Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sleep. He needs to Sleep. Technoblade is about to enter hibernation, and he’s already made certain that any and all entrances to his cavern are sealed shut, seeing that he wouldn’t be going out any time soon and he sure as hell would not like anyone entering during the time he’d be sleeping. There aren’t a lot of people who are welcome in his territory and even then they all know not to approach him during his slumber.

Dragons are known not to sleep. That’s what many people think. 

No, they do sleep, just for very long and undisturbable times in between decades. The older ones withstand centuries, though. 

The openings have got boulders covering it. The only opening is through the hole at the top of the mountain where people believe is the mouth of a dormant volcano. People avoid it for the same reasons, fortunately, so Technoblade has good reason to believe that it’s safe to leave it open. Besides, it’s a lot of hard work having to cover that up since all of it is going to be hard work for nothing. He’s content with that at least.

Besides, if people see a slumbering dragon resting right in front of the hoard it’s protecting, chances are that people aren’t going to approach said hoard due to said dragon. 

If they do, well, some towns are going to have to perish until his hoard’s in pristine condition. When he wakes up, that is.

He could drift off right now. Decades without sleep is catching up to him and he desperately wants to chase it off so he could go for more decades without it. 

But before that, one last check on everything.

Technoblade walks around his cavern, checking if it’s neat. Every corner is warmed by his presence, though less so now that he’s in his mortal form. The only entrance is above, but that doesn’t cool his cavern down too much. He’s content with that, at least.

Now he enters the hoard. 

He practices restraint when he walks around and checks for every piece he’s acquired in his life. Nothing lacking, sure, but everything is wonderful to look at and it’s so tempting to sleep over it. The horrible thing about his hoard is that it’s terribly unorganized… It was okay before, but the past cycle has been so wonderful and people just keep discovering more wonderful things for him to keep. Not to mention, their jewelsmithing has improved drastically compared to when he last accepted some very kind offerings at the bottom of the mountain he inhabits.

Yes, the mortals within the vicinity have become smart.

Rather than bothering him and his hoard by going straight for it, they give him jewelry and grandiose things as offerings. Technoblade couldn’t believe them, so he stalked their village for a short amount of time using this same mortal form. It was true. They worship him, believing him to be the god of the mountain they live beside. This makes his slumber a lot easier, fortunately.

Technoblade hums, content. There’s nothing out of place– err, everything is out of place but at least it’s all in place. 

Alright.

He’s content.

Technoblade circles around the entrance of the hoard, far enough that he wouldn’t disturb the insides of that specific cave but close enough to block it from any intruders. He breathes, and the air heats up at the borders of his lungs, circling around and causing enough friction to cause a combustion when it meets the air outside, and at the last exhale he blows dragon flame to the rock floor on the entrance of the hoard. The carefully made tiles and floor carvings of the hoard’s cavern is unaffected but there remains to be molten rock and cracks at the entrance. 

He lies on it. 

Sleep overtakes him slowly, until he feels his mind blank.

He dreams of perhaps visiting another country, the next time he wakes up. Maybe they’ll create new things there. Discover old enchantments. Maybe he could hunt for tyrants. That’s always fun. He loves watching how the crowns that they’re unworthy of gleams. He’s got a few in his collection, actually, each one more beautiful than the last.

Slumber comes to him easily.

And it is taken from him too soon, because he feels something wrong . There’s something out of place. Technoblade wakes up, blinking slowly with an irritated growl. How long has it been. Months? If it has only been months then whoever or whatever had woken him from his slumber will have hell to pay. 

He growls a complaint, his lungs already heating up the air that he breathes.

Technoblade looks up, and he sees a bird– a stork that’s at the other side of the cavern, flapping but failing. Technoblade squints, draconic slits narrowing at the sight of it. There’s something hanging by its beak. Something like a cloth. It probably fell through the pit at the top of the mountain. He growls, and the stork releases a distressed sound, flying off as hard as it can. 

He lies his large head back down slowly, watching the stork try its best to go up and fly. Alas, its wings seem injured and it likely won’t be leaving. Technoblade stops growling, and shuts his eyes, waiting for sleep to claim him again.

Except he hears the incessant sqwuaks and loud flapping.

Technoblade cannot sleep in these conditions.

He huffs. Technoblade stands up, and he approaches the bird– in fear, it starts panicking, starting to become more rigid in its actions. While he moves, he grabs a loose scale somewhere at his right side, superficial to his ribs. Technoblade’s large head bends down, and the claws of his hands clench. He curls his tail around him. Over his spine to his tail shifts the long locks of pink hair, and he shrinks to a sizable mortal size. Still, it’s evident that he’s quite large for a mortal. When he was younger he could easily pass for an adult male but now he just seems like a Goliath. He stretches, his mouth biting down on the red, jewel-like scale that hasn’t sized down with him. He takes it off his teeth and fumbles with it using his hands.

Once shifted, the drowsiness is staved off a little. 

He walks, feeling the magic that retained the clothes of when he was last in this form shifting over his still newly turned skin until it numbs into something soft. 

The bird is still so loud . Technoblade will fix that. 

The dragon approaches the stork, still flying. It doesn’t get far. 

Technoblade grabs it by the leg, and pulls it down. He opens its beak, and the hand that holds the ruby scale squeezes, crumbling the scale over the bird’s mouth. The stork cries out, but Technoblade keeps its mouth open through it, watching as the flakes of the scale melts in its mouth. 

The odd bend in its wing fixes itself, and something falls off.

A bullet.

Technoblade scowls. He doesn't stop feeding the bird though.

Eventually the bird stops struggling, and it relaxes in its act. Technoblade loosens its grip, until the entire scale is gone.

Surely this will get it out of his den. 

Nature knows well enough to avoid a dragon’s irritation. Storks shouldn’t be any different. “You done?” Technoblade asks, not expecting any answer from a dumb bird.

The stork looks at Technoblade.

And the eyes look intelligent. What?

It chirps once, and it flies away. 

Technoblade ignores it. Birds are the odd creatures of the sky, and they have an understanding with dragons who share it with them. He shifts back, the magic melting the clothes back into his skin and scales, and he walks back. He does the same routine of burning the place he’d sleep on. Great, it’s cold.

Finally, sleep comes to him. This time it lasts for as long as he needs. The interruption gets shoved to the back of his head. 

Technoblade yawns. He blinks slowly, sleepily, and gets up. His hibernation is complete, and he won’t be sleeping again. He doesn’t know how long he slept, and he’d honestly have to check the village to see how long he’s slept for. Seeing the moss and mushrooms along the stone walls and the vines that have grown a considerable length down the pit at the top of the den, he has good reason to believe that it’s been a very long time. 

He raises his head, and he stretches. He curls his back upwards, and he groans. There are a few creaks and cracks from his own spine. Technoblade tests his claws, stretching it upwards as he shakes his shoulders. This is great. This hibernation was wonderful and the snow has barely even affected it. This is why he’s picked a wonderful den. 

The dragon stops his stretch. He could unblock all the entrances now. He should also probably see how much gold has accumulated at the bottom of the mountain now that he hasn’t collected for generations now, probably. 

Technoblade takes a step, but he hears something hard roll. He feels the faint vibrations on the ground he stands on. 

He looks down, and Technoblade had tried very very hard not to jump where he stands, because before him is an egg . It’s textured, with something similar to thick scales building up from the rough and textured bottom and fading into the top of the egg where it’s smoother. It’s an… it’s an egg. An unbelievably large one. It’s the size of a…

A dragon egg?

He blinks. Slowly, at first, hoping that he’s seeing things now that he’s woken up. Surely he’s not old enough to start hallucinating. Technoblade doesn’t stop seeing the toppled over egg, though. Surely not. That can’t be a dragon egg. It’s… different, right? 

This probably is an egg that rolled down the pit at the top of the mountain.

But it’s not broken? Is it a strong egg? Are dragon eggs that invulnerable? Surely it couldn’t have survived that.

Not to mention. Technoblade doesn’t lay. No, he doesn’t doubt it. He’s lived long enough to be certain that he doesn’t lay damn eggs. This isn’t a matter of preference either. Technoblade doesn’t lay eggs because he can’t . Dragon eggs are laid by one Matron dragon every generation, and Technoblade has seen the Matron dragon before and he’s sure that he definitely isn’t one. 

He leans down, head flat on the ground while he analyzes the new arrival.

It looks like it’d be a dragon egg. It’s got scales at the bottom. Do dragon eggs have scales too? He’s not entirely sure. He’s never seen a dragon egg, and if he had, he probably would have been too young to remember. Not to mention, Matron Dragons will kill anything that sets its eyes on her clutch. That includes fellow dragons as well. 

He looks at the egg. It’s brown. Muddy, almost. Is it dirty? He gently taps on it with a claw, and he recoils when he feels the sensation of something ceramic. It sounds fragile. 

Technoblade shifts from his dragon form to his human one, and he realizes that it’s large for a human. It reaches all the way up to his torso, and he’s certain that he isn’t a normal sized human either. He’s significantly taller than an average human, he’s sure. 

Is there any other creature that could have an egg this large?

He thinks of delivering it to the Matron, but he decides against it immediately. He will definitely get his head ripped off if he had. On sight. The Matron isn’t at all forgiving when it comes to her eggs and chances are that if Technoblade arrives with one of her own in his mouth, she’d kill him first and ask questions later.

What does he do, then?

While he thinks, he rests a human palm on the egg. He could always leave it at the side of the mountain. Surely with an egg this large, no one will think to approach it.

He grimaces, remembering how dumb humans are. No, chances are that they will be completely stupid about this thing. Technoblade is certain about that. 

Technoblade taps at the surface of the egg.

Something inside taps back.

And like some odd, innate instinct had risen from the depths of his hindbrain, Technoblade feels something pleasant in his chest, bringing up a purr up to his throat. What? What is this thing? Is that a dragon thing to do? Do dragons tap at an egg and hear a tap back?

“Damn it.” He grits, trying to refrain any further purrs from rising but ultimately failing at it. 

All thoughts of removing it from his den had been wiped out of his head, against Technoblade’s better judgement. 

He has plans. He has an entire world to see. 

He shouldn’t be raising a hatchling . He’s not a Matron dragon and he certainly doesn’t own this egg. 

And again, against his better judgement he is evidently going to be raising said egg. He can’t fathom the ache of just thinking of abandoning the egg. It’s the same way he knows he would go berserk at anyone attempting to steal his hoard, but it’s something stronger.

Is this why the Matron Dragon refuses to let anyone see her clutch? Is it a way of protecting the unknowing dragons who aren’t chained to this unwilling affection to an egg ? Or is it just a damn possessiveness that comes above a simple urge to hoard? Whatever it is, Technoblade had wanted no part of it.

Except here he is, wrapping anything soft that he owns around the base of the egg. He’s stuck in his mortal form. He’s too afraid to accidentally crush the damn egg when he moves around.

He… honestly wants to shift, though. Something about being a dragon while nursing an egg scratches something right in his head. 

Except if he’s a dragon, he wouldn’t be able to tap at the egg and hear something tap back again. It’s honestly a very irritating endeavor and Technoblade wants no part of it.

His hindbrain is just being extremely ridiculous right now. 

Actually, everything about this situation is ridiculous. 

Every few minutes he just has an irritating urge to move the egg into every possible nook of the place. Realistically he recognizes it as something similar to hoarding, but the damn egg is already in the damn hoard. What more does his hindbrain want? Why can’t he be satisfied with it already? 

He growls lightly, and again he sits beside the egg, right on the soft nest that circles around it. This thing has taken him ages to set up and now he wants to move it somewhere else again. No. No more. He is sitting here, and he is going to be content that he’s made a perfectly good nest. 

Technoblade leans against the egg in his human form, and he rests his head against it. He blinks, surprised at how cold the egg is. Are dragon eggs cold?

Something akin to worry curls in his chest. Should dragon eggs be cold? They’re creatures of Nature’s hearth, born to raise fire. This is… lukewarm at most. It doesn’t feel like there’s something alive in it. 

Technoblade taps at the egg. 

There’s no response.

Something worried curls at the back of Technoblade’s throat. A nervous warble, likely.

Technoblade taps again.

There’s nothing.

Maybe he’s hearing wrong.

He taps again.

This time there’s something. Multiple somethings, actually. Technoblade hears a series of taps in quick succession. The worry is erased by something. He’s humored. Pleased and humored. He chuckles, and he places his forehead against the damn egg. It seems like a little spitfire.

He thinks it must have been sleeping before Technoblade had disturbed it. A pleased hum is released from his throat. 

When some moments pass, Technoblade stands up. Okay, the egg is definitely still too cold and he has to fix that.

At the same time, he isn’t sure what temperature the hatchling needs to stay at. Technoblade is certain that younglings aren’t as fireproof. They don’t develop the harder and tougher scales until they’re a lot older and free from the Matron’s grasp. Technoblade remembers being burned, once, by one of his hatch mates. It had been an accident, a sneeze.

So one dragon had a slightly burned tongue and one had a burned tail. Technoblade still has a scar at the end of his tail, evidence of what had happened. 

In his human form with much more dexterous hands, Technoblade wraps the egg in a sheet, and he pulls the edges up to the top. It looks like a satchel that the egg is in. 

Satisfied, he ties it at the top. 

He takes a few steps back, and turns. The cracking of his mortal skin shifts to scales and now he’s a lot more satisfied. Something in his heart curls nicely at being this large and invulnerable while raising this egg. 

Gently, he bites at the knot of the sheet and he lifts the egg. 

He’s going to look for some place less open, with the perfect temperature. 

Technoblade stays in his den for weeks. It’s nothing much compared to his decades of awakeness, to be fair, but he certainly dislikes having to sit still– usually , that is. For some odd reason he’s a lot more satisfied with sitting still in his den and surrounded by his hoard and within the general vicinity of his egg.

Which it is, by the way.

His egg. Sure he didn’t lay it, but with the amount of effort he took in terraforming the inside of a mountain just for a new room to nurse the egg, he’s pretty certain he’s earned custody rights. Sorry, Matron, but he’s a dad now and really at this rate he really would rather die than have anyone take this thing from him.

The egg is hyper, a lot. Technoblade knows that much. Hyperactive in that little space. He wonders what form dragon hatchlings hatch as. Do they come in the form of human babies or little dragon noodles? Technoblade does remember how they come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe they also get born in various forms as well?

He can’t help but wonder, really. Primes. Is this what fatherhood does to a dragon? Make him sappy? 

Whatever it is, while Technoblade is technically enjoying it as it is, this will definitely stay as a one time thing. Technoblade’s pride will not let him be known as a pseudo-Matron dragon, and he’s certain that pride won’t be the only thing holding him back.

Chances are that if he does this a second or third time and the word goes around, the Matron will have to hunt him down and kill him.

And how could he raise this one single hatchling if he’s killed?

He grunts, circling around the dragon egg once more. He blows a heated breath at the ground around the egg, but not directly on it and not enough to melt the rock around it. Technoblade knows that against his judgement that Dragons apparently love heat, this egg certainly doesn’t.

Technoblade hums, satisfied at the perfect temperature.

The egg is smart, fortunately. It’s smart enough to know that a set of panicked, uneven and rushed taps against the egg will signal the older dragon that there’s something wrong. He’d stopped midway through cooking the poor thing. 

That anxiety lingers until now.

He curls around the egg, content that it’s warm. 

He raises a claw, and taps once and as gently as he could.

The softer part of his paw touches the egg, and faintly he feels something tap back at him.

Technoblade lets out a satisfied purr, before allowing himself to drift to a short nap to let time pass by. 

The egg is hyper today. Technoblade snorts, wondering what’s gotten over the thing. He watches as the egg shifts to the left slightly, and shifts drastically. Technoblade nudges it to an upright position, and the movement stops.

It continues again after Technoblade moves a bit backwards. He laughs, and he places it back to its original position. It’s playing, he thinks. 

With how active it is, he’s starting to think it’s due to hatch anytime soon. This certainly isn’t the first time that it’s been this hyper. He’s seen it roll out of the nest somehow, and it would have been impossible without outside help unless the egg itself had shifted itself out of the blankets that holds it upright.

It’s likely due.

Technoblade isn’t sure he’s ready. 

An egg is one thing, but is he prepared to raise an actual hatchling? What do they even eat? Do they get indigestion or are a hatchling’s stomach acid as developed as it is when they grow old? 

All his concerns get pushed to the side abruptly when the egg shifts in a sudden motion, quick enough to roll out of the nest. Technoblade just barely catches it with his large hand, but upon him holding the egg he feels something thump inside. 

Something inside him panics. What was that? Did he hurt it? Is it okay?

He shifts to his skin and he sets the egg upright. Technoblade places an ear against the egg, and he taps on it. There’s nothing again. He taps again, and there’s still nothing. 

“Hey, come on kid, say somethin’.” Technoblade’s chest rumbles when he says that, and he taps again. “Please.” There’s nothing.

Technoblade releases a distressed whine, tapping but remaining gentle. “Kid please .” Once more. Nothing.

Again, and there’s a weak tap back. He exhales something relieved, and he lets his worried warbles out with it. 

Technoblade is not cut out for this. He normally shouldn’t worry this much but it seems like he’s seeing this egg as more than his hoard. He’s neglected his gold, letting dust collect on the surfaces of the treasure he’s collected. 

“You okay?” Technoblade asks, and this time there’s a scratch along the internal surface of the egg. 

He purrs, back leaning against the egg and letting the flat of his ribs and spine rest against it. “Alright, kid, you’re okay.” Technoblade says, pausing briefly with the instinctual sound, and where he leans, he feels something shift under the ceramic-like surface of the egg. It’s like there’s something leaning against it. His purrs intensify.

He sighs, and he thumps his head softly against it. There’s a tap back. 

Three days after that, and there’s a crack . Technoblade raises his head from his laid position, hearing a tap that’s a lot louder than all the others that he’s heard before. He’s in his scales, feeling content with being able to curl around the egg protectively, and suddenly there’s an alarming sound coming from the egg. 

He noses the egg with his snout, pushing it upright lest it falls off the nest again. Ever since the kid had nearly fallen out of the nest, Technoblade had build a much better support around the hyperactive egg. 

The said egg had been changing. He’s not sure if it’s a thing he should be worried about, but it’s been doing it steadily since he’s gotten it. The roughened edges merges into the egg, and the once thick ceramic seems to thin the more time passes by. The color turns into a pasty white, which really should have been something he’d noticed long ago.

Surely that should be normal.

But it’s become thin, and Technoblade worried that even blankets might start to crack it.

There’s another concerning tap, and there’s the sound of a crack . Technoblade’s eyes widen, and he scoots over slightly. There’s not much distance to cross when he’s at his largest size.

What if it’s premature? What should he do?

He doesn’t think he’s prepared himself for this. He should have read more, but he could only ever approach the nearby village and towns’ libraries. All of which had limited knowledge on how to raise Dragons (as expected, really, but that doesn’t eradicate the fact that he’s severely peeved at the general lack of public knowledge on things that could have helped him and his egg out). 

Technoblade doesn’t know what to do. Should he help peel the egg off? He’s pretty sure he shouldn’t. The books he’s read on chicken eggs discourages it, actually. Not that he should trust or rely on that knowledge. Technoblade is raising a dragon egg. Not a goose.

But still, the logic surely must apply, right? Membrane stuff and releasing the egg prematurely. Those are the concerns. Surely though, he’s been incubating his egg right. The egg has been lively ever since. That’s a good sign of a healthy hatchling right?

He sits. Okay. No need to panic too much. He’s got trust that this kid is as strong as it is wild. The kid’s gotta be, if it had caused this much trouble for him already and it hasn’t even been hatched. 

Technoblade doesn’t dare move it, knowing fully well that if he’d moved it or disturbed it, chances are that he’d ruin the hatching process.

Maybe.

Listen, chicken eggs are like dragon eggs but very much more miniscule… he thinks. 

The crack is larger now. The tapping is incessant. The kid seems very eager to come out, it seems, and Technoblade is just as eager to see it happen. He’s curious how dragons hatch. 

He doesn’t know whether or not he should change into his skin or stay in his scales. It’s an event the hatchling will remember forever. Technoblade remembers imprinting on the Matron for the first few centuries, and that it faded once he reached adulthood. 

And even then, he can’t help but remember her violet scales that love to mimic the dark, and the beautiful brown eyes that looked at him and the rest of her clutch with a loving expression. This is a vital moment.

So he stays in his scales, resting his head on the floor so that he maintains an eye-level of observation on the egg that’s about to hatch. Technoblade snorts softly when little by little, chips of the pasty shell fall off. 

Technoblade keeps an eye on the kid. He’s expecting a dragon. Judging by the shell of the egg, the rough textured parts, it had been a dirty, muddy, mustard. Maybe that’s the color of its scales when it hatches?

He honestly can’t help but feel excited. 

There’s a hole now, finally. It’s large enough to see through, to peek through. When the hole appears, Technoblade is hit with yet another dilemma. Should he peek? Surely not, it might give the little thing anxiety to see such a large eye.

But surely the Matron had peeked too, when it was Technoblade’s turn. She surely must have been curious– what would the eye color be? Will the slits be vertical or horizontal? Technoblade must know, and surely the Matron had a stronger urge too.

He decides against it. 

The hatchling should probably peek at him itself, when it is ready. 

And it does. When it peeks, the egg shifts forward towards the crack, as if whatever is inside had moved and leaned against that side.

Technoblade sees a pale color surrounding the eye– blue. Its eyes are blue. Very blue. He’s reminded of the central sapphire placed at the center of his favorite crown. Technoblade purrs. 

The hatchling blinks, and he realizes that maybe the pale color he sees aren’t the scales of his hatchling. Is it in its skin? Technoblade hums, wondering if he’d been born in his skin rather than his scales. Maybe not. It could be a matter of preference or skill. Technoblade himself had taken a good, considerable time until he learned how to shift. The hatchling shifts, and Technoblade sees something golden for a moment before it disappears entirely from the darkness of the shell.

And he confirms it when the eye disappears to show a hand poking out of the hole. 

Technoblade hears it cracking, with the hand poking in and out to remove the shell slowly. He hums a pleased sound, allowing the kid to take its time with releasing itself from the egg. It’s so vigorous in its release, Technoblade is almost tempted to help it. He doesn’t, though. He’s too scared to mess it up.

The kid stops for a moment, and the egg shifts again. He sees a face, a small human looking face, peeking out of the hole that it made. It’s so small. So tiny. Technoblade purrs, heart content at the sight of it. 

The kid opens their mouth, and Technoblade is expecting either a babble or a small roar, perhaps even a rough whine.

No, 

They chirp.

Technoblade blinks, and his head raises from the floor in attention. They chirped? Did he hear that right? Do Dragons chirp when they’re babies? 

He thinks back. No, he hasn’t seen a lot of hatchlings in his life to know exactly. Had he chirped when he was younger? He doesn’t really remember. Surely he must have, if this Dragon hatchling had. Technoblade leans closer to the egg curiously. He huffs slightly at the opening, trying to evoke a reaction from the kid. 

They giggle at the gust of wind blown at them. 

That’s a giggle. A human giggle. 

Is this normal? Do dragons know how to use human vocal cords? Technoblade had to take his time learning how to do that, especially when he’d been so much more used to the rougher and tougher mass of a dragon’s larynx. 

He decides that maybe it should be. He also starts to think that maybe he really isn’t cut out for raising a hatchling if already he’s this clueless. He could probably get his clutchmates to help him if he could reach out to them somehow. 

Technoblade rests his large head on the floor again, and the kid resumes with breaking out of their own egg.

He watches carefully. For whatever reason that this kid chose to hatch in its skin, Technoblade can’t really see why. Clearly if they had to break out of such a hard shell, the scales with relatively more resistance to sharp edges would be safer. Technoblade is not liking how often he’s seeing the fleshy hand pop in and out and barely grazing the sharp edges of the egg.

Technobalde decides against his better knowledge and lends a claw to the kid. He cracks at the egg, tugging and pulling the shell outward so that it doesn’t accidentally break through the kid’s skin somehow. 

There are chirps that he hears from the hatchling, and he can’t help but feel a purr rise from his throat yet again. Technoblade feels giddy. The hatchling he’d taken care of is so lively .

The egg is released with the last piece of the shell that Technoblade pulls. Something is pulled along, he could feel it come with the outer curve of his claw. Something had grabbed at him while it pulled away. 

It’s the hatchling.

And,

It’s… it’s definitely not a dragon. 

He’s pretty sure that dragon hatchlings don’t have wings– at least, avian wings. 

Something curls in Technoblade’s chest. Two parts of him recoil aggressively against each other upon this sudden revelation. One  is a fierce protectiveness against the foreign thing in his nest. The other is an unconditional adoration for whatever it is that he’d raised.

He fights against both of them, supporting the weight of the hatchling. He’s sopping wet, still. There’s a golden head of hair that sticks on his head, and the wings flap around aimlessly while the child moves along with his claw. He shoves his instincts aside, rising above it is the rationality that this is a child and he has to be gentle with it. 

Regardless of whether or not this is a dragon or not.

Technoblade will decide what to do later. There’s a distressed whine at the back of his throat but he keeps it in, afraid to somehow affect the kid. 

This isn’t a dragon. 

Against his internal need to intimidate, Technoblade changes into his skin, turning small enough to actually be able to support the kid that clings to his hand. He holds the kid, his clothes becoming wet with whatever fluids had been helping the kid grow in the time he’s been in the egg. 

Technoblade walks to the pile of blankets, and he grabs one to wrap it around the child. The kid coos, and foreign warbles rise out of his throat. Technoblade tries his best not to reciprocate with his own set of noises, knowing that the kid wouldn’t understand him anyway.

He sighs, instead. How does he carry a kid with wings? Aren’t avians a lot more fragile? 

He isn’t sure. If raising a dragon had been a tedious task in itself, imagine having to raise an avian chick unexpectedly. 

He washes the kid with some of his water reserves. 

With a heavy heart, while drying the kid with the same blankets that Technoblade had meticulously arranged in the long time that he’s been raising this kid, Technoblade starts to plan. He knows a few avians that would be willing to take in some members into their flock. Phil is a good friend of his. Almost like a Dad, actually. He’s become a father to himself and another member of the clutch, Wilbur. He’d know what to do with an avian if he knew what to do with two teenage dragons who’d been kicked out of the Matron’s hoard. 

The baby doesn’t stop cooing, babbling. With dry hands the baby reaches for Technoblade’s chin and grabs it. Something soft in Technoblade’s heart whines at him not to consider giving this kid away, that he should raise him. That this kid is his . His egg, his hatchling, his baby.

But Technoblade should know better. This kid isn’t going to survive under a dragon’s care. He’s gotta give him away. Besides, Technoblade wasn’t even equipped to raise a dragon hatchling, now that his mind had cleared up post-hatch. 

He babbles, and there’s a gummy smile on his face. He looks healthy, really healthy. Technoblade can’t help but be helplessly proud at what he’s helped raise. The effort wasn’t all too bad, surely. 

Technoblade sighs, this time there’s a hint of a sound at the back of his throat. 

Well, he does have better things to do than raise a kid for centuries on end. He did have plans on leaving.

When Technoblade gets to the kid’s hair, drying it until it’s nearly free of the water, he could practically feel his pupils dilate at the sight. The hair isn’t just… yellow. Nor blond. It’s so akin to gold that it reminds Technoblade of how neglected his hoard has become. 

He inhales, and exhales. Control. He has to control his instincts. He can’t grab everything shiny and keep it in his den, in the center of his hoard. This is blond hair. Just a bit shinier than normal. Like golden threads he’d find sewn into king’s silk– no , because this is hair . 

Technoblade breathes, forcing it to be evened out. He then gets to the kid’s wings. How does he dry wings? Is there just some sort of way? Technoblade just… pats. He’s worried that rubbing at the down feathers would pull at the kid’s feathers. 

He should really call Phil for this. The Elytrian would be too happy to take this one in. Apart from the minor differences in the saturated colors, this could very well be Phil’s kid. Blond hair (that’s a bit too close to gold, weighing down on Technoblade’s sanity), blue eyes (that he’s pretty sure is the clearest pair of blue eyes he’s ever seen. Even phil’s stark, avian eyes don’t glimmer as much), and yellow wings. Like a chick’s.

The dragon snorts, finding it hilarious. It makes sense then, that fate had led him to so many books on how to raise chicken eggs. He supposes that he’s not particularly useless as the person who helped this kid hatch.

Speaking of, mentioned kid chirps. He creates this warbling, cooing sound. He sounds rather pleased. 

Technoblade can’t help the feeling of glee in him. The hatchling is happy and–

No, this isn’t a dragon hatchling. Get it right, brain. 

Surely this will correct itself when he takes a few moments to let it sink in that the egg he’s been raising isn’t a dragon. It’s a bird. 

Still, he might as well indulge him. He blows at the kid’s face, and the child tries to catch the warm air that fans through. Technoblade leans closer, and he allows a purr to rumble through his chest.

He giggles. 

And Technoblade chuckles.

He continues showering the child with his attention. Hey, he raised it. He might as well give himself this much indulgence. Besides, this one isn’t an annoying baby. In fact, he’s just sweet. He’s not like the other children in the village who cry in his presence. Dragons have that effect, wearing skin or scales. Babies are just a lot more susceptible to it.

Which is why it’s… softening, to say the least, seeing the kid giggle at his presence. It’s not often that a kid would be this relaxed around his presence. 

Technoblade’s eyebrows furrow, however, when he starts to realize something out of the ordinary with this kid’s down feathers. The avians he knows always did have this dull sort of iridescence. The sort that it’d bend its colors with every curve of the light. 

But this one is… metallic?

He… he’s starting to see it as gold. Surely not. It’s a trick, of course. 

The thing is, though, that Dragons cannot be tricked. He’s known many kingdoms that had tried to fool Dragons with fool’s gold or false silvers, which means that his kind’s instincts when it comes to the value of these things has to be true. 

And he’s feeling it. The buzzing in the back of his ear calling him to hoard. To take care of the gold. Cherish it. Mixed in with his desire to nurse the child, still hazy from the months of having to take care of the egg, Technoblade is starting to feel it. 

With every second that the down starts to dry up, it only gets more evident.

This kid is golden.

Literal gold.

He grabs the kid’s hand, the one that continues to reach out to his chin, and he could tell that his pupils dilate when the presence of the gleaming gold starts to form stars in his vision. This kid’s talons. They aren’t like Phil’s or any other Avians or Elytrians that he’s met before.

It’s sharper, but still soft like a young reptilian’s skin. And underneath the near gelatinous keratin is something shining.

Golden. 

He looks at the kid, plans shifting yet again in his head now knowing the implications of it. He doesn’t think he can give this kid away now.

Chapter Text

Technoblade has lived long enough to have his memories dubbed as myths. Story of Arthur? Real, and with some inaccuracies. That’s what happens with oral tradition, though. Story of Achilles? It is real, except Achilles’ heel wasn’t the final blow. It’s something more like a huge disadvantage that did lead to his death. 

And the Stork . Oh he really should have seen that coming. He really, really should have seen that coming. Why couldn’t all storks be normal? Why is there one deliverer stork for every hundred? And why did the single one out of a hundred fall into his den?

He watches the kid play with his gold. Oddly enough he doesn’t feel the sort of irritation he usually does get when people meddle with his things. 

A goose. Golden Goose. He has been delivered a baby, by a stork, and the baby is a golden goose . Technoblade is old, but he isn’t old enough to have witnessed such a thing as a Golden Goose, otherwise he wouldn’t have stopped his older attempts at getting one. He has heard of it, however. From the older dragons he’s encountered, from oral tradition, and from Phil.

(He’s not really sure how old Phil is, really, but he is sure that Phil is definitely not as young as he seems.)

“ Bab bah bl.” The kid babbles, hand on a golden chalice. His eyes glimmer at the sight. 

Golden geese are irrefutable gifts to the kind. Technoblade has heard of it, and he remembers helping a few countries now and then for the sake of having the chance to catch the attention of whatever it is that gives these things away. It’s gone to the point that Technoblade’s trust has been betrayed and he’d turned a blind eye.

Though that didn’t last. He is patient, but not so much that he’d withstand blatant exploitation.

And he’d given up. He hasn’t seen any first hand sources of the golden goose other than from those who are far too ancient for him to wholly trust. 

Not to mention, he did start believing Phil’s stories because they were from Phil. He had the suspicion that half of the stories were unreal and for the sake of placating a Dragon. Wilbur certainly didn’t fall for it. He did, though, at one point.

To think that it’d be centuries later that he’d find it now. The golden goose. The gift to the kind of heart– Technoblade doesn’t believe that at all. In fact, he believes this has to be some mistake. The gifter must have mistaken his den for someone else’s or it must have fallen off or something.

But judging by the way the egg has become so brittle, he doesn’t think it could have fallen off the pit of the mount. 

Even so, until said mistake is alleviated by someone else , this will be his mistake to take care of for now. He didn’t painstakingly raise an egg for no reason. And it’s not like he could fix this himself either. Golden geese are irrefutable gifts– that is not in any way an exaggeration of what it is. You cannot refute a golden goose. That’s the rule. That’s the story . Golden geese in oral tradition were depicted as creatures that people literally stick too. Adhesion is one of the things the golden geese are known for, and that includes the reason why they bring fortune. Irrefutable fortune for an irrefutable goose. 

And no. He isn’t keeping the kid out of sentiment . These aren’t excuses . He’s keeping him because the rumors of golden geese say that it’d bring a certain fortune to the beholder and the fact that he literally can’t get rid of him if he’d tried. Technoblade had always thought that the golden goose would be exactly that– a goose . Not an avian kid with literal gold for talons and wings and hair.

Not that it changes things. He’s still keeping the kid.

For reasons. Rational reasons.

Technoblade continues to observe the kid. He’s not sure how much of oral tradition is true now that he has the actual real thing in front of him. 

“Are you really a goose?” Technoblade questions the kid, who looks up at him with a shallow look. The kid tilts his head, mouth agape. “Surely you’re a goose.” Technoblade says.

The kid grins a toothless smile, and he shakes his hands as if he’s giddy. “What are you so happy about?” Technoblade questions, not really expecting an answer from a kid. 

“ Balb. ” 

He sighs. What is he doing with his life? He’s an old dragon. He’s an old dragon with responsibilities like reigning terror on a corrupt government and stealing the gold that they’d exploited from nature, or perhaps travelling and looking for the rest of his siblings to have little chats. Maybe he could explore with Phil again and fly alongside him.

Technoblade looks at the kid. He’s got the bottom end of the chalice in his mouth. 

“You need a name.” He declares. 

The child responds with a muffled sound, mouth still occupied with teething at the golden chalice. Technoblade really should be irritated but for some reason he doesn’t feel much of it at all. “You know, Phil would be happy with having a kid named after him.” Technoblade utters, but something about it seems wrong.

Why name him after Phil when he isn’t the avian’s kid?

And Technoblade sees the kid scrunch his eyebrows, and he bangs the chalice against the blankets that he’s lying on. 

“You don’t like it?” Technoblade asks. “You seem like a reasonable kid.” He nods appreciatively. 

He should feel ridiculous, being someone who is centuries old, enough that there’d be mythologies in his name. Talking to a kid who is barely a day out of his egg. 

“You like old stories?” He asks. Technoblade doesn’t really wait for an answer. “I have a few favorites. Do you like Achilles?”

The dragon actually considers it while he watches the child stare back at him. No thought behind those eyes. No, he doesn’t look like an Achilles. 

“Midas?” Seems appropriate. The man who could turn anything he touches into gold. Except, well, he’d turned his own family into gold and Technoblade isn’t particularly fond of being turned into one.

He hums disapprovingly. No, not really a good one. 

“Jack?” He’s one of the first who’s found a golden goose. Stories depict him as someone who’d climbed a ridiculously tall stalk of beans and stolen a goose from the giants. Ancient creatures, more so than Technoblade, had said he’d asked a dragon to fly him up to the sky, and he hasn’t gone down since. 

The child flops down to his side, down feathered wings flapping playfully while the kid enjoys the sensation of the clean and dry blankets. He coos, rubbing his face on the soft fabric. “You like Jack?” Technoblade questions.

He looks up at Technoblade, pausing in whatever it is that he’s doing to the fabric he’s laying on, round blue eyes staring at him without a single thought. “ Blp. ” He’d stuck a tongue out before he proceeds to play in the blankets.

“Not Jack then. I agree, it’s not a really fun name to have, is it? To be named after one of your captors.” 

The kid doesn’t seem to really care. 

To be fair, Technoblade hasn’t had company in a while now. He’s pretty sure people love talking to mindless, head-empty kids though. 

“Something that starts with a T?” He suggests, ignoring the way his mind seems to buzz at the idea of naming the kid similar to himself . No, it’s not because T stands for Technoblade. No. It’s just because of the fact that T letters are easy to learn and pronounce. He thinks. He’s not a linguist. 

The kid continues to babble, whistles going in between sometimes. He is now wrapping his blankets around his limbs.

Technoblade sighs. Naming is rather difficult. To be fair, even the Matron hadn’t bothered to name her clutch. Dragons name themselves after getting out of the Matron’s hoard. 

Maybe he’ll name him another day.

For now he’ll have to settle with ‘Goose’.

Technoblade carries Goose in his arms while he fixes his hoard. He knows that he needs to fix his place up sometime, otherwise it would be a safety hazard. Meanwhile, Goose lets out whistle-like chirps at the sight of every new shining thing. 

The reason why he can’t just leave Goose behind in the den he’d so intricately made just for him? Goose follows him. Everywhere. He isn’t at all tired in the face of having just been hatched. Surely getting out of the egg must have been hard work, why couldn’t Goose sleep? Maybe if he’d slept or at least napped , Technoblade could have been a lot more productive.

But as it turns out, being stuck with a Golden Goose is going to end up with exactly that– a Golden Goose stuck to you. 

He’d just hoped that this would just give them a little bit of a working space in between. Now his one hand is occupied, and his other is working out the large pile of mess at the den.

Goose chirps again, whistling as he reaches out for something that caught his eye for the nth time. Technoblade takes it, and he hands it to the kid. It’s a golden scepter, probably too heavy.

As expected, when he’d given Goose the small scepter, he’d dropped it immediately. 

Goose seems unaffected by it, rather he’d laugh a loud laugh, wheezing and squeals becoming a mix of both a child’s voice and a whistle-like chirp. Technoblade can’t help but smile. Why’s he so happy? He really can’t understand the amusement of this kid. 

The process repeats. Goose would find something that would attract his attention, Technoblade would hand whatever it is to him. If it’s something Goose can’t carry, he’d drop it, and if it’s something he can, then he’d still drop it. Both times he’d laugh until his breath runs out and he’d clap like it’s the most amusing thing in the world. Technoblade would pick up the item and put it in its respective place, kneeling to reach the thing at the floor every time something falls because of him.

And Technoblade would indulge him every time. 

Not out of sentiment. It’s just so that the both of them have a good relationship. Rapport is going to be important if they’ll be living with each other for the foreseeable future.

Eventually Goose is tired out from all the laughter. Technoblade had been arranging circular objects into a neat, organized, aesthetically-appealing pile when he’d felt something lean against his shoulder. That something, is Goose, who is releasing small chirps.

The chirps are slower, fewer in between but still frequent. 

Is he drowsy?

Technoblade turns his head to look, and he sees Goose looking up at him with slow blinks. When Technoblade looked at him, the smile grew on his lips. Technoblade’s heart does not positively melt at the sight of it. 

Goose reaches out for Technoblade’s nose, and when he’d grabbed it he gives out a sleepy and short giggle. 

Technoblade exhales playfully through his nose, letting his warm breath blow at Goose’s hand. Everything that goes past the fingers blows at his face, and the fluffy golden fringe at Goose’s head is ruffled at Technoblade’s strong breath. 

Goose lets out a whistle from the back of his throat, and he lets go of Technoblade’s nose to wipe at his face, as if he’d caught the air that blew into him. He babbles, and he wraps his arm around Technoblade’s neck, pulling himself up and into the crook of his neck.

Surprised, Technoblade drops the crown he’s holding. He uses both his hands to support Goose’s sudden shift and the change of weight. 

He looks at the side, seeing only his golden head and golden down feathers. Technoblade exhales, and there’s a purr that rumbles through his chest. 

Technoblade leaves the dropped crown on the floor, and he goes back to Goose’s nest. Maybe he could take a break. Just a short one before Goose wakes up.

He doesn’t know how to feed Goose . That in itself would have served as the exact same dilemma for the situation he’d expected in the first place, which is having no idea how to feed a Dragon Hatchling. He really really should have paid attention to Phil’s eating habits, but as a respectful dragon he knows to avoid other people’s belongings. He’d just hoped that he was disrespectful at least once so he could have at least noticed how Phil eats.

Because he is seriously considering feeding this kid some worms, with the rate that he’s crying. It’s ringing in his ears. 

When he’d woken up, Technoblade was in the vast hoard room. He’d been startled at the sound of a child crying , outright wailing. Panicked, with a haze in his mind and a distressed feeling in his chest, Technoblade rushes to the nest. Technoblade had known that he’d just woken up, because Goose had been in the exact same place he’d left him when he’d been left to sleep.

But he was crying, then.

And the cries were getting into his head, sending him into a wave of distressed instincts. The hatchling is crying , and he doesn’t know why.

Technoblade lifts Goose into his arms, and he lets out an odd sound he doesn’t think he’s used in a while. A calming noise. Something he used to voice at Wilbur when Wilbur had been cold and hungry and neither of them could do anything about it.

The Matron had left them both for dead. She’d left a lot of their clutch for dead, back then.

So to hear these distressed cries and attention-calling chirps from his hatchling is sending him into a spiral. He doesn’t know why , and he needs to know. He needs to know before something happens.

At his hold, the cries soften but are still present. His presence must have calmed him, but not so much that it alleviated what made him cry in the first place. Technoblade lets out a noise, letting Goose know that he’s here.

And he knows, rationally, that Goose wouldn’t understand. He doesn’t have the same innate instincts and responses that a Dragon or Dragon Hatchling would have that comes to them since birth. Still, this serves as a comfort to the side of his head that desperately clings to Goose as his kid.

He heard a grumble coming from neither of them. 

Only then did Technoblade understand. His hatchling was hungry. 

Technoblade grumbles, trying to see if anything he has stashed is fit for a newly hatched Goose. He opens a cabinet, one that is awfully gaudy and hadn’t matched the rest of the set at all, but he had to make do. Actually, looking at it now, it probably isn’t a cabinet. It looks like some snobby princess’s wardrobe that he’d nabbed. Well, it's her fault for being corrupt.

Probably.

Listen, it was long ago. He can’t remember every act of slight against him. That would be extremely toxic. And besides, he’s in no place to hold a grudge when he’s easily taken what they owe him for even insulting his great name. 

Technoblade keeps the kid in his arms. He won’t stop clinging to him. Technoblade had tried to leave Goose in the makeshift nest made of blankets, but the kid kept climbing out and following him– all while crying .

And something about this is a lot more frantic for the more instinctual part of him. Two parts: he wants the kid to shut up; he desperately needs to stop hearing the crying. It’s making him both annoyed and genuinely distressed. For once, his instincts and himself share one common goal when it comes to Goose:

Get him to shut up.

So he’s going to feed the kid something. 

Technoblade reaches the part of the cabinet that he’d enchanted. Magic of preservation is a handy thing when you sleep for years at a time. 

Except he doesn’t eat these things. Normally. These are just things he’s picked up along the way. Technoblade grabs something at the back. Something round.

It’s a potato. A sweet potato, he thinks.

He looks down. These things are vegetarian right? Things being Goose, that is. 

Technoblade hands him the potato.

Goose pauses, looks at it, and he grabs it.

Before Goose opens his mouth to bite at it, Technoblade hesitates. Do humans eat these things raw? He balks at the idea, knowing that these things come straight from the ground. The potatoes are the roots. Tubular plants, They are harvested from underground .

Where it’s filthy.  

He grabs the potato again. 

He could cook it.

Technoblade then looks at the stove. Oh, he doesn’t have a stove. Dragons like him don’t really things like these. He eats larger things in its entirety, like buffaloes or cows, sheep if he’s feeling for the texture. Even then he doesn’t usually need to, because most of his sustenance comes from the magic in the world. The rest is for the mortal part of him that he could usually cheat out of starvation.

(Humans are disgusting though.)

He looks down. The baby is looking up at him with a pleading expression. 

No, he doesn’t think he could cheat this one out of starvation.

He sighs. 

With an inhale, a friction in his lungs circumvents the air he breathes. He exhales, and the familiar sensation of flames leaves his mouth and hits the potato. Technoblade roasts it. 

Then he sees it’s burnt.

He grimaces, poking at the burnt skin, sogging because of the starch that bleeds out. 

Then he notices that the insides are soft. He pulls at it, and he finds that while the outside is charred and soggy and disgusting, the inside is pretty good looking.  Technoblade bites it a little, and he finds that it should be alright for a mortal kid to eat.

Which is to say, it should be okay for Goose to eat too.

He blows at it, this time without a fire in his breath, and he feeds it to the kid. He grabs Techno’s hand, holding it close to him while he eats the roasted sweet potato. He gnaws at it, and when he drools Technoblade grabs some random cloth he’d had hanging over his shoulder and he wipes at Goose’s mouth.

Goose finishes it.

That staves him off for a bit. 

And then there’s dinner. There are three more sweet potatoes in his cupboard. He’s going to have to look into more things to feed Goose.

But that really isn’t his primary concern at the moment. Because right here and right now, Technoblade is blowing his fire at a potato. A sweet potato. A potato .

He’s leveled entire Empires with this fire. He’s destroyed cities. Taken the lives of so many people. He’s destroyed any glimpse of a potential history with his mere breath.

And right here, he’s roasting a potato in his hand, with his other hand occupied by a child with no self-preservation who wants to touch the said fire. 

He’s giggling. 

The child is giggling while he’s blowing his sacred fire to cook a potato.

What has he become?

The kid is active. Technoblade swears that the golden goose wasn’t made to be easy. As a Dragon, he’s built with so much patience. A considerably large amount of patience. Patience that goes beyond that of a human’s or any other creature lesser than a dragon. Centuries of life will do that to you.

Except this kid is honestly testing his limits.

Why won’t he stay still?

One second Technoblade is attending to the arrangement of his hoard. The next, he’s catching the goose from the pile that he’d somehow climbed. Technoblade cannot for the life of him understand how the kid had gotten there, but he decides not to question it the seventh time it happens. 

Technoblade honestly considers strapping the kid to his own chest. Goose is practically attached to him, clinging to him at inopportune moments. While it’s true that he’d done a considerable amount of progress while having one arm, back when he’d carried Goose on his hip as he worked around in his hoard, Technoblade knows that if he does that he would never get anything done.

And if he doesn’t get anything done, Goose would have run out of things 

Then something starts to make sense with the kid. He likes falling. Is it because he’s a bird? Is this a bird thing? It certainly isn’t a dragon thing, because back then Technoblade had no recollection of willingly dropping off a height and test out his weak wings. Both because the Matron had been strict on that, and because he was also more occupied with things on the floor.

Technoblade intends to test something, so he sets Goose down into a pile, and he moves a considerable distance before pretending to polish a crown he’d forcibly taken. 

He watches from his peripherals as slowly, Goose starts to climb out of the blanket pile, legs and arms tangled at first but is untangled eventually. Technoblade strangles the snort that wants to come out of his nose while he watches the kid. 

Technoblade watches how the kid would climb a table, first– oh, that’s how he gets up so quickly. Then Goose would climb. He wouldn’t fall. Something about that is amusing to Technoblade somehow. Goose would find which ones are heavy enough to support him and he’d get on with his two feet and repeat the process.

He gets to a certain height, and Technoblade feels something nervous. Should he be calling for his attention? He’s rather high up.

Goose is higher, yet again, and Technoblade feels the nervousness sink into a certain anxiety. A faint rumble comes from his throat. 

Until he’s on top of the very very dangerous pile, and honestly Technoblade shouldn’t have let the kid go that far. 

He stops his act of being productive and he moves to the side where Goose wobbles over. His heart is in his throat while a distressed whine is held back by his human voice:

“Get down!” He says, rather dumbly too because what other way can Goose get down from there other than fall?

Which he does, for the nth time, but this time at a much more dangerous height. 

Technoblade panics. He knows that this kid has zero to no air resistance despite the presence of his wings– because they’re down feathers. It has no other purpose other than to keep the skin warm!

He shifts to his scales, only enough that the wings would appear so he could flap it once. Midway through, Technoblade shifts back to his skin to get his arms, the ones that hold onto Goose while they fall. Goose lets out a giddy chirp, clinging his arms around Technoblade while his down feathered wings spread out and flap.

And when they fall, only Technoblade gets the slightest bit of brunt. 

Still, that doesn’t stop him from fretting over the very giddy and excited Goose. He shifts his hold on Goose, and he checks around for injuries. Nothing harmed, right? Nothing hurt him? His mind is reeling from the panic and relief that has been flipped over on itself for such a short span of time. 

Technoblade brushes Goose’s fringe from his head, holding it up. No injury, there’s no injury and that’s wonderful. He combs his fingers through his head, feeling for any bumps that might have appeared. Maybe he hit himself on Technoblade. Maybe he’d hit his head on the way up. Whatever it is, Technoblade cannot feel the ease of complacency until he’s certain . 

Goose chirps, whistles happily at him while his hand is on his hair. He leans into the hand with closed eyes and giddy whistles. 

And Technoblade, in the middle of a whirlwind of emotions, is really really vulnerable to his instincts. He stops with the check up, now certain that his Hatchling is at ease, and he exhales. There’s yet another rumble in his chest. He doesn’t think he’s purred this much in a day in so long. He can’t say he doesn’t miss it. 

Because purrs are usually a sign of his happiness, contentment. 

Somehow the bar for that has been lowered with the presence of one Goose.

“You,” he exhales, pulling the kid’s golden head under his chin protectively, “are a terrible terrible troublemaker.” he says that, but there is no heat in his voice. 

He brings Goose back to the nest, and Technoblade’s human body slumps on it. Again. He keeps Goose in his arms. Technoblade doesn’t think that he could be letting Goose go any time soon

Not that Goose is against it. In fact, he seems to like snuggling with Technoblade.

Technoblade sighs. When he’d heard that you cannot unstick yourself from a Golden Goose, he thought it’d be more on the lines of ‘not being able to give it away’. Not a ‘it will follow you everywhere you go’ way.

Goose climbs on Technoblade’s chest, whistling at him curiously with wide blue eyes that look so much like sapphires. 

“You,” he points at the goose accusingly.

Technoblade’s finger is caught in the kid’s hand, and he grins a toothless grin. He feels his heart melt weakly at the sight. 

He thumps his head against the soft nest. Surprisingly, Technoblade’s craftsmanship with blankets and pillows and soft items is immaculate. He’s never really done this before, and he’d done it without a plan. He could either chalk it up to the innate fatherly instinct of a Dragon, or maybe Technoblade is just built differently. 

Goose lets go of the hand, and he follows after Technoblade in slumping. 

He rolls over and off of Technoblade’s chest, landing in a fit of giggles and amused chirps and whistles. 

Technoblade turns to his side, watching Goose.

“You sure like falling, do you.” Technoblade doesn’t ask. It’s more rhetorical, since he knows that the kid won’t understand him. “You’re a falling type. A hazard. A falling hazard.” He accuses the kid.

Said kid is shaking his fists excitedly, fresh from falling. He’s such a giddy child. Technoblade can’t fault him, he’s good company after all. 

His name is Goose, but really Technoblade thinks he should change that. Goose as a name is really unappealing and if Technoblade is going to be raising him then there has to be something better. He is slowly getting more annoyed at the idea of having to call something so precious a very generic and boring and thoughtless name. It’s an insult. It’s like calling his hoard a pile of fool’s gold. It’s demeaning. 

So he thinks. Technoblade remembers a few stories much like Goose.

Icarus seems like a good one. He’s a flightless being who had, when given the ability, flown too close to the sun in excitement. That doesn’t seem fitting. Not at all. Icarus’ story was all but a moment, the son of a genius who had ruined both of their lives. 

Pegasus is a horse with wings. Technoblade huffs at the useless thought. Goose is not a horse. Not to mention, that name starts with a P . P stands for Phil. Not Technoblade. 

A T. A hero that starts with T.

Technoblade stares at the child whose giddy laughter has died down. He’s now looking back at Technoblade, a fist in his hands while he gnaws at it.

Then he thinks of Theseus. 

A hero. A hero whose story has become really dear to Technoblade. It was Technoblade’s first story, the one that had drawn him to Phil back then when he wouldn’t trust the man. He would tell Technoblade stories, tales, and the very first one that Technoblade allowed Phil to tell him was a tale of Theseus. It’s a mixture, Theseus’ very long tale. It’s a story of victory and tragedy. He doesn’t wish the latter for the kid, but Technoblade won’t let it happen to him anyway. Never.

But the tales of Theseus is what allowed Technoblade a chance to know what fatherhood meant, back then when he was young enough to be on the receiving end of it. A tale that comforts him, that brings him in and lulls him into security and trust.

And that is what he wishes for Theseus. This undying trust. The unconditional parental condition.

And it starts with a T, so really, who’s winning?

Technoblade’s hand approaches Theseus, and Theseus takes it. He grabs Technoblade’s hand and he pulls it towards him, trying to hug it. His heart doesn’t positively melt at the sight. It doesn’t. Not at all. 

He watches as Theseus drifts off to sleep with a new name. A beautiful name. 

A promise.

Chapter Text

They’re out of potatoes. Not just potatoes, even. All the reserves that Technoblade could roast and mush to feed Theseus had run out. Technoblade is barely a week into fatherhood and he’s already out of food to feed the baby. 

This means he has to leave the den.

He looks at Theseus.

Can he… leave this kid alone?

He’ll be flying, because as of now the only entrance to the cave is at the pit at the top of the hill. All the entrances and exits that lets him leave by foot are still closed and he can’t really say he should open those any time soon. For one, he has a very flight-risky child. Not in the sense that he’d leave Technoblade’s side.

Just in the way that he’d go anywhere just to get to his side.

So he could leave Theseus alone. That poses a problem, however. Will he be safe in the den?

For one, he’s organized the place quite nicely already. He’s made it so that anything inherently dangerous is placed in a child safe location. Which is to say, he is already beating himself up mentally because there is a golden sword in the pile and he let Theseus climb said pile . He has things to learn, clearly.

But that’s okay. Technoblade is a quick learner. A genius, even. He could handle this. It’ll be easy. 

So the place is baby proofed. He’d made sure that other parts of the cave would be inaccessible to a child of Theseus’ size.

Technoblade glares at the kid.

Still. He is surprisingly quick witted. For a newly hatched chick, Theseus is pretty smart. Which is to Technoblade’s disadvantage because him being smart means that he’s smart enough to bypass safety measures to lead himself into not-so-smart decisions. 

Such as climbing tall things and wanting to fall off of them. What is up with that? Surely that has to be an avian thing, but Theseus isn’t old enough to develop those instincts. Unless that’s a thing, and Technoblade is entirely wrong about his perception on Avian living.

To be fair, he only knows two avians.

His train of thought is disturbed by a small, softly taloned hand placed on his knee. Theseus is calling for his attention. Technoblade holds Theseus up with two hands at arm’s length. He blows a wind at Theseus’ face, watching as the kid claws at the air with a giddy set of chirps and whistles.

Technoblade can’t carry him when he’s wearing his scales. There is just no way he could keep something this small safe while he’s flying as a dragon. He could put Theseus in his mouth, maybe, but that would be risky considering his internal body heat will be dangerous for a kid like him. He’s a baby, he can’t withstand such high temperatures.

But that won’t be a problem if Theseus is… left behind.

He feels something in him sour at the thought. That something has to be the part of him that latched onto the Hatchling for dear life. Not that he blames it. Rationally, he doesn’t like that thought. He doesn’t like that thought at all. 

Technoblade pulls Theseus close, and the kid expresses his love of that with another set of chirps. Theseus kicks at the bottom, using his feet to climb Technoblade so that he could hug his head.

He should be stopping this, Theseus is attempting his life. He’s suffocating Technoblade. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is how this ends. Technoblade, murdered by a child in more ways than one. What a way for a dragon to go. What a shame, his short (it’s quite long actually) life, cut far too soon by a blatant attack at his breath and his circulatory system. Oh the misery.

The dragon pulls Theseus away. 

“What do I do with you?” He asks.

Contrary to his expression of confusion, Technoblade had already set his mind on one thing. He’s bringing Theseus alone. The mere thought of leaving him alone in such a large cave– he will not have it. 

The way down will be difficult, though. He has to make do with that somehow. 

Technoblade eyes the piles of blankets placed one over another. Oh. 

An idea springs into his mind. The way that stork brought Theseus to him, Technoblade would bring Theseus the same way. 

Technoblade ends up placing Theseus in a makeshift bag. A carrier , he reminds himself, because sometimes he forgets that he’s not putting Theseus in a cloth bag . He thinks this is ridiculous, but clearly this is the only option he’s got until he could somehow trust the kid to stay on his own for a few damn minutes. 

He tests it out on one hand. He lifts a knot on the carrier that is wrapped around Theseus, and he watches as Theseus dangles. The kid swings his legs with a childish glee. The down feathered wings that are freely out are flapping uselessly, mimicking a bird’s flight. 

“How are you coping, Theseus?” Technoblde asks, and as if he understands, Theseus responds with a gial!  

He and the kid will work on learning words next time. For now, he has other concerns. 

It’s honestly amusing to watch. Technoblade should do this more often. Maybe he should have a designated hanger where he could place Theseus in his carrier and hang him from there while Technoblade is left to his devices. 

No, knowing Theseus’ he’d discover a way to escape it and it’d be a trouble to find any other way to carry him. Technoblade has to use this in moderation .

“Alright, we’re good to go.” Technoblade says. 

He moves to the opening of his den, and looks up. To think that he’d nearly closed that thing off. That hole is the reason why that stork dropped in and decided to leave an egg in his den. Technoblade doesn’t know yet what to feel about what would have happened if he hadn’t.

Theseus would have been someone else’s kid. 

He doesn’t really like the thought of that.

Technoblade looks at the kid hanging off his hand, and Theseus looks up at him with a similar curiosity. He sighs, and he gently lets Theseus down before shifting into his scales. Theseus looks up at him with awe, and there’s not a single bit of fear.

His heart warms at that fact. Children have been warned to steer clear of dragons or dragon-adjacent beings. Oral tradition dictates that as creatures of vast power, they are also creatures of vast danger. Much like the boogeyman’s tales that bring children away from the dark, Dragons are tales that bring children away from the wild.

He didn’t think that it would have ever gotten to him. It wasn’t an important thing until now.

With his teeth, he grabs onto the knot that would lift Theseus. Gently, he raises him. Technoblade can’t see him from here, but he has a good grasp on his weight. He’d know if Theseus slipped away.

If he slips away.

Technoblade doesn’t think he could bear such a thought.

Something about him is giddy at the thought, however, of flight with Theseus. The sky is something Technoblade loves. He might even love it as much as he loves his hoard, his riches. The thought of sharing this glee with Theseus is something that allows a pleased purr to resonate through his chest.

He could hear whistles from Theseus. 

Technoblade could coo at that, but he can’t. That’d mean he’d let go of Theseus.

The dragon in his scales spread his vast wings, and even then the span of these wings don’t nearly reach the vastness of his den. Technoblade flaps, and the air underneath him pushes him up and into the sky. Slowly, as he ascends, the cave slowly thins, and eventually when he’d reached the top of the cave the pit wouldn’t be enough for him to fit when he’s at his full length.

He knows how his den works, though.

Quickly, he does one last flap of his wings before holding his wings close to himself for just the right second to go through the small pit.

Once he’s reached the top, he spreads his wings again and flaps as strong as he could. They speed into the air, and with the rush of the wind Technoblade could still hear the giddy sounds that Theseus was making.

Technoblade soars with a baby hanging from his mouth. He doesn’t think he could tell anyone about this without the other person having to double take at that. There’s a baby hanging from his teeth– how many dragons could say that?

He internally winces.

To be fair, then, some Dragons are a lot less noble than the ones he does know. Technoblade has a scar on his right chest to remind him. 

Technoblade keeps his mind off of that.

He looks down, and he watches as the forestry of the mountains turn into the plains of the mortals. He sees their civilizations, their animals and their farms.

The farms. That’s a good source of food.

Technoblade beats his wings and he heads towards the west where the nearest farm is. He could see, slightly, how the humans who are outside would scamper for shelter. Children hide behind their mothers’ skirts. Some of the elderly don’t move, looking at him and doing nothing else. 

He understands. Dragons don’t have a good reputation after all. For all he knows, while he had been in his sleep some other dragon had come to terrorize the poor village. Technoblade cannot really blame them. 

But seeing the fear in children’s eyes gives him a whiplash to how things really used to be. Technoblade had gotten used to the adoration in Theseus’ mindless eyes. He has not a thought behind those eyes but by extension somehow that extends to the lack of fear. 

He can’t really help but feel fondness for that.

Technoblade circles around a farm, lowering slowly. He watches as two folk rush out of their cabins– one old and one young. The younger one is frantic. He goes to his herd of sheep and tries to shepherd them into the house. The older one seems a lot more welcoming, however, he approaches Technoblade as he tries to land as gently as he could. 

With his feet on the ground, Technoblade folds his wings to his side. Only then did he hear Theseus’ loud chirps mixed with obnoxious laughter. Whistles mix in with his giggles, louder than Technoblade has ever heard him.

The dragon slowly lowers the baby to the rocky pavement. The blanket carrier has become dirty. He’ll have to replace that. 

When Theseus is safely on the ground, Technoblade turns into his skin. 

The old man doesn’t look surprised. Has he seen Technoblade before?

The Dragon in his skin walks towards Theseus, and he brings the bundled up hatchling into his arms. Technoblade hides Theseus’ wings under the blanket. He doesn’t want anyone else to see Theseus. 

He cannot trust anyone else’s greed to be as kind as his own.

“Oh, the Dragon Technoblade.” The old man calls out with a friendly tone, crows feet wrinkling at the side of his eyes. He must have been a happy lad in his youth. “What brings you here to our farm?” He asks.

Technoblade turns his head towards the old man. “I would like a percentage of your farm.” He says. 

He blinks, shocked, then he shakes his head. “Well, that’s not really my discretion.” He laughs. “Technically, this is my son’s farm now. Not mine.” He assumes that this ‘son’ of his is the one who had been a lot more scared for his sheep.

The Dragon hums. Well, if that’s how humans works then he can’t really blame them for adhering to their system. “Alright, I understand.” He says. “Could you perhaps lead me to your son?” 

The old man nods. “If you’d so kindly follow me,” he says respectfully. He turns around and he walks towards the farmhouse. 

Theseus makes a curious sound, pushing and writhing around in the makeshift carrier and kicking so he could climb up and peek at the new company. He whistles, and he hides himself against Technoblade. He sounds uncomfortable. Technoblade practices restraint as he forces rationality.

“You have a cute kid.” The old man hums. “I remember when I raised my child, he’d been just as cute.”

Technoblade feels a possessiveness curl around his heart. What if this old man would take his hatchling? He’d seen his hatchling. His child. 

He, as if sensing Technoblade’s ire, turns his head to look back. “Don’t worry, Dragon, no one will be taking what’s yours.” He says. “It’s not just a rumor, how you and your kind are possessive with your hoard. It’d be no wonder that you’d be no more fierce in your protectiveness towards your kids.” The old man chuckles. Technoblade is oddly without complaint. If this meant that the old man recognizes not to touch what’s his then it works out fine. “I certainly was, I remember fondly when–”

The old man is cut off mid sentence by a young man who bellows out a pitiful guttural war cry. 

Theseus chirps in surprise. He clings tight to Technoblade.

Technoblade looks at whatever that is, and he growls. He curls around protectively around Theseus, who seemed too curious for his own good. The kid peeks through Technoblade’s arms, but Technoblade tries to hide him. Technoblade feels a sensation in his skin, akin to the transition when he’d shift, but it’s long lasting.

The man has a pitchfork waving around. While Technoblade, in his human form, is invulnerable to such weak things, Theseus isn’t. 

He has the urge to shift, to grow large enough to protect his child– except he can’t because he’d have to let go of Theseus and he can’t have that either. His mind is in a haze of aggression while he holds Theseus close to his chest and away from the aggressive human. 

Before he could get close, the young bastard gets a slap at the back of his head. The old man had whacked him, stopping him in the middle of his attempt at harming him and his hatchling. 

“Oi, shut up you idiot.” The old man scolds. He grabs the pitchfork, and he throws it behind, far enough that neither mortals would be able to reach it. The reasonable human turns towards Technoblade with a shy grin. “Sorry, this is my son, you flying down on us sent him into a panic.” 

In the back of Technoblade’s mind, he can’t help but feel offended that this whelp was compared to Theseus. The old man has horrible eyesight if he thinks that Theseus is anywhere close to whatever that thing is.

“Dad! He’s a Dragon –”

“And you’re an idiot.” He scolds. Technoblade doesn’t really get a say in it. He’s stuck in a whiplash of protectiveness over his hatchling. He can’t relax under these circumstances. Theseus had watched from underneath Technoblade’s protective clasp, though, and he’d giggled at the two’s interaction. “Anyway, our friend here–” the old man motions at Technoblade, “has a kid , and you’re out here waving your bloody pitchfork around!”

The younger lad blinks, and he looks at Technoblade– really looks at Technoblade. Technoblade feels a crawling, irritating sensation underneath his skin. He snarls again at the man. He doesn’t mean well, and he’s looking at his kid.

As if cementing his presence, because Theseus is easily an attention-catcher, he whines, interjecting his own mindless thoughts into the conversation. With the addition of such a distressed noise, Technoblade is torn between attacking and comforting his hatchling. The whiplash is keeping him frozen until something tips the balance. 

“Oh.” He says. He raises both his hands as if to show he has no more intentions of harm. “Well, sorry, uh, big guy. I’m Squid.” He introduces himself awkwardly. 

Technoblade swallows another urge to snarl at him. He could feel scales peeking from his skin. He exhales, rather than growls, and he calms himself and his instincts slowly. Eventually the sensation under his skin disappears. 

“You’re,” inhale, “Alright. Sorry for scarin’ you.” he says, trying to present himself as someone calm. Despite that, he still has his arms protectively around Theseus.

The young man– Squid sees that, and he sighs. “Alright now I just feel like a dummy.” Squid places a hand on his nape. 

The old man, on the other hand, seems content with them getting along. “Alright, I’ll be getting something at the house. Would that be alright?”

Technoblade nods, not really minding the old man. “Do what you need.” He says.

“Sure, dad.” Squid says.

And he leaves the two alone. Squid looks uncomfortable, but mostly because he’d given a Dragon a good reason to maul at him when that hadn’t been the original intention of said Dragon anyway. “Okay, alright, sorry about first impressions. Anyway, may I just ask what you’re here for?”

Technoblade relaxes a little. “I’d like to discuss somethin’ about your farm’s yield, if you’d be so kind.” 

“Yeah, no, I don’t mind to be honest.” Squid says. “What about it?”

“I’d like ten percent of the yielded crops monthly.”

“Okay, that’s alr-” Squid blinks, as if he’d only processed that information now. “Sorry what!?”

Technoblade raises an eyebrow. “I would like ten percent–”

“No, I got that part. Sorry, but like–” he vaguely gestures at the farm. “Sorry we don’t have a lot of crops to spare, and we’re just barely getting by as it is! We’re not sure we could just give you such an amount–”

“You won’t be givin’ it to me.” Technoblade corrects. He shifts Theseus around, “I’ll be payin’ for it. In gold.” He says. “The deal is that you have to leave it in the temple at the base of the mountain.”

“Wait, like the offertory box for gold?” 

“Is that what it’s called nowadays?” Technoblade wonders. “Look, I will be leaving you gold the weight of the crops you offer to me. That’s the deal I’m offerin’.” 

Squid balks at that.

Techonblade spends a good moment having to reassure the farmer human that no , Technoblade will not be cursing him by giving him Dragon’s gold (where the did that oral tale come from?); Technoblade will not be eating his descendants by having them wear the gold he owns (surely that has to be some other Dragon Technoblade is unaffiliated with. One of these days, when Theseus is more capable on his own, Technoblade will have to deal with whoever that is.); and no he will not be eating him for making Technoblade think he’d be after his kid.

It was a long discussion, but by the end of it Technoblade had settled with one crown per month. He has severely overestimated human greed. 

By the time the two of them shake on it, Theseus is already fast asleep on his shoulder. Technoblade resists the urge to purr at the sight. He’s still in front of this human stranger and he’s unsure that presenting this amount of vulnerability will bite him back later on. 

He… he’s going to have to fly, but that’d wake Theseus up. He doesn’t want to wake his hatchling up. 

“Technoblade!” The old man calls from a distance. He’s walking towards them,

When he’s close, he looks to his son with a gleeful glint in his eyes. “I take it you’ve struck a deal?” He asks, to which Squid nods hesitantly at. Technoblade could mentally hear yet another question- is making a deal with a dragon going to curse my bloodline? But he makes sure not to make a big deal out of it. 

He needs the food.

The old man has something in his hand. “Here, by the way. I noticed how you’d likely have some trouble bringing your kid around, and seeing that I nor this kid–” he points at Squid. “Will be having more children soon, I reckon you should have it.”

Technoblade is handed a large wicker basket with a strap and a lid on it. There are some rectangular holes that are placed close to the lid, placed in a pattern. Inside, the wicker basket is lined with linen and cushions. 

“What is this?” He asks, looking around it with one hand since his other arm is occupied by Theseus.

“It’s a carrier.” Squid explains. “I didn’t know you kept that, dad.” He sounds like he’s in awe.

The older man looks at his son, and there’s a familiar affection that he sees in those eyes. “Of course I did.” He smiles, fondly. He turns to look at the basket. “Your mother and I had some memories aligned with making that carrier, you know, and even more when you were in it.” He laughs.

Technoblade recognizes that look. When the father looks at Squid. He sees it in Philza all the time. 

He starts to wonder if that’s how this old man recognized that Theseus was his kid and nothing less.

“Anyway, Technoblade, the carrier is guaranteed comfort, and easy to carry. Me and the missus had this with us when we were traversing vast heights from that ugly country far South from here.” He motions at the strap. “I reckon you could hang this one off of one of your horns when you’re in your Dragony massness. Or just on the claw. Either way, the leather we used on the strap is tough enough to withstand a lot of things. I guarantee that.”

Squid snorts. “And comfy too, I guarantee that.”

Well, it does seem comfortable. Technoblade places the basket on the ground, and he shifts Theseus so he could place him in it. He gently sets Theseus in it, making sure to take the dirtied blanket off.

“I can take that.” The old man says. “I’ll clean it up for you when you get your things delivered to you. If you add a golden necklace for my wife, I’ll even add blankets and pillows monthly.”

“ Dad! ”

“That’s a deal.” Technoblade says. “I appreciate your hospitality,” he says, “Considerin’ the rather awkward welcome.”

Squid coughs shyly at that. “Sorry,” he says between coughs.

“I’ll be sure to watch over your bloodline–” he ignores Squid’s pallid expression, “so that they may continue to prosper as long as they remain as kind as you.”

The old man laughs. “That won’t be necessary.” He says with a grin. “You just live your life and we’ll live ours.” The old man pats Squid on the back. “Look at him, you’re giving him anxiety.”

Technoblade rolls his eyes.

He leaves with a goose in a basket, a sack full of crops, and a deal.

He’d really traded some crops for a crown and a necklace. Monthly. It’s surprising how he isn’t more affected by the fact that he’d traded some of his hoard for the sake of something he doesn’t need. Something impermanent.

Then he remembers Theseus, his crying. 

He remembers Wilbur back when they were hungry. 

Technoblade doesn’t wish hunger on his hatchling. 

Which also means that he’s going to have to learn how to cook more than roasted vegetables cooked by sacred Dragon fire. He wonders how the hell Phil coped with the learning curve.

Technoblade lets Theseus wander around. He’s a curious kid, and sometimes curiosity is good. It helps with development, as he’s heard before. He’d been hesitant at first, because Theseus would have the tendency to go to places that he isn’t allowed to go to.

But he’s baby proofed the place thrice over. He can surely, certainly get Theseus safely around. Of course, that’s not without the necessary precautions. 

He watches, amused, as Theseus would crawl around with clothing bundled at his knees. 

Technoblade had smoothed the cave’s floors ages ago, save for the entrance of his hoard where cracklings of cooled rock stay. Theseus can’t possibly go beyond the hoard and the nest room, because he’d already placed a wall between the part of the den that hasn’t been smoothed out and the part of the den that was polished.

Internally he’s grateful that he’s been very particular with the interior of his hoard room, because by extension the hoard room is also Theseus’ play area and the exit of his nest. 

It’s been a relatively long time since Technoblade had acquired the hatchling. He’s lost some of his gold, some crowns and circlets in exchange for vegetables and the occasional beef that he’s preserved with the same magic that preserved the first few potatoes and vegetables that Theseus had eaten. He’s not sure if avians require meat.

Technoblade doesn’t mourn the loss of some of those crowns and jewelry. Not when he’s seeing how somehow the loss of those material objects contribute to the weight that he witnesses his kid gain. It’s wonderful to see something so small get a little bit less small.

Not that it’s by a large amount. Technoblade could wear his scales and he’d somehow accidentally step on Theseus. This is why he’s still wary of having to wear his scales around Theseus. He has to be mindful where the kid is at all times because the gosling will find a way to stick to Technoblade. 

He’s honestly not complaining much about it.

Theseus is babbling to himself while he crawls around. 

Technoblade pauses, looking away from his makeshift stove and pan that had been delivered alongside extra blankets, pillows, and crops from the last month. It’s mostly iron that he’d melded while Theseus was asleep, and a hearth underneath where he could place firewood on.

And three guesses to where the fire comes from.

Theseus whistles repeatedly, calling for Technoblade from the border that Technoblade had built. Sometimes Technoblade is grateful for how often children like Theseus has to sleep and how Technoblade won’t have another century until he’d need to hibernate once more. He can’t imagine how many parents would go sleepless over these little tykes.

Which is to say, Technoblade has had the time and ability to build everything that he needs to keep Theseus at bay. It’s no problem, thankfully, for Technoblade who has no need for sleep. He can do everything else while Theseus is knocked out. 

Everything else includes learning how to cook. Technoblade has been grateful for all prior experiences with Phil forcing vegetables along with his meals, back then. Because he could vaguely remember a lot of the recipes that made even a snobbish dragon who hates anything other than meat start to love the greens and green adjacent foods. 

Which isn’t really necessary, since Theseus doesn’t seem to be a picky eater. He inhales these vegetable mushes, no matter how tasteless they are.

Kudos to the human farm, though, because they do have pretty sweet and fresh produce. It certainly makes Technoblade’s life easier while he’s trying to learn how to make good food for the kid. It isn’t hard, thankfully. 

Technoblade moves the pan off of the fire and he walks towards Theseus. He steps over the boundary he’d built for the kid.

The kid chirps excitedly, crawling quickly towards Technoblade. Theseus smiles, and Technoblade sees teeth. He’s been growing teeth, recently, which is something that warms Technoblade’s heart. His kid is growing teeth.

He could stop that sentence– his kid is growing . 

Theseus is picked up from the ground, and Technoblade rests Theseus on his hip. “You’ve been busy, have you?” He asks, and as if responding, Theseus babbles something back with his human vocals. Technoblade grins. “Oh? You talking back to me?” He tilts his head.

The kid tilts his head, mimicking Technoblade with nonsense sound coming out of his mouth. 

“How about you try some words?” Technoblade hums. “Dad.”

Theseus whistles lightly. 

“ Dad .” Technoblade says slowly. 

Theseus whistles for a longer time, for as long as his small lungs could handle.

Technoblade chuckles. “It’s dad , Theseus.”

“Who’s Theseus?” A voice says, “Anyway, what’s up with the entrances? Have you just woken up? Only the one up top is open and I had to circle around to get here, mate.”

Technoblade whips his head around, curling around Theseus to hide the kid. His eyes are wide at the sudden presence. He sees blond hair (not as stark as the blond hair that he’s been combing for the past months now), blue eyes (that don’t sparkle like Theseus’), and black wings (that aren’t gold ). “Phil?”

“Hi mate, what have you got here?” There’s a playful lilt to his tone.

Theseus whistles, and Technoblade witnesses Phil’s pupils dilate, the wings at the side of his face, down to his neck and back fluff up at the presence of the sound. He sends out a confused, curious warble, ones that he usually hears when Kristin, Technoblade and Wilbur play tricks on him. 

“Phil.” Technoblade snaps Phil out of it, and Phil’s eyes settle on Technoblade rather than looking for whatever it is that caused the sound. 

He clears his throat, “Uh, uhm, what was that?” he asks, voice cracking between the two cords in his throat. 

“Okay, don’t panic, I didn’t steal him from anyone–”

“Steal him? ” 

“--He was given to me.” Technoblade shifts his position, and he slowly reveals Theseus who has been peeking off of Technoblade’s shoulder. 

Phil blinks, and in between he could see the older avian’s pupils dilate. “ Oh ,” He says, the tone between a coo and a warble. “Oh, you have a baby .” Phil settles on cooing, and now he’s approaching them.

Technoblade releases a snarl, quickly cut out by the side of him that recognizes Phil is just as family as Theseus is. “I, uh,” he clears his throat. “I’m sorry, instincts are wild.” he chuckles nervously. He knows how Phil feels about instinctual aggression being expressed towards him or Kristin. 

“Hey, it’s alright.” Phil nods. “I remember being that aggressive over you and Wil, I understand.” He takes a step back. Phil looks at Theseus for a bit longer, and he bites back the snarl that wants to rise from his chest. “He’s…”

“He’s gold.” Technoblade says fondly, while Theseus clings to Technoblade. He looks unsure at the presence of the stranger. He cheeps at Technoblade, digging his head closer to the pinkett while he kicks himself higher. Technoblade allows himself to purr while he leans his head forward, placing his chin on Theseus’ head.

Phil looks like he’s in awe. He is a sound away from outright cooing at the sight. “He’s clinging to you,” he says, as if he’s giddy. Theseus whistles, upset at the presence of the new voice.

“It turns out the stories you’ve been telling me and Wil about the golden goose are surprisingly accurate.” Technoblade says, feigning irritation. “They definitely stick, alright. Just not in the literal way. Theseus doesn’t like it when I’m away for too long and will do literally anything to fix that.” Technoblade chuckles while he runs his human hands on Thesus’s hair. 

Technoblade looks up at the man who he sees as a father, and he sees a shocked expression on his face. “I’ve known that these golden geese are few and far in between in terms of when they’re gifted and that they’re incredibly smart, but I’ve never heard them be hybrids.” Phil places a thoughtful hand under his chin where a thin goatee grows.  “It’d make sense for them to be avians, though. They’re known to be smarter than ordinary geese, like they’re human. I shouldn’t be too shocked if your kid turns into a goose sometime eventually.” He grins.

And Technoblade hadn’t really thought of that. Kristin and Philza hadn’t shifted before, saying that they were too old to.

Which should have implied that the small moments when Theseus would disappear and appear were times that he’d literally be a gosling. Oh the size of that. He’s relieved and both frightened that he hasn’t crushed Theseus under his human boot yet. 

Oh that’s horrible .

“Hey, I know that look.” Philza says sternly. “You really shouldn’t be this distressed. I’ll tell you more about it, but,” he pauses, a concerned look on his face.  “To make things clear, though, is this a parental relationship that you have with, uh, Theseus , or…?” Phil points at the hoard that is proudly displayed behind Technoblade.

He… honestly doesn’t know. He finds that he’s neglected his hoard for the sake of raising Theseus, going to the extent of trading gold. But it’s nothing new when he treats his hoard. Technoblade has neglected old gold because of some things that he found that are newer and prettier.

But the thought that this is something like an extension of his material need?

“I raised him since he was an egg.” Technoblade says instead. “And you heard it. I named him Theseus, didn’t I?”

The look on Philza’s face warms, as if he’s fond. Technoblade wasn’t secretive with his favoritism over Theseus and his tales. Philza wasn’t dumb about it either. It was a symbolic name, a memory and now a promise he’d made to the kid he’d named it to.

That much answers Philza. He crosses his arms, looking at Technoblade with something akin to a proud, fatherly look. Technoblade can’t help but feel flustered at the sight. He’s being perceived with pride . This is demeaning. This is terrible. It isn’t any ordinary pride either. It’s fatherly pride . 

Technoblade releases an appropriately embarrassed whine that only so very few people would have ever heard come from him. All of them he could count into his claws, which he only has six of in his upper extremities.

“Do you have this handled?” Philza asks, “Because, I know how parenthood works in your situation and you’ll be raising an avian.” The meaning doesn’t have to be direct. Technoblade knows. He’s lacking a lot of information and a lot of the things that he’s done so far were built on trial and error.

It’s just that he’s always known that trial and error can only get him so far.

He was going to ask for help anyway. He might as well get it now. 

Technoblade nods.

Phil left a few days after . He was in the middle of migrating, following late after Kristin who had gone ahead while Phil had to settle back at home. Phil had given him a run through of everything Technoblade needs to know about raising an avian. 

There were a few things that Technoblade had learned. 

For one, he was right in not giving Theseus any meat. Apparently avians, when newly hatched, can’t stomach any sort of meat. Avians start out as vegetarians. He’s done that right. 

Another is that Avians, even as children, would have the tendency to love being at high places. Technoblade questioned if Mountains are alright, and that’s where Phil confirms Technoblade’s ease yet again when he says that it’s a matter of altitude. 

One other important thing that he’s learned is that avians, when young, are the only ones able to shift into their respective feathers. Phil had said that it was something close to a survival instinct of theirs, how some of them, when they’re hatched, are born as birds due to the stressful nature that the egg goes through.

And Technoblade had felt relief upon learning that. That Theseus had been given much comfort when he was in the egg, enough that he’d be born out of his feathers. This makes Technoblade wander about the tales of before, where the geese are given as geese.

He tries not to think of them. He’s just glad that Theseus had been born with comfort. Enough that he’d be born into his skin, revealing what he truly is.

Technoblade remembers the way Theseus clung to him. He should say that he’s done a great job so far.

The two things he’s lacked so far, however, was avian society and preening .

How could he forget preening ? He remembers bonding time with Kristin and Philza, when they and Wilbur would have these days where they’d preen each other for hours and hours in a day for every possible week. It’s such a vital part that he can’t help but beat himself up for that.

He doesn’t know how to preen baby wings, though. Phil had to teach him.

And fortunately, they don’t have to do it often seeing as the down is yet to be replaced by the pinfeathers. It’s when the pinfeathers grow out that he has to be wary. Fortunately Phil had said that this won’t happen until he’s nine.

Which leads to the second point: Avians need to be next to other avians. Theseus seems to be the only exception, fortunately. With the whole ‘irrefutable gift’ rule that a golden goose is. 

Avians will go depressed without the presence of another avian, is what Phil says.

Contrary to what he says, though, Theseus seemed a tad bit hesitant and shy around Phil–nearly aggressive, even. It’s the first time he’s ever seen a sour expression on Theseus’s face. It had taken the third day for Theseus to get comfortable with Philza’s presence.

Technoblade was proud. He won’t admit it but there is a certain smugness that comes from the fact that despite what should have been inborn instinct, the kid prefers him over Philza– the most avian Avian he’s ever known.

Phil, who had been shocked at the blatant rejection and hesitant acceptance, explains that maybe it’s because Theseus had imprinted on Technoblade, or because Theseus isn’t an ordinary Avian. This one is a child that’s meant to stick unconditionally to someone. 

Technoblade ignores his excuses.

Clearly this is because he’s the better father– not that he’d express these smug thoughts to Phil, the actual father of Technoblade. He’s sure this will land him in timeout despite the fact that he’s old and is considered an adult. 

Phil left some other tips, as well as a quick review on how to preen avians– avian chicks especially. 

Now Technoblade and Theseus are left to their own devices, and funnily enough, Theseus seems more happy than ever being without the presence of Philza. Technoblade makes sure to be extra generous with his hugs. He lets Theseus sleep on his chest for a few days. (not that he hasn’t been doing that already. Theseus knows what he wants and he knows how to get it)

He resumes his first task.

“Dad.” Technoblade repeats, lying sideways on the nest. “Daaad.” he enunciates,

But Theseus is a lot more occupied with his golden rattle. Technoblade honestly doesn’t remember where he’s gotten that golden rattle from. Surely he hasn’t taken anything from children.

Unless of course they were corrupt children, but that was a different phase and brand of Technoblade. To be absolutely fair, he can, will, and has drop-kicked children in self defense.

Theseus squeals, tilting his head at the way the rattle jingles at every motion. “ Biya? ” He mumbles, blubbing words in his mouth. Technoblade tries his hardest to forget that the nest would have had a lot of baby saliva in it.

He could clean it some other time. 

“It’s dad.” Technoblade says, pointing at himself. 

“ Arbu” Theseus babbles,

It’s a helpless cause, Technoblade surmises. 

News comes around the family quickly, and the next visitor is expectedly Wilbur .  

“Come on! Let me hold the baby!” 

Technoblade snarls, just a light heat behind it and nothing serious. It will get serious though if Wilbur starts grabbing Theseus without his permission.

Which, fortunately for Wilbur, has not happened because Philza had taught them both some proper respect . “No. Look at him, he’s terrified of you!” Technoblade reasons, holding Theseus and patting his back softly. He looks like he’s on the verge of tears. “I swear to Prime Wilbur that if you make my baby cry you are getting kicked out and you’re getting banned from my nest until the next hibernation.”

“Yours or mine?”

“ My hibernation.”

“But you just woke up!” 

“I said what I said.”

Eventually Theseus warms up to Wilbur within the day, much to Technoblade’s annoyance. Comedically, though, the visit is short lived after Wilbur is consequently insulted by Theseus when he’d vomited the contents of his stomach when Wilbur had been too active with his cradling. There’s a certain height that Theseus wants the bouncing to be. 

How fortunate that Technoblade didn’t teach him that. 

It’s become a home, Technoblade realizes now. It was shocking to Technoblade the first time.

This happened when he was a few months past Wilbur and Philza’s visit, when they were alone. A few changes had come to the cave since then– for one, the cave doesn’t look like a death palace any more. It looks vaguely comfortable, a lot more homey. Technoblade had acquired a lot less riches and a lot more home appliances after the acquisition of one baby. 

Which is to say, there are a lot more amenities in the living area. Yes, he calls it a living area now.

It doesn’t take long for Technoblade to renovate the place. He’s built up a lot of rooms in the area to organize these things. All the gold aren’t stored in one place like a museum of some sort. No, now the place is made like it’s an actual home. Gold is placed in appropriate locations, where swords go in a clocked closet, jewelry in a case, crowns in a wardrobe. He actually has a cabinet and crate to store their food in.

Technoblade is proud. He’s made whatever this place was an actual home now. 

Which, really he should have done from the start, but Technoblade didn’t really think of this place as a home. The knew that it was just a place to hoard his belongings while he roamed the Earth for more of them. 

Now he just goes back and forth the village bringing cabinets and crates full of their necessities. The children don’t look at him with the same amount of fear. Not when there’s a familiarly shaped basket hanging off from a horn when he’s wearing his scales, and that same basket slung across his chest when he’s in his skin.

He’s not sure whether he likes or hates this new reputation. He’s decided against thinking about it.

Not to mention, he realizes rather belatedly that the changes he’s made doesn’t really account for a lot of very important things– namely his scales . It’s hard to get around when he’s in his scales, but it’s not like it’d be often.

He’s just arrived from the mentioned village, landing in the den from the pit, when he’d felt something move from his head. He looks up, making sure not to jerk his head, and he sees that Theseus is poking his head out of the basket. Technoblade wonders how he managed to get the clasp off– he’ll have to replace that some other time. 

Theseus opens the basket lid, and he cheeps at Technoblade. He’s reaching out to him.

Technoblade takes that as a sign to shift to his skin. Theseus needs him for some reason he’s yet to find out. Technoblade can’t attend to those needs if he’s in his scales– which is one thing he’s growing to be upset about. He knows why he can’t though. Technoblade knows that he’d be careless when handling Theseus somehow.

The fear of hurting his hatchling haunts Technoblade enough to keep his instincts at bay. 

Technoblade rests his head on the floor, the basket being lowered. Upon shifting to his skin, the basket gently lands on the ground. Technoblade goes to collect the basket, leaving the other things he’d brought into the den. The baby goes first.

He approaches, only for Theseus to peek his head out of the basket again. Technoblade lifts Theseus into his arms.

Except Theseus starts whistling and cheeping, sending confused childish warbles while he looks at everywhere except at Technoblade. It’s like he’s searching for something else. Technoblade doesn’t really know what.

“Hey, what are you looking for, Theseus?” He asks, following Theseus’ gaze and every turn of his head so he could catch Theseus’ attention. “Hey, kid, uh,” realistically he’s always expected the language barrier (or lack of thereof) to be a problem, but this is honestly really the first time that he’s seen Theseus this upset. 

Technoblade unknowingly releases a distressed noise, and Theseus, frustrated, ends up crying.

Technoblade can’t work under these conditions. So help him Prime . Technoblade carries the child into the nest as he runs through anything that could have potentially triggered the hatchling to start crying. It surely couldn’t have been Theseus’ simply being upset at him , because he’d been curious since before Technoblade accidentally whined . 

“Come on, work with me Theseus,” Technoblade pats Theseus on the back, rocking him comfortably while he rushes towards the nest. “It’s okay, it’s alright, I’m here.” Technoblade reassures in a vague sing-songy voice. He’s adopted this manner, somehow. He doesn’t know where it came from but singing something, no matter how horrible and tone deaf Technoblade is, seemed to calm Theseus sometimes. 

It clearly isn’t working now if he’s still crying. Clearly something is wrong . 

Technoblade checked Theseus for injuries. None.

He tries to feed him, still nothing. 

He’s checked his napkin. It’s clean. 

Technoblade has no idea what’s wrong and this is genuinely sending him into a frenzy. Technoblade needs to do something and his instincts are going crazy, spiralling into this need to protect this kid despite there being nothing to protect him from . He really has to find out what’s wrong otherwise he’s going to absolutely lose it in his instinct to protect-protect- protect . He,

His hatchling is crying and he can’t do anything about it. He doesn’t know what to do. 

Shakily, he sets Theseus down on the nest, dead center. Technoblade’s pupils turn into slits while he looks at his hatchling who is crying . Crying because of something Technoblade doesn’t know about and it has to be danger, his hatchling is in danger.

Technoblade releases a comforting purr despite the urge to snarl at something, anything that could have caused his hatchling to be so distressed and hurt because he’s crying and he’s hurt and he’s crying he’s crying–

The scales reveal themselves under his skin, and he shifts. 

Technoblade’s size is barely fit for the nest when he’s in his scales, but he circles around the nest anyway. He knows he’s going to destroy something but he doesn’t care because his hatchling is crying.

He curls around the nest, placed at the center of the room.

The resounding purr is louder when he’s in this form, having larger lungs and a louder cord. Technoblade wants to comfort his hatchling, tell him he’s safe, but he doesn’t know how–

And oh,

The cries from Theseus dwindle down into hiccups, and the kid is crawling towards him with calling whistles cut in between with the remaining sobs that make their way out of his small body. Technoblade doesn’t know what he did right. 

Technoblade watches as Theseus crawls to the edge of the nest, the edge that Technoblade’s large mass has disturbed, and he curls under Technoblade’s claw.

The purr is now less because he wants to comfort his hatchling, and more because he’s actually pleased. The slit eyes had dilated, shifting into something round and dark that envelop the majority of his eyes. He looks at Theseus, nuzzling against wrinkles of his palm. 

He curls his hand a little, and Theseus releases a happy chirp while he curls himself into the curve of his hand, in the softer and more tender parts before the claws. Technoblade coos, warbles and purrs releasing from the back of his throat.

Theseus hiccups stop.

Technoblade thinks that it’s over, but 

He thought wrong, because Theseus whistles that familiar sound of need that he’d heard earlier as well. Did he want something? Is he hurt somehow, with Technblade in his scales?

Theseus reaches out with small hands, soft golden talons reaching out and stretching and curling in once more. “ Abd,” Theseus says.

Before he goes on the verge of wailing again, Technoblade places his hand as close as he can to his head, needing him to twist his hand slightly so he could reach it further.

Theseus moves from his position, and he climbs off of Technoblade’s palm so he could be closer to his face. He leans against his cheek, and something releases from the back of Theseus’ throat. It’s a rough chirp, perhaps not even a chirp at all, because it’s something that vaguely resembles a soft, buzzing type of chirp. A rumbling whistle, frequency changing between inhale and exhale.

Technoblade feels his heart fill with happiness, a unique giddiness mixed with pride. Theseus is purring. He’s trying to purr at least, and the thought of that makes his chest full and whole with something adoring. Adoration. It’s an adoration he could get from a love for his son. 

He snorts slightly at Theseus, letting the wind the kid loves so much blow at his hair and at his face. Theseus closes his eyes then, now rubbing his face against one scale on Technoblade’s face. 

Distantly he’s worried that Theseus would hurt himself on his scales. What if it’s too rough? What if it’s too sharp at the edges.

Technoblade, realistically, doesn’t have rough scales, nor sharp edges. Not on his face, at least. His body has developed the need to have sharper and tougher scales but he’s certain Theseus won’t be able to go there, seeing that he’s caged between Technoblade’s head and his arm. 

The purrs soften eventually, and Technoblade notices how Theseus had slumped sleepily against him. 

Technoblade coos, but not so much to wake his hatchling up. 

He gently shifts so that Theseus stops leaning on his face and so that he lies on his palm. Technoblade shifts to his side, internally wincing as he hears something crash distantly, probably at his tail. Theseus doesn’t wake up, though, so he supposes this is a win.

He moves his paw close to his chest, right where his strong beating heart is. 

Technoblade lies still, allowing time to pass by.

As a Dragon, his instinct screams to stay in his scales for the entire time. He wants to protect his hatchling in his scales. He wants to do everything he can for his hatchling when he’s in his scales. Realistically, he’s always known that he can’t afford that when his kid is so small and so accident prone. 

The dragon sighs, letting his eyes close but not to sleep. Just to pass the time. Technoblade can’t sleep, which is why he has to hibernate every in between a few decades up to a century. This is why while Theseus is asleep, Technoblade does everything he can to keep his hatchling comfortable for when he wakes up.

So moments like these are… are rare. He doesn’t have to sleep. He doesn’t have to rest.

But he’s in his scales, and Theseus is safe.

He’s content, so maybe while he doesn’t have to,

He’ll take it.

This doesn’t become the last time Theseus naps with a Dragon.

Kristin visits this time . Technoblade was occupied with fixing an entire section of the cave while he left Theseus to his own devices. 

“Oh, hi.” Technoblade greets this time, because she’s not Wilbur but also she isn’t Phil who snuck into the cave . Unlike the other two, she’s actually kindly made her presence and eventual appearance known. Technoblade can appreciate that.

“Hey, kid.” She smiles, wings ruffling. She rolls her eyes, and she quickly opens her arms wide while she gives herself a running start towards her kid.

She giggles when she’s caught in an embrace. “Oomph, look at you, big guy! I heard from Phil! You have a kid now!” Kristin says with glee, and Technoblade can’t help the feeling of pride that elates him. 

“Yeah,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else he could say about this. “Would you–?”

“Yes I’d love to see the lil guy!” She exclaims. “Come on! Drop whatever that is, I’m here so that means you had better take a break!” Kristin says excitedly.

Technoblade leads her to the play pen that he’d built so he could work on things while Theseus is nearby. He doesn’t let Technoblade get too far, otherwise he’d be wailing and the cries will echo throughout the entire cave. 

“Oh, what a sweetheart.” She coos, 

Theseus snaps his head towards the unfamiliar voice, and just like the other times he’s met strangers, Theseus whistles anxiously and cheeps for Technoblade. 

He’s quick to act, pulling Theseus out of the playpen and into his arms. 

“Sorry, he’s a bit tense around company.” Technoblade says, rocking Theseus who hides under Technoblade’s shoulder, muffled cheeps coming from the child.

“Oh, that’s how it is. I wouldn’t worry.” Kristin laughs, “He’s imprinted on you and only you. The kid wouldn’t recognize me, but…”

Kristin moves her lips into an ‘o’, and she whistles a high and sweet chirp. Theseus’ anxious cheeps silence, and he perks up. 

Technoblade watches as Theseus tilts his head, now letting out a confused warble. 

Before the younger avian could create another sound, Kristin stops. “Yup, that’s an avian alright.” She chuckles. She approaches, and she reaches a hand out for Theseus.

Theseus, now oddly un anxious, reaches out for her hand. He tugs testingly, and chirps.

“Hello, little guy.” She giggles, responding with a chirp of her own. “This one likes hugs I reckon.” Kristin smiles.

“How do you know that?” Technoblade questions. 

There’s a glimmer in her eye. “Well, you have your Matron and her clutch. I have my chat.” She grins. “All adopted by yours truly, it’s hard to spot an avian if you don’t know what you’re doing. Sometimes they don’t know themselves.” Kristin releases a coo at Theseus, who shyly leans against Technoblade.

“You’ve got to teach me that.” 

Kristin laughs. “Well, it’s only customary for a parent to pass on her knowledge to her kid when its his turn.” 

Technoblade’s heart warms at that. 

Technoblade was caught off guard, when Theseus finally says it . The magic words. The dream words.

And Theseus had said those words when Technoblade had been in an apron . Technoblade had discovered that Theseus doesn’t like this one vegetable that avians need, squash . Technoblade doesn’t get why he dislikes it in the first place. Squash is a sweet vegetable, and Theseus seems pretty content with sweet potatoes and carrots that are fresh out of harvest. 

But Phil had said squash is important for a gosling diet, so he has to implement it.

Problem is, Theseus is a messy eater when he hates what he’s eating– fortunately it’s not often that he hates the food Technoblade makes, there’s just this one exception with squash for some prime-forsaken reason.

So yes, an apron.

“Theseus, you have to eat the squash.” Technoblade says. The kid had eaten everything else but the squash at this point. He’s certain that the kid isn’t full either because everything else but the squash was a good 15% of the normal meal. Technoblade doesn’t understand.

Had he been picky?

He winces internally– yes, he and Wilbur had been picky. 

Theseus, for good measure, slams his fist down the table. Technoblade looks wistfully at it, seeing the bits of squash that had spilled when he’d originally placed the plate down before Theseus. “Look, you’re gonna have to eat this or we’re going to have some problems, kid.” He says, but there’s no real threat in his voice.

Technoblade sighs. He raises the spoon, prepared to have it flung out of his hand. 

“ Badbl!” Theseus screeches, pushing himself uselessly off of the highchair. Too bad. Technoblade had known that would happen. That highchair has straps .

“Say ah,” Technoblade tells him.

“Bbl!”

“Ah, come on. Even an O or E might work.”

“ Dada! ”

Technoblade pauses at that, and again he could tell his pupils are dilating based on how blurry the rays that are refracted off of Theseus’ golden hair are. He feels his chest swell with adoration and happiness, because his hatchling had called him dad and–

He’s slammed by the realization that he’s no longer holding the spoon, now being held by Theseus.

With the spoon notably empty.

Technoblade glares at the kid, “You,” he points accusingly while Theseus places the empty spoon in his mouth. “You are a cruel, cruel Goose.”

By the end of it, Technoblade ends up preparing an entirely different dish. Just out of congratulations. He wasn’t bought into giving him sweet potatoes. No. No . This is him encouraging that Theseus should call him dad more often.

And really, who’s to say he lost? 

Because while he feeds the kid who called him dad , he could see nothing but adoration in such wide eyes. He’s curious, and in wonder. How could something so wonderful exist, and love so unconditionally?

Technoblade sighs, leaning into his human hand while his hand holding a spoon slowly approaches Theseus’ mouth.

Maybe it’s a bit conditional, seeing as how the kid literally bought his way out of eating squash.

He won’t have it any other way, though.