Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This map is a zoomed in version of the Overworld map found in Dark Lies to better show the path of the journey taken. Enjoy!

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Chapter Text

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(POV: Breaker)

It was truly a surprise that the girl (Erin, he supposed) came to free him that night.

He had fully expected to rot away and die. Or, at the very least, rot away for another few weeks before he was able to convince her to release him, but instead she went and did it of her own accord.

Breaker was weak from his time in the cell and all the experiments he was put through while imprisoned, but still managed to keep up with Erin anyway. He could tell something happened while she was away for that political meeting. There was something different about her, in the way she walked, in the way her hands shook, and in the way her eyes watched the shadows.

He was tempted to ask what happened, but he figured that he should wait until they were clear of the mansion first in case his questioning caused her to snap.

Breaker was going to take the chance of escape for what it was and get the hell out of there.

They walked through the flood tunnels quietly, crouched to fit through the low ceilings and their feet splashing in the stagnant water. Breaker held his lit torch aloft to light their way, unable to forget the smile that crossed Erin’s face when he asked for a flint and steel just like he did when they first met.

The smile had vanished when they returned to the problem at hand, however. Breaker understood that this had to be incredibly difficult for her; he supposed he could relate a little, knowing what it’s like to turn your back on what you thought was home.

But it wasn’t his place to say anything about it, so Breaker resolved to instead protect Erin and ensure she made it safely to spawn. If there was one thing he could do well, it was fight.

Although, from what he’d seen, so could Erin. The dark-haired girl was proficient with the diamond axe she carried on her back, and the arrow-shaped scabs on his torso said all that needed to be said about her skill with a crossbow.

After quite some time of walking in silence, Erin stopped. Breaker leaned around her to see why, and was met with a similar looking grate to the one they had used to get into the tunnels set into the end of the tunnel before them.

Breaker looked between Erin and the grate. “Do you want me to…?” He gestured with his free hand toward the grate.

Erin snapped back to attention from where she was staring at her compass. “Oh- uh, sure.”

Breaker nodded, and handed her the torch. He approached the grate, pushing on it a little. It bowed slightly under the pressure, the vines growing on the outside of the metal cracking. He didn’t want to damage his fire aspect dagger anymore, so maybe…

He backed up a few steps, and then kicked it, a loud sound echoing through the tunnels.

“What-!” Erin yelped in surprise.

The grate was cracked open a little, the rusted bolts and old welding giving under the force.

Breaker smirked. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“You just- why?!” Erin spluttered.

He just shrugged in response, returning to the grate to completely push it forward and out. The branches and overgrown vines on the exterior of it snapped loudly. Breaker managed to catch the grate and lower it to the ground outside the tunnel so at the very least it didn’t make too loud of a sound outside.

Still crouched by the grate, Breaker looked over his shoulder at Erin and grinned.

“I hope nobody heard that,” Erin growled, stalking over to the open grate. Breaker slid aside to allow Erin to poke her head out of the hole. She checked for monsters before pulling back in.

“Clear.” She smothered the torch in the stagnant waters at their feet, and shifted to swing herself out of the exit feet first.

Breaker watched as she landed on the mossy stone below the exit, and patiently waited for her to move out of the way before following.

The night air was cool and damp, the dark forest filled with the sounds of nocturnal creatures buzzing. Faint lantern light (well, Breaker assumed it was lantern light, although he didn’t exactly have a good track record of assuming things) shone from the hill behind them, filtering through the trees.

Breaker swung out of the grate, his landing unsteady and louder than he would have liked. Erin glared at him, the loud sound obviously putting her on edge.

“Sorry, can’t help it,” Breaker muttered, brushing himself off and pointedly ignoring the withered foliage where his hands touched the ground. “You’ve got the compass, where to?”

“This way.” Erin nodded out toward the forest. “No path or lights but-”

“We’ll be fine,” Breaker interjected. “Let’s move, we should get as far away as we can while it’s still dark and they don’t know we’re gone.”

Erin nodded in agreement, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. She was really nervous about this whole thing, Breaker noted, and was very afraid of being caught.

He wondered if she was in any real danger. If Breaker was caught, he’d surely be killed on the spot. Erin was one of their own, still young and in training, yet she so greatly feared going back.

Souls, what happened while she was gone?

Erin removed her axe from where it was sheathed, holding it in a defensive grip as she began walking through the forest. Her compass now hung from her belt, allowing her to hold her axe with both hands.

Breaker followed closely behind, dagger in hand and on high alert. Erin picked up the pace slightly, moving quickly over fallen leaves and between branches. He heard a groan of a zombie off to their left, and Erin startled, freezing.

“Don’t stop, keep moving! Zombies are slow as fuck, we’ll be fine!” Breaker hissed, nudging the girl forward with his elbow.

The physical contact definitely got through to her, as she jolted back to attention and nodded in agreement. “Okay,” she whispered.

“Just run. Try to stay quiet but just run. Don’t fight if you don’t have to.” Breaker waited for her to nod in response before adding, “I’m following you, by the way.”

“Right.”

Together they began running through the forest, dodging branches and ducking between giant mushrooms.

Suddenly a spider descended from above, jumping directly over top of Breaker. The netherborn’s battle reflexes kicked in, and he quickly swerved out of the path of danger with a slash to the spider’s neck. The spider screeched and died before its body even hit the ground, dissolving into bright particles.

Erin, who must not have noticed the threat until after Breaker had killed it, had turned around to gape at Breaker with wide eyes.

“Come on, keep going!” Breaker hissed, snapping the girl out of her surprise.

Erin blinked, nodded, and turned on her heel to continue running. Breaker recalled how she was able to fight him and even point blank shoot him without freezing up too much, and how different she acted now.

Questions for later, for when she wasn’t his only lifeline through the forest, Breaker reminded himself.

Every sound, every shifting shadow in the darkness, every footfall over crunching leaves and snapping twigs had Breaker’s attention. He needed to stay alert and stay fighting. He was good at that.

Erin kept running, and Breaker followed.

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Chapter Text

(POV: Breaker)

It took a very long time to reach the point where the endless trees and thick mushrooms began to thin. Breaker would have said it took hours, but his sense of time had never been accurate, so instead he settled with ‘a very long time’.

They had alternated between running and walking, as it seemed both of them weren’t in peak physical condition. Still, Erin’s stamina was quite impressive, if not fear and adrenaline-driven. Breaker was not looking forward to the moment that she crashed.

Speaking of which.

Erin sat down heavily on a rotting log, breaths heaving and head in her hands. Her axe was resting against the log at her side. Breaker took this as his cue to rest also, collapsing more than sitting down against a tree near the girl.

His runes were burning from exertion, growing from a tingling on his spine to a crawling itching burning as he rested. Such was the life of a malnourished, exhausted, and injured fusion hybrid.

“Hey,” Breaker began, getting Erin’s attention. “It’s not really safe here, we should move soon.”

“Just a minute,” she panted in response.

“Alright. Just… are we close to anything remotely safe?”

Erin looked up, and pointed east. “There should be a town outside of the forest.”

That close to the dark forest? There was no way that it was safe from the crazy people in the mansion they were running from.

Breaker voiced these thoughts, and Erin shook her head.

“It’s a Hyacinth town. They won’t think to look there.”

Hyacinth… Yeah no, he’s not sure on that one.

“Hyacinth…?”

Even in the darkness, Breaker could still feel Erin’s disappointed expression. “The Hyacinth Empire. The largest empire in the world. You know, that Hyacinth?”

“Oh, my bad, it’s not exactly my fault I’m from an entirely different dimension.” Breaker sarcastically responded. Sensing the tension rising in the air from his snarky response, he added, “thank you for the information, though.”

Erin huffed, and Breaker was unsure if the sound was lighthearted or condescending. “We should go.” He heard her rise from her log.

Breaker hummed in agreement, rising from the ground with great difficulty. His joints snapped like twigs underfoot, and both of them flinched at the sound.

“Sorry! It’s just my bones!” Breaker whisper-shouted, dusting off his pants.

“Wait, speaking of which,” Erin stood, pivoting toward Breaker. “Are you like, covered? Passable as human?”

Breaker looked down to survey himself in the dark. His right forearm and hand were bone as usual, and due to his malnourishment so was his left hand and various parts of his ribs. He didn’t have a shirt, and was literally using a shitty blanket wrapped over his shoulder and tied around his waist to cover his torso. On top of that he knew for a fact that his jaw was still bone, even more so than it usually was, and there were blackened stains from wither essence all over his ‘clothing’.

The Netherborn looked back up at Erin. “I literally am wearing a blanket as a shirt, what the hell do you think?” He deadpanned.

She sighed, shaky and stressed. “Okay, um, take this-” she unfastened her cloak and threw it at Breaker, who haphazardly caught the fabric. “-and just, use it to get into the town.”

“Thanks.” He put on the cloak and arranged it around himself as he walked, grateful for his ally’s foresight. “I’m surprised you thought about that.”

“I’m not stupid. Anyone would have thought you were a mob and attacked you if you walked in somewhere looking like that.”

“Heh, you would know.”

Erin grew silent. “I’m sorry about that, by the way,” she solemnly replied.

She was really apologising for shooting him all those days ago? Really?

“Don’t worry about it, I don’t blame you. You were just doing your job and no real harm was done anyway.” Breaker assured.

“I shot you. In the chest. Twice.”

Breaker shrugged, even though she probably couldn’t even see the gesture in the dark. “Wasn’t that bad. Seriously, cave girl, don’t feel sorry.”

He could practically feel her incredulous gaze on him. Yes, he’d had worse than getting shot twice in the chest. No, he was not going to elaborate.

Breaker realised at that moment that he could smell smoke. They were close to the town, and now he could change the subject. “I smell smoke ahead. We’re close.”

“Okay.” Erin fell silent as she led the way out of the woods, and soon a light was visible in the distance, glowing warmly from behind a hill. The forest was at their backs now, and there were monsters in the fields between them and the town.

Both runaways froze, standing side by side at the edge of the treeline.

Breaker turned to Erin. “We run for it?” He questioned.

“We run for it,” she agreed. “On three.”

Breaker nodded, poised to run.

“One…

“Two…

“Three!”

Together they burst from the treeline, running for the safety of the town. Breaker nearly tripped over a shrub but corrected himself in time to avoid the wayward swipes of an undead creature, and continued his sprint.

He crested the hill, and the small town was visible below him. A quick glance to his side showed that Erin had kept pace. Once they both had confirmed that the other had made it, they ran downhill and onto the gravelly roads of the town.

Now onto the roads, they slowed their pace. Breaker tugged the hood of the cloak lower on his head, tucking his hands into its folds.

Moments later they approached the town walls, if they could even be considered walls. They were more like fences with small towers for guard posts, lit by lanterns and torches.

A guardsman spotted them approaching and shouted, “Who goes there?!”

It was Erin that responded. “Travellers seeking a place to rest, sir. We got lost, you see.” The lie slipped smoothly from her lips and Breaker had to admire how quickly she was able to produce the lie.

Well, if she was raised in a mansion full of liars and secrets, it only makes sense that she’d be adept in the art.

The guardsman bought the act, his posture no longer defensive. “Alright miss, sorry for the harsh greeting, s’just routine you see.”

“Oh, no, it’s alright.” It was almost painful for Breaker to endure Erin’s facade. The fakeness of her smile and voice was just… eugh.

The village’s gates opened for them, a guardsman down on the ground ushering them inside before any monsters dared to follow.

“The inn is just down the road, the place with the big lanterns on the porch,” the guardsman directed as he closed the gates. “You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you sir.” Erin said, bowing. Breaker mimicked her movements.

As they walked down to the inn, Erin whispered, “you could have helped me out there.”

“No, I couldn’t have.” Breaker replied, keeping his head and voice low. “I can’t fake an Overworldian accent for shit, they’ll pin me as Netherborn and then we both get fucked over.”

“Seriously?!” She hissed.

“Yes! Trust me, I’ve tried! Been there, done that, and it’s not good!” Breaker exhaled, exasperated. “You can do the talking, right?”

“Fine.” Erin was obviously not happy with the deal and was still not acting quite right, but she relented. Probably because she knew Breaker was right about the whole ‘everything will go to shit if they know what I am’ thing.

And so, Breaker trailed behind Erin like a piglin runt, keeping his head low and staying close to her back.

It took no time at all to find the inn, the building quite distinctive amongst the smaller village homes and little stores in between. The big lanterns on the porch that the guardsman had mentioned cast warm light upon the duo, and Breaker reluctantly realised that there was no way to hide in the brightness. In the dark, his eyes could pass as being a dark shade, but in the full light they were glaringly obvious with their black sclera and bright white irises.

Oh well. Hopefully he wouldn’t end up with his head on a stick.

They entered the inn, a small bell above the door jingling as they pushed open the creaky wooden door. A middle-aged man sat at the front desk, looking bored and tired and like he needed to shave a few days ago.

As the two approached the counter, the inn worker looked them both over, and Breaker didn’t miss how his eyes lingered on Erin’s strange robes and Breaker’s hooded face.

“You lookin’ for lodgin’?” He drawled.

“Yes sir. Just one night will be fine.” Erin diplomatically replied.

“Alrighty. How many rooms?”

“Two, please.”

“That’ll be 200 gold.”

Erin gaped in response, and even Breaker found himself taken aback. That was far too steep a price for a single night, especially in a small inn like that.

But then Breaker noticed the lingering gaze of the inn worker on him, and realised the reason for the overpriced room: he’d figured out Breaker wasn’t human. At least he wasn’t reacting violently, but it still annoyed Breaker to no end that all he did to this guy was exist and that was reason enough to hate him.

Erin was about to protest the prices, tension and anxiety still lining her frame and fiery desperation in her eyes. Breaker knew that she had no idea why the inn worker was doing what he was doing, and would probably end up accidentally escalating things, especially considering the girl’s state of mind for the past few… however long it was.

“One room then. 100 gold.” Breaker cut in, allowing his Netherborn accent to permeate his words. He aimed to intimidate, his stance defensive and eyes narrowed, and it appeared that his efforts paid off.

The inn worker’s eyes widened. “Fine.”

There was a tense moment where nobody moved. Breaker nudged Erin, knowing that he sure as hell couldn’t pay for this.

She flinched, but seemed to snap back to attention nonetheless. Erin stepped forward and placed the appropriate payment on the counter none too gently.

The inn worker took the money and set an old looking key down in its place, not looking at the two anymore.

Erin snatched the key, muttering a "thank you" before quickly walking to the staircase that led to where their room was.

Breaker followed, and he knew she was going to be pissed with him for what he did, especially since it went back on what he said before. Oh well, it worked didn't it?

With Erin’s quick pace, it took no time at all to reach the wooden door of their room. She unlocked the door and strode inside, immediately moving to light the lanterns in the room. Breaker stepped inside behind her and closed the door, awkwardly standing there as he waited for her to finish lighting the lanterns.

When she finished, she huffed and spun to face him. “What was that?” She snapped.

Breaker winced. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“I had it handled! You told me to handle it!” She threw her hands up, Breaker fully aware of the way her hands were shaking.

“Listen, the guy took one look at me and then overcharged us. He already knew I was Netherborn so I negotiated.”

“That’s what you call negotiating-!” Erin put a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with... some kind of negative emotion. Fear? Horror? It looked bad, and Breaker reckoned it was some kind of flashback again. He gets those sometimes too.

“You good?”

She nodded, but the look in her eyes said otherwise.

“Uh, okay. Sure.” Breaker turned to the singular bed in the room. “I’ll take the floor,” he declared.

And of course that seemed to snap Erin out of whatever moment she was having.

“No, why-” She protested.

“I like it,” Breaker cut her off. “I’ve slept in beds a few times and I can’t ever sleep. It feels like I’m drowning or suffocating or some horrible shit. You take the bed, the floor is mine.”

Erin reluctantly nodded. “I… I think I’m going to go wash up.”

“Good idea.”

Without saying another word, she walked over to the bathroom and closed the door. Breaker could hear the sounds of running water not long after the door shut, and proceeded to scavenge the room for extra bedding.

There was plenty of extra bedding in a small chest at the foot of the bed, and he took it all out and spread it on the floor between the bed, the wall, and the door. It was the most defensible position and he would be awoken immediately if anything opened the door.

No, he wasn’t paranoid. It was just a precaution. That’s all it was.

Breaker arranged his bedding and then flopped down in it, his exhaustion hitting hard. He was tired but souls was he glad to be out of that dungeon.

They had literally performed experiments on him down there - taken vials upon vials of his wither essence (despite the fact that it was essentially his blood and he needed it to survive-) and copied down every rune on his back in excruciating detail.

He hated to think what they did with the knowledge they gained from studying him. He just hoped he wasn’t going to be killed for it later.

Breaker didn’t realise that he had dozed off until he registered a hand on his shoulder shaking him awake. He startled, nearly slashing poor Erin.

“Sorry-” they both said at the same time.

“What’s going-” Breaker started.

“There’s more runes and I don’t know what to do and I can’t see them all and they itch like the last one did and there’s so many more-” Erin frantically said. Now that he was more aware of the situation, Breaker could see the distress written all over her face and shaking hands.

More runes? Shit, what did those people do to her?

Breaker pulled himself to his feet, bones popping. “Erin, breathe. Where are the runes?”

Erin took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. “They- They’re on my back.”

“Okay,” Breaker slowly said.

“I can’t see them all, even with the mirror in the bathroom.”

“Okay.” Breaker paused, and continued, “do you want me to look at them, or..?”

She hesitated. “I… yes. Please.”

The look in her eyes was strange but yet they still shone with determination. She was remarkably strong considering everything she had ever known was crashing down around her.

Breaker nodded. “Okay, show me.”

Erin slowly turned around and lifted her shirt so Breaker could see her back, the front of her shirt still down but the back up above her shoulders. The gesture would definitely have been misinterpreted by an outsider, but Breaker did not see the implications of being in the same room as a young woman without her top on, nor did he care.

He was honoured by the blatant show of trust that came with Erin turning her unprotected back to him, but those thoughts were instantly pushed aside by what he saw.

In two perfect parallel lines trailing from her shoulders to the small of her back were dozens of runes. Most were written in a dark shimmering ink but many other runes layered over and around them were written in a messy black. The skin around the runes was visibly irritated, rubbed and scratched raw.

But it wasn’t the strange glittering ink that made Breaker gasp, nor was it the sheer number of runes, or the fact that he couldn’t read them.

It was the fact that the runes moved.

“What is it? You see them too, right?!” Erin demanded, panicked.

“I-yes, I see them,” Breaker replied. “They… have you ever seen runes that move before?” He’d never seen anything like them before. Hell, he didn’t even know it was possible to make runes move like that.

“Oh Notch, I thought I was hallucinating, the green ones, they’re actually moving oh my god-”

“Unless we’re both hallucinating, then yes, they’re somehow moving.” Breaker was too shocked himself to properly process and keep Erin calm. She was definitely panicking.

“Oh my god. What- what do they look like? What is it?”

Breaker shook his head in incredulity. “Some of it’s Ender Runic but some of this… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The symbols were rounded and overlapping, shifting between different sets of markings every few moments. Some of the symbols shifted into the sharp angles of Ender Runic the longer he looked at them, but most of the shimmering ones remained in that strange language.

“What does it do? Oh my god, I’m not human, oh my god-”

“Yeah no, with this runework there’s no way you’re human.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say since Erin hunched inward on herself, her hands gripping the upper arms of her shirt.

“I’ll- uh- do you want me to like, describe it to you?” Breaker tried.

“Hold on,” she said, letting her shirt fall back over her back and shoulders as she went to her pack to retrieve something. She returned a few moments later holding a small journal and a stick of graphite, and she held them out for Breaker to take.

He hesitantly accepted them, knowing full well that he had no idea how to write properly nor how to do so with both of his hands so decayed from malnutrition.

“Write them down, please, I need to know, I need-” She let out a shaky exhale. “Please.”

“Okay,” Breaker agreed. “I’ll do my best.”

He fumbled with the graphite and observed the runes as best as he could, sketching down rough imitations of the strange symbols. After a few minutes he could tell Erin was getting impatient as she fidgeted with the hems of her sleeves and repeatedly rolled her shoulders.

“I think I got enough.” Breaker said, setting down the graphite on the book and handing it back to Erin when she spun around. She let her shirt fall back over her back and sat down on the bed scanning the pages. She looked through the messy sketches intently to try and understand something about them.

Breaker watched her, waiting to see what her conclusion was.

“I’ve never seen this language before,” she muttered. “It’s not Ender Runic, it’s not normal Ender, it’s not common, or, or…”

“It doesn’t look like Netherborn writing either,” Breaker supplied.

Listen, he may have no clue how to read anything but he at least knew what piglin script looked like.

Erin shook her head. “No, but this, this symbol you wrote a few times here, is similar to the invisibility rune from last time but far more advanced in nature. It essentially translates to concealment, but that doesn’t explain why it moves!”

Breaker shrugged. “I have no idea.”

A moment of tense silence followed as Erin blankly stared at the journal pages.

“Take them off.”

Breaker blinked in surprise at her words, blunt and demanding. “What?”

“I said take them off,” she repeated. “Take off the runes. Your wither worked last time and it should work again, take them off!”

Breaker recoiled. “What?! Are you really sure that’s-”

“Yes! Please! Take them off!”

“Wait a second, Erin!” Breaker snapped. “If these runes are at all similar to mine or any of the other networks I’ve seen, they could be responsible for keeping you alive and whole, we don’t know what could happen if we just… get rid of them.”

Erin considered his words, looking up at Breaker with shining eyes.

“I… these runes are still concealing something more. I can’t… I have to get rid of them. Get rid of what- what they did to me.”

Breaker could not deny the resolve in her eyes, the genuine shaking fear and desire to be freed from whatever had been drawn on her skin. He understood all too well, but still wondered if her fear would be the death of her.

“You still understand that this could kill you, right?”

She nodded. “Yes… I just- I need to know what they’re hiding, what I really am. Don’t you get that?”

He did get that. “Okay… There are better ways to visit spawn, though.”

Erin laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Just… get it over with, yeah?”

Breaker sighed. “Alright.”

He approached Erin and she turned her back to him, lifting her shirt again. The runes stood out harshly against her light skin, swirling and shifting in the dim light. Breaker lifted his hands, flexing and stretching the joints until his exposed black bones were damp with wither essence.

“Tell me if it hurts,” he said, tentatively reaching out a finger to touch the first rune. Erin flinched as the rune began to dissolve before Breaker’s eyes, sizzling into shiny, murky residue. Breaker picked up Erin’s towel from where she had left it on the bedpost, thankful that something was nearby to wipe off the residue.

“Feels weird but it doesn’t hurt,” Erin said, speaking before Breaker could ask.

“Okay.”

It was quite strange being able to make contact with another living thing without it withering away and dying beneath the bones of his fingers. Every now and then throughout the process Breaker had to force himself past an instinctive fear of hurting or killing Erin, telling himself that nothing was going to happen. At that point, it was glaringly obvious that she was definitely somewhat immune to wither essence, at most causing mild skin irritation, but even that could be argued to have been caused by the runes.

He continued until all of the runes were gone, wiped away by the damp towel and leaving streaks of irritated skin and dark ink on her back.

“They’re gone,” Breaker said, stepping back and stretching his hands with quiet pops.

Erin exhaled in relief. “All of them?”

“Yes,” Breaker confirmed. He handed the messy towel to Erin, saying, “in case there’s still some residue.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“Yeah, uh, sure,” Breaker replied, standing awkwardly near the bed as she cleaned the rest of the inky residue off of herself.

“I don’t feel any different though,” Erin noted, adjusting her shirt.

“Really? At all?” Breaker was shocked, he’d expected something at the very least with the exceptional amount of runework on her back.

“Not really, just… tired.”

“Maybe you should sleep or something,” Breaker suggested.

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’ll keep watch for a bit and make sure you don’t die in your sleep or something,” he added, smirking as the girl spluttered slightly in response.

“I’m not-! Really?”

Breaker shrugged.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Fine. I’ll sleep.”

“Alright.”

Erin arranged herself in the bed, not daring to keep her back to the door and by extension, facing Breaker. Breaker followed suit and lowered himself back into the blanket nest he’d made for himself on the floor, leaning back against the mattress.

“Tomorrow we’ll keep moving east,” Erin said. “We’ll check the map in the morning to see where to go.”

“Sure thing.” Breaker wondered when it had started being ‘we’ and ‘us’ rather than just him and her. He wasn’t sure.

A silence followed. Breaker was tempted to ask about what happened to make Erin change her mind, but a part of him was still wary of breaking their trust.

“Why did you do it?” Erin murmured.

“Do what?”

“You protected me,” she explained. “Back when you first found the mansion. You said you found it on your own even though you followed me through the teleportation rune. Why did you do that?”

Breaker was surprised she was only asking that now after all of the conversations they’d had. “You were scared, I could see it. I wasn’t going to get you in deep shit for my mistake. Souls know I should never have touched that thing.”

“Really, touching the magic portal, great idea,” Erin quipped.

Breaker knew she was deflecting but took the bait anyway. “In my defence, I thought it worked like a Nether Portal and wouldn’t take me instantly.”

“It doesn’t look anything like a Nether Portal!”

“I don’t know!”

Erin snorted, and they fell back into silence.

“You going to go to sleep now, cave girl?” Breaker asked.

“Still with the cave girl,” she muttered. “Maybe.”

Breaker hummed. “It’s easier to say than Erin.” That was true; with the way his Netherborn accent had a sort of staccato roll to his r’s made the ‘air’ sound at the beginning of her name very easy to trip over.

“My full name is Ernaline,” she provided.

“I forgot about that. Ar- Eir- Airna- shit,” Breaker stuttered. “Er-na-line? That’s somehow worse.”

She had the audacity to laugh at him. "Says the one named Breaker."

"It's short for Bonebreaker."

A beat.

"What."

“What?”

“You- why?!”

“That was the name I was given…?” Breaker didn’t really know why she was so startled by that. He didn’t say it to her, but he wasn’t given the name Bonebreaker.

He earned it from the bloodied sands of Firescale.

But he’d left that life behind for a reason, and he saw no need to drag his darkened bloody past back into the light.

“Wow. Just… wow.”

“If you’re done mocking my name, are you going to go to sleep now?”

“Yes! Yeah, fine, I’ll sleep.” He heard her shuffle and move, the sheets rustling. “But you have to admit that your full name being Bonebreaker is a little strange, though.”

“Well, yes,” Breaker conceded. “Why do you think I go by Breaker instead?”

“Fair enough.”

A silence.

“Goodnight,” Erin said.

“Goodnight.”

Breaker sat quietly as she drifted off to sleep, fully intending to stay awake for the rest of the night.

But after all he’d been through, the pull of sleep in a warm location was irresistible, and Breaker soon followed Erin into the embrace of sleep.

Neither was awake when the threads of Ernaline’s code, the strands of her DNA, began responding to the pulls of the outside world, retying and reknitting themselves back together to reform what was bound and hidden.

Everything would change when they awaken.

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Chapter Text

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(POV: Breaker)

Breaker woke up abruptly, bones creaking uncomfortably as he instinctively took stock of his surroundings.

He was facing the door, dagger in his hand, wall to his side and the bedframe to his back.

Safe, defensible, escapable.

He exhaled slowly and loosened his grip on his dagger.

Breaker had not intended to drift off last night but he supposed his body had other plans. At least he got some rest.

He slowly stood and stretched, joints and bones popping loudly. It was the loud sound in the otherwise quiet room that caused Breaker to remember that he was not alone in the room, that Erin was still sleeping behind him.

Breaker whirled around to see that not only was the girl still there, but she was…

Well, she was unmistakably a hybrid, at least.

Unless Breaker somehow missed the wings, but he was pretty sure those weren’t there before they settled into the inn for the night.

Huh.

Breaker blinked a few times, clearing the grogginess from sleep, and upon realising that yes, she did have wings now, switched into planning.

They only had one cloak between the two of them, Erin’s cloak, and there was no way she was going anywhere outside of that room with those wings. She’d need something to cover those now that they would be travelling in the daylight. Breaker however couldn’t give up the cloak to her as it would leave his withered arms and collar exposed, so he’d need to find an alternative.

They’d need another cloak and preferably an actual shirt for Breaker to conceal them both as they travelled.

Towns typically had markets, right? Now that it was daylight, he could probably find somewhere to purchase one. The Overworldian towns he had visited in the past typically operated that way.

Hopefully this one wouldn’t be any different.

Breaker quietly moved through the room, noticing that Erin was still breathing deeply and evenly. Considering she had manifested hybrid traits overnight she probably wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon, which meant Breaker had enough time to run to the market.

He reached her bag that was on the floor next to the bed, carefully rifling through it until he found her purse. He wasn’t stealing, he was borrowing to make sure they didn’t get attacked while travelling.

He didn’t take the whole purse, just what he estimated he’d need, plus a little extra in case the merchants were racist. Which, well.

Anyway.

Breaker retrieved his cloak from his side of the floor and fastened it properly over himself. He pulled his makeshift blanket shirt over his face to cover his withered jaw bone and put his borrowed coins in the pants pocket that didn’t have a hole in it.

“Be right back,” he muttered, knowing that Erin wouldn’t hear him.

Breaker swiftly and silently exited the inn room in search of a market, moving with purpose and prepared to defend himself.

He’d be back before she woke up, surely.

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(POV: Ernaline)

Erin woke slowly, feeling disoriented and exhausted.

Notch, what had happened last night…?

She moved to roll over but was stopped by a strange twinge in her back. It felt like her arms were pinned under her, but when she lifted her hands in front of herself, she knew that wasn’t the case, so…

Erin sat up instead and stretched, only noticing something was different when she realised she was stretching a set of muscles and limbs she shouldn’t have.

She whirled around in a panic, trying to see what was wrong but ended up throwing herself off balance and nearly toppling off of the bed, wings flapping to try and stop her fall.

Wait, wings?!

Erin looked over her shoulder and sure enough, she saw the shape of a dark leathery wing outstretched slightly.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my-

She frantically looked over both shoulders, watching as the strange limbs (not strange, her mind echoed, just different, but not different, just-) twitched and extended with her.

Erin went through multiple breathing exercises before she was able to properly examine the new appendages without panicking more.

They were quite large, and strangely featherless. Wings usually were indicative of birds or avians, but these wings were leathery, shimmering dark grey with black bones framing it.

She was some kind of hybrid, and somehow Evokia had kept that hidden from her. After all they’d put her through, after all their talk of being better than the Elders…

She stood up, balance completely thrown off by the new weight on her back, and upon stumbling backward and forward as she overcompensated, her wings flared out instinctively. They were bigger than she thought they would be too, stretching across the entirety of the small inn room.

Erin knew she had to stop panicking, that she needed to breathe, but she was in so much shock that she couldn’t think about anything else but the new limbs on her back, about all of the things that had been hidden from her, about all of the things that had been lies…

She gripped her pendant, the metal edges digging into her palm. She couldn’t breathe, she wasn’t safe, she was a hybrid, she had wings she didn’t even know about-

There was a knock on the door, and Erin startled, feeling a rumble from deep within her chest.

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(POV: Breaker)

In hindsight, leaving Erin alone in their room was a terrible idea. Breaker was learning a lot of things via hindsight these days, it seemed.

He had successfully bought the items they needed: another cloak, some actual clothing for him, and then spent the remainder on food. It had taken a not insignificant amount of haggling that mostly consisted of using his Netherborn heritage as an intimidation tactic, but he managed it just fine.

He returned to the room in good time, and just to make sure Erin wouldn’t try to decapitate him with her axe, knocked on the door.

A resounding growl replied to his knock.

…okay then.

It didn’t sound like a monster growl, nor anything else Breaker had ever heard. Considering his limited experience with the Overworld, that wasn’t surprising. He hoped something wild hadn’t broken into the inn somehow, or that Erin wasn’t in danger.

Breaker hesitated, and knocked again. He cautiously slipped the key into the lock on the door, moving slowly.

“Erin?” He quietly called as he turned the knob.

There was another growl, but quieter and less threatening somehow. That had to be good enough. Breaker sighed and opened the door all the way.

He quickly slipped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Standing unsteadily in the middle of the room, wings twitching strangely, was Erin.

Her eyes were dilated and she seemed strangely off balance (Breaker realised that was probably because of the giant ass wings on her back, those had to be at least a little heavy).

Breaker dropped his guard as soon as he realised that the weird rumble-growl sound was emanating from her. Oh, the joys of hybrid instincts.

As a wither skeleton fusion, Breaker didn’t actually have any sort of hindbrain instincts like the majority of hybrids had. He’d met quite a few other Netherborn hybrids before though, so he knew just how vicious some of those instincts could get.

So that growling, he concluded, was probably just an instinctual defensive response.

“It’s just me,” he reassured, moving slowly. He walked over to the bed, closer to Erin, and set down what he’d bought.

“I got some shit, didn’t steal it, promise.” Breaker worked on fashioning his old blanket into a bandana-like face covering, watching Erin warily.

Eventually she seemed to come back to herself, and her breathing quickened.

“You good?” Breaker inquired. Oh souls, she was panicking wasn’t she?

“I- I-” Erin stammered. “I have wings.”

“Yeah.”

“They- I- I’m a- a-”

“A hybrid? Yeah, looks like it.” Breaker was honestly just glad the removal of the runes hadn’t completely unravelled her biology and killed her.

“What am I going to do?!” She was starting to get close to hyperventilation levels, Breaker needed to do something.

“Okay, uh- sit down, come on.” Breaker approached her, hands outstretched, and guided her down to sit on the bed. He narrowly avoided getting smacked in the face by one of her black wings as she attempted to rearrange them to sit properly.

“Just- just breathe, alright?” Breaker urged.

“Well excuse me if it’s a little difficult right now!” She snapped.

Breaker sat in silence, at a loss. What was he supposed to do in that situation?

He didn’t know.

So, he waited as Erin struggled to take measured breaths.

Breaker looked over at her, taking in the sight of the wings. He’d never seen anything quite like them before, and he wondered what kind of hybrid she was. Movement from slightly underneath where Erin’s wings were laid out behind her caught Breaker’s eye. He tilted his head to get a better look, and… well, it looked as if Erin also had a tail, of all things.

It reminded him of the snakes he had to fight in the desert, long and dark and ridged with spikes like the knobs of a spine. Her tail swished idly, hidden beneath her wings, and Breaker wondered if Erin had even noticed it yet.

“Sorry,” Erin muttered after a while.

“It’s fine.” Breaker looked at her. “Are you?”

“No.” Erin laughed, a bitter thing. “I don’t know what I am anymore.”

“Me either,” Breaker agreed. “But there’s probably someone who does know.”

Erin sighed. “I know, I just- everything I’ve known is a lie, Breaker. Everything.”

“...yeah. That’s a fair reason to freak out.”

“I’m not- I didn’t-” She sighed again, exasperated. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“I got another cloak,” Breaker said, motioning to the fabric. “I’ll give yours back to you and take that one, unless you want it.”

“No, I- I’m okay with my old one, thank you… why?”

“Wings.” Breaker shrugged. “No idea what kind of hybrid you are, so no idea if it’s common for you to get shot at on sight.”

Erin winced. “Okay.”

“And then we can keep travelling, right?”

“‘We’?” Erin replied sceptically.

“I thought we agreed to keep going East to Spawn?”

“Well, I know, just-”

“If you think the hybrid thing is an issue I should remind you my blood kills living things on contact.”

Erin paled. “Yes, I- I know that…”

Breaker stared at her quizzically, but didn’t press the issue. She’d obviously been through some shit and seen things, but she was in no state to talk about that right now. Not that he was one to judge, just that… she needed some time to calm down, probably. And Breaker needed to make sure that Erin wasn’t going to leave him for dead. Not that he cared if she left now that he was out of that weird ass mansion, but-

“How late is it?” Erin asked, changing the subject.

“I don’t know, the sky’s bright?”

She turned to look at him, a disbelieving expression on her face. “Is it like, noon? Afternoon? Morning?”

“I literally don’t know, it just isn’t dark out anymore.” Breaker still had a hard time grasping the Overworldian day/night cycle, especially the fact that they somehow measured it, even after having lived in the Overworld for a while. What mattered to him was if the sky was bright enough for monsters, and he never got the chance to learn much else.

Erin sighed. “That’s- okay, that’s fine. I’ll just…” She shakily stood, her wings twitching and nearly flaring out to try and help her balance, and walked to the small window in their room.

Breaker watched and waited as she gingerly opened the curtains, wincing at the bright sunlight, and determined the time of day.

“It can’t be too long after midday,” she concluded, backing away and letting the curtains fall back closed.

“Okay. Are you ready to go now, or…?”

Her shoulders rose and fell with practised, measured breaths. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Great.”

An awkward silence fell over them.

“I’m just gonna-” Erin gestured to the bathroom, glancing at Breaker.

“Yeah, yep, go ahead,” Breaker responded. “I’ll uh, I’ll be here.”

She nodded, and walked unsteadily to the bathroom.

Breaker turned his attention back to the fabric he was currently ripping apart to make into a face covering. He flexed his black bone fingers, and got to work.

Soon, they’d be back on the road, all their inhuman parts concealed with dark cloth. The long road to spawn was only beginning, and souls knew what lied in wait along their path.

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Chapter Text

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(POV: Breaker)

As daunting as the journey ahead of them was, especially with the knowledge that they were technically running away from something, the eastern road from the quiet town of Mirfield was equally quiet.

The grassy fields of the plains rustled in the breeze, slightly clouded sunlight shining down from above. The distant treeline of the woods that held their next destination was visible from the crest of the hills.

Breaker felt almost uneasy at the openness of the area contrasted with the lack of people. He felt exposed in the fields as they walked along the old dirt path. They walked parallel to one another within the divots of wagon tracks that were indicative of traffic passing through the area regularly.

Erin was quiet. She had barely spoken a word since they left the inn together, and continued to walk by Breaker’s side silently.

Breaker supposed that her silence was understandable, considering how her life had just been turned upside down.

The Netherborn startled at the sound of movement in the grass, his body moving into a defensive stance and his dagger slipping easily into his left hand.

Erin… laughed?

He turned to look at her, eyes wide and confused.

“It’s just a bird, calm down,” she said, amused.

Breaker glared, and turned back to the grass. Sure enough, a small animal leapt out of the grasses and flew into the air, wings moving quickly.

“Small for a bird,” he muttered, dropping his guard and putting his dagger away. Of course he got startled by something tiny that probably couldn’t even hurt him if it tried. Although, he had seen birds devour corpses quite a lot, so he wasn’t so confident about its harmlessness.

“Most birds are pretty small,” Erin replied, resuming to walk alongside Breaker. “Bigger ones are called birds of prey.”

Breaker blinked. “Wait, if the big ones are the prey, then-”

“No, not like that! They’re predators, they’re just called ‘birds of prey’.”

“That’s stupid.”

Erin snickered.

“So that- that bird, back there,” Breaker vaguely gestured to the fields behind them, “was a normal bird?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “What kinds of birds have you been seeing?”

“Uh.”

Massive birds with dark wings that would cross and circle the desert sun, searching for victims. Screeching birds that flew quickly and roosted within the shrubs of the badlands. They all could be found around carrion, and they all would undoubtedly peck someone’s eyes out. Even if said someone wasn’t carrion yet.

“Not those ones,” he settled on.

A silence, although not as awkward as it had been before.

“You haven’t seen much of the Overworld, have you?” She abruptly asked.

Breaker scoffed. “Not really, no.”

Erin hummed. “I haven’t seen too much either, to be honest.”

Breaker raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah, I spent most of my time in the Mansion.” At the mention of the mansion, Erin paled and grew quiet.

Breaker sighed. That was an opening; if he was going to ask about whatever the hell happened, that would be the time.

“Erin?”

“Hm?”

“What happened that made you leave?”

She stumbled, nearly falling over from overcorrecting herself. Her balance was slowly but surely improving with the new weight of her wings on her back, but she had still fallen over enough times for it to be far from abnormal.

“I-” she exhaled shakily. “I just couldn’t stay there any more. It wasn’t safe, they didn’t even need me, and they…”

Breaker quietly waited for her to compose herself.

“...they killed all those people...” She finished in a horrified whisper.

That… yeah, that made sense. She had said it was a diplomatic meeting, and that was typically something that didn’t involve violence, which would have made that all the more shocking for her to experience.

Breaker was no stranger to death. But he was well aware that for those that were, for those that had never seen someone die or witnessed someone’s last moments, regardless of lives remaining or respawns, experiencing death wasn’t easy.

(Souls, it still wasn’t easy for him, even after all those years.)

“I’m sorry you had to be there for that,” Breaker responded softly.

Erin inhaled sharply and nodded, turning her face away from him to presumably hide the tears pooling in her eyes.

Breaker chose not to draw attention to that fact, and instead kept walking resolutely at her side.

“How much more do you think we have to go?” Breaker asked, attempting to redirect the conversation away from the tense and emotional silence. (Emotions weren’t his thing, okay)

Erin hummed. “Not sure. We probably still have a ways to go before we reach the city. It’s called Allium, it’s another Hyacinth city.”

“You ever been to this city?”

“No,” Erin replied. “I know it’s a lot bigger than Mirfield though, and-”

“If it’s bigger, then why are we-”

“And it’s also the fastest way across the Ares River,” Erin finished, shooting a halfhearted glare at Breaker for his interruption.

“...hm.”

“Yeah, it’s big, but we don’t have any options, and besides, since it’s big we can probably blend in easier. Like a needle in a haystack.”

Breaker nodded in agreement, despite not knowing what a ‘haystack’ was. He assumed it would be difficult to find a needle in a stack of just about anything.

As the distant treeline grew closer, Breaker noticed that Erin was beginning to tire. Her steps weren’t as confident and her shoulders were hunched under the weight of her wings. Breaker supposed growing new limbs overnight through some runic bullshit would make anyone tired.

“You good?” he inquired.

“Hm? Yeah,” she responded, not convincingly.

Breaker eyed her suspiciously.

“What?” Erin asked, noticing his gaze.

“Do we need to take a break, or…?”

“No, no! I’m perfectly fine to keep going, it’s fine.”

“I never said you weren't fine to keep going.”

“Well you implied it,” she snapped. “And don’t worry about it, we can keep going.”

Breaker sighed with exasperation. “Fine, okay, but we have to take a break at some point.”

“Do we though?”

“Yes,” Breaker replied, leaving no room for argument.

“We could probably-” Erin protested anyway.

“I’ve spent the past souls know how long in a fucking dungeon, so even if you think you’re okay to keep going, I know my stamina kinda went to shit, and I say we stop at the trees.”

Truthfully, Breaker probably could have pushed through without taking a rest. However, if he was right about Erin, she would maybe rest herself if she thought it was for his sake rather than hers. Breaker had been tricked by that particular method before and he knew full well its effectiveness.

“Fine,” Erin grumbled.

Breaker internally celebrated his win, and kept walking alongside Erin, his small smirk hidden beneath his mask.

They reached the trees without any further issue. Breaker instantly spotted a stump, and wasted no time in sitting there. Erin scoffed, but Breaker could see that she was relieved at the opportunity to rest. She rolled her shoulders with a grimace, taking her bag off of her shoulder to remove some of the weight.

Breaker simply sat and listened as she stretched her sore muscles, impressed by the woods. Of course it was nothing like the thick forests Erin’s people lived in, but it was leagues different from the Nether forests and the sparse shrublands of the badlands.

The duo rested there long enough to get some food and water into their systems before Erin’s impatience and Breaker’s vigilance (okay maybe he was a little paranoid) persuaded them to continue moving.

At one point during their journey down the road, a wagon had emerged onto the road from up ahead, coming into view through the trees as it turned a corner. Breaker tensed and tucked his right hand further into his cloak. The large animal pulling the wooden wagon was intimidating, but unlike the rest of the Overworldian creatures Breaker had seen that day, he had actually encountered horses before, back in the badlands.

Still, its size did nothing to ease his nerves, nor did the human driving the wagon.

Erin had moved closer to Breaker to allow the wagon to pass by them, and when he caught her gaze, it was obvious he wasn’t the only one uneasy about the encounter. Breaker gave her a nod of reassurance - whether the reassurance was for him or Erin didn’t matter.

Breaker adjusted his mask, ensuring it covered the lower half of his face where his jawbone was exposed. He nervously flexed his hand, only wincing slightly when his bones cracked and scraped.

When the wagon finally passed by them, the human just gave them a amiable wave and a simple, “good day”, and he continued on his way without so much as a second glance.

Breaker looked over his shoulder at the retreating figure of the wagon headed back to where they had just came from. He made eye contact with Erin, who had been walking slightly behind Breaker, and they both exhaled in relief.

“How big is this city again?” Breaker muttered, “because that was just one guy. One.”

Erin sighed. “It’s fine. It’s- We’ll be fine.”

“Not sure I like that answer.”

“Not sure we have any other choice,” Erin snapped, moving to walk on the opposite side of the road again. “Spawn is on the other side of the Ares river. Allium - the city - has a bridge. The other ways across would add days onto this.”

“I- okay,” Breaker relented. “Okay.”

“We should make it by nightfall, but we might be cutting it close.”

“Eh, I can handle a few monsters.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather not.”

Breaker found himself smiling beneath his mask again.

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The sky began to darken over time, the trees hiding much of the remaining light.

The encroaching darkness, however, only made the lights up ahead more visible. They turned a corner and suddenly the road was paved with cobblestone instead of packed dirt and gravel. Lanterns stood atop log posts instead of trees, casting shadows in the dim light.

Although Breaker had noticed the gradual thinning of the forest around them, it wasn’t truly noticeable until the cobblestone path. Or, rather, until the walls came into view.

The walls were nothing like the shoddy barriers Mirfield had. The city of Allium had massive walls of stone bricks, strange shadows dancing across it as lanterns and torches were lit at the tops. Dark coloured flags with silver and violet insignia fluttered atop the ramparts, accompanied by the shining glint of iron and steel armour.

Breaker’s eyes widened at the sight before he quickly ducked his head down. As amazing as the city looked, being alive always looked more appealing.

He looked to his side to see Erin had moved closer to him, and met her eyes.

“It’ll be fine,” she murmured.

Breaker nodded in response.

Did he believe her?

Oh hell no.

But…

Breaker cast a glance back to the darkening forest, and remembered the difficulty he had with fighting off all of those monsters back before he’d been captured by Erin’s people. If the forest behind him was anything like that forest from before, there was no way he would last a night out there.

He was willing to take his chances with the city if that’s what Erin was willing to do.

She’d helped him thus far, and the least he could do in return would be to trust her just this once.

Breaker slowed to walk behind Erin. At her quizzical glance, he just inclined his head toward the walls. Her mouth opened in an “Ohhh” and she nodded in agreement.

The cobblestone path they were walking down led directly to a large gate set into the walls. The gate was closed, meaning the only way in was to interact with the guardsmen stationed on the battlements below the main walls.

He watched as Erin straightened, squaring her shoulders and her cloak moving strangely as her wings moved with her. Breaker stuck close to her side, keeping his head down and posture as unassuming as he was capable of doing. His instincts screamed danger, enemy, but he needed to trust that Erin knew what she was doing.

He needed to trust that she wasn’t leading him into a city that would be his execution.

Similarly to Mirfield, one of the guards called down from above, and the duo came to a stop near the gates.

“State your business!”

“We’re just travellers, sir, and night is falling,” Erin called back, slipping into that same smooth and innocent tone she used when she lied.

… Why was he able to tell what she sounded like when she lied?

“Alright then… you guys armed?” the guard responded, armour shifting.

“Yes,” Erin hesitantly said. “We need to defend ourselves somehow, sir.”

“Fine, we’ll let you two in. Night is falling after all.” The guardsman gestured to their comrade, who disappeared below the battlement. “Just don’t cause any trouble. The Knights’ll have your hide.”

“Yes sir, thank you sir,” Erin replied.

The metal gates unlocked with a groan, and Breaker let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding.

Erin looked back to Breaker with a strained yet relieved smile.

“It’ll be fine,” Breaker murmured.

Erin huffed a laugh, and turned to enter the city.

Breaker followed her lead, flinching as the gates closed with a loud thud behind them.

They’d made it in the city.

Another step forward.

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Chapter Text

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(POV: Breaker)

As nice as the city of Allium was, it made Breaker feel on edge. It was probably something to do with the feeling of being trapped within the walls, or perhaps it was the feeling of being watched that had followed Breaker since he entered the city.

The walled city was paved with cobblestones, tall buildings lining the streets and lanterns hanging from posts on every corner. There was hardly any wind within the city, Breaker realised, attributing to the unnerving stillness he felt. It was quiet for a city of that size, but he supposed it made sense considering the darkness.

Even still, there were still a handful of people out and about on the roads. Breaker did his best to keep his head down and his posture unassuming.

Erin still walked at his side, visibly nervous but still carrying herself candidly. She walked closer to him than she did outside the city on the road - whether that was for his reassurance or hers, Breaker didn’t know.

“What now?” Breaker muttered, leaning over to Erin. He knew better than to speak too loudly with an accent like his.

“We do what we did before: find an inn, stay the night, get out of here in the morning,” Erin replied.

“Okay. I’ll follow you.”

Erin nodded in acknowledgement.

He followed Erin diligently, keeping a keen eye on every shadow that shifted in the alleys at their backs. With Erin leading the way, Breaker was left with nothing to do but follow her, and resolved to cover her blind spots.

They navigated through the twists and turns of the paved roads, streetlights casting soft shadows along the cobblestones.

Erin led the way up the stairs to the inn, which was a tall building with a large oaken sign hanging above its door.

The door opened with a creak to reveal the warmly lit lobby of the inn. Erin warily looked around the entryway before she approached the front desk. Breaker could see the tension in the way she held her shoulders, and he was certainly not relaxed in the environment either.

“Hello?” Erin tentatively called out.

“Hold on!” A voice replied from the slightly ajar door behind the front desk.

Erin sent a nervous glance at Breaker, who shrugged. He was similarly nervous, yes, but if he didn’t think about how it felt he didn’t feel it. Simple.

A woman emerged from the door and settled behind the front desk with a huff. She looked over the duo standing in front of her critically, eyes narrowed.

“What do you need?” she asks. Her gaze settles on Breaker.

Feeling the weight of her gaze, Breaker spared a glance upward, and from a single look on the woman’s face he knew she saw him.

Or, rather, she saw a Netherborn.

“Oh, uh, yes, we were just looking for a place to stay the night and-” Erin began.

“Sorry, no room,” the innkeeper abruptly interrupted, tone firm. “You’re not the only travellers in this city. Somewhere else might take you.”

Breaker watched in disdain as Erin’s face fell, her brows scrunching in confusion. She nervously reached up for her necklace, something Breaker was beginning to realise she did a lot, before she realised the necklace was concealed beneath her cloak.

“I- er, thank you, anyway,” Erin stuttered, anxious.

Breaker nudged her with his elbow slightly. She looked over at him and he jerked his head toward the door in a silent suggestion to leave. Erin nodded in agreement, punctuated by a heavy exhale.

They continued down the road outside of the inn in a strange silence; not quite uncomfortable, but not quite comfortable.

“Was it just me or did that person seem… off?” Erin tentatively asked, glancing over her shoulder at Breaker.

“Well yes,” Breaker responded, blinking. Of course the innkeeper had acted weird, she’d noticed the Netherborn in the room.

“You don’t sound surprised.”

Breaker shrugged. “I’m Netherborn. People don’t like that.”

“How did she even…” Erin trailed off, a quizzical expression on her face. “Nevermind. You really think that’s why she acted so weird?”

“Oh, definitely. I saw how she looked at me. We should be able to find somewhere else, this city seems big enough.”

Erin nodded, still in thought. Regardless of whatever was going on inside her head, she kept walking through the streets and Breaker kept following closely behind her.

There were areas of the streets where more people could be seen or the murmur of conversation could be heard, and the duo avoided those places. Avoiding the well populated areas that were well lit led them to the darker narrower streets between tall buildings.

Breaker could practically feel the suspicion and inherent danger of the shady back streets. But unlike Erin, who seemed even more anxious than usual (which was really saying something), Breaker found the familiar feeling of danger put him at ease somewhat. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was familiar, and Breaker knew how to handle familiar.

“I think that’s another inn,” Erin whispered, pointing to a sign hanging above a nondescript door.

“Let’s find out,” Breaker replied.

It was one of the few doorways on the narrow street that had light coming from behind it. It didn’t look particularly well-kept, but Breaker’s slept in much worse places.

Erin cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at Breaker before ascending the three steps to the doorway. She opened the door slowly and tentatively, Breaker right behind her.

The interior was similar to the previous inn they’d encountered, only smaller and much less polished. There was a doorway off to their right that had no door in it and led to what appeared to be a bar.

Right in front of them was the main counter where a person sat, likely the innkeeper or someone with a similar role in the place.

Erin approached the desk, shoulders tense.

Before she could even get a word out, the person said, “how many nights, how many rooms.”

Erin blinked, recoiling slightly. Breaker appreciated this person’s bluntness, even if it was to the point of monotone uncaring. Straight to the point, no biases, no tricks, no glares.

“Uh, just- just one, please.” Erin looked over to Breaker for confirmation, and he nodded.

“M’kay. One night, one room, seventy-five’s your price.”

Erin handed over the money wordlessly, and was handed a slightly rusted iron key. The person then went back to the book they were reading, not even sparing the duo a second glance. Erin gaped at Breaker, shocked at the stark difference in treatment.

Breaker huffed, and nudged Erin with his shoulder as he moved to her side.

“Right, yeah, uh…” Erin glanced around the room a little, eyes stopping on a sign near a set of wooden stairs that led upward.

“Rooms are upstairs,” she confirmed, looking over to Breaker. He nodded, gesturing to the staircase.

Erin nodded back, and they headed up to their lodging for the night.

As soon as the door to their room was shut and locked, both travellers breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“Thank souls,” Breaker muttered.

“That… Yeah.”

In the ensuing silence, Breaker examined the room. No window, one bed, a nightstand, a fraying rug, and an adjoined bathroom that had sightlines to the door. Erin appeared to be doing the same, sighing again as she saw the singular bed.

Erin met Breaker’s gaze, and he just knew what she was going to say.

“You can take the-”

“No, I’m taking the floor, you can’t have it, it’s mine.”

“What? What does that even-”

“I am not sleeping on that. The floor is mine.”

Erin gaped, confused. “I- Okay. Okay, fine.”

Satisfied, Breaker took a small amount of bedding off the bed and made himself comfortable on the floor next to the bed. Sightlines were clear, exit was nearby, he was between Erin and the door.

Not that he needed to be between her and the door, he thought, watching her undo the straps that held her diamond axe. Obviously she could hold her own.

(Then why did it put him at ease to be between her and the only possible entrance to the room?)

Breaker was snapped out of his thoughts as Erin, cloak discarded, stretched her wings. He forgot how truly massive they were, watching in concealed awe as a wingtip brushed the edge of the room. Erin grimaced as she folded and unfolded the wings, and yeah, Breaker didn’t imagine that keeping limbs like that tucked back for so long was very comfortable.

“Ugh. That’s better, at least.” Erin sighed, untying her hair from where she had it pulled out of her face.

“I bet,” Breaker replied.

As they were both settling in for the night, Erin said, “what makes hybrids so bad?”

Breaker blinked, caught off guard by the sudden question. “Well, plenty of hybrids aren’t.”

“So, the ones that aren’t Netherborn, then.”

“To Overworldians, yes,” Breaker mused. “Although I think it’s probably because Nether hybrids are hybrids with Nether monsters. There are other Overworldian hybrids that aren’t, well, part murderous creature.”

“Is there really not a single thing from the Nether that isn’t… deadly?”

“No.”

Erin blinked. Breaker stared back, serious.

“...good to know the books weren’t lying, then.”

“Speaking of,” Breaker began, “do you know if I’ll be able to get into Spawn? Or if it’s dangerous once we’re in?”

“Oh, do you not know about the-?” Erin shook her head. “Wait, nevermind. Of course you don’t know.”

“What?” Breaker demanded.

“The spawn grounds are protected. I learned about it, there’s a whole order that watches over the place and prevents any violence. It’s a completely peaceful zone.”

“That’s real?” Breaker was genuinely confused. He thought that the tales of the order that protected the spawn grounds was just another tale people told to get their hopes up about a safer place.

“Yeah. So we should be safe there.”

Breaker couldn’t quite understand how she was so confident about such a fact, but he wasn’t going to be the one to break the hope. He was reluctant to admit it to himself, but he wanted something to hope for too.

“Turning the lamp off, just letting you know,” Erin said.

“Alright.”

The room dark and the duo settled in for the night, they prepared to sleep.

Just like the previous night, Breaker had intended to stay awake, knowing that he didn’t usually need much sleep, but once again, he drifted off.

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

Fear.

Burning eyes, melting flesh from bone, stone, steel, sand.

Fire.

Breaker awoke with a start, dagger gripped tightly. His hands were shaking and there was a lingering feeling of ash on his tongue. The room was still dark, still the same as it was when he fell asleep, and the door was still closed.

He clenched his fists, his bones popping with the pressure. He often had dreams when he slept (which was why he often took advantage of being a fusion hybrid that didn’t require much sleep), but the nightmares that were incomprehensible were the worst. They always left him disoriented and on edge, and he could never remember enough about them to be able to pinpoint the causes.

Breaker sighed heavily and lowered his dagger, but did not release it. He rose to a kneeling position and looked over to check on Erin. She was still asleep, it seemed, her breathing even and wings splayed out behind her.

He didn’t want to risk leaving the room or the inn in such a large city without her (she was the passing human, after all), so he resolved to wait until she awoke.

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

Once Erin was awake, Breaker asked about their plans for the day.

“First I need some food,” Erin grumbled as she attempted to tie her messy hair back.

“Good idea,” Breaker replied, “but we don’t have much left as far as that goes.”

“I remember there was a bar downstairs, they might have food,” Erin observed. “We’ll figure it out from there.”

Breaker gave a wordless agreement and donned his cloak, tied the cloth of his mask around his neck, and ensured his inhuman bones weren’t visible.

The downstairs bar area wasn’t the fanciest, but to the duo’s relief they did indeed sell food there. Erin took a seat at the bar, Breaker following to sit next to her. He glanced nervously around the room, not liking how it left his back to the majority of the room.

“Do you want anything?” Erin asked, holding a piece of paper in her hand she’d received from the barkeeper.

Breaker stared at the lines of ink on the page, meaningless. It was probably a list of Overworldian food options, written in Common, which he could not read.

“I don’t know Overworldian shit, as long as it’s edible I don’t care,” Breaker replied.

Erin snorted. “Fair. I’ll just get you what I’m getting, I guess.”

“Sure.” Breaker shrugged.

He silently waited next to her, head tilted down, as she ordered.

“That’ll be right out for ya,” the employee said when she finished ordering.

She thanked him before turning back to Breaker. “Today we keep moving. Over the bridge and down the path east”

“Same as yesterday?” Breaker asked, tilting his head.

Erin hummed. “Except this time our next stop is Spawn.”

“Already- we’re that close?” Breaker said, incredulous.

“Yeah. We should be able to make it by nightfall, I hope.”

Breaker nodded. They were close to their destination, reminding him that he had no idea what he was going to do after they got there. For now he wasn’t going to think about that and instead focus on getting himself and Erin to Spawn alive.

A silence fell over them as they waited, eventually being broken by the bartender.

“You two travellin’ through here?” he said, nodding over to their stools.

“Oh, us? Um, yes, we are,” Erin replied.

“Headed to Spawn, I’m guessing. If you get out of town soon you should make it there before nightfall, with time to spare.”

“Thank you, yes, that’s what we thought.”

“You might wanna leave early, there’s a shit ton of festival shit happening in town, with the Royals here n’all.”

“Wait, the royals?” Erin asked.

“Yeah, the Hyacinth royals. They always bring shit tons of Royal Knights and cause festivals every fuckin’ year. Brings good business, but not good for getting in an’ out of town.”

Breaker took note of that information. He’d need to be more careful on their way out then, if there were going to be more people than usual on the streets of the city.

“Ah, yes, thank you so much sir,” Erin gratefully said, sending Breaker a look that told him she had been thinking the same.

“No problem. Safe travels.”

Breaker waited until the barkeeper was mostly out of earshot before leaning to Erin and saying, “we should be careful.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

They waited some more in companionable silence for their food. Breaker found himself glancing over his shoulder every now and then, despite the small number of people in the room.

Eventually their food arrived. Breaker didn’t really know what it was, but Erin seemed pleased with it, so it must at least be edible food. Breaker followed her example and ate, finding himself surprised at the diversity of the texture and the warmth. It was easily some of the best food he’d ever eaten, and he had absolutely no idea what it was.

Regardless, he ate the entire plate. Breaker noticed that Erin took much longer to eat than he did, taking her time to cut the food into smaller pieces. He waited for her to finish, quickly pulling his mask back up to hide his exposed jawbone.

Erin finished her meal, reaching over and stacking her empty plate atop Breaker’s for the worker to collect.

“Good?” she inquired, standing from the stool.

“Very,” Breaker replied, following suit.

“Alright. Let’s go- thank you,” she paused to thank the barkeeper, leaving a tip, “-let’s go. We’ll be in spawn by sundown.”

Breaker smiled and inclined his head. “Lead the way.”

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

The streets of Allium were indeed busy. Although the inn was tucked away in a back alley with very little traffic, the sounds of people and horses and bustling life could be heard loudly echoing through the paved streets.

Erin nervously adjusted her cloak, double and triple checking that it covered her wings.

“You can’t see anything, you’re good,” Breaker assured her after the tenth time he saw her fretting over it.

“Just- I’m just making sure it hasn’t slipped,” Erin tensely replied.

“I’ll let you know if it does.”

Erin turned to Breaker, something genuine in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Breaker shrugged off the thanks nonchalantly. “Let’s get out of this city.”

“Right,” Erin agreed. She stopped at the edge of the alleyway to check her compass, nodding at whatever she saw and then putting the device back onto its place on her belt. “We’ve got to go east out of the city, so that way.”

Breaker followed the direction she was pointing with his gaze, cataloguing it in his mind. “Okay. That also looks like we’ll go right into the shit that’s happening here, so…”

“We’re not going straight that way, of course,” Erin confirmed, “so we’ll be fine. As long as we get to the east side of the city on the other side of the river, it doesn’t matter what kind of path we take.”

“I’ll follow you.” Breaker pulled up the hood of his cloak and tucked his hands in its folds.

“Then… this way,” Erin decided, leading them out of the alley.

Breaker kept close to Erin’s back, even though it was difficult to see around the tall hybrid. He noticed Erin kept looking over her shoulder, as if to check to see if Breaker was still there, so he started nudging the back of her cloak (where her wings were hidden) every now and then to let her know of his continued presence.

They walked through the daylight-brightened streets, the whole city feeling different in the light. In a way, Breaker observed, it felt alive. Brightly coloured banners were hung from every window and stone wall, all bearing the same floral design. Erin informed him that this was the flag of the Hyacinth Empire, and Breaker decided to remember that for future reference.

A street they passed while walking through the alleyways was filled with people and bright colours, flowers and lanterns strung up throughout the street. The people were all chattering and laughing and dancing, market stalls occupying the corners and shops occupying the street.

Breaker couldn’t imagine wanting to be in the middle of that. Even if he wanted to, which he very much did not, he’d have to worry about accidental contact with his blood maiming or killing someone. He was thankful that Erin was also keen about using the back alleys to navigate.

They took their time in exiting the city, ensuring that they didn’t encounter anyone. Erin led them away from the sounds of music and people and kept checking her compass at every turn. However, they eventually hit a dead end in their alleyway routes, and had to enter onto the main road.

The main road seemed relatively occupied, with more people moving toward the centre of the city rather than away from it. The buildings seemed to thin up ahead, with a little more space between them and a little less height and grandeur.

Breaker soon realised why as they approached a grand bridge that arched over a massive river.

He couldn’t quite hold in the startled gasp. He’d never seen so much water in one place before, let alone a river that was wider than the already wide streets they’d been walking on. It moved and flowed, hitting rocks and foaming strangely. For some reason Breaker expected a water river to behave similar to the rivers of lava he’d seen before, but it was extremely obvious that was not the case. It moved so freely, rushing and crashing.

“What?” Erin questioned after noticing Breaker gasp.

“That’s a shit ton of water,” Breaker murmured.

“Yeah,” Erin said slowly, nodding. She was obviously confused.

Breaker nudged her forward, wanting to get closer to the river. Erin cast him a concerned glance but kept walking nonetheless, navigating them through the crowds of wagons and horses and people.

They made their first steps onto the bridge, and it occurred to Breaker that if this bridge were to fail, he would probably die. He tensed at that revelation, but still chose to move toward the edge of the bridge. He needed to see the water.

Erin saw Breaker moving toward the side of the bridge and wordlessly followed, although confused.

Breaker walked up to the intricately designed iron railing on the bridge and leaned against it, peering down at the water. A shadow being cast over him let him know that Erin had taken up a similar position at his side.

“Are you… okay?” Erin tentatively asked.

“Yeah,” Breaker replied, eyes still on the magnificently terrifying river beneath them. “Just never seen this much water in one place before.”

“Wow, um… I guess that makes sense. Nether and all.” Erin hummed. “It is a pretty cool river, I’ve never seen anything like this before either.”

“There’s a lot of cool shit in the Overworld I don’t know about.”

“...Same.”

A silence, occupied by the rushing waters and the traffic behind them.

“You’ll see more of it, for sure,” Breaker assured.

“So will you,” Erin countered. “Is that what you think you’ll do after Spawn?”

Breaker faltered. He had no fucking clue what he was going to do after Spawn.

“Maybe,” he said. He glanced over at Erin. She seemed to want to say something, but stopped herself before letting out a deep sigh.

“Ready to keep moving?” Breaker pushed himself back from the railing, standing back and looking to Erin.

“Yeah, yep,” Erin confirmed, following Breaker. “Let’s get out of this city.”

Together, the duo crossed the bridge. They were nearly out of the city, with the parts of the city on the eastern side of the bridge smaller than the rest, and all that remained was to pass through the gates on the walls. Similarly to the western entrance they had entered Allium from, the eastern side had a gate guarded and manned by warriors.

Breaker tensed and ducked his head down, hiding his face in the shadow of his hood. He saw Erin’s shoulders tense from where she walked in front of him, and the netherborn offered an encouraging tap on the wing.

The main road into and out of the eastern gates was busy, leaving them both on edge. There were few escape routes in such an area, and Breaker tightened his hold on the hilt of his dagger beneath his cloak.

He followed on Erin’s heels as they walked through the crowds and to the eastern gates, feeling eyes watching him.

Breaker kept his head down. Focused on making it out of the city inconspicuously. Focused on the cobble beneath his feet and the movement of Erin’s cloak around her ankles.

A shadow fell over the duo as they passed beneath the walls, the gates at this time of day open. Breaker noted the guards in shining armour keeping watch at the edges of the gate through the walls, and also noted how infrequently anyone was stopped by them.

Before they knew it, it was over. They were out of Allium and on the paved roads outside of the city’s walls. The forest loomed around them and ahead of them, yet the path remained cobble and gravel.

Breaker heard Erin let out a breath of relief.

“Thank Notch,” she mumbled.

Breaker sighed. “We made it.”

“We made it.”

“Now.” Breaker moved to walk beside Erin rather than behind her. “We go to Spawn.”

“Yeah,” Erin breathlessly replied, relief and excitement clear on her face.

“To Spawn.”

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

It was a while later (hours, Erin would say) that Breaker felt something wrong.

The forest was beautiful, filled with all sorts of living things Breaker had never seen before, and at first that was what he attributed to the feeling of wrongness permeating his being.

It wasn’t until they were alone on the road that Breaker realised what it was he was feeling.

“Erin,” Breaker said, stopping in his tracks. “I think we’re being watched.”

Erin stopped, whirling around to look at him. Her eyes were wide and startled, and she glanced around the road and the forest with suspicion.

“Where?” She asked, hand on the handle of her axe.

“I don’t know,” Breaker muttered, “but I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

Before either of them could investigate any further, the bushes rustled, and the sound of a crossbow firing filled the sparse woodland.

Twang!

And they hit their mark.

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

Chapter Text

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

(POV: Breaker)

Breaker folded forward with a gasp, clutching his chest. A crossbow bolt had embedded itself into his abdomen, black wither essence already leaking from the wound.

“Shit!” He hissed, dropping to a knee.

“Breaker!” Erin exclaimed, at his side in an instant. Her axe was drawn as she took up a defensive stance in front of Breaker, feet planted in a trained stance.

Breaker saw the figures moving out of the woods and into the path. Before he could struggle to his feet, two more crossbow bolts flew through the air toward them, likely meant for him. He watched as Erin deflected them with her axe, cloak flaring. The practice that must have gone into such a manoeuvre… Perhaps Breaker had been underestimating her, after all.

More figures emerged from the shadows, armed with crossbows and battleaxes and draped in the all too familiar robes of Erin’s people. Evokia had come for them.

“Ernaline. Lower your weapon,” one of the Evokians demanded, their axe held high. “You must return to the mansion.”

“No. Let us go!” Erin cried, gripping her axe tightly.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” they replied, warning.

“I don’t want to- I don’t-”

“I’m not going back,” Breaker hissed, tilting his head to look up at Erin. “We’ve made it this far, I’m not fucking going back.”

The resolve in her eyes hardened as they made eye contact, and then she turned to face the Evokian addressing her.

“I don’t want to go back! And- and I’m not coming back!” Erin shouted, voice shaking but her stance made clear. Breaker smirked beneath his mask, something akin to pride swelling.

The Evokian sighed. “We’ll do it the hard way, then.”

And the Evokians advanced.

Breaker felt the familiar rush of energy that came with battle. He clenched his jaw, held his abdomen with one hand, and snapped off the shaft of the bolt with the other. It was painful, yes, but with the end snapped off he could more efficiently fight. He forced himself to stand, netherite dagger in hand.

He pushed himself to his feet with a growl, whirling to face the opponents that were closing in behind Erin. She was holding her own against the ones in front of them, and Breaker had taken up guarding her back. They stood less than a foot away from each other, back to back, weapons drawn.

The axe wielding attackers advanced on Breaker. He sidestepped the first slash, allowing the axe to bury itself into the gravel. He caught the other attack with his dagger, catching the axe between the blade and the handle, and with a strong shove forced the attacker away, their axe pushed down.

Breaker noticed a definitive imbalance of the attackers: Erin was fighting two or three at most head-on, while most of them had circled around her to focus their attacks on Breaker. He flexed his right hand to allow the wither essence to seep between his joints, knowing that this was going to get ugly.

From the few moments Breaker managed to steal to glance behind him at Erin, he also noticed the attackers she was facing weren’t getting too close, and none of their swings held the force of a blow intent to kill.

His eyes narrowed. They wanted her alive for some reason, and expectedly didn’t give a single shit about Breaker’s life.

As the netherborn narrowly dodged a gleaming iron axe aimed for his neck, he concluded that even though this fight wasn’t looking good for them, at least they wouldn’t kill Erin.

(A startling realisation to think about, later. Since when did it matter whether or not Erin lived, and since when did he decide he would die to protect her?)

Breaker noticed that most of the Evokians with crossbows had either fallen back or switched to melee combat, and considering they obviously wanted Erin alive, this was presumably to avoid accidentally hitting her. With that knowledge, he stepped closer to Erin’s back to lower his chances of being separated from her and shot (again).

He’d been in enough fights to know when he was going to lose. But Breaker was netherborn, and netherborn like him never go out without a fight.

The gravel under his boots became darkened sand in his mind, the trees his sandstone walls. Breaker’s combat skills had been honed and shaped to a rugged, scrappy, and bloody edge. In that moment, facing the warriors of Evokia, the energy of the battle-rush sharpening his focus, Breaker felt those skills rearing their head.

He kicked up the sediment at his feet as a distraction, lunging to deflect one axe blade. He let the axe fly past him and grabbed the warrior’s arm, clawing through the fabric of their robes with the sharp edges of his bones. Breaker pulled away as soon as his bones met flesh, the wither essence eating away at the warrior’s skin on contact and spreading through their arm.

He paid no mind to their sounds of pain and moved to defend himself from the next attacks. Breaker had taken a few hits already, although only grazes, and could feel his runes flaring and burning in response to the damage. It was only a matter of time until he faltered and got himself killed But before that happened, Breaker was going to make sure to take some of these motherfuckers down with him.

Breaker startled as his heel hit the back of Erin’s boots. He quickly glanced behind him to see Erin doing the same, eyes wide. He nodded to her and turned back to his opponents, grinning under his mask as he felt Erin’s wings press against his back through their cloaks.

Her presence grounded the netherborn to the present and allowed him to be aware of his true surroundings once more. It was this same awareness that allowed Breaker to hear the sounds of something in the distance.

Judging by the way Erin tensed against his back, she had heard it too. Breaker inhaled sharply, but couldn’t afford to find out where the sound was coming from in the face of the multiple axes aimed for his head.

“Those are hoofbeats! What if- we can’t-” Erin exclaimed, eyes wild.

Breaker growled. She was right, the sound was hoofbeats approaching from somewhere, and if they were reinforcements for the Evokians, they would have no chance.

No matter what happened, he was going to keep fighting. Breaker kept his attention on his opponent, preparing to deflect their next strike. He never got the chance to, however; an arrow whizzed through the air, burying itself in between the eyes of the Evokian Breaker was fighting.

It seemed as if all motion on the path had stopped at the intrusion, all parties turning toward the direction the arrow was shot from. From around the bend in the path ahead emerged a party of armoured people on horseback. They all wore same coloured clothes and cloaks, as well as some of their armour being diamond.

The person who had fired the arrow already had another nocked and ready, holding steady even from horseback. In front of them, two other warriors on horseback had drawn shimmering netherite weaponry, one holding an impressive battleaxe and the other a broadsword.

“Hyacinth knights.” Erin breathed, pressing against Breaker’s back.

An Evokian called out in an unknown language, signalling to fall back. The dark-robed assailants scattered down the path and into the woodland. The knights were hot on their trails, with the leading knights on horseback galloping past where Erin and Breaker were standing to give chase. Some of the Evokians didn’t even have time to escape, however; they attempted to put up a fight against the knights, but were outmatched by their skill and equipment.

Breaker watched in awe as the axe-wielding lead knight expertly cut down an Evokian from horseback, netherite gleaming in the sun as it carved through flesh.

Some of the knights dismounted a little farther down the path to give chase into the trees, the knight with the axe giving commands to the group. A few continued down the path, weapons drawn, and a couple remained mounted near Erin and Breaker, presumably in case the Evokians returned.

One of the knights that had stayed behind near the duo dismounted, bow in hand and diamond pauldrons gleaming. He approached Erin and Breaker, keeping his bow down and without an arrow nocked.

“Are you two alright?” he asks, voice light and accent unrecognisable to Breaker.

Breaker shifted his cloak to cover the black stains of wither essence on his torso, tucking his hands beneath the folds for good measure.

“I- yes, I think so,” Erin shakily replied. She looked over to Breaker, seemingly remembering his injury with alarm. Before she could reveal that to the knight before them, Breaker pointedly jabbed an elbow into her wings that were hidden behind her cloak.

Erin’s eyes widened with realisation, and she shut her mouth. Breaker could still tell that she was shaken and wanted to tell the knight, but he was thankful that she didn’t.

“That’s good. You two are incredibly lucky to be alive, those people aren’t afraid to kill,” the knight said, oblivious to Erin’s full body flinch at the mention of her people’s willingness to kill.

“Yes, thank you so much,” Erin responded.

“We were passing through from Spawn to Allium. I’m glad our timing was so lucky.” The knight adjusted his cloak. “Do you know why you were attacked?”

Erin shakes her head. Another lie to ward off suspicion. “We were alone, I guess? I don’t know, they just attacked us.”

“That’s unusual, but not unheard of,” the knight remarked, “be sure to watch out for further attacks like this and warn other travellers you see travelling alone.”

There was a single tense moment after the knight’s words where nothing happened and nobody spoke, until two knights emerged from the treeline. Breaker recognised them from their netherite weapons, and watched as they sheathed them. One of them instantly made to mount their horse again, and the other turned in the direction of where Breaker, Erin, and the knight were standing.

“Sir Iris!” the knight called, “come on, let’s go!”

“Coming, Lieutenant!” the knight that had spoken to them - ‘Sir Iris’, presumably - responded.

Sir Iris turned back to Erin and Breaker. “Are you two going to be alright? I know the Hyacinth Spawn Grounds aren’t much farther now, but…” he trailed off.

“Oh, uh, yes, we’ll be alright, thank you,” Erin affirmed, “I’m sure we can make it to Spawn.”

Breaker nodded in agreement, not trusting his accent with concealing him being netherborn.

The knight looked apprehensive, but conceded nonetheless. “Alright then… Stay safe. The Knights will be on guard, so if you have any trouble getting into the Hyacinth Spawn Grounds, just say that Captain Delphi sent you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Erin said. The knight nodded in acknowledgement of her thanks, and then mounted his horse to join his fellow knights down the path.

As the knights receded down the path, the duo simultaneously let out a breath of relief. Breaker couldn’t shake the tension from the battle so soon, still holding himself at the ready.

Erin gasped and turned to Breaker. “You got shot, didn’t you?!” she exclaimed, sheathing her axe to move forward, and reached out to him. He reluctantly allowed her to pull aside his cloak to reveal the large black stain on his shirt, a small part of the bolt’s shaft protruding from the fabric.

“Oh Notch, that looks bad, we-”

Breaker pulled away. “It’s not that bad, really,” he dismissed, in spite of his pulsing runes that said it wasn’t that good, either.

“But- but still! You- there’s a crossbow bolt in your side!” Erin incredulously exclaimed.

“Well, yes,” Breaker admitted, “but there isn’t anything we can do about it now. We don’t have any supplies and if we take it out now I’ll lose more essence than my body can handle, and my blood kills living things.”

Erin huffed in frustration, sounding almost like a growl. “Fine, I- Fine.”

“Okay, good to see we’re on the same side here,” Breaker said as he began walking down the path again. He had his arm wrapped around his torso, tightly gripping the fabric around his wound and seeking to lessen the pain of the bolt jostling.

He was startled as Erin laid her hand on his shoulder, but forced himself to conceal the reaction. Breaker looked over his shoulder to see Erin moving to his side and offering her arm.

“I- you can lean on me, we’ll- we’ll probably move faster that way…” she awkwardly offered.

Breaker stared at Erin, then rolled his eyes with a small huff of laughter. “You do realise it’ll be difficult anyway because of how fucking tall you are, right?”

“Well, I-! Listen, I’m just trying to help, alright?” Erin responded, indignant.

Regardless of their banter, Breaker took Erin’s outstretched arm and allowed himself to be supported. Despite the height difference, he had to admit that it did lessen the burning of his runes down his spine, which was a relief. He didn’t feel much pain when injured, but when his runes were activated to repair the damage, he felt that pain.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” Erin replied, “it’s my fault you got shot, anyway.”

Oh, Breaker was not going to take that kind of talk. “Did you ask them to come after us?”

“What?”

“Did you ask them-”

“No, no! What-”

“Then it isn’t your fault,” Breaker said firmly. He kept his gaze trained on the ground in front of him, feeling something vulnerable about the moment. “Other people are shitty. Doesn’t mean the shitty things they do are your fault.”

A silence.

“Thank you,” Erin murmured.

“Yeah,” he responded. “Now let’s get to Spawn.”

“Right. To Spawn.”

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

Chapter Text

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

(POV: Ernaline)

To say she was worried was an understatement.

While yes, she knew Breaker had been shot before (she was trying to ignore the part where she was the one who shot him) and he had recovered afterward, she still found herself nervously glancing over at him. His free arm wrapped around his torso, keeping the dark stain of wither essence hidden beneath his arm and his cloak. Would he bleed out? How much pain was he in?

Erin couldn’t read his expression with the mask he wore and his dark bangs in front of his eyes.

Everything was turned upside down and she was still reeling but if she didn’t think about how wrong everything was then she could keep moving.

The silence felt tense as they made their way down the path. After rounding another bend in the woodland, the number of people on the road seemed to gradually increase from there. Breaker shifted away from her slightly, attempting to carry more of his own weight to not draw attention to himself. Erin tightened her grip on his shoulder, a quiet and firm affirmation that she was going to help him regardless of attention.

She saw the white irises of his eyes briefly flick in her direction, narrowed slightly in either pain or annoyance or both, but otherwise there was no reaction or protest from the Netherborn as he allowed Erin to continue to support his weight.

(Something within her felt relieved that she was helpful. A strange protectiveness had emerged alongside her new… appendages, she’d noticed. Or maybe it was always there, and she’d never had anyone to protect.

She didn’t really know anymore.)

It seemed that the Hyacinth Knights weren’t exaggerating when they had said the Spawn Grounds weren’t far. The trees began thinning, revealing tall stone walls in the distance that looked similar in size to the ones they had seen encircling Allium.

“Almost there,” she murmured to her companion.

Breaker made a sound of agreement. “Let me walk in on my own,” he muttered.

“What?” Erin hissed.

“It will look less suspicious! I can manage on my own. One arrow isn’t even that bad.”

Erin gave him a disbelieving stare. Somewhere at the back of her mind she wondered how bad was ‘that bad’.

Breaker did have a point, she had to acknowledge that. She sighed in resignation. “Fine, just as we go in. Don’t make it worse.”

“I won’t. The sooner we get in, the sooner we find something to patch this up with, anyway.”

That was another thing on Erin’s mind. “Yeah, what are we even going to do about…?”

“Get a potion, maybe some essence.”

“...is that all?” No other supplies? Was that really all he needed to recover from an entire crossbow bolt in his side.

“...yeah? I don’t need much, fusion hybrid bullshit, remember?”

Erin elected to nod instead of responding. It was another unwanted reminder at how very inhuman her travelling companion was, which then circled her thoughts back around to how very inhuman she was.

Breathe in, breathe out. They just had to make it into the Spawn Grounds.

When the time came, she reluctantly allowed Breaker to walk on his own, feeling her wings twitch nervously as he walked beside her with concealed pain.

The grey stone walls loomed before them, the violet and silver banners of the Hyacinth Empire fluttering from their gates.

Those were just the outer walls, she reassured herself, seeing a darker coloured structure rising up from within the Hyacinth walls.

There, they would be safe.

The flow of people through the gates of the stone walls seemed to get slower as they got closer to the walls, eventually forming a crowded line of sorts moving sluggishly into the Spawn Grounds.

Erin was hyper aware of her heart pounding in her chest and the weight of her wings and tail on her back. There were Hyacinth guards watching from above and below, but they had to make it in there. They had to.

Breaker said nothing during their time in the line and kept his head low. He drifted closer to Erin with every pace forward though, and she recognised the motion for what it was: he was trusting her.

(She tried not to think about the implications of that. If she messed up, both of them would take the fall there.)

Eventually they stood well within the shadows of the walls, and a knight at the gates stopped them from entering.

“You two,” the knight addressed them, motioning with a gauntleted hand. “You came from the road to Allium, yeah? Have you encountered any attacks or bandits on the road?”

Erin nervously cleared her throat, remembering what the knight had told her earlier. “Yes, sir, um- my friend and I, we were attacked- we were told to tell you Captain Delphi sent us.” Her voice wavered from nerves, but she hoped it just made her facade of an innocent traveller who just escaped an attack more believable.

The knight’s eyes widened at the mention of this mysterious ‘Captain Delphi’. “I- er, if he sent you, then- I’ll be sure to let them know you arrived safely. Stay safe,” the knight stuttered before regaining a semblance of composure. The knight then stepped aside to allow them through the gates, through the shadowy tunnel that went through the Hyacinth walls.

“Thank you,” Erin said. Anxiety still churned in her gut, but she was able to exhale in relief as they were allowed to pass.

Breaker nudged her arm slightly, and she turned her attention to him. He nodded slightly, in either approval or gratitude, based on what little she could make of his expression.

Erin returned the nod, smiling a little. She felt some of the tension ease out of her with the interaction. They’d made it past one set of walls.

A cacophony of lights and sounds greeted them on the other side of the walls, the large area between the grey stone walls and the dark brick walls of the inner Heart of Spawn occupied by scores of people. Market stalls and vendors were shored up against the grey walls and lining the path that travelled parallel to the stone walls encircling the Spawn Grounds, people of all kinds trying to buy and sell wares. The sun’s low position in the sky cast strange shadows throughout the area, opposed by the lanterns and redstone lamps lighting the paths. The path was paved with well worn stone, people walking and riding and guiding horse-drawn carts of goods throughout the area.

The Spawn Grounds.

Erin’s eyes widened as she took in all of the sensations, releasing a quiet exhale in awe. Another glance over at her companion showed her that he was likely just as captivated, his eyes wide and darting between different points of interest.

There were so many different people and so many interesting things being sold and displayed. To think this is what she missed by being in the mansion all of the time…

Erin shook her head with a huff, refocusing. They were here for a reason. She stepped closer to Breaker’s side and began walking down the central path through the marketplace.

She felt a tug on her arm after a short while of scanning the markets, and turned to Breaker. He caught her gaze and inclined his head toward a small alcove between stalls and buildings, darkened by the shadows of the walls. She nodded and followed after Breaker into the alcove, heedless of the other people milling about.

Once safely hidden away in the shadows, Breaker heavily leaned against the wall, resting his head back and closing his eyes.

Erin felt a small jolt of panic. Was he okay? Was his injury finally catching up to him? How-

“You’ve got enough coin for shit, right?” Breaker rasped.

Erin blinked to see the Netherborn staring back at her, brows creased but otherwise impassive with his mask.

“I- probably?” Erin squeaked. “You- are you okay?”

Breaker blinked. “Uh… yeah. Just running out of energy.” He muttered something afterward that sounded along the lines of “stupid shit runes”.

Right, Erin needed to stop expecting him to have a normal response to pain and injury, she knew better at this point. Of course he’d just be tired after being shot with a crossbow and walking all the way to the Spawn Grounds.

She sighed, feeling some of her anxiety for the Netherborn fade as the air left her lungs. “Okay, okay… Um, are you just gonna stay here, or…?”

“I wouldn’t be of any use out there,” Breaker remarked with a huff, “so I might as well just wait here.”

“Okay. And all I need is…?” Erin trailed off.

“Potion, enchantment essence,” Breaker provided. He slid down the wall to sit on the ground, punctuated by a heavy sigh.

“Healing potion?” Erin asked to clarify. She could’ve sworn that he was too hybridised to heal with healing potions…

“No, can’t use that. Has to be harming. Good luck finding one of those,” Breaker muttered bitterly. Well, at least Erin’s suspicions were correct.

“Okay. I’ll… I’ll be back, then,” she said as she began to back out into the streets again.

“I’ll be here,” Breaker snarked.

Erin took a deep breath and turned away from the Netherborn and pulled her cloak tighter across her shoulders. Her tail lashed against her leg in some show of emotion, but she ignored it. She had supplies to find.

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

(POV: Breaker)

Breaker idly twirled his dagger between his fingers as he watched the narrow entrance to his alcove, his other hand resting firmly on where the crossbow bolt was still embedded in his side.

He was willing to wait a while, if it came down to it, but he suspected that one of those shiny knights roaming the streets would check his shadowy corner eventually, and he’d have to make a break for it. Breaker was planning for the worst and expecting nothing better. It wasn’t a matter of when Erin returned, it was a matter of if.

At least he had an interesting view to pass the time.

Breaker remained there, people watching for souls knew how long, and then someone stepped into the alley.

He tensed, gripping his dagger, but let his guard drop when Erin crouched down in front of him and set her bag on the ground between them.

“I could only get one bottle of each, I don’t have that much money left and I didn’t know enchantment essence would be so expensive,” Erin rambled, rifling through her bag.

“That’s fine,” Breaker assured. He’d survived on less.

He watched Erin closely as she set two vials down on the ground, one halfway filled with a dark, slightly shimmering liquid and the other filled to the top with sparkling enchantment essence. Breaker blinked in mild surprise when she removed some bandages and fabric from her bag as well, despite not asking for them.

She must have seen the look on his face so she said, “I didn’t know if the potion would be enough, I couldn’t really find too much of it. The guy I bought it from kept asking me if I was sure this was the potion I needed like I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. No reason to make something nobody wants,” Breaker bitterly replied.

Erin’s hands hovered above the supplies and she looked back and forth between them and Breaker, obviously looking for some way to help. Breaker sighed.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” the Netherborn muttered, pushing back off of the wall and straightening with a wince.

“Is there-”

“Just make sure nobody sees,” Breaker cut her off, “it won’t take long.”

“Oh- okay.”

He removed his cloak and handed it to Erin. He doesn’t want to get any more wither essence on the fabric than he has to, even if the cloak was still darkly coloured wither essence would still cause decay on contact. While he was at it, he removed the fabric that was serving as his face mask as well.

Breaker, for the first time since he received the bolt, peeled away the soaked and mangled fabric of his shirt to assess the damage. He heard Erin gasp, but whether that was from the severity of the wound or the severity of his decaying flesh he was unsure.

With the way (he thought) his runes worked, when getting injured they would divert energy to the injury and leave other more nonessential parts of his flesh to decay without the rune matrix upholding them. In this case it seemed that the flesh around the upper side of his ribcage was nonessential, and a few of his blackened ribs were exposed to the air.

Breaker just sighed with resigned exasperation, and turned his attention to the bolt. It was still mostly embedded in him, but after moving away most of the surrounding fabric of his shirt he could see the broken shaft of the bolt protruding from where he’d snapped the end off.

“Great,” he muttered.

“What? Is it bad?”

“No, just annoying. I have to pull this shit out.”

Erin made a choked off noise.

“Yeah. I’ll just pull it out and drink the potion. Have to go slow with the essence so I don’t waste it and pass out.”

“Uh- yeah, okay. I’ll hand you the potion when you need it?” Erin offered, looking pale.

Breaker shrugged. “Don’t care.” He did care, it wasn’t often that people offered to help him when he had to patch himself up, but souls be damned he would take that sentiment with him to all three of his deaths.

He exhaled, and prepared himself to get this thing out. Removing arrows was always a shit experience. Crossbow bolts were particularly tricky because of how short they were, it usually caused a lot more effort to dig them out of his flesh.

After some painful prods with the thin bones of his hand, Breaker found a suitable enough grip on the shaft of the arrow. He shut his eyes and relaxed his muscles, having done this same thing many times before.

He removed the arrow in one quick pull, with a sickening sound and pain like molten lava being poured down his spine. Breaker breathlessly hissed curse after curse as the pain near where the arrow struck lessened and the pain of the rune matrix crescendoed.

He felt a glass vial being pressed into his left hand, bones clinking against the material. Breaker opened his eyes to see Erin, panicked, speaking to him. The words were lost in the fire.

Still, he was present enough to grip the potion vial in his hand and down the entire thing, barely even reacting to the thick sour harming potion. It immediately felt like a pressure had been taken off of him, and he let the hand that had previously been holding the removed bolt fall loosely to his side.

Breaker exhaled raggedly. He didn’t like how difficult these injuries were getting for him to handle, he’s usually more resilient than that. Probably had something to do with the weird magic Erin’s people used.

Speaking of Erin, Breaker opened his eyes again and tilted his head forward from where it had been resting on the wall to look at her. She was silently watching him, offering bandages and the enchantment essence. Breaker raised a hand toward the essence and she gave it to him without hesitation, continuing to watch him as he took small sips.

With every drop of the horrible tasting essence entering his body, Breaker could feel the runes etched into his spine cooling and pulsing with the energy. He felt his injured side knitting itself back together and his decayed flesh slowly beginning to reform with the assistance of the highly concentrated energy.

“Did it work?” Erin quietly asked, fretful.

“Feels like it,” Breaker rasped.

Erin seemed to deflate. “Okay, okay.”

Breaker frowned in confusion at her reaction, taking another slow sip of the essence. Was she really that concerned? He’d been shot before and was fine, and she surely didn’t have any more investment in him now that they’d made it to the Spawn Grounds.

(Maybe she cared about what happened to him. Maybe, just maybe, she gave a shit about him, the fusion Netherborn that killed everything he touched. Maybe he was starting to understand that she was just as invested in his livelihood as he was in hers.)

“Just have to rest a minute and let this shit kick in.” He sighed, taking yet another sip.

Erin sat back on her heels, repositioning herself to be sat more next to Breaker than in front of him. “Okay. We’ll go when you finish that, then?” she tentatively offered.

“Sure,” Breaker shrugged.

They sat in amicable silence as Breaker sipped the essence. It had been a long time since he’d been able to get his hands on the pure stuff, and it was doing wonders for the energy deprived rune work that held up his fusion structure.

With a heavy sigh, Breaker passed the empty vial to Erin, who exchanged the glass for Breaker’s mask and cloak. She rearranged her bag while Breaker readjusted the fabric, offering him a hand up when she stood from the ground.

He hesitated, but took her hand anyway, knowing she was miraculously immune to the essence coating his decayed fingertips. Breaker rose from the ground with a grunt and quite a few loud pops of bone and joints.

Erin brushed the gravel and dirt off of her cloak. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Breaker replied, stretching his muscles and joints.

He followed Erin out of the alley and back out into the main streets, noting that the light from the sky had diminished significantly since their arrival. Breaker kept closely to Erin’s side, warily scanning every passerby for danger that got too close.

Erin turned toward the towering dark walls, slipping easily onto a differently paved pathway that led to a gateway in the walls. Dark banners with the sigil of what Breaker assumed to be the Craft Order hung from the walls as well as the underside of the passage inside.

“This it?” Breaker whispered to Erin.

“Yes. We just have to wait in line to get in.”

“Oh, great.”

Erin rolled her eyes.

It seemed like no time at all had passed until they reached the passage. The passage was guarded by three figures in dark cloaks and fabrics that Breaker knew were designed to conceal armour pieces, all of them bearing the gold geometric sigil of the Craft Order.

“You two coming in together?” one of them asked, accent unidentifiable.

“Er- yes,” Erin replied.

“Right. First time in the Heart of Spawn, yes?”

Erin nodded. “Uh, yes.”

“In order to enter here, you need to know the rules,” they began, “the Craft Order oversees everything in the Heart of Spawn, and we won’t tolerate any violence, aggression, or killing. Members of the Order will protect the people of Spawn, and will respond with whatever means deemed necessary, which can include the taking of one’s life. Enacting any kind of spawnkill will result in swift and immediate loss of life.”

The speech sounded practised and well worn, and with how many people Breaker could see going in and out of the area, it likely was.

“Do you acknowledge and agree to these terms of Spawn, and take responsibility for your actions that you take within the walls of the Sanctuary?”

“Yes.”

The Craft Order member looked to Breaker expectantly.

“Yes,” Breaker said quietly.

“Excellent, you may proceed. Welcome to the Heart of Spawn.”

With that, they were granted entry into the walls of the Sanctuary, and walked through the gates. They emerged into a large courtyard of sorts, a large circular area inside of the walls with patches of grass and small trees in between the paths leading to the centre.

Past the crowds of people, the centre of the area was a relatively large raised dais of dark stone, two Craft Order members standing guard at opposite ends of the circular platform. In a circular pattern a ways out from the platform stood a row of strange looking structures that long lines of people were lined up to get to.

The inner walls of the Sanctuary were far more inviting than the exterior walls, dark wood breaking up the stone and a pattern of windows along the curved walls. As Breaker observed the walls, he noticed the tops of the Sanctuary had movement. A closer look revealed it to be the cloaked forms of Craft Order members watching the grounds from above, sentries on the rooftops. He had to admit that the way the buildings were positioned made for excellent vantage points, with clear eyelines across nearly the entirety of the Heart of Spawn from multiple points on the walls.

Breaker snaps back to attention as his arm brushes against Erin’s side, and he looks up to see why she stopped.

“Erin?” Breaker murmured.

“Yes, I just…” she trailed.

“What?”

“We made it,” she breathed, her face and posture dripping with relief. “We made it.”

“Yeah, we did,” Breaker agreed. “But also, now what?”

“Oh- uh-” Erin stammered as she regained her bearings. “Now we get communicators.”

“Where?”

“The uh- those things,” she gestured at the strange structures people were lining up for, “the Heart Terminals.”

“We better get in line, then,” Breaker remarked.

Erin sighed, resigned but still obviously relieved to be safe. “Yeah. You’re right.”

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

(POV: Ernaline)

They had to wait a very long time to reach the Heart Terminal.

It made sense, considering how important they were and how you could only find them inside the Heart of Spawn, but that didn’t make it any less annoying of a wait. Erin needed to see what the terminals said about her, who they said she was. The Universe didn’t lie.

Eventually, though, they made it. The terminals were dull metallic structures, geometric in shape, that rose from the ground up to about Erin’s shoulders. They were only slightly wider than the average person, and the face of the terminal facing the respawn platform was indented and slightly sheltered by the indentation. They pulsed with a green and blue glow, emanating from within the shadowed indentation.

Erin took in a deep breath and approached the terminal. The life marks on her left wrist seemed to buzz as she lifted a hand to the face of the terminal, some unknown thread guiding her left hand to the glowing panel.

She pressed her palm to the cool surface, feeling like glass beneath her hand. Green-blue waves rippled out from the outline of her hand, and the surface went dark.

Erin was still aware of Breaker at her back, the Netherborn standing fast, but for a brief moment she was standing somewhere else, her hand pressed against cool obsidian. She drew her hand back as if she was burned.

Her eyes flicked briefly to Breaker, who only raised an eyebrow. Erin released a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and turned back to the screen.

The dark screen had morphed into an array of words and data, and Erin gasped.

NAME | | ERNALINE ENDER | | TIMES CHANGED: [0]

AGE | | [??] {ERROR: INDETERMINATE} | | b. 29 MAY

Erin felt her face drop. Indeterminate age? She had been hoping to be given an exact number, to know how much time had been taken from her, but she wasn’t even able to get that.

“Cave girl?” a quiet voice at her shoulder called.

“I’m fine,” she replied, hoping her voice concealed just how not fine this was for her. She kept reading the screen.

LIVES:
❤
❤
[PRESS FOR DEATH DATA]

SPECIES | | DRAGONBORN
ETHNICITY | | ENDERBORN

Erin gaped at the screen. Her last name was Ender, probably because she was Enderborn, and she let out a sharp breath at the implications brought by the words on the screen. Years of lies uprooted by one slab of information. She wasn’t Overworldian, she wasn’t human, she was born in the spring, she had a last name, she had the name her parents had declared her to have.

The Universe didn’t lie.
All at once she was acutely aware of the amount of people around the terminals, and it was all too much.

She quickly located the button that read ”[PRESS TO ISSUE COMMUNICATOR]” and firmly pressed it, watching as the screen of the terminal rippled again. A sound like stone scraping and the twinkling of amethysts came from inside the Heart Terminal. From below the indentation of the screen a silver rectangle emerged out of the structure. Erin bent down and pulled it out of the terminal, marvelling at the thin metallic device in her hand. It was a little smaller than the books she’d read, with one face of it silvery metal and the other the same dark screen as the terminal.

Speaking of the terminal, Erin looked back up at the screen to see her information covered by a prompt.

EXIT?
[YES]
[NO]

Erin pressed yes, and watched as the screen returned to its idle state of pulsing colours.

All the while, Breaker watched, dark eyes watching her movements intently. Erin turned to him, clutching the communicator to her chest.

“Your turn,” she said.

“What’d you find out?” Breaker asked, hesitantly moving toward the terminal. Erin saw his right arm twitch to grip his left wrist, his eyes narrowing in discomfort.

“I… maybe it should wait.”

Breaker placed his hand, ungloved, on the screen, flinching back as the ripples started. Erin averted her eyes out of an urge to leave him to his privacy, positioning herself so she could see Breaker but not the contents of the terminal.

She watched as he stared at the terminal with no reaction, eyes unblinking.

“Breaker?” she carefully prompted.

Breaker turned to her, squaring his shoulders, seemingly preparing to say something, but he deflated with a grimace, turning his face away from Erin. He muttered something Erin didn’t quite hear.

“What?”

“I can’t read it,” he confessed.

“You…” Erin leaned over to glance briefly at the screen, seeing it written in Common. “You can’t read Common?”

“No. Never knew, never learned.”

Erin had spent all of her time within Evokia doing nothing but reading, so the idea that someone didn’t even know how to read was baffling to her.

“How the fuck do I make the communicator come out?” Breaker’s exasperated words snapped Erin’s attention back to the Netherborn, who was looking at the screen again as if he could learn how to read it just by glaring at the words.

“There’s a button- listen, do you want me to read out your information?” Erin offered, hoping she came off more helpful than patronising.

Breaker sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Okay.” Erin moved close to Breaker’s side as he moved to make room at the terminal for her.

NAME | | DRAR’ANETH SOLROKUR | | TIMES CHANGED: [0]

AGE | | [19] | | b. 11 FEBRUARY

LIVES:
❤
❤
❤
[PRESS FOR DEATH DATA]

SPECIES | | WITHER SKELETON FUSION HYBRID
ETHNICITY | | NETHERBORN

“So it’s got your name there and your age there,” Erin instructed, pointing at the words.

“Wait, I know numbers kind of, that can’t be my age,” Breaker interjected.

“It says you’re nineteen.” Erin looked at her companion in confusion. He certainly looked about nineteen, it wasn’t particularly shocking to her. But seeing Breaker’s face told her that maybe it was quite shocking to him.

“Huh.”

“How old did you think you were?”

“Six, give or take.”

“Wh- Six?!” Erin spluttered.

“That’s how long I remember existing, so it made sense.”

“Breaker, six years old is practically a baby.”

“Obviously I know that now,” he huffed.

Erin shook her head, a concerned smile on her face. She turned her attention back to the screen to spare Breaker the crisis of not remembering years of his life. “Your name here is not Breaker, by the way.”

“Huh. What’s it say?”

“It’s- okay, I’m going to try and pronounce it. Drar’aneth Solrokur?”

Erin looked at Breaker, seeing him stood perfectly straight and his eyes fixated on where she indicated his name was. Something was unnerving about how he held himself, about how his white irises seemed distant.

“Breaker?”

Breaker snapped back to attention with a shaky exhale, curling in on himself slightly.

“You okay?”

“I- yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Erin wasn’t going to call him out on the empty “I’m fine” if he wasn’t going to call out hers.

“Can- can we change it?”

“Yeah,” Erin replied, easily finding the edit button near the name slot. “Want me to change your first name to Breaker?”

“Yes.” Breaker hovered over her shoulder as she pressed the buttons to spell out “BREAKER” in the slot. “Does the other name…?”

Erin tried deleting the surname, only to be given a message saying “CANNOT LEAVE SLOTS EMPTY”. “I can’t delete it.”

“Can you change it?”

“Yeah, just like the first name. What are we changing it to?”

Breaker stood in thought for a moment. “Drar’aneth,” he settled on, the name sounding far more natural with his Netherborn inflections. “It’s… I don’t know, it feels like that name is mine.”

Erin nodded, typing in the letters. “Breaker Drar’aneth?”

“Yeah,” Breaker breathed.

Erin smiled, and pressed confirm.

NAME | | BREAKER DRAR’ANETH | | TIMES CHANGED: [1]

A weight seemed to have been lifted off of Breaker as he claimed his own name.

Breaker Drar’aneth… it felt right.

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────

Both of them holding their new communicators, they navigated through the crowds to a small bench off to the side near the walls of the Sanctuary beneath a small tree.

“I swear I’ll help you learn Common,” Erin said, sitting down.

“I.. sure. If you want, I guess.” Breaker sat down next to her, looking at the words on his communicator screen uncomprehendingly.

Erin navigated the menus of the communicator with some difficulty, passing on any information about settings she found onto Breaker.

“You never answered me, back there,” Breaker suddenly said.

“I guess not…” Erin trailed off, looking at the button on her communicator screen that would take her to her personal information. “I don’t know how old I am.”

“What?”

“It said it was indeterminate.” She laughed bitterly. “At least it gave me my birthday.”

“That’s fucking stupid.”

Erin snorted. “Yeah, it is.”

“And did it tell you what kind of hybrid you are?”

“It didn’t say I was a hybrid,” Erin replied, “it said I was Enderborn, and that I was a dragonborn, or whatever that meant.”

“Enderborn?” Breaker marvelled. “That’s.. Huh. Wow.”

“Yeah. Explains why my surname is ‘Ender’, too.”

“That’s also fucking stupid, imagine if my last name was Nether, what the shit.”

Erin let out a genuine laugh, feeling her hopes raise a little at his wit.

They messed around with the settings of the communicator more, finding the communication I.D.s and friend request systems fairly quickly. Breaker nearly fell off of the bench when he accidentally activated a setting that read out the words he tapped on the screen.

The sky was darkened by then, leaving the Heart of Spawn bathed in the warm light of lanterns and torches. Neither of them made to speak of what would come next, come morning, what would happen after.

Erin would much rather laugh at the look on Breaker’s face as he furiously tapped at his communicator screen to get it to stop shouting at him. She didn’t want to think about after.

Suddenly Breaker lightly nudged Erin’s side. “Erin,” he quietly warned.

Erin looked up as a tall shadow fell over their bench from the approaching figure. It looked to be a tall enderman hybrid, silhouetted by the lantern light, with dark curly hair and large reflective purple eyes.

They stopped before the two on the bench, Erin feeling Breaker tense at her side.

“Excuse me,” they said, clutching something anxiously to their chest and facing Erin as they spoke, “where did you get that necklace?”

Erin froze.

──────✧❅✦❅✧──────