Archive of Our Own

Tommy knew he was a god- once, at least. It lay just beneath his tanned skin, the joints of his body leaking sunlight into a river around him, broken in a way he’d never felt as he laid upon a slab and gasped for a breath he’d never needed til this moment. He was stained in a molten gold that splattered upon his skin and puddled beneath him.

He could lift a hand, his glowing gaze inspecting his stained fingers with a confused haze clouding his mind. He remembered her, a blinding beacon of love that transcended the mortal comprehension of prayers alone. A caress against his cheek, with the promise of greatness. A seat beside his Lady to rival all others. A blessing which he held close to his heart, a breath of life in the only way the divine could understand. For Tommy was hers, crafted to perfection- and she would not have him any other way.

He knew it had been her gentle hands that made and unmade him a hundred times over until she was satisfied. Like clay beneath her fingers, malleable and pliant for all the forms he took before he was hers, and hers alone, with the sunlight that she had torn from her own body to make a being worthy of her love.

Tommy knew he’d been worthy. Once.

He couldn’t understand why he could not feel it in this hazy moment, for it was as natural to grasp as a twitch of the fingers. Instead, he was met with a poison beneath his skin that left him screaming. He didn’t see, couldn’t understand its presence as he writhed upon the stone. Solar flares ripped off crackling skin to reveal red hot fire beneath his normally-pristine body. He was meant to be perfect, untouchable, and unbreakable. Yet he felt a true blackness in the poison that sank into his heart. Black and red tendrils of corruption burnt at his smoldering heart, reducing it to embers and ash as he cried. He was unworthy of her love in this moment of fire, of burning, and he would burn a hundred times over for a curse he was now forced to bear.

Tommy had been loved once, just as he had been a God…once.

. . .

Techno was a bounty hunter. His body had been molded into it, for what his natural birthright lacked- golden eyes that tracked movement with the precision of a hawk, body wrought with taut muscles lain beneath the thick, mottled furs of beasts from hunts before; collected and sewn together with calloused fingers almost comically unfit for the job. The pelts trailed down to the iridescent scales that formed his aegis bound at his hip. They clicked and jingled like coins in the purse of a noble- but rather than a call for thieves, this was a bell of danger, a warning for sticky fingers and blackened hearts. Beyond that, several rows of teeth bound with fishing wire, leather, and string of all sorts hung from his neck and armor. Those of wolves rested on his waist, and rows of polished fangs- pried from the mouth of a false dragon and its gaping jaw that stretched down to its navel- hung around his neck.

He’d taken this job only the day before, after he’d grown too restless to be sitting as a mock housewife for a moment longer. The shadows ahead of him were a steady reminder that he was not alone- which would have been a comfort, had it not been for the insistent music trailing after him, much to his own chagrin. He couldn’t say he disliked it, only that Wilbur had been strumming to the same tune for the last three hours and that Techno was exactly another hum away from committing homicide.

He stayed his blade, both for Phil’s sanity and the fact that Wilbur was their ‘speech guy’. Techno detested the prolonged chatter with bartenders and guards who went about their stories, as though he was there for anything more than their bounty.

Wilbur could handle it, Techno loathed it, and Phil was just as likely to get distracted with his own tales if they let him wander too far. So they needed him- alive, preferably.

They were bounty hunters, the whole lot of them- though Wilbur preferred not to get his hands dirty with the messiest of tasks they took upon themselves. He had no flare of favor for the sword, shield, or axe. Rather, his passion was the unholy charisma he’d been born with. He could swindle a man out of his trousers and still have the heart of the people in his pocket. Correction- Techno had watched him do it with his own two eyes, on multiple occasions. Had he not been Phil’s own flesh and blood, Techno would have sworn Wilbur a siren with the way his silver tongue dragged the truth out of others.

Techno could snort at the thought in hindsight. He’d asked once at their cabin just what made the brunette so eerily persuasive, to which Wilbur had stuck out his tongue with a catlike glee. Before his very eyes, Techno watched with a grimace as Wilbur uncorked a vial and let a drop fall upon his tongue. Almost instantly, Wilbur’s tongue bore a silvery glow, before he snapped his mouth shut, looking all too pleased with Techno’s gaping expression. A true silver tongue then. Of course he would, the cocky bastard.

He was by no means particularly upset, as Techno didn’t think he could truly be angry with Wilbur even if he tried- and believe the gods in all their fallen legacies, he had tried. It was an enchantment Phil so eloquently called affection, and it was true that the bounty hunter had become irredeemably and unfathomably attached to his flock. Like a murder of crows that lingered on the rooftops.

Their newest target was meant to be a minor nuisance and nothing more- at least by Techno’s standards. Phil wouldn’t have approved of conquest or crusade after their break. Not so soon, anyway. The beast was a plaguing wildfire, which Phil suspected was more than likely a wayward spirit who could not find rest. It sounded nothing like the gaping dragons which haunted ruins born of starvation, nor was it a minotaur too lost in its own fury against man to be anything more than a beast to put down.

No matter how distracted he had become in his own musings and paid less attention to Phil and Wilbur’s petty squabbles over sandy beaches, Techno was the first to notice that something was wrong. His body grew tense as he quickened his pace, right as Phil’s head snapped to attention. Techno was no longer alone in his sense of unease as Phil crept forward, with far more subtlety than Techno.

The ash came first, like snowfall upon their shoulders. It caught in his lashes and kissed his cheeks as Techno lifted a hand to shield his eyes. Then it was the acrid smell of singed hair and despair so palpable- and then its source from the glow they saw in the distance ahead of them. The smoke came last, as Wilbur was the first to race ahead, ever the hero, and Techno followed with a concern he’d never admit to.

What he saw had him pausing, his stomach rolling from where Phil’s hand shot up to cover his mouth. Wilbur was stock still, eyes wide and watery. Techno wanted to assume it was from the blazing heat they felt even from here…but he knew better.

What remained of the village he’d visited only once in passing were smoldering remains of crackling foundations and house-frames held together by stubbornness alone. All were blackened beyond repair, stonework cracked and smeared with black ash from what had to have been an explosion. No wildfire did this- as the papers had so clearly described, but nor did they account for the village in question being reduced to rubble. Smoke rose from the ashes and encircled the heavens like a halo, raining ashen tears upon the land, desperate for its story to be told. However, it was Wilbur who was the storyteller here- and for once in his life, he seemed to have fallen silent. It was more unnerving than the village, in Techno’s opinion, though his thoughts were seldom ever asked for to begin with.

“What…”

“The…”

“Fuck,” Wilbur finished helpfully.

As Techno straightened himself out and began to make his trek down, he caught the tail end of Wilbur’s exasperated, “this is fine, great even! Going in without a plan…you love to see it!” He couldn’t rightly be angry at Wilbur, humor being his way to cope with the world around him, as was Techno’s- although his was the dry sort of jests that had all but his family cringing back in sympathy.

They walked in silence for as long as the brunette could handle- which was two seconds past the record Techno had set upon a wall in their shared kitchen. “Did we get the wrong village? I mean we did take like three turns on the way here since yesterday. It wouldn’t be us at fault for just getting a wee bit lost,” Wilbur piped up as he bumped shoulders with Phil. The man looked out of place at that moment, blond hair interwoven with the few bits of near-white strands he’d lamented over when he first found them. Braided jewels hung next to his eyes, and a deep green cloak was thrown over his shoulders. As Techno opened his mouth to point out that he still was in fact the best navigator across the nations, he noticed what had Phil so distracted.

Blackened ash was imprinted upon the stone walls and ground. They formed the unmistakable silhouette of people. The residents of the village, if Techno had to guess. It put one mystery to rest, yet sparked even more questions and anger at the sight of just how many there were. They'd been incinerated, by the looks of it, remembered only in a stone that would crumble with time. Wilbur shuddered at the ghost town now made literal. They both knew that Phil worried for the spirits that might linger, wondering if they too had been burnt away in the inferno. Phil looked remorseful, but not entirely lost- for he of anyone in their band knew the cost and the rivaling value of human life. He understood that the shadows would come, stretching across the remains of what was, to collect the remnants of the souls that lingered, the unseen faces shielding themselves from what had hurt them so.

Death would weep for this village, her tears a thunderstorm to cleanse the land. She was one of the few gods to remain, for better or worse. Her throne was not one that could be upheaved, nor could she have abdicated if she wanted to. She could stretch her hands into this world to cradle the lost, who would have otherwise mimicked the infernos that brought their end. With that, she would judge them- blessing them amongst the stars or tearing them apart and dropping them back into the world reborn to cycle again and make amends for the life she deemed unworthy.

While Wilbur lamented the destruction, and Phil grieved for a people he’d never met, Techno was on the move. His nose was lifted to the sky to take a deep breath in search of danger; he could picture it, just barely. The trailing tacks of scrambling people wrought with fear. His ear flicked towards the memory of heavy breaths and a tear-stricken face before being distracted by a strange smell. The smell of burning rot, like smoldering decay as he threw out an arm to push Phil and Wilbur behind him- just in time to block an incoming fireball from burning the whole lot of them to the ground. With wide eyes, Techno leaned back as several flyaways that had escaped from his braid were caught in the flames and burnt to blackened split ends, before he whirled around with his greatsword drawn.

Before them, the beast had made itself known. Techno had seen many things, but he could safely cross this off the list now. Hopefully a win in his fucking bingo book. Watching Philza spring into action had Techno ducking down with a smile, the man’s boots hitting the scorched ground as he raised his shield to block the next stream of molten fire. Lava spewed past the shield Phil had thrown up to hide them, splattering smoldering flames and red-hot magma onto the earth around them with a sizzling hiss against what little grass had survived.

They’d found the beast, at the very least- or perhaps it had found them,dragging itself across the earth to leave a scorching trail of destruction behind it as its near-formless body supported itself on six spindly legs that swam with the same dripping magma that made up its body. Its shape was only held together by the barest of strings, as each time it moved, lava dropped from its body in oozing goops that splattered upon the ground with a sizzling hiss. A long tail of molten rock dragged behind it, the source of its trailing fury. The surface of its body was constantly popping and oozing like that of a spewing volcano. The only definitive form to it was its birdlike skull made of what looked like razor-sharp obsidian. Three rows of needle-like teeth protruded from the beak, and steam rolled past its unhinged jaw that could never quite stay plastered to its head, constantly drooping down with the flowing lava that ran across its neck, before being sharply snapped back into place with enough force to make Wilbur wince. It had no eyes that Techno could see, though he had the distinct impression that it had no difficulty in finding them. The inhuman scream it let out as an arrow launched into what might have been a shoulder confirmed Techno’s theory, as he watched its great head whip around to face a stunned Wilbur–already nocking another arrow in preparation.

“Is that it?” Wilbur asked in a wheeze.

“Do you see any other giant village-destroying monsters?!” Techno shouted back.

“Just checking! No need for the sass while we’re getting fuckin’ roasted alive here!” Wilbur shot back as he fired off two more arrows in rapid succession.

“Techno, be nice. Wilbur, we’re not getting roasted or toasted!” Phil finally said, giving both of them a waggle with his finger.

As Techno watched the arrow melt into the beast with a wince of sympathy, he turned to see Wilbur drop his head in obvious defeat. A look of saddened resignation flashed in his friend’s eyes. They’d just bought those arrows and he knew that Wilbur had been all too happy to show them off to the point of being insufferable about said crystal arrowheads.
So much for that avenue of pride. Techno didn't exactly have time to think about a morose Wilbur. He had to be constantly on his toes, darting from the blasts of lava and swiping obsidian claws that effectively kept the trio separated. Like this, they weren’t able to get a word in with one another about plots or plans. He couldn’t even think between the moments where the monster’s head was angled at Phil, whilst its great tail was smacking upon the ground each time Techno grew still.

Techno needed a plan, since going in with his sword would surely meet the same end as Wilbur’s woefully lost arrows. They couldn’t keep simply dancing back from the fire and praying they wouldn’t get burnt, as red-hot tendrils shot from the beast’s back and slammed into the crumbling pillars. He just barely caught Phil falling from where he’d been crouched atop the weathered remains of a rooftop, rolling to avoid where the tendrils lashed out at him in unison. Stopping to watch with a breath he knew he couldn’t spare, he waited until he caught sight of Phil’s blond hair disappearing around a building. They couldn’t keep this up forever. No matter the tendrils Techno cut through, or the arrows that chipped at the beast’s crystalline skull, they needed a plan, which Techno was running short on to account for the heavy lifting he was doing to keep the tendrils at bay whilst Philza nursed his wounds.

“Techno, I’ve got an idea!” Wilbur shouted like the devil himself had blessed him with a miracle. He was lying on his back, the wind having been knocked out of him only moments prior by the beast. Despite Techno’s worry, the shit-eating grin he wore gave Techno all the confidence he needed to trust whatever half-cocked plan Wilbur had spawned. The charlatan only ever wore such an expression when he knew he’d won, like he’d laid out every card for any scenario and found himself victorious no matter the circumstances. By hell, he’d played–and lost–poker with him enough to recognize it in a heartbeat.

With a smirk to put Cheshire's to shame, Techno saw Wilbur mouth ‘the head’ with an indirect nod to Techno’s sword. His dark eyes absolutely glittered with glee as he sat upright and leapt to his feet with a thumbs up. What Wilbur debatably lacked in brawn, he made up for with being the sharpest of minds across the nations. Alas, now Techno was more pissed at himself than anything else. The answer was so painfully obvious that he took a whole moment to press his palm to his forehead with an audible groan.

Idiot.

Wilbur would never let him live this down.

Twirling his sword, he looked to Phil with a nod. A silent message passed between them before Phil was banging his shield with a crackle that begged for attention- and draw attention it did. While he loathed the idea of using Phil as bait, of anyone in the group, he was always the best at it. He played the part of a wounded bird perfectly- however, Techno couldn’t help but remind himself that this time Phil was actually wounded. He trusted the man to be quick on his feet, but it was nowhere near as comforting as Techno hoped it would be. He watched, crouching down behind a pillar as the beast reared its head and ran at Phil with thundering steps. Blessedly, the beast was none the wiser to Techno’s silent prowl right up until it swiveled its head a beat too late to block Techno’s arcing sword.

Breathless, he wrenched his sword out from where he’d shattered the monster’s black skull right down its cranium. His own breath rattled before he bent down over his knees and let out a long wheeze of disbelief. From behind him, he could hear Phil’s honeyed laugh filling the clearing alongside Wilbur’s smug cheers. With Wilbur’s willowy figure quickly engulfing Techno as he flopped onto his back in a hug, Techno awarded them a rare smile. He didn’t doubt their ability to beat such an abomination, though nor would he deny that they were…rusty. Just as their celebrations began to die down, Techno became aware of something strange. A quiet hiss that had him jerking to attention and shoving his two friends back once more. Whipping around, sword raised, he heard Wilbur’s agonized shout of surprise.

“Our bounty!” The musician wailed in alarm.

The body was…dissolving. It had already looked seconds away from turning into a puddle of molten rock, but now? Now it was truly coming undone. The two halves of its broken skull were splitting apart, jaw detaching and drifting aimlessly through the sizzling magma which dripped off its steadily shrinking body. A blast of heat hit them, followed by a cloud of steam that gave a shrill shriek in its haste to escape the caging body of the downed beast. When Techno lowered his arm, finding the heat was no longer unbearable enough to have his eyes stinging and sweat beading on his brow, he was surprised to find gold at his feet. Molten gold, already cooling at its edges, had replaced the burning lava that had just barely missed its chance to lick at their heels like rabid dogs. At the center of the beast was a sight that had Techno’s brow pinched together in disgust.

“That's-” Phil began in a gasp.

“That’s a child,” Wilbur whispered as all his breath left him in one fell swoop.

True to Wilbur’s excellent observational skills, there was what seemed to be a young boy in the golden pool where a monster once lay. His golden hair spread out around him in a halo; split down the side by a streak of white breaking up the monotony as it feathered out around his statuesque form. From where the white began on his head, it looked almost like a hairline fracture. A strip of marbled gold broke his face into a crackled mosaic which tailed down to his clavicle and presumably beneath his robed body. He looked almost peaceful, if not asleep…dead, more likely, with the blow the beast took. An auric gleam dusted his cheeks and the tip of his nose, his face sparsely mottled with freckles. As Techno drew closer, sword held tight in one hand, he crouched down beside the boy. With a hand hovering over his parted lips to feel for a breath that didn’t come, he was just about ready to tell his equally shocked party when he noticed a tear run down the boy’s cheek. Once the first one fell, they didn’t stop. Thick as syrup, as they spilled from beneath his lashes in an iridescent glow. Only when they touched the pool beneath his body did they turn gold.

The body–the boy–he was making this river of gold beneath him, a river of tears. If Techno weren’t so confused, if not frustrated, he might have been impressed.

Peering closer, Techno saw a flicker of movement behind the creature’s closed eyes. Unlike coddled nobles and desperate mothers who pray for what they’ve lost to the dark, Techno knew monsters in all the forms they might take. He knew many who could change their skin, or even go so far as to wear that of another. Children were not uncommon for their faces. There were few with the hearts to slay such innocence, and even with cause, men would hesitate. Techno was no such man.

“I’ll get you your bounty proof, Wilbur,” Techno grumbled as he stood once more. Lifting his sword high above him, his shadow stretched over the monster with the sun behind him. No matter the story or reason, this was a body taken to avoid punishment for the crimes committed against this village. A price Techno would return a thousand times over.

Just as he prepared to lop the head off this creature, he was met with blazing blue eyes. Its pupils were entirely white and shot through with golds, reds, and yellows that seemed to swirl and swim with the dilation of his eyes against the burning light. They shone bright with such fear- though it was not for Techno. By the looks of it, he wasn’t even seeing Techno at that moment.

And then he screamed.

It was the kind of scream that broke hearts and tore at throats with the weight of whatever had brought it bubbling to the surface. He’d heard few make it before, and each time weighed heavier than the last. A grief that filled people- that filled Phil- on the bloodstained nights they tried to forget. The ones that made bystanders shrink back, hands covering their ears in a vain attempt to block out the sound and the memory in tandem to one another. The boy had bolted upright in that moment, their scream echoing louder as their stained hands grabbed at their hair and pulled it in taut agony. As Techno turned briefly to make sure Phil and Wilbur were alright, he saw their mirrored revelations and realizations. They understood this sound. The guilt it carried, right to an early grave.

Techno did not consider himself a coward. Truth be told, he hardly considered himself human enough for such notions on the days without Phil to ground him, and Wilbur to see reason when Techno lost it himself. But in this single moment, he took a step back so that his shadow was not nearly so vast. It towered so wholly over this sobbing child, that Techno could no longer stand the image of his still raised sword hovering over an impossibly fragile neck. Lowering his sword slowly, he was both thankful and disgustingly concerned that the boy had no reaction to his movement. He didn’t see them.

Phil had once described the phenomenon to him. A waking nightmare, he’d called it. Both rooted in reality, and that of memory, born to terror with the echoes of loss at its core. He’d spoken of it with a sad smile, and Techno thought it so strange at the time…until he saw it for himself when he caught Phil motionless before the entryway of their home. It had been years since he’d lost her, yet there were still moments where Techno knew his breath would catch and he’d become lost. A shade in their own house, as his eyes watered to the blood no one but him could see. Those nights, Techno would sit beside his old friend and show him how to wash away the demons he himself had blocked out long ago. He dealt with too many demons as was to let himself be haunted by his own in daylight.

“Techno,” he heard Wilbur say, ever the mindreading bastard, as Techno shot him an undignified gesture with his clawed finger.

“Poor sportsmanship like this,” he said, as though it would justify his own actions.

It was only when Techno moved to crouch before the boy, hand outstretched as slowly as he could, that the boy’s shoulder twitched. A detail so small Techno would have missed it were he not paying attention. Regardless, he tried to push his luck, reaching for the back of the boy’s neck like he was scruffing a cat. A mistake, as he’d come to find, when the boy’s eyes came into such sharp focus instantaneously. Techno registered the blood before the pain as the creature’s teeth sunk into his outstretched hand, biting down hard enough for blood to dribble down his chin with a deafening crunch.

With a grunt of pain, he wrenched his hand from the boy’s mouth, watching his bloodstained teeth pull back into a snarl as he began to scramble back from the trio with newfound distrust. To this, Techno grit his teeth in discomfort. If he gave chase to the feeling creature, albeit painfully slowly, he’d only scare his prey more.

It could have been a damned gift from the gods with the way the boy collapsed soon after his futile escape attempt. The strength seemingly sapped from his weakened body as it finally gave out, with buckling elbows and his eyes rolling back. His feeble body was swiftly scooped from the ground as his head lolled uselessly against Phil’s chest. The man had crept up in preparation, silent as a ghost to catch the fainting maiden. He seemed uncaring of the way gold now stained his hands and cloak, contradicting the way Techno knew his meticulously clean nature to be.

Twirling his sword once again, Techno made an approach, trusting his oldest friend to do the right thing.

“Techno, no,” Phil said suddenly. A stern look in his eye as he wagged a finger towards the stiff-shouldered man. His free arm was wrapped around the boy’s chest, pressing his back against Phil’s hunched body.

“I didn’t do anything,” he replied innocently at first, almost mockingly as he raised a brow in a silent challenge.

“I can read you like an open book, mate.” Phil chastised, with a less than impressed expression.

“He’s a threat,” Techno conceded as he squared his shoulders. He could already sense he was losing this fight with a scowl. “We’ve faced creatures like this Phil, you’ve killed them too. This is no different than the shapeshifter from Lonith.” he said, pointing his sword at the boy held in Phil’s arms. “That. Is not human, Phil.”

There was something in Phil's eyes. Rather than the blue fire which had danced within the feral boy’s darting gaze, Philza’s was born of ice and ire, a conviction won through war and blood as he set his jaw with an air of finality that Techno knew would force his blade to waver.

“No shit he’s not human. We found him in a giant lava monster,” Wilbur pointed out as he strolled closer to Phil, leaning over the man’s shoulder without a shred of worry. These two would be the death of Techno.

“We’ve established the giant lava monster, thank you Wil. What I want to know is what he is, if Phil is so dead set on us not getting paid,” Techno said, exasperated as he waved his sword between the three of them in disbelief. They were impossible.

“She doesn’t think he’s a monster, Techno,” Phil shot back, “and neither do I.”

This wasn’t a true argument between them, despite their tone. Phil and Techno were combative by nature, with the way they spoke and how they approached an issue. True arguments were best settled over spars and late-night drinking. This? This was child’s play, no matter how much his insistence might grate on Techno’s idea of safety. And despite it all, Techno knew deep down that he would cave. He might hate himself for the sleepless nights and groggy mornings, but he didn’t dare push hard enough to see Phil gritting his teeth from the grazing wound of fire that had signed the clothing at his side. He was doing a good job of holding it together, but Techno was not blind to its effects.

As though finally fed up with the clashing of titans around him, Wilbur bent down just enough to take the boy’s bony wrist in his hand. His slender fingers could wrap around the golden child’s wrist almost twice over- and if that concerned anyone but Techno, they didn’t make it known. It wasn’t like he was particularly concerned. Merely an observation to note. A weakness, even.

Regardless, Techno watched in silent vigil as Phil helped to steady the boy’s arm when Wilbur withdrew a small knife from his belt. Techno himself had gifted his friend the blade many years ago, far too long ago to justify having kept it as safe as he had. It was originally meant to hold up a woman’s hair. Some accessory to a hidden compartment within a hairpin, though the pin itself had been lost years before Techno acquired it.

The elegance and care with which it had been crafted might have been a fascination to Wilbur, but it was nothing compared to what Techno knew he intended to do. He didn’t need to cut flesh with it, only unsheathe it as he held its flat side to the boy’s exposed arm, without a breath to spare. In fact, Techno felt that they were all holding their breath at this moment, either waiting for proof or vindication.

Instead of Techno’s victorious molten-red hue, like dripping glass upon a fire, the blade shone white,tinged with an iridescent shine like that of a beetle’s wing caught in the sunlight. Though, this fought against any notion that he was human, for a human with good intentions would only ever glow blue with passive approval. Red was reserved for monsters and those whose hearts were filled with ill intent. It was partially why they had to keep it sheathed throughout cities. Far too many with blackened spirits lingered in the streets, and after the third pair of trousers went up in flames, Wilbur was set on a flame-proof sheathe. This, though? This was new. New enough, at least, to have Wilbur nearly dropping his damn blade in surprise.

“Not evil,” Phil supplied with thinly veiled relief. He wasn’t even bothering to hide the sideways smile on his face. It was the awkward kind he wore when he so obviously didn’t understand the conversation around him, yet kept going anyway- much to his own detriment.

“But not human,” Wilbur finished for him, matter-of-fact on the subject as he sheathed his blade once more.

Before Phil could open his mouth, Techno was frowning deeper. Worry creased the corners of his eyes as he shook his head. “Phil don’t even-”

“We have the time, Techno. Don’t tell me we’re ready to go on another conquest, because we’re not.” Phil began, determination settling into his face as he let one hand cup the back of the teen’s head so he wouldn’t be strained, even in sleep. “What about honor, Techno? You already killed him once, but you can’t be sure like this! You saw his eyes, you saw the blade, Blade,” Phil continued to counter each and every time Techno made to open his mouth for a fight. “Give me a chance, Techno. She doesn’t want him dead either, and I’ve no fear in holding his actions to my body. Let him be a Ward–My Ward, if neither of you wishes to partake.”

“Phil you can’t-” Wilbur and Techno replied in the same breath, eyes wide with worry. To carry a Ward meant to carry their concerns, their actions, and their punishment. A rash decision, and one born in foolishness by Techno’s standards- but Phil was his flock. His party and his companions. He could no sooner fight with them than he could stop his heart at will.

“Give me this. I can feel it. His soul isn’t gone yet, and Monsters don’t have souls,” Phil pled as he tried to ease himself up on shaking legs. The blood which had soaked into his side was damp, but no longer a growing river.

“Fine,” Techno amended as he caught his stumbling friend in concession. A compromise for even ground between them.

From this angle, he could see the worry lines creasing the young boy’s brow. His lip worried red and raw between his shaking breaths. If Phil was right- which he so often was, to a painful degree- then this little one did have a soul. A soul without malice, unlike that of tyrants- but nor was he the gentle-hearted humans who existed on the day to day. Even those clouded with mistakes and guilt still shone bright to the blade. This? This was new.

Techno both feared the newness of this boy and leant towards it. The consequences of Phil’s rashness made him stoic, but his shoulders were heavy, and his feet dragged behind him on their solemn way home. They were heavier now than they had been- and for once, lacked the weight of Wilbur’s overzealous additions to their humble abode.

. . .

Tommy awoke with a gasp. His heart beat fast as a rabbit against his chest, rattling his ribcage as his wide eyes darted around the room he found himself in. The world was still hazy, an uncomfortable fog resting over his mind as he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the light slipping past the blinds. As his other hand ghosted over the furs he’d been bundled in, he found his brow quirked in confusion. This…This was a bed. It had to be. Twisting slowly, sleep still clouding his mind, he ran his fingers across each new fabric and textured quilt that he’d been laid across. Hand-sewn pillows wrought with patchwork embroidery left imprints of flowers and ribbons across his freckled skin.

The bed itself was nearly soft enough to coax his weary mind back to sleep, but something was wrong. A nagging voice in the back of his mind whispered a reminder each time he felt his eyes drooping. This wasn’t right. While it might have been an easy day-to-day for anyone else, Tommy was by no means simply anyone else. Tommy was not made to be swaddled in baby blankets hand-sewn by the calloused fingers of a farmer. Tommy was crafted to be perched at the side of Gods, preening beneath the attention, as an idol of an unattainable sense of perfection. This bed was not the marbled floors and towering ceilings fit for the comfort of titans and their crystalline thrones. No matter how comforting the domestic nature of it all was- this was its own unattainable life that Tommy was not privy to.

So yes, simply put, something must have been wrong.

The distant crackling of firewood in tandem with faint whispers of cinnamon and vanilla floating through the air had Tommy sitting up properly and rubbing at the crust on his eyes with a feverish sense of discomfort. He felt…weak. A foreign sensation, one whispered like a curse amongst the divine as he slowly flexed his fingers experimentally. He felt slow as he shook his head and began to ease himself from the bed. Tommy swung his legs from beneath the blankets and shivered as his bare feet hit the cold wooden floor.

“You’ve got this…” he whispered encouragingly to himself as he pushed himself off the bed on painfully shaky legs. Despite the stubbornness of his mantra, it did little to save him as his legs buckled beneath him almost immediately, just barely managing to catch himself on his hands before his nose could smash gracelessly onto the ground. Nevertheless, he hit the floor with a thud, and he was no closer to the door than he’d been when he began, the only addition being his woefully scraped knees.

Wait.

Scraped knees.

Plopping down with a thump onto a rug, he dragged both knees up to inspect them with a scrutinizing glare. Sure enough, his knees had been scraped raw enough for beads of gold to have been smeared across his skin. He bled. This world should not have been able to harm him so easily. He had withstood far worse in the trials of Gods and their saints to have been bled this easily by splintered wood. It truly was more offensive than it was painful.

“What is this…” he whispered to himself in confusion, his curiosity having since fallen into a deep-rooted sense of unease over the situation. His thoughts were, perhaps blessedly, kept from spiraling as the creaking door behind him eased open with a shrill shriek. The sound of it had his head snapping towards the intrusion, with the hair along the back of his neck rising in alarm.

Standing in the entryway with surprise spread across his face was a middle-aged man with braided blond hair and bright blue eyes. His face was mottled with sparse moles and overgrown peach fuzz. Craters riddled his cheeks, and a small scar cut through his lips and arched across his brow. His dirty blond hair had been pulled back into a ponytail with small, fraying braids intermingled throughout his locks. His left ear had been split down its side at one point, though what remained of it now let a green emerald earring dangle down towards his neck.

To say that Tommy was uncomfortable was an understatement. His body had been weakened to the point of tremors wracking his figure as he scrambled back with as dark a glower as he could manage. This man was human, yes, but he reeked of Death, a pungent odor, earthen in nature, that no amount of floral perfumes could conceal; though he’d clearly tried.

Tommy did not fear death, not in the innate way that Mortals did. Tommy could only fear the woman who wore the moniker and lurked in the shadows of their Heavenly realm. Starlight and Void trailing after her every step like an ocean that licked at the heels of lesser Gods. She was the other side to his lady in her Prime, and the silence that followed her followers spoke louder than any prayer.

Tommy was vehemently against the notion of being a coward before this man. though. He had never been before, and he would not be starting today. He was a God. The light which pooled in the cupped hands of Prime and brought her a joy that transcended comprehension. There was not a mortal in this world that could chain him to this earth, nor tear him from the sky. He commanded the world to bend to his whim like a flower that craves sunlight, twisting itself to the will of a body that would otherwise let it wither.

Launching himself forward- much to the surprise of the man, if his squawk of shock was anything to go off of- he dropped down to slide between the man’s legs, Tommy cackled in victory as he made a mad dash down the hallway. The skin of his knees burnt from the strain, and his legs ached from the run as he pushed himself off several walls to build up the momentum needed to evade his pursuer amidst this maze of winding halls.

As he ran, flickers of light trailed after him, echoes of his steps sparking like a firelit trail as embers and glowing sprites fell from his bouncing hair. They filled the halls behind him like fields of fireflies on a summer night. His steps glowed like trailing sunlight as he ran, heaving for breath.

“Mate, wait!” he heard the stranger shout from behind him, but Tommy wasn’t listening. He would not be tempted by Death’s messengers. He had to escape from this labyrinth to return to the heavens and its endless skies. He needed his matron for her boundless patience and love. She would know what happened to him, the reason for the pounding in his head like drum beats rattling across his skull.

Rounding a staircase, he skidded to a stop with a startled gasp as a behemoth lumbered into view, effectively blocking off his escape deeper into the halls. The man looked none too happy about this predicament, and entirely unsurprised. He bore dark brown roots which had long since faded off into braided white hair. His nostrils were split right across the middle by a grazing blade. Much like the other stranger, an emerald dangled from his ear and danced as one giant arm came reaching out for Tommy. With a start, Tommy realized that there was only one way to go if he wanted to escape, down.

“Small thing, could you…and there he goes,” he heard the man echo with a sigh as Tommy vaulted himself over the railing without a moment's hesitation. Crumbling to his knees on the impact with a cry, he forced himself back to move, to crawl if he must, as the thundering steps behind the godling reminded him that he could not rest yet, for there were monsters nearby.

Tommy was not a fly caught in the web of a spider, not again.

Crawling back upright with a wince, he briefly kicked at the hands reaching for him,only once hearing a satisfying ‘oof’ before he pulled himself back to his feet and darted deeper into the labyrinth of rooms.

The place was as much a maze as it was a trip through a sense of nostalgia he was unaccustomed to. He'd never been privy to the sort of messiness that true homes contained. Where books lay scattered across drawers and tables. Some were peppered with notes left for others in the house as reminders or warnings amidst the garish art tacked onto the walls. There were houseplants of randomized health, some begging for water before Tommy came into their path, and left them spilling their roots and dirt into the hallway behind him as they sprang to life with a lushness unattainable by artificial light and watering cans. Their flowers grew to the size of his hands and trailing after him as far as they could desperately reach.

Rounding a corner hard enough to slam his shoulder into the opposite wall, Tommy didn’t think to look twice as he tried to take off again, only to be met with the chest of a startled man-turned-wall that sent the both of them toppling to the ground in a mess of apologies on the stranger’s end, and spitting curses on Tommy’s as he fought to back away.

Big hands wrought with callouses grabbed Tommy by the back of his neck and shirt. He hadn’t even heard the behemoth’s approach- and he’d been listening so closely- as he thrashed with a wailing scream of anguish. His blazing eyes caught the deep brown of the young man’s, still thrown across the ground with shock painting his tanned features. His eyes reflected Tommy’s own like mirrors cast across dark forests, brimming with enchantments long since lost to man. His curly hair cascaded around his face. Unlike the rest of the lot he’d come across, the man lacked a dangling emerald from his ear, though they were weighed down with earrings of all sorts. Instead, his was a heavy ring which sat upon his finger with the pride of diamonds.

“Fucking traitor,” he mouthed, even though he hadn’t the slightest clue who the man was. All Tommy needed to know was that it was his fault Tommy had been returned to the Lion’s den as a muscled arm snaked across his chest to pull him closer. As. Fucking. If. Throwing his head back, he caught the man in the noose with a pained grunt before sinking his teeth into the meat of his arm. He bit till disgusting, mortal blood filled his mouth and he was ripped from the man’s arm,heaving for breath and twisting his head in time to the hand caught in his hair with fury rolling off him in heavy waves. From this angle, he could catch sight of bandages wrapping around the junction of the man’s thumb and fingers. The sight of it reminded Tommy of the encrusted blood which had begun to flake off his chin and lips. The metallic taste of it stained his tongue, now given new life as it dribbled down his chin.

It had run red, red like rubies, red like corruption, red like the mortal blood which he spat upon the floor with a look of raw fury as he met the eyes of the curly-haired man who looked up at Tommy as though he were an unruly animal.

“Do not bite,” the man rumbled, unamused as he twisted Tommy around, one hand back across his chest so that Tommy’s back was pressed tight against the giant’s chest. The steady beat of his heart alerting Tommy that his outburst had barely gotten a rise from the man. He decided then and there that he loathed the titan.

“Let me go!” Tommy seethed, spitting blood upon the floor as he watched the brunette scramble to his feet and begin to hastily dust himself off. He wore a loose silken robe dyed a muted tawny. Its lazily tied knot had begun to unravel in the scuffle. One house shoe was already lost somewhere on the floor as he stared wide-eyed at Tommy for too long to be comforting. Just as Tommy opened his mouth to swear at the man for staring, he saw a discomforting look of relief flash in the young man’s eyes as he visibly relaxed. He whispered something too soft for Tommy to catch.

He didn’t need to strain for very long, however, as the same damn man who started this whole chase came into view like a ghost. His steps silent as he bent down before Tommy with a pinched expression,

“Let. Me. Go.” Tommy seethed, slower this time, as though the two from before might not have heard him last time. Tommy’s own anger surprised even him, for while he was known for his rambunctious antics, it was unlike the divine to be so easily swayed by the toils of mortal hearts. Fury was unknown to him, a foreign infection he should have been bolstered against from his creation alone.

“What have you done to me?” he wheezed when no one would answer, voice laden with venom as he bore his bloodstained teeth to where the man came to crouch before him, hands lifted in submission. This man reeked of death. He’d noticed it when he first found Tommy, but it was nearly overwhelming when paired with his panic. The fire that ran through his veins like molten sunlight burned hot as he twisted in vain to escape. To crawl his way back to the heavens so that he could feel her embrace, and know that he had not been left in the hands of death and the company she kept.

“Hey, hey, relax. You’re safe here,” the man whispered, alarmed at Tommy’s panic as he clearly fought between reaching a hand out to still Tommy and giving him the space needed to avoid the bloodied teeth Tommy so clearly knew how to use.

Perhaps the worst part was that Tommy knew he wasn’t lying. He could see it in his eyes, unraveling him like an open book. He could see the desperate plea for peace. The bated breath in the hopes to be understood. He softened himself and let his shoulders sag to seem unassuming. Tommy could see it all with the bristling barbs that shot through his bloodied heart. For Tommy was a god, and one would have to be bolder than fate to lie to one who was bound to the truth with an intimacy unmatched by mortality. It didn’t make him any less furious or trusting of the situation,eyes still darting around wildly for an explanation. A reason.

“Let me go,” he said instead, raising his chin with his best attempt at authority, very plainly ignoring the chuffing chuckle from the man holding him.

“Will you run?” the beast rumbled pointedly.

Tommy briefly thought of lying, and he knew it shone in his gaze as the two occupants who had not yet touched him tensed with apprehension. “If I could, I would,” he replied, at last, a lie would have tasted far worse on his tongue than the prideful truth.

“I mean, he was honest at least!” the brunette suddenly piped up with an airy chuckle,one hand gesturing to Tommy up and down with a painfully clear look of encouragement. “Surely that deserves some sort of reward. Plus he only bit Techno, which is understandable.”

“I am not a fucking dog,” Tommy snapped, in place of muted hope.

To his own surprise, however, he was released. The arms hemming him in opened up to deposit him rather gracelessly upon the ground. He fumbled like a newborn foal to get away from the lot of them. He knew with a bitter sense of reality that he couldn't run. Not with the way his legs wobbled beneath the slightest bit of strain against that of a titan, a bard, and a saint of Death herself. This would not be a fight he’d win, and it grated against him with a gasping breath. He backed himself into the wall opposite of the trio, wary of their outstretched hands that shot back against his bared teeth.

“I do not trust you,” he decided, at last, voice small and dreadfully close to petulant.

He could see the man wince, much to Tommy’s immediate satisfaction, but his smile didn’t falter. “You don’t have to.”

“What if I said I don’t like you?” Tommy tried again, pressing his luck as he leaned forward to the challenge.

“That’s fine too,” the strange man replied, almost seeming to relax under the insult.

“Most people don’t,” the brunette piped up again in a singsong voice, cut off swiftly by the man clapping the back of his head with a snort. It was so…domestic,yet foreign all the same as Tommy found himself cocking his head in confusion at the sight. He’d seen such interactions before. A princess whose name he never learned jumping on her toes to hug her father for the last time as she left from home, a young mother hugging her children and kissing each of them atop the head as though she had all the time in the world. A forbidden duo trading kisses amongst affection in alleyways they thought they’d never be caught in. Bouts of intimacy which logically would never match that of his own kind- yet they were as foreign to him as a beating heart. Something he knew logically, yet had never once experienced for himself. Some far-off fantasy he might indulge in, before reality met him with her glittering smile. He didn’t need the fanfare of physical affection to understand the weight of her love. Not like mortals, not like them.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Tommy pointed out, brow furrowed and lips pulled into a cross frown. He needed to let his mind go elsewhere, back into the trembling anger which wracked his fingertips and shook his shoulders.

“I didn’t, did I? My bad,” the man replied with a deep chuckle that had Tommy lifting his head just barely in curiosity. “We didn’t do anything–well, not to you…sort of…Do you remember anything?” he asked after his stuttering attempts at an explanation fell through his fingers beneath the owlish stare of the godling.

Tommy did think about it, hard. For it had been the nagging voice in the back of his head this whole time, reminding him that there was something amiss. Both with the world around him, and his very own body. The memories lay just beneath a deceptively still pool, a disguise to shield the raging currents beneath. He was…afraid. Yet another foreign emotion–at least what should have been foreign. Yet he knew he’d felt it before, an all-consuming sense of panic which brought tears to his eyes and tore a scream so raw from his throat that he spat gold upon the earth.

He had been searching for her, for her love, in that hazy memory. A desperate thing, as he tore his way through the muck and grime that stuck to his body no matter how much he fought against it . He couldn’t understand why he could not feel it in this hazy moment, for it was as natural to grasp as a twitch of the fingers. Instead, he was met with a poison beneath his skin that left him screaming. He didn’t see, couldn’t understand its presence as he writhed upon the stone. Solar flares ripping off crackling skin to reveal red hot fire beneath his normally pristine body. He was meant to be perfect, untouchable, and unbreakable. Yet he felt a true blackness in the poison which sank into his heart. Black and red tendrils of corruption burnt at his smoldering heart, reducing it to embers and ash as he cried. He was unworthy of her love in this moment of fire, of burning, and he would burn a hundred times over for a curse he was now forced to bear.

He could see the shadow upon him. A towering force of dread, the tears that ran down his cheeks, and the impossible heat of it all. It dragged his fury, his grief, his pain to the surface,. Ppushing down what remained of Tommy untill he was cowering in the corners of his own mind like the dregs of a brew. He saw–He knew- he saw the titan which had held him tight. He remembered, and it hurt.

“Did you kill me?” Tommy asked quietly, childishly, even as he rubbed his wrists feverishly. Looking down every few seconds, as though red tendrils might squirm through his veins and remind him of the curse which burnt him so wholly.

“We tried,.” Tthe behemoth replied with a noncommittal wave towards Tommy, gesturing him up and down.

“Oh,” Tommy replied softly. The breath leaving him in one fell swoop as his shoulders dropped down. He had never been killed before, never entertained the notion. He was loved. He had been loved. He was never put in true danger. Not whilst he sat perched at her side. His own followers had been eccentric, but they’d never…they weren’t made for murder. He had loved each of them as best as he could, and they knew nothing of his violence or fury, for he had none to give.

“We didn’t try and kill you to be cruel,” the giant spoke at last, head cocked in thought. Tommy had the uncomfortably distinct impression that no matter how hard he might try to hide his feelings, this man would always see through him. “You were hurting people. You had hurt and killed a lot of people already. Phil wants to assume that you weren’t yourself for the ordeal, but it was you we found in the remains, and you who we gave a chance to trust. No matter your,” he took a pause to inspect his bloodied arm, “ behavior.

“I’m not supposed to hurt people,” Tommy whispered, horrified as he clasped both hands over his mouth with a broken cry.

Nevertheless, the man continued. “It wouldn’t be fair to kill you when you were down, so Phil has taken you as a Ward to show that you are more than what we found you in.” From the corner of his eye, he saw the blond shoot a look of thinly veiled annoyance at his words, though Tommy couldn’t imagine why.

“I hurt people,” he whispered again to himself. His hands lowered to hug himself tight,. Rrubbing at his goosebump-laden arms. His teeth chattered as he watched embers fall from his hair out of the corner of his eye. Unlike the sprites and flickers of sunlight that trailed after his steps, these looked red-hot and molten as they rolled off his burning skin.

“Hey, hey…little one don’t stress. You’re alright, mate. You’re safe right now,” the green man asked as he crouched down before Tommy, closer than he’d been with any other member of this fucking circus willingly. “Let’s get out of that headspace now, yeah?”

Tommy hated the way he preened beneath the attention, the soft voice that dripped with a truth matched only by the Heavens. Humans were fickle creatures, after all, they traded lies amidst the same currency of love. Their lips were made for it, and their hearts blacker to cope. Nevertheless, much to his own chagrin, this man had spoken nothing but the truth, or what he believed to be the truth. Intent weighs far more than practicality.

“Why don’t we go back a few steps. Everything got a bit out of hand earlier, hm? What’s your name, mate?” the green man asked at last-, a questionto which Tommy felt should have been first and foremost, but these people were not gods. How could they know? A small voice whispered in the back of his mind that they were certainly not human either. They might have been, once. But magic rolled off them in waves, stolen like thieving rats who clawed for crumbs.

What are you was an unsaid question which sat heavy on the tongue of the titan standing in the shadows.

“You first. I should know the names of you wrongun’s before we continue,” Tommy declared in lieu of an answer, if not only to see the white-haired man glower.

‘My name is–!” The brunette began, preparing to take an overzealously exaggerated bow before he was swiftly cut off with a scoff of offense at the glowering man’s interruption.

“Technoblade,” he began, pointing to himself. “Seeker to the Blood God and butcher to the vile. Commanding blade and bone to man,“ pointing next to the blond, who looked more than a little sheepish, he continued, “This is Ser Philza, her Ladyship's Angel of Death and kinslayer to Tyrants. Nightingale of courts and a Whisper to Gods. Call him Phil though, because he doesn’t like feeling old.” Lastly, he threw a finger back at the brunette, who had been bouncing upon his toes with glee.

“And that's Wilbur,” he finished lamely.

“Hold on, you were out here busting out the full fuckin courtly titles and all I got was ‘oh and that's Wilbur, the extra baggage’!” The brunette–Wilbur came to shout as he tugged insistently at Techno’s sleeve in a frustrating vie for attention.

“Your words, not mine,” Techno grumbled in return, hardly sparing the man a passing glance as he gestured towards Tommy. It was his turn, wasn’t it?

“I am a God,” Tommyinnit supplied, like that of a bird puffing up with narrowed eyes. He had to be, with the way the nagging voice in the back of his mind regurgitated his own insecurities with a vehemence he’d never had to learn. He’d not known a world of doubt till he saw the disconnect and lack of recognition in the eyes of the trio. It was a fear which threatened to swallow his heart as his hands shook from where he’d wrapped his arms around his suddenly too-bare body.

“You don’t sound too sure of that,” Techno supplied, a voice to breathe true life into Tommy’s fear as he crouched far too close for comfort, sending the Godling scrambling back into the wall with a thump his breaths came hard and fast.

“Techno,” Wilbur hissed from behind the towering man. He crouched close to Tommy, close enough for Tommy to see his golden eyes, the rubies which hung from his neck like beaded tears. The brunette, stubborn as an ox, came to clap the behemoth on the shoulder with a frown.

“I am a God,” he said firmer, meeting Techno’s impassive stare head-on.

“Last I checked, gods aren’t meant to be down here, little Godling,” Techno’s words were plain, but they stung like a poisoned barb as Tommy flinched back from him.

He was right, too. Tommy wasn’t meant to be down on this world. He was not born of their worship, titles earned through waves of fickle faith and subsequent restoration done a hundred times over by centuries of reformation. He had been created by the gods themselves for their love alone. It was sheer luck he gained his own following and their sporadic prayers. The sparse temples born in closets with idols seated upon windowsills from whatever they could make in his likeness.

But he had loved the handfuls of people who whispered his name when they thought it would be for no ears but his own. He thought himself incapable of loving a human being with the same ferocity that his Lady had for him and her followers. When one of his own whispered a plea full of such heartache that it brought the Godling to his knees, he had begged his Lady to fall to the world and offer his sunlit help for the world they felt was falling apart.

He had underestimated the toils of mankind, and the lengths they might go for their own self-interest. He had met and loved many followers in their lifetimes. His sporadic worship trailed after generations like a puppy nipping excitedly at their heels. He watched them grow from the heavens, watched them love in turn, and mourned the loss in the ways he knew how when they joined Death.

This was unlike his followers, for they had never truly been one of his own. The village worshipped something far older, far crueler than Tommy could have ever been. It had hollowed their cheeks and laid rot upon their skin. The altar they’d erected for him was a crude slab of stone with a wicker idol to draw him closer with the awe that filled his heart. He had loved them so, these nameless farmers and peasants to a kingdom that might rise and fall twice over. It was easy in this way to love. To take someone into your heart so wholly without knowing a thing about them, yet being willing to wipe away their tears and remind them that despite the guilt they carried, Tommy would be their sun.

He’d thought it would be enough to coax the good from their hearts. The good he knew had to remain. Yet, people could do horrid things when they were desperate, as he came to realize in his own fall to earth, like a pinned insect wriggling beneath the microscope.

In the moment where he was bound to the altar, cheek pressed to the unforgiving stone, he thought of the hunters Noblemen claimed to be. They were not his domain, for they carried the idols of death and luck, yet he had watched them once. He had watched the way they prowled after the young buck who’d been born into the orchard and had never known anything beyond the walls which its mother trusted. They had herded it to the open gates and lured it into their trap with a taste of freedom, however small.

The buck had never stood a chance, as his maker so gently explained when she caught his growing distress over the unfairness of it. They had caught up to the wide-eyed buck in no time, snatching the wonder of the world away from it as an arrow dragged it to the ground. There was no victory for Tommy to be found in an unfair fight, to watch the animal struggle and whine against the hands that ran across its flank. They had been gentle then when they drew their knife, and Tommy could look no longer.

Tommy had never stood a chance. Much like the buck, he had waltzed his way to his doom, too blinded by his wonder of the world to notice the noose till it had choked him and brought him crashing to the ground. He choked against their corruption and sobbed for a mistress that would not answer as his skin grew hot–too hot to hold shape as it bubbled and popped like molten magma. He didn’t want to be a monster, or a subservient beast to a village that saw him as nothing more than a tool to chain. They had torn him from something so intimate to his existence, that the loss had shaken the void and burnt the world to ash around him.

They had stolen his divinity. He knew it with a closeness that wracked his body with tremors. The very gift which earned him the favor of Gods had been lost as he was bled dry.

“What has been done to me?” Tommy asked, voice a ghostly whisper as his hands shook violently from where he reached up to touch the glittering tear tracks which stained his face.

“Tommy–” Phil whispered sympathetically, eyes glassy as he reached towards the boy only to narrowly dodge a weak kick as a sobbing shriek akin to a wounded animal left Tommy’s lips.

“What have you done to me?” he wailed at last. It was easier to have existed in the dimly lit veil of confusion and sleep. Now he understood through the cracked memories of what had been done to him, and in turn, what he had done to them. They had introduced rage into his heart, let fury and heartbreak plague his mind and twist his sanctity. Fisting his hair with a sniffling cry, he watched dollops of molten gold fall to the ground from his stained cheeks. He was crying. Why was he crying? He just–He couldn’t stop! It tore against his body as his skin began to glow with heat. Mottling with red spots like heated iron as it began to grow formless. Akin to magma slowly rising to a popping boil.

“I was a God!” he cried again, kicking out weakly when he spotted a shadow coming closer. He didn’t know who it was, he didn’t care. “I was hers and I was loved! This is unlovable. This…This is mortal,” he shrieked as he released his hair to rub feverishly at his arms, watching as globs of molten fury dripped onto the ground with sizzling shrieks. “I can feel it. I can feel this body dying all around me! It will rot and it is mortal,” he shouted again as his nails dug painfully into the meat of his arms.

He could feel himself burning. Eyes unseeing, as he only knew that of his own wretchedness. The formlessness he had begun to take as he sought to retreat into the corners of his mind, yet he could only feel that of his own newfound mortality greeting him at every turn. He–

He startled with a yowl as an impossibly calloused hand promptly shoved his head down against his legs. Caged in on either side by his own knobbly knees. It shielded Tommy from the firelight that flickered across the hallways as hushed voices broke through his ragged puffs of breath. The world was strangely muffled like this, a poor excuse for a shield, and each time he tried to move, the hand would press him back down with a small nudge.

He couldn’t have fought it even if he truly tried, yet, he was surprised to find his figure had returned. Steam no longer rolled off his body in rippling waves. Globs of molten fire had sunken back into his sparsely freckled skin without further fanfare,leaving him looking almost dull by comparison, but blessedly cool without the hot fire of ire running through his veins. He realized, after several beats too long, that the hand was scratching gently at his scalp, a gesture he’d never known. At first, it made him stiffen with a burning heat that had the touch pausing, but the hand didn’t lift. When Tommy’s breath was no longer caught in his throat, he leaned into the hand with a shuddering exhale, thankful for the touch to resume as blunted nails scratched softly at the base of his hairline.

“Techno you can’t just–” one gurgled voice began.

“He needed to calm down,” the deepest voice answered with what Tommy could feel was an unimpressed shrug. The vibrations of his voice reverberated down Tommy’s spine from the hand which still pet him as though he were something precious to behold.

“There are better ways!” Another piped up with ruffled feathers.

“Is he still screaming?... Thought so.”

Tommy very much agreed with the warbled voice he recognized to be Phil through the slowly lifting fog of his mind. There were so many other ways to calm him, even if he didn’t know them himself, Tommy thought as he sniffled weakly. He shielded his red-rimmed eyes between his legs with a weakened cry that sounded needy to his own ears. After moments that stretched for an eternity, he felt the ghost of a touch upon his back. Hands that splayed out between his shoulder blades made him tense up in memory- yet the callouses which caught on the knobbly bits of his racing spine were close to Techno, the one who still let his hand rest upon Tommy’s hand in idle motions. This had to be Phil, for the man’s robes had spilled out across Tommy’s feet in the meantime. His fingers were slender, nails long enough to scratch gingerly at the bit of Tommy’s back he could reach.

He’d come down to save a village, to cleanse it of its plague. Instead, they’d fed it to him in the name of corruption that had long since left histories most weathered of transcripts,burnt at the edges and scorned by the gods. Tommy had felt it sink into his body and burn with anger unknown to his porcelain form. He’d become its marionette, and the fire with which he tried to shield himself with was just the fire it needed to maim the world who hurt it so.

“They killed me,” he muttered, voice hitched with a hiccuping cry. He’d died. His divine soul had been shattered, split right down the middle and splintering off with the bloodied pool which had run beneath his form. “I just wanted to help,” he cried as the hand drew gentle circles into his back. “Why did they hurt me?” he asked as the hand in his hair came to cup his cheek and lift his head to face that of the trio, Techno seemingly uncaring for the tears that now puddled in the palm of his giant hands.

As his breathing picked up, Tommy vaguely registered the return of a growing heat in his heart. A burning sensation that made him weep and shake his head to the gurgled voices that suddenly grew to be far too loud.

“You knew I was cursed,” he finally breathed, his head supported by the rough hands which rubbed gentle circles against his cheeks, wiping at the tears which still fell from his eyes and caught his lashes like that of spiderwebs.

“Yes and no,” Techno replied as he coaxed Tommy closer. He was no longer pressed up against the wall like a downed bird as Techno scooted back so that he would have enough room to ease Tommy down to the ground. Phil’s hand guided him along til his head lay against one of the many embroidered pillows of the house. Presumably it had been stolen from a couch by its size. From an angle like this, he could make out the small signature of ‘TB’ attached to one of the blooming hydrangeas which had been pressed into the pillow.

“We knew you weren’t human, but nor were you evil. I only realized your curse when you were home,” Wilbur explained, gesturing towards a window with a limp-handed wave. “Techno and Phil might be the brawn of this bullshit operation, but I’m the most magic-savvy out of the three of us when it comes to practicality. I set the wards for our house, and the moment you were brought in they broke. Do you know how strong you have to be to break the one at the front door? I set that shit up to combat the dragon Phil pissed off,” Wilbur continued with a breathless laugh.

“See for yourself,” Phil encouraged, equally amused if not a bit sheepish at Wilbur’s shit-eating grin.

Tommy obliged, if only to satisfy his own curiosity as he pushed himself up on his elbows to gaze out the windows with a sharp inhale. Flickering fireflies filled the sprawling yard and its gardens born of chaos, spilling out over the stone-laden path leading to the front door. The embers danced upon the steps and circled the sky above in a rhythmic pattern. A starlit sky brought down to earth reflected in each of their eyes as Tommy broke out into an impossibly shaky smile.

“They’re my little fairies,” he whispered, a tear falling upon the back of his hand as he gave a wet laugh.

“Fairies?” Wilbur asked in disbelief, his brow raised in obvious question as he pointed to the window and back to Tommy in quick succession. “Listen, I’ve met the tooth fairy kid and she was not fuckin’ friendly. What gives?”

Snorting, Tommy’s laugh began to shake his shoulders in genuine amusement. His ‘fairies’ fell from his golden hair and spilled across his shoulders with a jingling laugh. “Different fairies. They’re uh, like little enchanters? A self-defense mechanism and a regulator for my emotions. Probably didn’t fancy your wards,” he clarified as he held out his hand for them to cluster upon his exposed skin till he glowed with an iridescent sheen. “They protect me when I’m lost, and kept me company when my lady was busy,” he whispered as they floated across the room in twinkling curiosity. Soon enough, he feared, they might become an infestation upon this house with their plaguing sense of wonder.

“Huh,” he heard Techno and Wilbur mutter in unison.

Lifting his arm higher, he gently shook the flutter of clustering fairies from his skin with a chuckle as they took to the sky with a burst of shocking color. Their laughter trailing after their flickering forms as they danced across the trio’s skin and kissed their cheeks with a mischievous sort of glee. It was…strangely soothing in its own right. For so long, they had been Tommy’s closest confidants. An echo of his own thoughts and a body to feel the anger he was crafted without. The anger he now felt with a vicious lack of control.

“Why did they curse me?” he asked weakly after his fairies returned to his body or scattered across the house. He could see them watching him now with cautious worry. They were afraid, he belatedly realized. Afraid he might descend again into the madness of his despair. He wasn’t, he was just…he was tired and angry- a discomforting feeling that burnt deep in his eternal body. “I was trying to help. I did everything right and they…they…” he couldn't say it. Couldn’t finish the truth he knew to lay beneath the skin.

“Some people do bad things because they can,” Techno said gruffly, ever the cynic.

“Or because they’re scared,” Wilbur amended. “But that doesn’t make it right,” he finished in a firm voice, as though his words wouldn’t reach Tommy otherwise.

Tommy felt very much like a pinned insect ready for collection as he splayed his fingers and inspected them with a muted frown. Though he now was by no means a true mortal, he was not a god at this moment, either. He wasn’t sure if he could be a God again. If he could make himself worthy of love and make amends to the perfection that was ruined with his hastily built care for the world. To make whole what had been scattered across the world and guarded by greed.

“I took a human life, I took many human lives,” Tommy said softly. Speaking it into the world made it real. He could recall the leveled village and the rage he felt. The anger. It lingered in his heart like a feral beast waiting in the shadows to be released. He hoped it burnt worse than the bitter satisfaction he’d felt in his withered body as he stood in the wreckage, reveling in the destruction he’d caused simply because he could. Simply to show that he was not the dog they’d made him out to be.

“Because they were stupid. They tried tampering with magic, and expected it to go over just dandy.” Techno replied as he finally stood up and stretched. “Now, this?” he said gesturing to the remaining lot of them,”this has been nice, the emotions and…everything, but I’m getting us some food. It’s getting cold.”

As he takes his leave, steps echoing down the hall from where his shadow retreated with what might have been his own discomfort; Tommy could feel more than hear Wilbur’s snorting laugh. “And there goes his social mood.”

“Does Techno not like me?” Tommy asked before he could think better of it, watching the doorway that held the secrets to Techno’s retreat. He was unaccustomed to the hatred of man until recently. His golden throne and feathered wings which dripped with sunlight, and cast halos of clouds where he went knew nothing of the toiling discord within man. He only saw the temples, heard the prayers, and saw the idols. It wasn’t till that village that he learned of true poverty and depravity. The lengths those could go to find happiness, even at the cost of his own. He didn’t know enough of man to tell the difference in Techno, for so few had turned their back to him in his past.

“He didn’t at first because he didn’t understand you…but you’re not the first stray we’ve taken in,” Phil remedied once he saw the hurt and frustration on Tommy’s face. “He’s a softie when he’s not trying to seem like nothing bothers him.”

“So he’s a liar?” Tommy asked, head tilted towards Phil with visible confusion wrinkling his face, as though he’d swallowed something particularly sour from his pinched lips.

“Sometimes, but he needs to so that he can make other people feel better. He’s their shield and sword when outside this home.” Phil explained calmly.

“Why?” Tommy pressed, wonder alight in his eyes as he leaned closer.

“You sure ask a lot of questions,” Wilbur asked as he draped himself across the floor–which shouldn't be as comfortable as he made it look, alas he looked content as a lounging cat.

“Is that bad?” Tommy asked meekly, an odd feeling in his chest. Embarrassment perhaps?

“Nope,” Wilbur said, popping the ‘p’ with a grin. “I’m afraid it’s a mortal condition,” he hummed as he laid flat on his back.

“But I’m not–”

“He means it’s okay to ask questions,” Phil stepped in, sensing Tommy’s fight as he let a hand fall upon his shoulder.

“Then…what's going to happen to me?” Tommy asked after several beats of silence,chewing at his lip as he lowered his head in shame. The question felt thick as the ichor which had flowed from his body like a babbling brook. He could not return to the heavens with his divinity in shatters, but nor could he simply waltz from these doors with the twin-pronged fear and knowledge of what he could and couldn’t do against mankind.

“We’ll figure something out, kiddo,” Phil said with a smile soft enough to have Tommy leaning forward with minimal amounts of coaxing. His forehead came to rest against Phil’s chest,his head tilted to listen to the steady thrumming of his steady heart. Gods had no such things, for there was no heart to beat against their chest with a rabbit-quick kind of fear in moments of distress. They did not beat, for they did not breathe. The only lungs they bore were full of jungles that brought life to the world with each steady breath. When Tommy breathed in, truly and deeply, the scent of death filled his nose,twinged with a floral aroma that curled around him in a ghostly echo of a hand cupping his exposed cheek. It trailed up to run through his curls, blackened nails scratching his head leisurely. She was an ice-cold goddess, true to her namesake as her voice came close to his ear.

“You will be safe,” she echoed, in both the single hum of the shadowed woman Tommy knew well, and the symphony of lost voices that trailed after her like lost puppies. Death herself had greeted him, and it was now that Tommy understood with a dry humor why Phil smelled so much like the decay of her realm. Angel was not merely a title, but a breath of life that hung from his shoulders in a mantle for her to drape herself across.

“Thank you,” he breathed as he nestled himself closer to Phil. His resulting chuckle shook Tommy’s weakened body once the boy came to fully lean into his lap. Light as a feather, and dripping with gold and fairies which glowed like embers and flickered like firelight.

“It’s no problem, mate,” he whispered as his hands came to wrap around the boy with a sense of care unfamiliar to the Godling. “We’ll take care of you, yeah?”