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Time loses its meaning to Phil, at some point.
He isn’t sure when it all went flat and grey; when the cold glint of steel and iron began to shine brighter than the newness of life as it came and went around him. Memory doesn’t serve him as well as it used to, centuries of decay so often blurring together like watercolor until he can hardly find it in himself to feel anything at all, save a dull, discolored apathy. It’s a monotonous sort of feeling, like he's seeing the world through noir snapshots, floating in the air through void and blackness and watching it all unfold. Oftentimes he can only recall the time spent soaring above it all, kicking back as the time passes from the pedestal of freedom the wings on his back allowed him to occupy.
Curled up on the jagged stone in the wreckage of L’manberg, knees digging painfully into the ground and his son’s bloodied corpse pressed tightly to his chest, Phil finds that anodyne disconnect to be an enviable feeling.
He doesn’t know how long he has been there, left side still aching dully, blood soaking into his robes and inhaling the putrid smoke of death and gore surrounding him. Cries fall from his throat until he’s slumped against Wilbur’s dead body, exhaustion and dehydration leaving him shivering as people shout and panic in the ruins of the nation around him. Everything falls away, fades into a lifeless haze as he presses his face into Wilbur’s shoulder and scrapes a trembling hand through his hair, combing out the gravel and debris between his fingers.
He’s rubbing a hand up and down Wilbur’s back mindlessly, rocking them back and forth in place when he suddenly notices hefty footsteps approaching from behind him. Phil bristles and clutches Wilbur’s lifeless body closer against himself. A crow caws in the distance. He holds his breath.
“...Phil?”
The voice is level, familiar accent pitched low and even, tilting upward at the end in concerned confusion while Phil sighs in relief as recognition sparks. His right wing flutters in response, the left one hanging limp at an uncomfortable angle he’s unable to adjust out of without excruciating pain shooting down his spine. Phil exhales shakily and curls his fingers into Wilbur’s bloody trench coat.
“Phil.”
He sits there, on his knees, and waits for the voice to prove itself real, for anything around him to become tangible again and break through the tepid fog of emptiness, and right on cue, there is a large hand on his shoulder.
“Phil,” it insists. “We need to get out of here, Phil.”
Phil shudders and pries his eyes open, the hot sunlight of the day stinging his retinas. He squints against it, but when his vision clears all he can see is red, everywhere, on his arms and his clothes and staining Wilbur’s jaw where his hand had been cradling his face, and he whimpers, kneeling further over Wilbur’s body and squeezing his eyes back shut.
“Techno,” He wheezes.
Techno’s hand pulls at his arm and Phil feels his body tense, his injured wing shifting against his will and causing him to cry out in pain.
“C’mon, Phil,” urges Techno. “We need to go.”
Shaking his head, Phil hugs Wilbur’s cold body tightly. Distantly, he hears the sound of sobbing, and can’t tell where it’s coming from until he tries to speak and his breath is ripped from his chest as his body heaves and shakes in an attempt to create more tears.
He can just barely make out the sound of glass shattering, startling him into loosening his grasp, and then the sickly sweet medicinal smell of healing potions mixes with the stench of blood in the air, not quite strong enough to mask it entirely, an unpleasant blend of metallic coppery death and the miasma of blaze powder and nether wart from the concoction. There’s a lapse of quiet as Phil continues to sob brokenly, and then, suddenly, Techno’s hands are forcefully prying his arms from their embrace around Wilbur’s limp body.
“No!” exclaims Phil, throwing out an arm to reach out blindly for Wilbur, blinking rapidly against the vision of his own hand shaking in the open air and Wilbur’s corpse falling to the floor just beyond his reach before he’s being hauled bodily into the air and slung over one of Techno’s shoulders. His nerves howl in agony as Techno’s arm brushes against his tattered left wing and he convulses, pain shooting down his spine when he adjusts his hold.
Phil screams and kicks his feet, smacking Techno’s shoulder uselessly in protest and crying out, “Techno!”
“We’re leavin’.” Techno states, voice leaving no room for negotiation despite Phil’s frantic squirming as he attempts to jostle himself out of Techno’s grip.
As he weakly slams his fist against Techno’s back, that increasingly familiar sinking feeling settles in his gut. It’s a pointless struggle, after all — they’ve sparred more than enough times for them both to know he’s no match against Techno when it comes to brute strength alone, but with frustration and despair clawing at him his body fights back without thinking, adrenaline rendering him no better than a cornered animal choosing to bite when it can no longer run.
As Techno climbs them out of the wreckage, Phil holds his hand out in the air and stares at his son’s dead body on the ground, bloody and torn open, with a sinking sense of finality as Techno stalks away from the remnants of L’manberg until it’s gone from view entirely.
Phil’s body falls limp by the time Techno ducks down into the trees and the smoke and ruins are obscured by the dense forest, left wing numb once more, limbs heavy and fatigued.
Belatedly, he catches sight of a trail of blood dotting the dark grass beneath them, and realizes that Techno had removed the sword from Wilbur’s corpse when he lifted Phil and is now carrying it in his unoccupied hand, the one not balancing Phil’s dead weight against his chest. The red splotches on the weapon glint against the smudges of sunlight that peek through the curtain of leaves above them, and his stomach flips nauseatingly before exhaustion overtakes him and he topples into unconsciousness.
The march away from the wreckage is slow, methodical, Techno moving carefully as the sun makes its journey from east to west, the day waning with the sound of his heavy-footed treading through the tall grass. Phil wakes intermittently, stirred by the sensation of branches scraping against his wings and the brief stabbing pain that immediately follows down his left side.
“Just a little while longer,” Techno tells him, the third time he wakes. “We need to get as far away as possible.”
Slurred and hazy, Phil picks his head up and asks, “Where are we going?”
For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of dirt crunching under Techno’s feet and the occasional distant cries of the crows. Phil ignores their cawing and studies the grass as it sways, blades smeared together into an indistinct murk of green and yellow, his cheek pressed into Techno’s shoulder, neck tilted uncomfortably to the side and body shifting minutely as Techno takes another heavy footstep. He scratches absentmindedly at the fuzzy texture of the cloak.
Then, Techno responds, “I’m thinkin’ the tundra. I was gonna build a house there.” He pauses, and then adds, “You can stay there, with me, if you want.”
A strange bitterness creeps up in him at the suggestion, the joy and thrill of excitement Phil would have normally felt at such a proposition ironed out into a smooth, featureless imitation of emotion, replaced by a haunting sensation of dread prickling at the back of his neck and making his hairs stand on end.
He can barely begin to consider how to reply when Techno suddenly trips distractedly on a stump, roughly jostling Phil’s body from where it’s draped across his back and causing the top of his left wing to slam into a low-hanging branch with a grisly cracking sound.
“Oh, shit!” Techno gasps.
Phil cries out, wing burning as Techno stumbles forward and recovers his footing, scrambling to readjust his grasp before he collapses to the ground. With his body nearly propelled into open air Phil’s good wing spreads open on instinct to break his fall, but it can hardly catch any wind on its own and Techno shoots his arms out behind himself to catch him just in time, lowering him to the ground gently and spinning around to scan him for injuries.
“My bad,” Techno apologizes, hands hovering awkwardly in front of him, stuck in place for a few seconds before some decision occurs to him and he lightly grabs Phil’s wrist, pulling him forward so Phil turns and he can inspect the battered wing.
Phil coughs, wincing at the tightness in his chest and stinging in his left side, and waves a hand through the air.
“I’m fine,” he tells Techno hoarsely. “Don’t worry about it.”
Inattentively, he peers down at his wrist where it is still encircled by Techno’s broad grip, his hand only partially obscuring the bloodstains running down the length of his forearm, the bright red now drying into a dark, sticky maroon. When Techno pulls his hand away, Phil’s ears ring and the remnants of the blood rub off on him. He can hear someone speaking, distantly, from his reddened tunnel vision, calling for his attention from a place beyond the void.
“Phil? Phil?”
Phil huffs and presses his face into the fluff of Techno’s cape, pointedly ignoring the smell of blood on it, too, and summons enough energy to speak.
“There’s still blood on me,” Phil croaks.
“...Yeah.”
“Please, get it off of me.” He pleads, hushed.
There’s a moment of hesitation as Phil glimpses upward at Techno’s worried face, which turns briskly upward to scan the sky above and then lowers to meet his gaze, claret irises flitting nervously over his face.
“We’ve gotten pretty far already, I suppose.” Techno agrees, and turns, making a quick gesture over his shoulder. “C’mon,” he says, “there’s a river just past the mountain.”
Techno drops his head and walks forward, only peering over his shoulder to check that Phil’s still following, to which Phil repeatedly averts his gaze. Some nagging sense of unease tells him that Techno’s eyes are more piercing than usual, nausea and discomfort making Phil sick with the sense that Techno’s looking for something in him that is no longer there, waiting for him to bare some part of himself that’s been mangled beyond recognition, or even worse, lost entirely; expecting him to be weaker than he knows he is. Than he’s allowed to be.
As Techno pulls on his bloody sleeve to redirect him toward the distant riverbank, where the shadow of the mountain looms over the shoreline, he anticipates the inevitable cathartic rage of vengeance to overtake him. Instead, he sits on the sand next to Techno feeling cold and apathetic with his left wing slack and stinging.
After scanning the area, Techno places his satchel on the ground in front of himself and Phil watches tentatively from the side as he sifts through his things, pulling out a couple vials and bottles of healing solutions and balms. His right wing ruffles as Techno peers over at him, shifting in place self-consciously, stretching out his aching legs.
“Come on,” Techno tells him.
Ignoring the unpleasant burn of humiliation in his gut, Phil shuffles forward on his knees, startling when Techno catches him by the elbow and slowly guides him to sit closer to the shoreline. Phil buries a hand in the sand, letting the soft grains pool in his palm and cascade between his fingers, observing the tiny granules get stuck to the dried blood smeared across his skin, impossible to pluck away without forcing more blood under his fingernails. Instead, he fixes his eyes on the ground, watching as the tides push and pull the currents to and fro hypnotically, the water occasionally lapping at his ankles, and then impulsively leans forward and plunges his hands into the cool liquid.
Phil breathes, long and drawn out, and starts to scrub underneath his nails, watching the crisp and clear river water run pinkish red as the blood comes away.
He nearly forgets Techno is there with him until a large red object is dropped to the ground in his periphery — his cloak — and Techno kneels down at his side to wash out the bloodstains in the fabric.
It’s quiet for a while, only the sounds of water and Phil’s occasional strained exhale as memories sink and resurface through the raging currents. They sit there on the riverbed in companionable silence as they purge remnants of that awful day to be cleansed from their sight down the river, and Phil scrapes at the blood on his arms with water until they’re covered in scratch marks and Techno gently pulls his nails away, saying, "easy, easy," until he stops clawing and forgets himself in the reflection of the sunlight on the water.
Techno stands up behind him, out of view, and Phil glances down at the blood still covering the front of his shirt and robes while Techno’s similarly messy clothes are discarded on the sand and he returns into view in a fresh set. His shirt is crisp and white, slightly wrinkled from being rolled up in his bag.
“I don’t have enough spare clothes for the journey,” Techno informs him, hesitation in his voice. “There’s some back in… where we stayed, before, but I don’t think going back there would be worth it.”
There’s a heavy silence, and within it Phil feels the emptiness in his chest sparking into fire at the implications of we, burning intensity and confusion which takes all his energy to reign in, fists clenching at his sides. His mind grants him once more the vivid memory of that suffocating room with the button and the shadows under his son’s eyes, his stiff movement and desperate pleading, the sound of skin being pierced by metal. Questions about the places he’s been and the city they’d watched turn to rubble that morning burn at the tip of his tongue, about the blood that coated Techno, too, the lingering stench of death following them both from that terrible crater in the Earth.
Instead, Phil mutters, “That’s okay,” voice hollow, still looking at the blood.
Techno eyes him for a long time. Phil pretends not to notice.
“Let me help with your wings.”
Offended, Phil’s right wing flutters in place, and he quails with anxiety. “What about them?”
Techno raises an eyebrow.
“Uh, everythin’?” He states bluntly. “They at least need to be cleaned, man. There’s…”
Aggravated, Phil barks out a sardonic laugh through the lump in his throat. He prods, “Blood, everywhere?”
Techno chuffs. “I was gonna say a lot of damage, but yeah, that works too.”
Phil sighs deeply, his mind and body screaming out for him to seize the gentle offering but trembling at the prospective exposure, curling in on himself. Hesitantly, he meets Techno’s sharp eyes. Techno reads it as it is; a begrudging olive branch, and takes it.
“Turn around.” instructs Techno.
Phil rearranges himself reluctantly until his back is facing the river, relaxing his right wing until the bottom most part of the feathers can graze the cold currents of the river, sending a shiver up his spine and raising the hair on his arms. He hisses in pain and looks away when Techno tenderly reaches out and runs a hand along the top edge of Phil’s damaged wing, his entire body seizing up and tensing at the contact.
Techno recoils his hand hastily and it hovers in the air. In his periphery, Phil can see Techno tilting his head and peering at where his primary and secondary feathers have been badly burnt, nearly all of his remiges torn to shreds by the force of the explosion and leaving behind exposed bone, disjointed and misaligned. Techno follows the line of the wing with his eyes down to the tattered back of his robe.
Techno’s voice is uncharacteristically soft when he says, quietly, “...I think it might be broken.”
It’s no surprise, nothing Phil couldn’t have determined on his own, and yet Phil’s breath falls out of him all at once and his lungs constrict painfully in his chest, vacuum of emptiness snuffing out the fire that had been there just moments prior, a dry sobbing breath escaping his throat and meeting the open air where the wind suddenly stalls. His wing still stings from the point where Techno touched it, the phantom sensation of his hand reminding him of the flames of destruction and rapture, and Phil wraps his arms around himself and prays to nobody in particular that the numbness doesn’t overwrite it, that the pain never fades if it means he can still feel the wing there. He isn't afraid of the cold uselessness of death, has grown used to permanent numbness consuming him, but anywhere but there. Anything but this.
“Can I…” Techno’s voice comes from some distant place at his side, timid and awkward. “Do you mind, uh…”
Sighing deeply, Phil tilts his head to the side and meets Techno’s anticipatory gaze.
“Can you take your shirt off?” He rattles on, “So we can clean it. Uh, I need to see the base of your wings, too.”
Phil can’t quite find it in himself to laugh at Techno’s absurd embarrassment, the last of the sparks in his gut giving him only enough energy to glare at him, and he watches with guilty vindication as Techno shrinks back. Of all that they’ve seen of each other, a few thin pieces of dirty fabric to be the only barrier left between them is laughable, the tattered remains of clothing stained in crimson left fragile and tender to be torn away. He wordlessly moves to undo his belt and pull the outermost robes apart, wincing at the awful sticky sound of dried blood being pulled apart from itself, and then makes as rapid progress as he can with the skin-tight material of his undershirt, grimacing at how it clings to his chest uncomfortably with the blood that had soaked all the way through.
As his bare skin is exposed to the open air, warming with the light of the sun, a meek gust of wind passes by them and Phil’s breath leaves him with a full-body shudder.
Techno touches the uppermost part of his wing again, pulling back once more when he immediately tenses. Awaiting the return of the touch, Phil is pleasantly surprised when his skin is instead met with the soft, albeit slightly damp fabric of Techno’s cloak, which Techno pushes into his arms and waits for him to wrap around himself. Despite the frustration simmering in him, the object is comforting, and his muscles relax slightly as he runs his hand up and down over the texture of it.
“...Thanks.” Phil tells him.
“Yup.” Techno digresses, hands returning to skim along his feathers.
It’s quiet, again, as Techno runs his stained clothes through the river and then dips his hand in the water to slowly wash the dried blood from his wings. Phil winces and twitches in pain, the comfort of the physical touch far overpowered by the sharp sting when Techno accidentally grazes a charred mass of flesh where the feathers have been burned away or snapped in two at the base of the shaft. Each time, Techno will hum and chime, “relax,” making quick work of the tender areas and preening away the broken and destroyed feathers as he passes by them.
Phil breathes heavily as the throbbing pains come and go, focusing on the cold water lapping at his feet and the occasional breeze as it shifts the feathers on his good wing; gentle, hesitant, almost apologetic. Techno’s fingertips brush against the soft downy material at the base of his wings and Phil chitters, the dull ache morphing to a painful flare ringing through his nervous system endlessly as Techno feels around to determine where the joints have dislodged and the bones have snapped into pieces.
Then, he watches with great envy as the burnt feathers Techno plucks away fall to the ground and get picked up by the wind, scorched and ruined parts of himself carried away gracefully by the force of the earth. In the absence of touch, he listens carefully as Techno pulls away and shifts around behind him. When he appears at Phil’s side again he’s holding a potion of regeneration and some sort of balmy looking healing substance. Techno hands him the potion.
“Only one left after this.” Techno says, and smiles stiffly. Phil nods, taking it wordlessly and downing it in one swift movement, eyes squeezed shut against the bittersweet taste.
“Ugh,” He groans after he swallows, shoving the empty bottle at Techno without looking, not eager to see whatever Techno’s expression has waiting for him after all this — concern, disgust, disappointment. Heat simmers in him again, the sunlight bearing down on the two of them from between the clouds and burning his skin wherever it touches, and he turns away to try and soothe the feeling of overexposure and prevent himself from saying anything further. Phil clenches his jaw and stares at the water of the river as it rushes endlessly onward into the horizon, where it fades from view to inevitably to lose some part of itself when it joins with the ocean.
Kindly, Techno places his hand back on Phil’s good wing with clear intention to comfort, but Phil tenses and ruffles it, pushing him away roughly with a small flap and holding his breath in the uncomfortable silence that follows.
Techno’s hand stops in the air for a few moments, irresolute, before he pulls away entirely. Anger and illogical disappointment swirl together in the fog of Phil’s mind and he shakes his head in a futile attempt to clear it, fumbling to yank his damp shirt back over his head.
Drowsiness pulls his eyelids downward as the last of the potion settles in his gut. Without a word or passing glance, Techno stands and lifts Phil’s groggy body back onto his shoulder, receiving no further resistance, his shoulders tense and stiff where Phil is laid against them. He can just barely feel the rumble of Techno’s chest when he speaks;
“We’ll keep moving until sunset.”
Phil passes out for another hour or so before he’s stirred by Techno nudging him.
“I just need to get this tree,” Techno is telling him, over his shoulder. “Can I put you down for a second?”
Still woozy, Phil nods, his mind swimming as Techno wraps his arms around his waist and carefully lifts him from his shoulder to place him on the ground. His left leg almost immediately gives out and he falls forward, Techno catching him by the arms.
“Woah, hey,” Techno says, steadying him. “You good? Can you stand next to me for a minute while I collect some wood, or nah?” He asks.
Phil nods again mechanically, swaying on his feet and adjusting as best he can, removing himself from Techno’s support and wincing at the ache in his knee as he puts some of his body weight on it. He forces himself upright and observes as Techno begins to move toward the nearby patch of trees, netherite axe swinging in hand.
Techno calls over his shoulder, “Tell me if there’s any mobs,” and then begins to chop.
Phil crosses his arms across his chest and shifts uncomfortably in place, trying to balance against the pain, peering at the sky where the daylight is starting to wane in favor of the moonrise. They’re in a flat area adjacent to a mountain, tall grass tickling at Phil’s knees through his damaged clothing, and he breathes in carefully, watching the shadows shift and change as the sun sets. Even through the mental fog of pain and exhaustion he can sense the tone of their movement as they creep timidly around him and the light breeze just barely shifts his robes. That gnawing emptiness of days spent alone returns to him in all its glory, hollow lethargy tapping at the threshold of his mind that allows him to feel at all until he has no fight left in him to slam it shut before it’s too late.
He jolts to attention abruptly at the sound of a branch cracking behind him and he glances over his shoulder, catching sight of a creeper several feet away inching closer, hollow black eyes trained on him. Phil spins in place, panicked, and scans his surroundings urgently.
Now a distance away and fully unaware of the mob’s presence, Techno moves a few yards further to chop at another tree, a thin and precarious looking birch, while Phil’s legs creak with the effort of standing. Fear sends him into overdrive, heart pounding in his ears and his hand flies habitually to his hip where he would normally pull his sword from its sheath, which instead lies empty and purposeless.
With adrenaline racing through his veins, Phil stumbles backward and his wings make a desperate attempt to help him escape, the right wing flapping clumsily several times while the other one hangs from his back stubbornly limp, stinging unpleasantly as the muscles clench but otherwise incapable of movement entirely. His reflexes shot, he barely manages to throw up his arms in time to protect his face before the creature is one step away, hissing, and he’s there again, that dreadful redstone signal setting the world alight around him, fire and debris piercing through his wings until he’s bloodied and useless.
The creeper glows an unnatural white, and then with a deafening crashing sound it explodes, throwing Phil backward with a shout and a choked trilling noise like that of a bird ripped from the sky, or a desperate creature pierced through the abdomen by a blade.
Ears ringing, Phil sees rather than hears Techno’s panicked yell as he sprints toward the small crater Phil is laid inside of.
Blood, blood, blood, on his hands, in his hair-
“Phil!” Techno calls again, looking down at him with wide eyes.
His son’s despaired cries, hopeless begging, pulling the blade toward his neck-
From his place in the dirt, Phil tries to wave, but his hand trembles so much he doesn’t think the gesture translates to much of anything. He tries to smile, but fears it much more resembles a grimace, and when he tries to speak his voice catches in his throat and he sobs dryly.
Techno scrambles through his satchel briefly, fishing out another splash potion and immediately shattering it on the ground next to Phil, who flinches violently at the noise. He drops to his knees at Phil’s side, pulling him into a sitting position.
“I told you to stay close!” Techno scolds. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a creeper?!”
Phil coughs. “I can handle a creeper, mate.”
Techno’s brows furrow into an incredulous expression. “Clearly not!” He exclaims, but softens a bit when Phil flinches again. He hesitates.
“You’re hurt.” Techno settles on saying, firm but not unkind. “Just… let me help you.”
Phil shakes his head on instinct, pushing Techno harshly away from him, and can’t think of anything else to say no matter how hard he tries, his words clouded by the ever-growing smokey haze of frustration and panic. Instead, he stares at the pieces of rock and gravel stuck to his scraped knees, pants torn apart at the joint, and waits until the sensation of Techno’s gaze on him finally fades.
After a long, tense moment of quiet, Techno stands. Phil begrudgingly takes his hand as he holds it out to help him up.
“Come on,” Techno insists. “I’m gonna build us a shack, alright? We’ll wait out the night.”
Phil says nothing.
“Alright?”
“Okay.” Phil agrees tersely, Techno leading him to sit on a flat patch of grass with a torch in hand. He watches as Techno gathers up the planks of wood and begins to arrange them on the ground.
“Can I help?” Phil tries.
Techno gives him a brief once-over.
“No.”
They don’t talk, after that. Nightfall arrives fast, Techno pittering around erratically and placing torches on the remaining nearby trees, the shadows generously seceding without much hassle. Phil curls up on the soft grass, the torch he’d held now propped up on the wall Techno has hastily constructed, and tries to ignore the aching in his wing as he falls asleep again.
There’s blood everywhere.
It’s all over his hands, coating him from elbow to fingertip, dripping from his hair as though he’d showered in a downpour of it. His clothing is soaked clean through, emerald green robes mixing with red and turned to an emulsion of ruddy black. He breathes in the horrible metallic stench of it, and there, on the ground, is the sword. It glimmers near purple, beautiful crisp diamond enchanted with the power of fire and sharpness, capable of killing in two quick slashes — a fact of its strength that Phil understands intuitively just by one quick glance at it.
His hand fits perfectly around the hilt as though it were made with the shape of his palm in mind, and he catches sight of his own sunken eyes in the reflection of it. He feels suddenly nauseous, the sight of his face splattered in red; he can almost taste it, disgusting and still warm, pulsing with life.
“One day I’ll make a nation,” Wilbur’s voice arises from the recesses of his memory against the taste of blood on his tongue, and the image of his son perched on the edge of the couch laughing against the soft lamplight distorts into a gory massacre of ruined flesh and shattered rock. When Wilbur leans back to stretch, his abdomen is torn open by a gaping puncture wound, and Phil convulses painfully before the image fades, and then he’s flying.
He’s flying, and instead of Wilbur’s front, soaked with blood, he sees a memory of Wilbur in his arms, much younger, the back of his head pressed against Phil’s chest as they soar through the air.
“The flag is pretty good, right?” He says, pointing forward, and in the distance against a dense forest is a massive crater, far larger than the one still fresh in his memory, stone sliced open as though generated in error, massive trenches leading directly to bedrock. A peculiar grid-like structure is suspended in the sky above, and the flag from Wilbur’s old drawings stands tall in the wreckage, tattered and flaming.
Wilbur giggles, a light, carefree sound, and shifts around in his grasp.
“Are you proud?”
Sickening nausea crawls up his throat and Phil’s body falls slack against his will, Wilbur slipping out of his arms as his wings falter and flap desperately in the sky, tools of freedom and flight suddenly failing him as he tries to no avail to gain altitude. His left side suddenly feels like it’s been torn open and he twists in the air as his stomach drops, watching hopelessly as his son’s body falls just out of reach in the open air and they plummet to the ground at terminal velocity, together.
Phil screams. “Will!”
When Phil wakes his face is wet and his body jolts upright, heaving and gasping. Vision spotty, he scrubs at his arms and face erratically, afraid to open his eyes and see the frayed remains of his clothes, his hair slathered with dried blood and his wing a charred and skeletal imitation of feathers and flesh.
When he pries his eyes open, however, all he sees is Techno’s body slumped over in the corner, fast asleep, pink hair glowing orange in the light of the torches. The air is still and silent in the small shack, Techno’s cloak draped over his lap, stirred from where it had been apparently placed over him as he’d slept. Phil breathes out shakily, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them back up, timidly peering into the blackness of the night through the gaps in the doorway, finding himself relieved when the blood and gore of his dream doesn’t reappear. He wrings his hands together as his heart then drops, the space between his arms that Wilbur had occupied in the dream so vivid that he’s shocked into the realization of what he has left to understand; that his son would not return cheerful and enthused as he wishes to remember him, nor sliced through his stomach and bleeding as he does. He knows, in some unknowable part of him, that the life he’d taken was Wilbur’s last, and with one final glance toward Techno’s sleeping figure, he finds himself stumbling out of bed and through the door.
As he’d slept, Techno had carried them through a vast plain and settled them atop a steep plateau over the valley, and now, in the tintype light of the midnight sky, he stares out over the cliffside and breathes deep as another gust of wind swirls around him. It pushes his wings outward until he can feel the phantom version of his left wing flapping in response in unison with the right, instinct and muscle memory ingrained in him like immovable stone, carved and etched and shaped by time, solid and reliable.
He gasps as the cold air of the night raises his hair on end, the ground rough and unpleasant against his bare feet, grass prickling against his ankles and small rocks digging into his skin as he lifts his head up to the sky where the moon hangs in the middle of it all, its pale illumination littered across his skin, painting him pallid and monochrome in its wake, cold and blue and empty. Another gust of wind pushes up against his front, his hair and robes floating with the flow of it, and Phil sways unsteadily on his feet, digging his heels into the earth as though about to take flight, his right wing fluttering briefly with recollection. Nature swaying all around him, dead leaves drifting through the air, Phil feels suddenly and overwhelmingly tiny, insignificant, helpless.
Memories flash; his hand suspended in the air, unacting and uninfluential as Wilbur had reached for the button, his ineffective screaming and thrashing against Techno’s grip before he was pulled away from the wreckage, his arms thrown up to protect himself from the creeper when his wings had failed in their attempt to lift him from the ground and remove him from harm’s way.
Electricity runs down his spine, his hands twitching with the unrelenting urge to do something, to reach out and pull his son from that accursed room, like shooting a bird from the sky, grounding him to the earth at his side so at the very least there would be something waiting for them when it all inevitably fell apart; that after careful reconstruction, they could one day hope to fly again.
Phil focuses, tenses his back, and feels the left wing shift minutely, horrific searing pain flaring from the tip of it down his spine until he’s keeled over against his will and shuddering with agony. When he turns his gaze to the ground he sees his own shadow: broad, dark, and asymmetrical, a large shape spread wide and proud on his right side and an uneven, messy web of blackness looming over his left.
It feels almost real, almost tangible, the memory of the gentle air coaxing him into the sky as it had so many times before, the shadows guiding him home, the wind in his hair and the crows trailing behind him as he soars into the clouds atop the ever-changing drafts and currents — as certain as the feeling of wings on his back. The shape of the moon, thin and waning, burns itself into the backs of his eyelids as he straightens his posture and fixes his gaze on the horizon where the cliff gives way to a massive drop into the valley below.
Distantly, he feels the hilt of the sword, a ghost cradled in the center of his palm, and he shakes out the feeling with a few flicks of his wrist. He can’t allow it to haunt him, refuses to let the weight of the shadows on his back tether him to the ground; he is Death’s Angel, after all. He is born to fly, and fate has been relentless in teaching him that her will is the final verdict, no matter how the creatures of this planet have attempted to circumvent it.
Phil breathes, spreads his arms wide and displays his freedom to the night with the full expanse of its wingspan.
He runs.
He runs, as fast as he can, bare feet pounding against the rough soil as he sprints at full speed toward the cliff, adrenaline climbing through him as he grins desperately into the darkness. As the edge nears, the wind roars against his body as though in a desperate attempt to throw him backward, but the coldness in his gut simmers with his rage until all that remains is blind thrill and he pushes forward until he can nearly jump, until he’s nearly over the edge, until he’s free again-
It all goes still.
The force of his body running forward is suddenly halted and he is thrown backward, his body suspended in the open air for just a moment, just long enough for his right wing to make its valiant attempt to launch him into the sky, flapping wildly while the left hangs numb and unmoving from his body.
Phil shrieks as his wing fails and he falls to the ground on the edge of the cliff. He’s then hauled backward by some massive force, kicking and screaming against the weight of it, trying pointlessly to gain traction against the ground with his bare feet.
“Let me go!” He screams, clawing at the hands that encircle his chest and yank him backward.
Techno stumbles them further back away from the cliff. “No,” He grits out into Phil’s ear, his footing faltering as he collapses onto the ground, grip around Phil going slack for a split second, in which Phil makes another attempt to rip himself away. Techno throws out his hand and catches him barely by the wrist, and Phil cries out as though struck, trying to move back toward the cliffside.
He sobs, eyes trained on the brightness of the moon. “Please! I can do it, I can fly!”
Techno’s grip remains unyielding and he shifts onto a knee, grabbing onto the back of Phil’s robe with his other hand and pulling him backward.
Against the roaring wind in Phil’s ears, Techno’s voice yells, “Phil, you’ll die!”
“I won’t!” Phil protests, struggling. “I can’t!”
She won’t let me. She never does.
Icy coldness chills Phil’s cheeks and he heaves out a stilted breath, prying open his eyes from where they’d shut to stare at the moon and watch its brightness distort and wobble until he blinks and the distortion falls away as tears down his face, the currents unwavering, shoving him further backward. He resists against the intensity of it and Techno’s grip for another moment before his knees suddenly buckle underneath him and he crumples to the ground.
His right wing flaps weakly against the chaotic winds, and as Phil sobs into the darkness he feels his core sparking into light and temper, much stronger than before, red hot fury tensing his muscles and leaving him convulsing on the ground, curling his fists into the dirt and gritting his teeth. He hears Techno shift behind him, grip loosening as he watches Phil shake and tremble.
Phil is angry. He can feel it thrumming in him, blood pumping through his heart and racing through him, his pulse pounding hard and fast in his throat and his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“...Phil?”
Techno calls out to him; Techno, his companion, his partner and best friend, the one he has placed his life in the hands of time after time through decades of camaraderie, relying on him not to falter, leaning on his shoulder when his legs fell weak and pulling him up by the hand after the massacre of battle left them battered and bruised. Techno, who watched him raise his son, who read the same letters he did and knew of the great ambition and hope that was L’manberg, who saw the light as it danced in his son’s eyes like flickering fire. Techno, who took his place at Wilbur’s side when Wilbur needed him most, some uncertain, unaffected influence looming there with no objections as the explosions and death came for him, watching it unfold all under the promise of his nod that he was going to be there. The promise that his son would come home after it all, just as he had promised in his letters so many times before.
An agonized groan of frustration rips itself from his throat as Phil shifts in place and flaps his wing once, hard, angled directly at Techno so the brunt of it hits him in his chest with a massive gust of air, crashing Techno backward against the ground.
Phil stumbles to his feet and whips around to stare into Techno’s wide eyes, body silhouetted against the light of the moon, his shadow draping Techno in darkness as he, too, forces himself to stand.
“Philza,” Techno calls placatingly, and Phil poises his arms as though to protect himself. He raises his chin and catches his breath.
Phil spits back, “Technoblade.”
“Hey,” Techno attempts. Phil relishes cruelly in the panicked tone of his voice, poorly concealed by his monotone speech. He bares his teeth as the wind pounds against his back.
Techno tells him, “relax,” holding up both hands placatingly, and it is with this feeble attempt to soothe that the rope of frustration that’s been pulled taut in the center of his chest since that button was pressed and the world ended in front of his eyes is finally snapped in twain.
Questions gone unanswered boil into relentless fury and tear through his chest in a desperate cry and Phil launches himself forward without warning, throwing a fist out in a sloppy attempt to punch that Techno easily dodges, sliding himself out of the way and swiftly ducking when Phil throws out another arm to try and get a hit in.
It’s in moments like these, moments shaped by iron, steel, blood, fists — moments shredded by his talons into ragged strips of time, violent and unforgiving — it’s in the aroma of metal and death that Phil’s role has been carved out for him. It’s the shadow of emotion where he’s meant to stay, livid and wrathful, so he can carry out the will of divinity and watch justice unfold like dominoes he can tumble with a mere twitch of his index finger. He sees himself in the reflection of Techno’s eyes, a tired creature with hollow voids for eyes and thin straw for hair, a pastiche of humanity placed on Earth to watch, to observe, but never interfere.
The wind howls and thunder strikes distantly, a sudden eruption of noise, and Phil finds himself struck by the feeling of being admonished, finds himself thinking that perhaps Kristin made a mistake leaving him here for so long, left to mingle and meddle and love. A memory of her voice from so long ago, anxious, telling him he’s getting too close.
She’d been proud, when Wilbur finally came around. Foolishly, Phil thought she’d changed her mind, by then.
His claws dig into the calloused flesh of his palm and he seethes — for a being created as a tribute to the air, to hover and float above it all, the ground under his feet is transforming into something terribly lucid.
Phil stammers forward and stalks a few steps to the side, observing carefully as Techno rights himself. Moisture prickles against the back of Phil's neck and he swipes a hand through it, catching the first few drops of rainwater on his palm just as the clouds shift and a downpour begins.
“Blood for the Blood God, eh?” He laughs, voice cold and condescending and quivering. “Come on, then. What, you too good to fight me, now?”
“What?” Techno asks, confused, and the spark reignites in Phil’s chest.
“I’m not weak.” He says. “Hit me, I can take it, spar with me.” Phil insists, “Like we used to.”
Techno shakes his head, his hair dampened by the rain and falling loose from its ponytail, fluttering around his face. “I’m not gonna hit you, Phil.”
“Fine.” Phil huffs. “I can prove it, okay? I’ll show you, I’ll show you.”
With hardly enough time to choke out a, “huh?!”, Phil runs at Techno and takes pleasure in the ample imitation of the thrill of battle as Techno steps back and catches his wrist with his own, blocking Phil’s rapidfire jabs with his forearms and stepping from side to side as Phil moves toward him, a familiar dance, their similar agility allowing them to exchange blows back and forth until endurance and fatigue is the only remaining determining factor.
“I don’t think you’re weak,” Techno explains, desperation in his voice. “But you’re hurt, Phil, please, just-”
“I’m not hurt!” Phil screeches, stance wavering as Techno shoves him by his shoulder when his next step falls slightly too close, an uncharacteristic mistake spurred on by the muddy soil slickened with rainwater. “I can fight, see?” In a movement he knows is unfair, he thrusts his knee upward into Techno’s stomach and watches him groan and stagger backward.
“Phil, please,” He persists, folded over. “What’s going on? What do you need?”
Something in Phil cracks open and in Techno’s moment of weakness, he shoves his foot out in front of himself and kicks Techno’s feet out from under him, hyperventilating as he watches Techno fall to his knees.
He cries, “I need my son back!”
Techno’s head snaps upward and Phil meets his gaze, watching it shift and change from confused bewilderment to solemn understanding and, as familiar as the back of his hand, as the wings on his back, he gasps with the adrenaline that shoots through him when Techno’s eyebrows furrow and his expression turns tempestuous.
“He was supposed to come home with you!” yells Phil, defensively, and then stutters backward and tilts his head up toward the blackness of the night, raindrops streaming down his face, taking in the shifting scenery while feeling sick to his core, unbearable disgust and shame ripping through him and leaving him pleading with his own shadow.
“Phil!” Techno shouts over the roaring wind, voice suddenly icy, stepping backward as Phil turns back to him, trying and failing with his inhibited mobility to swing his wing close enough to hit him with it.
Frustrated, Phil screams, a gutteral sound torn from the embers within him and hurls himself at Techno, his elbow jabbing into the meat of Techno’s shoulder blade where he turns to shield himself from Phil, to which Techno grunts and grabs at the point of impact while Phil takes a step backward and braces his heels against the ground once more.
Phil shrieks, “You were supposed to keep him safe!” and reels backward before throwing himself forward once more with his fist poised for Techno’s face, the weight of his entire body launched at Techno before being stopped one final time as Techno grabs his wrist mid-air and holds Phil in place out in front of him.
Struggling weakly against Techno’s grip, Phil stares helplessly as Techno’s eyes bore into him, sharp and stern, and an unfamiliar rush of fear trickles into him as they grapple for control. For the first time he considers what it must be like to have been one of Techno’s enemies on that battlefield, to have been on the receiving end of this merciless warrior’s gaze amidst the explosions and smoke. When Techno speaks, his voice is rough and booming, echoing through the cold midnight and in the chamber of his mind;
“So were you!”
Phil’s arm shakes as he tries to wrestle his wrist from Techno’s grip, which never loosens as he cries out loudly, feet losing their purchase on the ground until his knees finally give out and he collapses into Techno’s chest. As he falls to the dirt, Techno follows him down, clutching Phil against him as though still afraid he might turn and run back toward the cliffside.
They kneel there together, on the rough, wet ground in the middle of the night, and Techno holds onto Phil’s shoulders as he sobs into Techno’s shirt.
“I’m sorry,” Phil weeps. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Techno runs a hand through his hair. “Calm down. I’ve got you.”
“Will!” Phil wails, and this time when the image of the blood and gore resurfaces in his mind’s eye it’s him there on the ground, flesh ripped open, muscle and tissue exposed where it shouldn’t be and he stares up at himself, hair matted with blood and eyes gone dull and empty, sword in hand. He feels the shadows crawling into his consciousness until there’s nothing but black and void as he’s hugged against another body, the only source of warmth as his blood drains and his skin turns blue and cold.
Are you proud?
There’s a hand on his right wing, tenderly stroking the good feathers, and against the pleasant sensation of it he feels the phantom of his left wing fading away until it’s replaced by frozen numbness, as though there were no limb there at all.
“I’m sorry.” Phil trembles.
There is silence, as he pleads with the nothingness. The wind halts, the rain eases to a drizzle, and Techno says nothing. He does not apologize, and he does not forgive, does not force himself to occupy a position he is unfit for; but after time has passed and Phil’s begging has quieted, he gathers Phil up in his arms once more and walks the two of them away from the cliff with purpose.
It’s as though the day occurred in a vacuum, a time loop of events occurring within themselves infinitely and simultaneously, laid out for Phil to watch and experience, to trudge through like tall grass and shallow waters — just as he rose with the shadows on the morning of November 16th, just as he fell with the sun’s rise and his sword stabbed through his son’s middle, he finds himself damaged and fragile, staring up at the sky as the night fades on the morning of the next day.
Techno, just as he had before, keeps him suspended from the ground in his arms, heavy and limp against his shoulder, yet weightless even as his broken wing lays destroyed and useless, folded against his back.
It is with this feeling that the sunrise finds him once more, accompanied by the practiced weaving of bandages around his left wing as Techno’s hands move swiftly along the ruined mass of burnt flesh and shattered bone.
It hurts. It never stopped hurting, not since the explosion, not since that emptiness in his chest was torn open irrevocably, but the pressure of the soft bandages and the ghosting of Techno’s fingers across his injuries helps. Experimentally, he flutters his right wing one more time, just to feel the rush of sensation and wind through the remaining feathers as they shake out the rainwater, and feels himself turn leaden as the other wing remains numb and still. He listens to the flow of the nearby river, and his voice finds him easier than it had the first time he felt its refreshing coldness against the tips of his primaries.
Phil asks, “I’m never going to fly again, am I?”
And just like before, Techno goes quiet for a long time before he answers.
“I don’t know.” He replies.
And that’s all there is. No reassurances, no false promises, no grandiose advice; simply Techno, practical and blunt and everything that Phil has come to rely on in the many years they’ve traveled together. Hands firm but tentative as they work to mend his wounds, even those that will never be healed, occasionally coming to rest on his back when he flinches; Techno, his companion, his partner and best friend, here, until the bitter, bitter end.
Here, grounded with him, tied to the earth by gravity and trapped in its enclosure just as eternally as Phil, their lives wound around each other’s, one life becoming two.
“My offer still stands,” Techno mumbles, finishing up the bandaging process with a swift slice of his dagger against the extra material.
Phil hums and glances over at him, the firmness of the wrapping lending the existence of his tattered wing slightly more fortitude over his senses, no longer a phantom nor a numb, fading memory, but something substantial even in its uselessness.
“The tundra, I mean. You can come live with me.” Techno leans back a bit against the sand and gravel of the shoreline, carding an anxious hand through his bangs. Despite himself, Phil feels a smile tugging at his lips as he watches him shift nervously. “We’ll make it in a few days, I think, if we keep going at this pace. I’d rather not go through the Nether with you injured.”
For the first time since the world burst into shrapnel, Phil thinks he can finally think clearly. For the first time he thinks the world might be moving on, and a manic spike of fear rises up in him at the idea that were he to run, to hide away, he would be left behind entirely. Finding himself frowning, it dawns on him that in no world would he be able to retire to the tundra with Techno — not after what he’s seen, not after what he’s done.
Phil shakes his head and feels guilt and dread pooling in his stomach when Techno’s neutral expression pinches into disconcert.
“I can’t leave.” Phil tells him. “I need to know what happened, what that nation… did to him. I need to see what’s happened to L’manberg, what its people are going to do now that it’s…”
“It’s destroyed,” Techno states. “You think they’ll rebuild?”
“You’d know better than me.” Phil says.
Techno seems to ponder this for a moment, the shadows of the night shifting around him as though adjusting to make room for his thoughts, before sighing deeply. “They made Tubbo president, before I stepped in. If they reorganize, it’ll be him you’ll need to look out for.”
“That’s what Will said.”
“And Tommy,” Techno adds abruptly, a strange and unreadable mixture of emotion passing over his face. “He’ll be there. …He’ll always be there.”
Phil nods, and they let the discussion stall in favor of contemplative silence, exchanging glances and bittersweet smiles as Techno fiddles with his hair and the river sways with the morning breeze. Thoughtlessly, the soft light of the sunrise granting him courage, Phil finds himself leaning over and brushing the messy strands over Techno’s shoulder, who tenses briefly before sighing and relaxing into the touch. He then shifts habitually so his back is to Phil, and digs in his pocket for a few seconds before pulling out a hair band and holding it out to Phil over his shoulder.
“If you wanna,” Techno mumbles, and Phil laughs lightly as he takes it and begins to rake his hands through the long pink locks and separate them into sections for plaiting.
It’s a tender activity they’d taken to a long time ago, the vulnerability of having one’s back turned to another filling the voids of conversation that tend to occur between the two of them, when Phil’s emotional capacity runs dry and Techno’s words fail him. There is only so much they can communicate to each other in times like these; broken, tumultuous times, where they hardly understand their own feelings, nevertheless one another’s. With hands tangled in the other’s hair, leaning close and humming quietly, they don’t need to.
When he finishes and ties it off, Phil offers his own small ribbon to Techno over his shoulder, and they shift wordlessly until Techno can gather up the longer upper layers of Phil’s hair into his hands and arrange them into a neat, smaller braid.
When they finally separate and turn back toward their camp, they hardly speak. Phil collects the few items he’d brought with him from his far distant home, and accepts Techno’s offerings of medicine, bandages and food from his own bag after only a few seconds of hesitation. Their hands brush as they pass things between them and Phil feels his throat constrict, any words he’d thought to force out halting and dying before he can capture them with his voice. He does not say I’m sorry, again, or I forgive you. He does not say I missed you, or I will miss you, or I always miss you, when you’re gone. He comes close, as he often does, but he does not say I love you. He simply smiles, and they walk out into the morning light side by side.
The songbirds chirp while they embrace by the cliff face, supplies gathered into satchels and pockets, and the crows summon their bravery from where they’ve grouped on the treeline to land on both their shoulders and caw needily, chatty and unrestrained after a day of quiet twittering and distressed avoidance.
“Be safe,” Techno tells him, a hand on his arm and grinning crookedly at the crow chewing the end of his braid, which Phil shoos away with a swear. The murder is equally as distraught about Phil’s imminent departure as either of them are, and echoing the sentiment comes easily.
“You too, mate.” Phil says.
The shadows follow him as the sun begins its ascent into the sky, and Phil waves over his shoulder as he once more presses forward toward the long trek back to L’manberg — this time, on foot.