Chapter Text
Prologue .
There was something so utterly mystifying, serene even, in the act of arson, and it terrified him.
Or rather, the aftermath. It had simmered down tremendously, to a simple flicker in the corner of his vision here and there as he wandered aimlessly through the destruction. Nothing but a city of smoke and ash and blood and bone.
It was the only thing keeping him from shattering, he thought. Watching the simple flames pitter out slowly, the air around him tinged orange in a way that almost made it look like the sun was rising.
The screaming had stopped hours ago, when the fire was at its brightest.
With every step his legs buckled, with every crackle of embers his teeth clattered. His fingers had been red at first, now they were black, covered in soot. And his eye, oh Gods, how it throbbed.
But there seemed to be a disconnect, from his mind and his body. The searing pain in his face seemed so strong and yet a thousand miles away, just a whisper of a thought in his too crowded mind.
It was horrible, having intruders in his own head. Especially when they were to blame for this terrible tragedy.
They were like stains in his ears, so simple and stubborn, and refusing to go away.
They were horrible to you. This was deserved.
There was no other way.
You will come into your powers quite nicely.
Blood, Blood, blood-
Blood, for the Blood god.
“Hey!” a new voice yelled, this one loud, and real.
Techno turned on his unsteady legs, and was met with a man standing on a foothill around twenty paces away. He was alone, no one else seemed to be coming. “Are you alright?” He said.
Techno could tell right away he was a Navy officer, with inky black shapes jutting from behind him. His hat indicated he was more than just a standard soldier, as well.
“You’re hurt,” He said, his voice growing soft.
For a moment, the voices seemed to quiet. Techno took a retreating step backwards.
“Wait!” The man yelled, taking another step forward. “Please.” Techno wasn’t sure if he was imagining the worry on the man’s face as he studied Techno for a moment, and Techno swallowed. He knew the man was staring at his warlock features. His reformed legs, the reconstructed bones of his face, his ears that could hear every single move he made. Even when his hand shifted behind his coat, making a gesture to people Techno couldn’t see.
And that was all it took for him to take off running.
The man yelled something again, but Techno didn’t glance back until he reached the dunes of the beach.
Three or four Navy men had followed him, but none of them were the Navy officer. As they wove their way through the ruined buildings, Techno spotted him.
He had not moved from his spot on the hill. He was only watching, one arm slightly outstretched towards him. And behind him, the black shapes had unfurled into large, imposing wings of a Harpy.
He’s like you,
The voices cooed.
Techno pivoted in the sand.
His feet found cobble and soon after planks, and before he knew it, he found himself on the deck of a simple five man fishing boat. The sounds of shouting echoed after him. Coming from the beach, the group of Navy soldiers drew closer as Techno pulled and tugged at the sails and ropes.
He knew the Harpy could reach him, even if he sailed out past the surf. But something in his face had given Techno the impression that the Harpy had let him go.
So as Techno unfastened the final rope mooring the ship to shore, He made a note to remember the Harpy with obsidian wings. An angel Amidst Devastation and Death.
When the ship embarked over the first of many cresting waves, Techno finally let his heart settle. Tiredness grew inside him, and he stumbled his way to the wheel.
He had no path. No goal. No home.
So perhaps he didn’t fight as hard as he should have when exhaustion took over, and he closed his eyes.
That was the night The Blade was born. At fourteen, Techno had his first taste of power.
…
Cannons.
That was the sound that woke Kristin in the dead of night.
The sloshing of the ship that had always uneased her was worse now, far more intense than it should have been. She could hear every single wave slapping against the ship, with such impact it rattled her teeth.
As her ears left her dreams behind, she heard shouting from the top deck and footsteps outside her door, along with worried mutterings of her fellow passengers as they opened the doors to their rooms to see what was happening.
Her eyes finally adjusted to the dark, the candles on the walls long burned out, and she let out a shuddering gasp.
There was almost four inches of water in her room.
A wail from the room next door made her heart jump.
Immediately, with a string of curses, she grabbed her boots from beside her bed and shoved them on, ignoring the heavy texture of their soaked leather.
In two bounds she splashed her way to the door, pushing it open against the already growing current of the water.
In another bound, she threw open the door next to hers.
She had spent two months on this ship, and came to know a few of the other passengers, all on their separate journeys. But her favorites were two little girls, a satyr and a fairy. Best friends, who had recently lost their families to a fire and were being sent to live with the younger one’s distant relative.
She had grown fond of them, and when she saw them cowering on the simple bed surrounded by seeping water, her heart ached.
“Hello my darlings,” She said, putting on her most comforting smile.
The older one, Niki, stared up at her. They were both only nine years old, and it had outraged her to learn they were traveling alone.
They were only a year younger than her own son, and she was reminded of the fact constantly.
“What’s happening?” The other girl said. Puffy. At first Kristin assumed it was a name of the Satyrs, which Puffy was, but the little girl had quickly corrected her. She had chosen the name herself, explaining how she liked how soft it sounded. She refused to be called anything else, to which Kristin put up no fight.
But the little girl’s sweet optimism was nowhere to be found, as harsh shadows cut across her face. Her eyes glowed in the dark with tears, and after a second Kristin realized the room was growing warmer by the second.
“It's alright Puffy,” She cooed.
Something large shattered above them, And Puffy screamed, latching onto Niki’s skirts.
Niki had stayed silent, her eyes squeezed shut and her fingers cupped over her long ears.
“Oh dearest, the sound must be dreadful,” Kristin raised her skirts to push through the waters towards the girls, but paused as a flicker outside caught her gaze.
Orange paint strokes danced in the blackening sky, kissing the glass.
She couldn’t bring herself to swallow the building lump in her throat.
Niki opened one eye to follow her look, but Kristin sloshed forward. “It's okay, girls. Just look at-“
Another crash, this one far louder.
The door to the room splintered as a gush of water raved through, knocking Kristin to her knees.
She hissed as now both the girls screamed, pushing herself up just as quickly as she fell, lunging for the bed.
Puffy flung herself into Kristin’s arms, sobs wracking through her small body. Niki crawled over as well, her chest heaving with every breath.
The wave had forced the water level almost to the top of the bed, and with all the chaos of the sea there would certainly be more to come.
“Niki, hand me the bedsheet please.”
There would be no way they would all make it out the door at this point, the current would be too strong.
Niki grabbed it, handing it to Kristin, who kept a steady hand on Puffy’s white curls.
She grabbed it between her fingers, tearing it straight down into strips.
The wall cracked.
Another strip.
“Braid these quickly dearest,”
Niki didn’t ask questions as another splinter appeared above them.
“Puffy, I need you to tie this end around your waist. Tightly now. Niki, you at the other end,”
As the boards started to come undone, Kristin quickly checked their knots before tying her own. Without wasting a second she leapt over the headboard, The lump in her throat growing heavy.
“Children, whatever happens, hold on tight to each other, okay?”
They both nodded solemnly, each clutching the simple braid that tied the three of them together.
As the room creaked for the final time, boards pulling free, Kristin shoved the bed frame as hard as she could into the hull.
For a moment, Kristin knew what it felt like to fly.
…
Techno knew fire well.
Too well, he thought. Too soon.
He smelled the smoke long before he saw the orange on the horizon, and he had already made up his mind to set course to look for survivors. He had been sailing for months now, alone on this fisherman’s boat, and he needed something, anything to work for.
As the orange turned red, his eyes burned.
The smoke was thick, but not unbearable for him.
The sight of the wreckage, however…
There was not much left when he arrived. The most he could gather was that it was a passenger ship, and it had been attacked. There was no hull left at all, only scattered planks, barrels, and burning canvas scattered in the black ocean. And bodies. hundreds of them, slowly drifting away in the almost still waters.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent weaving his ship through the wreckage, but when the red spread to the sky as morning set in, his efforts seemed to be meaningless.
Until he heard a faint cough from the bow.
He crossed the deck in ten quick strides.
Peering over the edge, was an upside down bed frame, with three figures sprawled atop it, a tattered and cut up braid between them.
“Hello?” Techno called.
His ship was angled parallel to the bed, set to glide right by them. He moved down the deck, trying to stay near them. “Hello?” He said again.
One of the figures lifted their head slowly. Techno blinked when a little girl with pink hair similar to his own stared up at him, before a cough seized her body.
His mind flashed to a different time, but he blinked it away. “Do you want to board my ship? I can help,” He called to her.
She looked down at the other two figures and sniffed.
She nodded.
Without another word, Techno bolted across the deck and immediately began to drop anchor.
He came back with the gangplank, setting his end down at the break in the railing. “You’ll have to grab the other end,” He instructed.
She did as she was told, and the frame seemed to hold in place, albeit it was already half sunken when he came across it.
“Now, can you walk across?” He asked.
She looked up at him with wide, watery eyes. “My- My friends need help,” She stuttered.
“Are they still...” He glanced down at the others, and saw they were breathing, if shallowly. It was a woman and another child, from what he could tell.
But the bed frame was taking on water quickly, and if he wanted to help any of them, he needed to get weight off of it.
“Alright. I’ll get your friends, but you have to get off of there first.”
She nodded again, scrambling up the plank. Her steps were wobbly and unsteady, and he had to catch her before she made it onto the deck.
Up close he noticed she had fairy features, minus the wings. Which wasn’t abnormal, usually only highblood fairies had wings. She looked to be around nine, and she was trembling.
He ran a hand through his hair as he turned back to the railing.
A groan sounded up from the woman as she rolled over.
“Wait!” Techno called. Any wrong movements could sink the entire thing.
With a gasp she shot upright, sputtering a cough as her eyes bulged.
The fairy let out a whimper as she clutched the railing.
Techno racked his brain for a solution to get them both up quickly enough.
But as the woman's eyes adjusted to her surroundings, Techno saw her mind already working.
“Careful,” He said. “ I want to help. We have to get you both out of there, just-“
Her eyes shifted to the other little girl’s form, a satyr. She hadn’t yet stirred, curled up at the woman’s side.
Before Techno could say anything, the woman scooped the girl up into her arms, pushing towards the gangplank.
They made it halfway before the bed frame slipped the rest of the way underwater, the plank slipping with it.
The woman had just enough time to shove the girl into Techno’s arms before her feet fell out from under her.
She landed hard with a grunt, her ribs bent over the edge of the deck, her hands braced against the floorboards.
Techno quickly set the satyr girl down and both he and the fairy scrambled to pull the woman onto the deck.
Once she was safely on board, she rolled over onto her back, a soft sob wracking through her body.
The fairy girl went around him to kneel beside the satyr. “Puffy?” She whispered. She drew Puffy’s hand into her own, squeezing it tightly.
Techno stood silently, the devastation around him tugging at his chest.
“Puffy, please wake up,” The Fairy girl begged.
It was a very long silence.
And when the satyr’s chest heaved, it shattered as everyone let out a sigh of relief.
It took Puffy a bit longer to come to, but when she did, she was sobbing.
One of her horns was snapped, and it looked like it had cut a gash through her eye. The left side of her head, which had previously been covered by her white hair, was mangled and bloody.
The fairy let out a gasp, leaning back a bit, but refusing to let go of her hand. The irony of the wound placement made Teehno’s chest throb as he reached to touch his own bandaged eye.
“It hurts,” Puffy whimpered.
“Oh my gods,” The woman inhaled, falling to her knees beside the Fairy. “Please, can you help her?” She pleaded to him.
Blood-
Techno felt his tongue grow heavy as he took a retreating step back. “I..” The red seemed to stain his eyelids, and he had to focus to stop the tremor in his hands. “There’s bandages and rubbing alcohol below deck, It might-“
“Niki, please, get it.” The woman demanded.
Niki took a long look at Puffy, her eyes welling up, before dashing below deck.
The woman muttered soft coos under her breath that Techno couldn’t hear, gently brushing the curls from Puffy’s forehead.
Niki returned a moment later, her arms full of medical supplies.
The woman immediately set to work, Niki close at her shoulder. Techno inhaled, trying to settle his breathing.
Confident that he could be of no more use to them, he retreated to the gundeck after raising the anchor.
He couldn’t handle the looming remains of the wreckage for much longer.
Nestling himself in his favorite corner atop a set of barrels strung together, he turned his gaze to the ocean as the last pieces of the wreckage drifted away.
His thoughts became hard to control, this whole ordeal dredging up older memories. The fairy’s pink hair, the motherly care in the woman’s eyes. The deep red painting the simple oak floorboards.
He sat in silence for a long time, listening to the soft but urgent mutterings on the deck below him.
It had been almost an hour before he heard footsteps ascending the small ladder to the gundeck.
The woman came to stand in front of him, and he swung his legs down from their elevated position atop a spare crate. Her face had settled into relief, and he assumed the Satyr would be alright.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I set the girls up in the hold. They’ve fallen asleep in a straw pile, if that’s alright.” She said, folding her hands in front of her. She didn’t seem put off at all by him. Not a blink at the bandages he had over his eye. Not any mention of the remaining Piglin features he couldn’t figure out how to mask. Not even the burned holes in his clothes he hadn’t bothered to repair.
It was almost… Refreshing.
“Yeah, that's fine.” He replied, not sure what else to say.
“Thank you.” She said, “For helping us. You weren't obligated to, and yet you did. It's rare to find a pirate with such kindness in his heart.”
His ears perked up. “Pirate?”
“Are you not?”
“Uh- Yes, of course. A pirate.”
She smiled, with no malice masked underneath. “And how old are you, Captain?” She asked.
He straightened his spine. “Fourteen.”
“Really?” She exclaimed. “And you’re all on your own? My Gods, the amount of children left on their own I’ve come across is horrid.”
“You mean they’re not your kids?” He asked slowly.
“No, actually. I met them on the passenger vessel. They were traveling on their own, off to live with some estranged uncle of Puffy’s.” She waved the question away. “But I do have a son, back home. He’s only a few years younger than you, actually. I…” Techno saw her struggling to hold back tears she had been harboring for a long time. “I promised him I would be home soon.”
Techno glanced down at his hands, at a loss for words.
“ …You wouldn’t happen to know of a town called Hypixel ? Or where it is?”
He sighed. “No. I'm sorry. I don’t even have a map. I only recently… Gained ownership of this boat. And I kind of left in a hurry. I haven’t really been tracking where I’m headed either.”
Her shoulders deflated, her hand reaching to clutch a golden chain around her neck. She flicked it between her fingers, and he caught sight of a red locket and a silver ring.
“But… If you want, you guys could join my crew, and I can help you look for your home?”
She paused for a moment. “Your crew?”
“It’s a work in progress at the moment- And my ship is a little small, but I can promise, I’m gonna be the best captain the S.M.P Seas have ever seen-!” It was an idea he had considered during his many months alone, and currently, it seemed to be his best option.
A bit of her gentle smile returned.
“Whatever you say, Captain . ”
So as the sky painted itself gold gently under the lavender clouds, a story began.
…
It was a late evening, and the eleven year old boy was sitting up by the dying fire. He tended to gravitate towards it in the evenings, when the shadows stretched long in every other corner of the house. So all the life of the giant house was confined to that single room, as the little boy waited for his father to get home.
Tonight, it was later than normal, and Will’s eyes were starting to grow heavy. But he stayed awake, as he always did, with his charcoals and parchment spread wide across the table.
His father had just returned from a week-long trip to another seaside town with news of a terrible fire. It had decimated an entire section of the town, leaving few survivors. His father had refused to speak to him about it, and Will saw how deeply it tugged at his father’s heart.
He knew it didn’t help settle the older man’s nerves with the fact that Will's mother had yet to write home to them.
He drummed his fingers on the table as he blinked the tiredness from his eyes.
He heard the rain and thunder pouring in from the seas of the small seaside town, but he chose to ignore it. Because if he didn’t, he would start to worry.
His hands scrubbed and smudged at the parchment, hard at work on his latest sketches. This one was important, his first ever ‘commission’. When his mother had told him she was leaving to visit her parents on a far island, she asked him to draw her a portrait of the three of them, to give to her when she got back. He nodded furiously, afraid to let his tears show. But she had simply swept him up into her arms, spinning them around the living room, as she muttered about how tall he was getting.
That had been two months ago.
He had gone through at least six different sketches, none of them to his liking. He had discarded most of them, only keeping his two most recent ones, the only ones which were the most presentable.
His hand slipped as the front door pushed open, a hard onslaught of rain tearing through the crackling light. The already fading fire simmered, depleting to only a few burning embers.
“Father?” Will called.
There was no reply, only the familiar drag of feathers on hardwood as the door was pushed shut again.
He rose to his feet slowly, pulling the blanket he had stolen from his bed tighter around his shoulders.
“Father, come look at this new sketch!” He called, picking it up.
He heard a long sigh from his father.
When Phil came to stand in the doorway, Will immediately could tell something was very wrong.
Phil’s frame was broken and small, his shoulders pulled so low that one would think they had carried the heaviest of tragedies.
He raised his hand to remove his hat, setting it on the shelf next to him, but his hand clutched tightly to the wooden corner.
And then, with a great shudder, Will’s father fell to his knees.
Will fell to his own knees in front of him, paying no mind to the splinters piercing through his pants. “Father, what's…”
A sob escaped Phil’s throat, as he pulled the little boy towards him with one arm, the other clutching a single piece of paper.
Wilbur easily folded into his father’s figure, still not quite as tall as him. “What is it? Is that a letter from Mother? Is she finally returning?”
Phil shuddered harder, and Will saw the paper crumple in his tight grasp. “I'm so sorry, Will.” His father choked. He placed a hand against Wilbur’s cheek, brushing one of his curls from his forehead.
Will gently reached forward and unfurled his fingers, taking the paper from his hands.
His eyes only managed to discern certain words as tears were already building in his own eyes.
With deep regret…
Some great force…
Storm or other means…
“No…”
A Great wreckage…
“No!”
“Wilbur-“
No survivors were found.
Wilbur couldn’t bring himself to finish the letter before his feet pushed him away from his father and out the door.
…
He ran as far as his feet would take him through the cobbled roads, then wooden docks, and finally sand.
He couldn’t recall any of his thoughts on the way down, only on how his tears were masked by the stinging rain.
He finally let himself collapse with a sob at the edge of the raging surf.
His lungs heaved as his eyes struck the roaring horizon, each breath a gasp that wracked his entire frame.
His eyes desperately searched the seas. A tiny, stupid part of him hoped to see a ship bound for the docks, mounting the angry waves, with his mother at the helm.
Because there was no way she could be gone . Surely, the letter had been wrong. His mother was homebound now, and she would sweep him up in her arms as she always did, and he would show her her drawing-
The drawing.
He glanced down at his fist, clenched tightly around the sketch.
Paying no mind to the surf as it retreated, he slowly uncurled his fingers and gently uncrumpled the sketch.
It was not yet completely soaked, but it also wasn’t dry. Using his body to shield it from further water damage, he traced his finger over the lines.
It felt like a second slap to the face when he saw how the water had muddied the lines around his mother’s face.
His teeth rattled as he folded the drawing back up, sealing it tightly in his pouch at his waist.
“Wilbur?” His father called from above him on the docks.
Wilbur sniffed.
“Wilbur, please come back home. It's too dangerous out here!” He yelled.
Wilbur raised his head to look at him, who stood around fifty paces away.
They shared a singular, heartbroken look.
“Will. Please. I need you.”
The eleven year old boy shuddered.
It took all his strength to stand, to turn towards his father.
So one could imagine how easy it was for the sea to pull him away.
…
Phil combed the ocean’s surface for days.
…
Silly, stupid human boy.
You’d think he’d know better than to go swimming in the midst of a storm.
He’s Lucky I found him.
He’s Lucky he’s been so kind to me. I ought to let him drown.
Yes, such a lucky human.
…