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A cold coming we had of It,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
-T.S Eliot, Journey of the Magi, 1947
The snow was up to his knees in some parts, and his breath was fogging out around him. He couldn’t see where he was going through the driving snow and howling wind, all he knew was he was climbing steadily up an incline, pushing his way through the snow, clearing the way for the one behind him.
It was freezing. If he’d had toes he’s sure they’d have turned blue by now; he was feeling the cold through the thick keratin of his hooves, he had no idea how the one behind him was fairing. As it was, the snow was seeping through the thin orange trousers he was wearing, the frost clinging to his shins. The one behind him’d be up to his waist, probably. Or he would have been, if Techno hadn’t been clearing the way.
The wind was howling. He could barely hear his own footsteps through the snow in front of him, never mind the twin crunching of the one behind him, continuing their slow escape from the prison.
It’d been more than a day, the both of them too jittery, too nervous to stop moving for more than a few minutes. The exhaustion was catching up with him fast, now that they’d found their way up a mountain, now that the snow was coming down sharp and fast. He hadn’t known there were mountains nearby. He hadn’t bothered to gauge where he was going, all that mattered was that both of them were putting as much distance between themselves and the prison, that thing that rose forbiddingly out of the water.
Where was he going? What was the plan? He hadn’t thought much further ahead than finding Philza. Phil’d know what to do. Or at least, he’d give Techno somewhere to stay a while. Enough time to work out what came next. That was his plan, at least.
Find Philza. Figure it out from there.
He had no idea what Dream had planned.
“We can’t keep going!” Dream yelled over the howl. One of Techno’s ears twitched towards him to hear him better.
He grunted. He wasn’t sure if he was agreeing or not. Another strong gust of wind came and they both had to hunch down into the snow, tucking themselves against the drifts so they weren’t blown off the mountain.
“Techno!” Dream yelled, “We’ve gotta-“
“Do you fuckin’ see anywhere to stop?” he snapped, turning his head to stare down at Dream. Even in the low light, the bright orange shirt he wore stood out against the snow.
Dream pointed down the mountain a little ways, a good distance off the bearing they’d been headed. Techno squinted for a while, seeing nothing-
Eventually a vague shape coalesced in his vision. The snow seemed to pile higher, like there was something jutting out, something that the snow was getting caught on.
Fuck it. Better than nothing. He ducked his head down and pressed onwards, cutting along the incline. His legs ached, burning with the work, or maybe with the cold, and he would have tripped if Dream hadn’t grabbed him by the back of his shirt, stumbling after him but keeping him on his feet, keeping him upright, keeping him out of the snow.
Dream had been right. It was the overhang of a cave – not one very deep, or very dark, but sheltered from the wind and snow. Out of the storm, it almost felt warm. He slid down one of the cave walls, sitting to catch his breath. He heard Dream do the same on the other side.
“I bet the firewood is holding up great, ” Dream griped. Techno rolled his eyes.
“Hooray, wahoo, we’re out of the blizzard,” he said sarcastically, “What a joyous day to not be frozen stiff. Maybe next time pretend to be happy about survivn’ the last thing we survived before you start whinin’ about the next thing.”
“Fuck you,” Dream said, but it sounded too tired to carry any heat.
“Get in line,” Techno sniped back, setting the battered pack on the cave floor and rooting through it for the firewood he’d remembered to grab, back when they’d passed through a forest. It wasn’t much, but it’d keep them warm enough. He started stacking the twigs, which felt dry enough to light, at least, and produced a small handful of dried leaves. His fingers, numb with the cold, fumbled with the flint and steel as he clumsily smacked them against each other, trying to remember how to do it just right-
“You know it’s times like this I miss the prison,” Dream said, watching Techno struggle to light the fire. “It was at least, like, warm.”
“I didn’t make you come with me,” Techno huffed. “I can send you back, if you want.”
The silence that followed was thick. Techno glanced up at where Dream was sitting against the wall, hoping to see something that gave away what he was thinking.
I’m sorry, he thought, I didn’t mean it. The words were on the tip of his tongue. He couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.
He went back to trying the flint and steel, having no luck, cursing at himself and at the tool and at God under his breath.
A hand appeared in his peripheral vision. He glanced up. Dream had come closer, and was holding his hand out for the flint and steel.
Techno wordlessly handed them over. He watched as Dream struck them together once, twice, three times before managing to get a spark to fly off and land in the kindling. Techno gently started feeding the flames, before a warm little fire was burning between them, the smoke curling up into the cave before snaking out into the blizzard.
Dream handed him the flint and steel back. Techno gave a wordless grunt, which he hoped Dream would take as the thanks it was.
He shuffled back away from the fire, laid out his bedroll. Techno kept his eyes on the fire and tried not to drift off to sleep. He was exhausted, in every bone of his body. But there was something in him telling him not yet. He couldn’t sleep just yet.
He put another stick on the fire.
“Who do you think owns this?” Dream asked, looking over at him.
“Heh?” Techno asked. God, he was tired.
“Who owns this?”
“The…snow?”
“Sure, or the tundra. The mountain. Who does it belong to? Quackity?”
Techno thought. They’d walked through the night, and the whole day. They hadn’t stopped to even check a map or their bearings. Whatever Quackity owned, they were well out of his reach, now.
“Nobody,” Techno said. Not you.
Dream nodded, lying back and staring up at the ceiling of the cave. “It used to be like that.”
Techno quirked an eyebrow.
“Nobody owned anything. We lived together in a squat brick shack in the middle of a lake. We didn’t have walls. Or fences. Or prisons.”
Techno watched him carefully.
“It’s changed. Everything’s just so much more…” he trailed off.
“Defined?”
“Fixed.” Dream turned his masked face towards him. Techno tried to think back to a time that seeing two dots and a curve didn’t make him clench his jaw, reach for a sword. He drew a blank.
“All I wanted was to go back to that,” Dream said, turning back towards the rocky ceiling. “No cities. No flags. No uniforms. Just us and the world.”
“Just you and the world, you mean,” Techno snorted.
Dream shrugged idly. “Maybe. It was better when Tommy wasn’t here.”
Part of Techno wanted to argue the point. It hadn’t just been Tommy’s fault they’d gone to war. It hadn’t justified all the bullshit Dream had done. Another part of him still twisted painfully when he heard the name.
Christ , he was tired. He let it go.
“Well,” Techno said, and poked idly at the fire. “He’s here now. Nothing you can do about that.”
“Isn’t there?”
“No, moron,” Techno said, and maybe on another day he’d have been quelled by the threatening tone, but he was cold and tired and he’d walked for 36 hours with this man at his heels, “even if you kill him, that doesn’t change the fact he was here. L’manburg was here, L’manburg got blown up. But here we are, still fuckin’ arguin’ about it all this time later. Wilbur died, Wilbur came back. It’s abundantly clear that bringin’ him back didn’t change anythin’. Even if you killed Tommy and found a way to make it stick, it wouldn’t change a fuckin’ thing.”
Techno thought about the day he welcomed him from the cold, alone and exhausted, back when his hands had trembled with rage at the thought of what They’d done to him. He thought about the day Tommy had told him that all he did was destroy, as his ears rung with the sound of rubble and gunpowder smoke was thick in the air.
What had it brought him? Where had it taken him? Here, to a frozen cave, exhausted and hungry, with Dream.
Dream had turned back to look at him. The two expressionless dots, the same curved smile. Impossible to discern what he was thinking.
“Then what am I supposed to do about him?”
“Nothin’,” he grunted, the fatigue catching up, “he’s here. You learn to deal with him.”
“It was better without him, though.”
“No. You mean that it was better before he was here,” Techno said, partly to be contrary, partly because he didn’t think Dream had been listening. “And now he’s here. Even if he wasn’t, you can’t ever change that he had been here, once.”
Dream watched him quietly for a long, long time.
“Aren’t you, like, gonna sleep?” he asked eventually. Techno snorted a laugh.
“What d’you care, you wanna cuddle up for warmth?” he grinned.
“Sure,” Dream said, and it almost sounded like a laugh, “I’ve been told pig monsters give the best hugs.”
“One of us here’s a monster, that’s for-“ he was interrupted by Dream tossing a pebble at his head. It hurt, but only a little.
“Go to sleep,” Dream muttered, shuffling a little closer to the fire.
Techno eyed him carefully, trying to work out the gambit. What it was Dream stood to gain.
Dream must have felt his gaze on him, or maybe he’d just been watching out of the corner of his mask, because he scoffed and rolled towards Techno.
“Technoblade-“
“-full name? Wow, ‘n I thought we were friends-“
“What am I gonna do? I’m unarmed, un armoured, we’re in the middle of a blizzard, a million miles from the nearest sign of civilization. Which is, like, the prison you just broke us out of. I’m still wearing this ugly orange suit. Even if I wanted to like, kill you in your sleep or whatever – which, by the way, why would I do that, I would gain literally nothing – do you even think I could?”
Techno mulled it over.
“Plus you get cranky when you get tired, and I’m sick of you like, bitching about stuff.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’ve been a Georgia peach during this whole thing.” But he was rolling out a mattress to insulate himself from the ground, and he was curling up by the fire, letting it lull him to sleep.
“Hey,” Dream said, and his voice was just barely audible over the howling wind, the crackling fire.
“Heh?” He turned his head to look at where Dream lay, on the other side of the fire.
“It’s like, December already, right?”
Techno thought about it. The days had all smudged together in prison, the passage of time thick and syrupy. But it seemed about right.
“Yeah, probably.”
“Christmas is coming.”
“Uh huh.”
Dream turned to him, and in the flickering of the orange campfire, Techno could almost believe they were anywhere else. “D’you think I’m on the naughty list this year?” he asked, and for once Techno knew for certain that he was grinning behind the mask.
He snorted a laugh, heard Dream quietly join in.
“Goodnight,” he said, and rolled over onto his back.
Morning came, and Techno maybe shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was. The storm had passed, the sky pale and blue.
Dream was already up, snapping up the last of their firewood and tossing it on the fire.
“How’d you sleep?” Dream asked blandly.
“On my back, with my eyes shut,” Techno grumbled, and sat up, stretching out the stiffness in his spine.
“Ha ha,” Dream said, thawing his fingers close to the flames, “hilarious.”
“You be funny after a hike like that, then,” Techno said, starting to roll up the makeshift mattress he’d found in an abandoned village.
“Knock knock.”
Techno narrowed his eyes at him. There was a long silence.
“Who’s there?”
“Interrupting cow.”
Techno sighed, giving Dream a long, long look.
“Interruptin’ cow w-“
“Moo.”
“Ha ha,” Techno said flatly, hiking the pack onto his back. “Hilarious. Let’s get off this fuckin’ mountain before the next storm rolls in.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dream said, and kicked some snow over the fire. Techno stamped it out, barely feeling the flames on his hooves. They made their way out of the cave and headed back, trying to find the way they’d come.
It’d snowed several feet, and the going was slow. Techno was doing his best to find the places it wasn’t piled up so high, but even in the thin daylight of the winter morning, it was a cold, hard walk.
Techno looked up after a few hours of walking and stopped suddenly, letting Dream stumble directly into his back.
“What?” he asked, voice a little tense.
“Look,” Techno said, and nodded his head onwards.
Before them was a valley, still green, not yet covered in snow. It wasn’t quite lush, the trees still bereft of leaves, the grass turning a muddy brown. But there were barrels, seemingly abandoned, a few lost carts, some baskets of something, and not a person in sight. A beaten up road stretched out either side of it, spanning East to West.
“It’s a fuckin’ Christmas miracle,” he said, and started trudging downhill, down towards the valley. He heard Dream laugh behind him.
Compared to the mountainside, the valley was almost warm – insulated from the wind, the ground firm and steady beneath their feet. It was a relief to walk without the extra weight of the snow. Dream jogged ahead and popped the lid off a barrel, peering inside. Techno hopped up on the back of a cart, resting his weary legs.
“What’s in ‘em?” he asked, even as Dream was emerging, tossing him something round and red.
“Calories,” Dream said, around a mouthful of apple, “God, I’m so hungry I could eat, like, a whole suckling pig I bet.”
“Watch it,” Techno warned, but there was no heat to it. He bit into the apple, which was a little old and a little soft but was still probably the best apple he’d ever eat. He chewed it right down to the core, and then kept going, chewing right through the seeds, swallowing the stem and everything.
“Gross,” Dream said, but managed to painstakingly drag the barrel over to where Techno was sitting. He handed him another.
For a while, they were silent except for the crunching of apples.
“What’s your plan now, anyway?” Dream asked.
Techno sighed. “I dunno. Probably start with lookin’ for Phil. See where I go from there.”
There was an awkward silence.
“I probably shouldn’t...”
Techno blew out a long breath. “Probably not.” He wiped his hand on his trousers, trying to get some of the sticky juice off his fingers. “Sorry.”
Dream shrugged.
“You got a plan?” he asked, and was almost afraid of the answer.
It was like he’d been able to forget who Dream was, what he’d done. The things he’d said. The trouble he’d caused.
“I…” he started, and stared down at his hands. “I think I maybe…like, I think I owe Sapnap an apology.”
Techno felt his eyebrows raise.
“Is that…wise?”
“Probably not,” Dream conceded, “But…I dunno. I’ve been thinking about what you said. About how I can’t go back to how it used to be. I could kill Tommy, Quackity, Sam, Ranboo, I could put all the rest of you in the ground and burn your buildings into ashes until it was just me and Sapnap and George and the great blue wilderness left. Like it was in the beginning.”
He looked up at the pale blue sky.
“But it wouldn’t fix anything , would it? Everything would have happened. Even if I could make everyone forget it, it all would have happened. There’s no way to go back to how it was. We just have to…keep going forwards. Until we find somewhere good again.”
“You think you can?” Techno snorted, “that any of us can?”
Dream shrugged. “I have to believe it, I guess. That even though things won’t ever be how they were, they can be a new kind of good. I just have to find it. And apologising to Sapnap seems, like, as good a place to start as any. And finish, maybe, if he remembers his promise. But I have to try.”
Techno nodded slowly.
“So I guess we’ll be headed in different directions,” Dream said after a while.
“Looks like,” Techno said, pushing himself to his feet.
“You’d better get going then,” Dream said. Techno nodded, raising a hand in farewell, and turning to wander along the path.
“Hey!” Dream called, after he’d only gone a few steps. Techno turned over his shoulder, glancing back at him.
“Heh?”
“Thanks!” Dream called, “For letting me come with you! When you broke out!”
Techno shrugged, suddenly feeling awkward. “Well…I couldn’t have just left you there, could I?”
“Yeah you could have!”
“No!” Techno called back, “I couldn’t have!”
Dream laughed, and waved goodbye, and for the first time in a very long time, the smile on his mask felt appropriate.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
-T.S Eliot, Journey of the Magi, 1947