answered. A hand cupped his cheek and he leaned into it with a smile so wide it hurt. He let himself crumple under the weight of everything, and his forehead fell to rest easily on his friend’s. Phil lost himself to the brush of fingers through his hair and the shaking of their twin sobbing laughters. His eyes fluttered shut and the void returned.
This void was not silent. It sang beautiful harmonies with itself, and his soul hummed with it. Soon enough, Technoblade joined, and the Universe was soon to follow. And everything was perfect and everything was right again.
And for the first time for as long as he could remember, Philza was warm.