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His heart still beats a little too fast in his chest when he blinks his eyes open, the image of the Void lingering long after. It had been empty, silent, and his house is still silent as he sits up, looking around. It echoes strangely in his ears, but there’s still more sound than there was in the Void. During his short venture among the stars there.
He feels off, head spinning slightly and limbs oddly heavy. He’s weighed down, even as he sits up, neck aching as he leans forward, feet landing on the floor just beyond his bed. The wood creaks as he stands, and he has to give himself a moment, readjusting to the way gravity works on him after the weightlessness of the Void.
He takes a singular step forward, before tripping and falling flat on his face. He groans, lying there for a moment and trying to figure out what tripped him. All he can see is the purple of crimson wood, not even an inch from his face.
He sits up, feathers swishing behind him as he moves. He pauses, turning and looking for the feathery sound. His elytra is already draped over his shoulders, which is…odd, but probably what tripped him.
He reaches up to pull it off, hand grasping at the base of the elytra and yanking. He yanks himself back with the motion, shoulders jerking and pulling a gasp from his throat as pain ricochets through his whole upper body at the action.
He yanks at the elytra again, only for the same thing to happen. He probably looks like an idiot clawing at this elytra he’s somehow gotten stuck to his shoulders. Feathers come away under his grasp, and he watches as a small spiral of smoke curls up from the black feathers.
It then promptly bursts into flame.
He scrambles back away from it, only for it to follow him because it's attached to his shoulders . He stands in a hurry, stumbling again as the stubborn elytra remains stuck to his shoulders, feathers ruffling, which elytras definitely don't do.
He stumbles into his crafting bench, twisting around. The fire leaps and spreads and he stands and watches as it slowly blackens, curling inwards as the fire spreads over it. He stares at it. Then he stares at it some more.
Something clicks in his brain a second later, and he’s rifling through his chests, ignoring the way there’s just fire trailing behind him, eating away at all of his floorboards, focusing on grabbing a half-full water bucket and chucking it frantically at the fire.
It goes out with a tiny sizzle, smoke quickly filling the room as he ducks, coughing into his hand. The elytra remains on fire, feathers sizzling as they puff up. Because apparently he’s got the worst pair of elytra to ever exist.
He yanks the elytra around, until the fire is on the still damp section of floorboards and then stamping on it. He yells, jumping back as pain shoots up the elytra and into his shoulder. He stamps on it again, but the pain continues. The flames, however, die out. Tango one, fire zero. Or something.
His shoulders still hurt, and he feels a burst of annoyance at that. He watches as the spot he’s just stomped out promptly catches on fire again, bursting up with a fiercer intensity than before. He thinks he might actually cry.
He flings himself into his water elevator before he can think about anything more, hoping that nothing else sets on fire as he shoves himself into the space that used to fit him perfectly well but is now a lot smaller because of the wings? He’s pretty sure they're wings, right?
Wings or not, he doesn't really think before ducking out of the water elevator and diving straight into the lake beneath his house. All he can do is hope and pray that there is no one around to watch him make a complete idiot of himself. Though, he doesn't really trust praying to whatever nebulous forces are out there anymore because he’s pretty sure they think this is hilarious. A joke, or something.
He sizzles as he drifts under the water, the wings (because these are definitely wings, there’s no denying it at this point) splaying out around him, dark feathers obvious against the light water around them. They glow faintly at the ends and patches where there had previously been flames. Like hot coals.
He pops back out of the water, steam rising around him and water pleasantly warm. The wings weigh him down, and he’s hesitant to step out of the water in case they catch on fire again. He hunches down in the slightly shallower part of his lake, head just peeking out of the water as he pulls his comm out.
He taps the call button immediately, too confused to even try and put this into written words. Maybe he can convey his confusion well enough with a couple of sounds. Panic Zed enough that he just immediately heads over.
It rings twice before Zed picks up, silence stretching over the call for a few seconds. “Tango?” He sounds confused, “Oh, hey, are you back from the death games? How’d they go?”
“What does it mean when you grow wings?” He doesn't mean to shout, and Zedaph’s silence over the call is answer enough.
“What?” Zedaph sounds incredibly, incredibly confused. But he’s definitely not confused as he is right now. He thinks he’s going to have a panic attack. Or die. One of the two, it’s a tossup at this point.
“I've got wings.” He manages. “Help.”
“Wh- okay. Y’know what, never mind. I’ll be there in a second.” Zedaph pauses. “Don't do anything dumb.”
“I'm not going to do anything-” he hisses out, and the hangup tone sounds, and he cuts himself off, staring at his comm screen. “He hung up on me!” He shouts to no one, considering flinging the comm away from himself dramatically before he reconsiders and puts it in a pocket instead. “I'm not gonna do anything dumb.” He mutters to himself, sinking a little further into the water. It’s warm around him, like a bath.
He hears rockets overhead, glancing up as sparks shower down, watching as Zedaph rapidly spirals down, stumbling before righting himself, elytra flicking shut behind him. A lot more convenient than his catch-on-fire wings.
He watches as Zedaph turns around, frowning, before he spots him. He stares for a moment, eyes wide and staring at him, silently. He bursts out laughing a second later, hunching over.
“It’s not funny!” He protests, and Zedaph ignores him, continuing to laugh hysterically, almost on the ground. “It’s not!”
“You-” he heaves in a gasping breath, “You look like a wet cat , all angry and pathetic.”
“I,” he recoils in disgust, “I do not look like a wet cat.”
“Uh, yeah you do. You're all offended and sat in the water like it’s the last place you want to be.” He pauses, “Why are you in the water?”
“Because when I'm not these stupid heckin’ wings catch on fire .”
“They catch on fire?” Zedaph’s eyes glint a little at that, “Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out.” Zedaph gestures, “I want to look.”
“Did you not hear the part where I said they catch on fire .”
“Yes.” Zedaph gestures again, “Get out.” He sighs, hauling himself from the water and praying they don't immediately catch on fire again. They don't, smoking a little as he stands there.
Zedaph widens his eyes a little, rocking back on his feet a little as he stares at him. “Woah.” He blinks. “That’s…definitely something.”
“Is it?” He turns to look at the wings dragging behind him, water dripping off of the feathers, soaking wet. “They just look a bit…bedraggled right now.”
“They're still something. Spooky.” He wiggles his fingers a little at him, before reaching a hand out to stroke along the feathers. He hums a little as he does it, and he’s too surprised to stop Zedaph from poking at him.
He does jump a little as Zedaph yanks a feather from his wing, spinning away from him with a protest on his lips as Zedaph twirls it between his fingers. “Hey!”
“Hm.” Zedaph looks up at him, “Oh, sorry. I just wanted to look.”
“And you could ask .” He watches as Zedaph produces a flint and steel from apparently nowhere, flicking it and setting the feather on fire. It catches immediately, and they both stare as it burns, but doesn't consume the feather.
“Huh.” Zedaph blinks at him, before looking up. “I think we need to call Xisuma.”
“Really?” He gives an exaggerated surprised face, “Wow, I didn't think of that…five minutes ago? Before you yanked a feather from my wing?”
“Oh hush, it didn't hurt that much.”
“But it hurt!” He flings his hands up, even as Zedaph pulls his communicator out, “Which is more than an elytra ever did.”
“I've messaged Xisuma.”
They wait in silence, Zedaph still holding the feather and watching as it burns. He looks around him, careful to ensure that his wings don't catch on fire again. He’s not really looking forward to another plunge into the water.
There’s a sound of warping right in front of him, and he jumps back when Xisuma appears, wings promptly bursting into flame. Zedaph shoves him into the water and he lands with a splash, gasping as he resurfaces, once more drenched. He gives Zedaph the best evil eyes he can manage, which he simply brushes off, turning to X.
“He has wings.” He says, which should have been obvious. “Fix it.”
“Uh,” X looks between the two of them, “I probably won't be able to fix it. If he showed up like this, welcome back Tango, by the way, then it isn't actually me that’s got the…jurisdiction? To fix it.”
“Then we wait for Grian.” Zedaph sits down on the ground, right beside the water. He stares at X, as though to challenge him.
“He’s probably going to be a few days.” He drags himself from the water, sitting beside Zedaph and wrapping his wings around himself like you probably would with a blanket. X continues to stare at them both.
“And I'm gonna wait.” Zed nudges him, “Anyways, we should probably keep you near the water, just in case.”
“I'm not gonna-” his wings catching on fire promptly cuts him off, Zedaph shoving him back into the water. He stays in it this time. “Just do a scan of me or something.” He asks, feeling a lot more tired than he did ten minutes ago. This must be a cosmological joke or something. He hopes at least someone’s finding this funny, because he’s not.
X seems a little hesitant, but does it anyway, frowning at the results as he reads over them.
“What’s the verdict, doc?”
“I'm…not sure?” X taps at the screen again, scrolling further down as lines of text appear. “It seems like a blessing of some kind, though I don't see how you would get that from dying.” He looks up, “You sure you didn't have these before you died.”
“Positive.” He sinks a little further into the water, ignoring Zedaph’s muttered wet cat comment. “We’ll wait for Grian.” Zedaph cheers at that, leaning back a little further. He tucks his wings back around himself, the movements slowed by water.
It still oddly feels like home. He chooses not to consider that.