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Wilbur liked travelling through the Nether with Techno. It's safer, the entire dimension seems kinder. Maybe it's because Techno's a piglin - the other piglins seem to go out of their way easily - or maybe it's because Techno is... Techno. No threat lasts long around Techno.
There's a wall of netherrack to their side, a plane of netherrack before them. Gentle, warm light spills from a lava lake. There's a peace to it.
A quiet warmth.
Wilbur is sweating in his cardigan, but Techno seems to have no issue with the heat, even in his fur-lined cape.
He seems at home. At ease in a way he never really does in the Overworld.
He makes eye-contact with some of the piglins and they nod and look away. There seems to be a chatter in the crowd as they pass, but the piglins are distant and Wilbur's Piglish is basic at best.
Asking Techno would just lead to laughter, so he allows the space of not knowing. There's a peace to the quiet between them, as there is a peace to Techno.
There's one piglin, Techno notices, that glances to him, eyes stuttering over his cape, the embroidery, the glittering gold studded into his skin. He slows down, and Wilbur follows suit.
Being approached by a piglin is scary, even when knowing Technoblade - the scariest piglin and player around.
But the piglin seems scared of them, too. Nearly timid.
It was odd. Odder still was when Wilbur saw Techno's reaction.
He stood straighter, but he wasn't using his height to be imposing, wasn't standing broad like a warrior.
He was... standing tall. Simply standing tall. The ease and comfort still exuded from him, mixing with Techno's ever-present aura of power in odd ways. In ways no one but him could pull off, Wilbur would wager.
Wilbur felt small beside him, like he had at the start of their friendship.
The piglin ducked their head, flexed their mouth.
Their fingers grasped the embroidery lining Techno's sleeve and he just stood there and let it happen. It passed muster, clearly, since they grasped it tighter.
They both glanced at him then, to the outsider - and he was incredibly aware that he was just that. An outsider to the dimension, an outsider to whatever interaction was happening here. He was, in so many ways, despite so many things, still an outsider to Techno.
Techno is a private person, he always knew that. He wonders now just how much of Techno he doesn’t know.
Techno's gaze was heavy. Assessing. For what, Wilbur didn't, couldn't, know, yet he felt the weight all the same.
"It's okay." Techno says in the guttural tongue of his own people. The language Wilbur had to pester him into teaching him for so long.
This is private, secret, an aspect of Techno that's more than The Blade, that's more than any of what he's shown any of them before. It's intoxicating knowing he'll bear witness to it.
Intoxicating to be trusted like this, and Wilbur knows that this is private. That no word of this shall pass his lips.
"Bound one," the piglin speaks, "all the way out here?"
Techno glances around. He seems to look at the area differently, less looking for potential ghasts and more for... something else. Something more. "Travels." He glances to Wilbur. "With Outsiders."
They nod, those simple words enough for them. "May I ask?"
Techno nods, slowly and intently.
"How long? From whence?" There's an agitation to them. Wilbur's the man of words, of speaking. He can read any body's language. They seem anxious for Techno to measure up.
The answer is silent. The simple bearing of a throat. Wilbur knows the tattoos and scars that line Techno's neck and hands. He never dared to ask the meaning, always assumed it was done to him, not by him. Techno, of course, hadn’t shared.
There's a shine to the piglin's eyes. Hope, perhaps? Or admiration. "Really? You?" Or both.
"The one and only." There's no pride in it though. There is quiet resignation. An acceptance of fate.
"I need..." The piglin steps back, seems shy now.
Techno shifts again and somehow Wilbur can hear gentle bells. He shifts again and Wilbur can see him twitching his ears. "Rest easy." Wilbur focuses on the movements now, and he sees that the jewels Techno wears are all bells. Bells he's ringing now. The noise is quiet and gentle. The antithesis of the Nether as Wilbur knows it.
It settles the piglin, whatever it is Techno is doing. The bells must be made specifically so they only make noise when Techno wants them to. Wilbur has certainly never heard them before.
He knew Techno likes his bell, it's hard to avoid learning that if you spent enough time around the piglin, but this is... different. It seems nearly sacred.
"Let us begin with an opening prayer." Techno's voice is soft, gentle.
"An opening prayer." The piglin nods. A prayer? Maybe the word had multiple meanings.
The piglins hands have slipped down, into Techno's. He raised them, so their hands are between them, slightly lifted. "From blood born-" Well that sounded macabre.
"From blood born-" Or maybe literal?
"To blood become-" Or just macabre.
"To blood become-" But a prayer nonetheless.
"And blood betwixt-" Fitting, that a place like this,
"And blood betwixt-" would have a macabre prayer.
"The blood is always-" But why was Techno
"The blood is always-" leading the prayer?
"Blood for the Blood God." They finish in synchronicity.
The both of them take an easy breath.
"You have need." Techno looks, gaze ancient and soft. "Or worry?"
The piglin looks away, shy now. They look to Wilbur again. "In front of them?" Piglish has approximately ten gazillion pronouns and Techno always, always, always, bothered him about the minute differences. This one was unknown, distant, polite, which was fitting enough.
They lock eyes.
For the first time since Techno slowed, Wilbur feels like he has his Techno in front of him. The warrior, the farmer, the dry wit and always a fire at home. Wilbur nods, minutely. He understands very little of what’s happening, but he understands enough.
This is private.
Private for Techno, but also private for the piglin he's still holding hands with.
"I trust him." Masculine, close, respectful. Wilbur felt honoured by the words, and especially the choice of pronoun. "Tell me your worries, let me ease your heart." The words fell from his mouth like an adult falling into their childhood bed. Distant in time, but still so intensely familiar in soul.
"Bound one..." Their gaze flickers to him, then to the group behind them, to the space they're in. "I have worry, I have need, I need guidance."
"Then I shall ease your heart. Share your concerns so I may guide you, help you, sooth you." There's a rhythm to everything they're saying. Like a play. Like a prayer. Techno twitches his wrist and a bracelet falls from underneath his sleeve. He twists his arm and the bells make a gentle music.
The music makes the piglin's shoulders drop. "I am with child."
"From blood born." Techno whispers like a blessing.
"From blood born," the piglin replies, "I worry. My clan... we have had so many losses, Bound One, and I cannot have there be even one more, and I worry Bound One."
"The Blood God is never late." Techno says, voice soft and pitched higher than his usual gruff tone.
"And never early!"
"And never early." The steady, easy tune of bells shift. "Let me pray."
The piglin looks away and maybe Wilbur should too, but he is hungry, so hungry, for any knowledge. He'll take it to his grave - however many that'll be - and yet he cannot help but hunger.
Techno closes his eyes and his face shifts. If it was anyone else Wilbur would describe it as bliss. That word was far too mortal for Techno in this moment. He lifts his head to the ceiling and he sways as more bells fill the air. How many of the blessed things were sown into that outfit?
It was... it was a religious experience. Literally. It was like the divine was being pulled gently downwards into Wilbur's heart. His fingers ached for the press of string. He would never. This was not his song. But still his fingers ached for string.
Technoblade, warrior, farmer, dry wit and a fire always crackling in his hearth, was pulling the divine gently downwards. Was leading prayers. Had the Nether equivalent of prayer beads on his wrists, in his ears, in fuck only knows what other places.
And all too soon the song shifted again. Simpler, but not the same as before, either.
"The Blood God will not be early, child." The light that Wilbur felt pressed into his ears before now shone from Techno's open eyes. Divine. "Never early. Never late."
"Please-" Tears were gathering in the piglin's eyes, hands clasped to the front of Techno's shirt again.
The moment dragged on, pleading piglin hanging on Techno's shirt and Techno's eyes shining with divinity.
And then his hand snapped down ward and the glint of metal was all the warning Wilbur had before the slash of red was already born.
A straight cut on Techno's wrist, nestled in between scars. Wilbur was frozen, unable to move, hardly able to breathe. He needed to help, Techno needed help and he couldn't -
Then Techno pulled the piglin's hands down, pressed one hand to his wrist as he grasped the piglin's wrist. A handshake on wrists.
Techno's blood dripped from the Piglin's tight grip.
Techno whispered, intently staring into the piglin's eyes and while Wilbur's ears were keen, even he couldn't pick this up. The piglin nodded, wet grip tight.
"Good." Techno said in a louder tone, stepping back even as he kept hold of the piglin, as the piglin kept hold of him. "Rest easy, follower. The Blood God will not be early."
"Thank you." They closed their eyes, tears softly slipping out, "thank you."
Later on, Wilbur will try to sneak a peek at Techno's wrist. Techno will say his typical 'bruuhhhh' and follow with the wild 'as if the Blood God wouldn't heal his disciples.'
He'll find his fingers on strings and stop himself two notes in, the movement discarded as soon as he recognises it. For two weeks, he plays no more than two notes in a row.
He'll open his mouth, and Techno will look at him. Techno warrior, farmer, dry wit and a fire at home, no traces of that other Techno to be seen.
But Techno will look at him sometimes, just a glint of light in his beady eyes and Wilbur feels that in his soul - a soul he'd argue he lost, or never had, or any other option.
He swears he'll hear tiny bells sometimes, but only when he knows Techno isn't around. He never hears the tiny things ring again, even when Techno is in the midst of some of his most intense kata's.
They never, ever, speak of it.
He never, ever, forgets. .