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It’s funny how 20 years could pass since he’d been a child naively following the Death God into his castle, how he could become a fully grown man, and yet he still felt dwaved and small in the shadow of the man who was his father. He felt insignificant under those blank yet powerful white eyes, felt twitchy and unsure despite those eyes being cast over the huge expanses of the burning lava that still made his eyes ache. He didn’t complain, though. He’d learnt the dangers of complaining. Of admitting weakness. Of being less.
“So... what are we doing out here?” he asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts. The heat and fire and glare of the Nether was still foreign to him. He still felt uncomfortable in its burning nature, part of him longing for the blue skies and green grass of his old home.
The white eyes turned to him and he resisted the urge to flinch under them. Where Sky sweated in shorts and a t-shirt, the god of Death wore long pants and a shirt with no sign of discomfort. His glare burned like the world around them, but it was as ice cold like the lakes Sky swam in as a child.
“We will teach you to fly,” Herobrine said, and why Sky felt a gong of death banging in his chest, he didn’t know.
“Oh, cool.” Sky nodded. He was the son of the god, inheriting all of Herobrine’s magic in all of its power, so all things magic were supposed to come easily to him (they didn’t, they never did, he struggled with the simplest of tasks forced onto him under duress). "So uhh... Where do we start?"
They were standing on one of the many plateaus, the bubbling of the lava oceans laid out far below faintly reaching them way up here. His father's eyes bored into him and Sky drew himself up a little, setting his shoulders back. He wouldn't be cowed, there was nothing to fear. There was no one to fear. It was fine.
"We will start with you flying."
There was a blur as Herobrine moved too fast for him to process. Sky felt a hand on the back of his shirt, and his feet leaving the ground, and his own yelp of surprise and then...
Freefall.
His body tumbling down towards the ocean of lava far below. Screams were ripped from his throat, arms flailing and legs kicking. His body span over and over, catching glimpses of red, orange, distant white pinpricks, the ocean coming closer and closer. He could feel the heat of the lava burning and blistering his skin, he was going to fall it, he was going to die , and it was coming closer and closer and Sky couldn't fly, he couldn't FLY!!
The fabric of his shirt cut into his neck as something grabbed it from behind. He chocked, unable to cough as he was yanked up and dumped on the hard, crumbling ground. He gasped for breath, hands scrabbling on the netherrack that felt cold in comparison to the boiling ocean. His body was shaking and trembling and he had to blink away tears before he found the strength to sit back on his legs and turn his gaze from his father's shoes up to his stony face.
"You did not fly."
The accusation was sharp and cracked like a whip, thick with condemnation. Sky's mouth opened and closed a few times, trying to find his feeble voice as his eyes locked on their scowling white replicas. "I-I panicked, I-I couldn't think-"
"Get up."
He shook but he stood on shivering legs, facing his father who only looked at him with disappointment verging on contempt. "You are the firstborn son of the god of Death," Herobrine said flatly. "You do not panic. Now fly."
Hands shoved to his chest, sending him tumbling over that edge and thrown down into the lava below. His body seized up with terror burning through his blood but his mind was in overdrive. He could feel the magic inside him, he tried to pull it to do something , he didn’t know - He was choked again, the hand grabbing his shirt before he could hit the lava. He couldn’t fly, he didn’t know how .
And so he was thrown again. And he failed. And he was saved only to be thrown again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And AGAIN.
And then Herobrine got tired of saving him.
Sky didn't know what he was doing wrong! He was trying , he was trying so hard , it just.... it just wasn't working! He fell again, tumbling through hot air, his body refusing to catch the air and fly. He grit his teeth in despair, expecting the hand to come and choke him again, only it wasn’t here yet, and the lava was hotter than ever-
Oh gods the lava!
The beginnings of a terrified scream ripped from Sky's mouth was cut off when his body hit the lava and instantly sank. Heat that was numbing tore through his body, his bones were melting, his mind was melting, it was cold , it was so cold, it would be so easy to just sink here, to just rest .
Something hit him, or maybe he hit something because when his mind next caught up, he was gasping and coughing on cold hard ground. His throat was burning, his skin was peeling, his eyes were evaporating, he hardly knew where the pain end and he started, but there was something like cool water being poured over him. It soothed the burns, stitching together his skin and stopped that horrendous screaming that had been assaulting Sky’s ears. Slowly, whimpering, he blinked open golden eyes, squinting through the darkness of the Nether to see his father kneeling at his side, one hand on his shoulder and the other running over horrifically burned skin. Muscles regrew, skin became pale again, and Sky could breathe .
(Even if there was no remorse on that face. Even if those white eyes only met his with a calculated, emotionless stare.)
"Are you okay?"
Sky felt like he could have cried at the simple question. There was no care behind the three words, but for a moment he could have believed that there was as he nodded at his father, sucking in a few jagged breaths. "I-I'm okay. Th-Thank-"
"Good. Stand up. Try again."
Sky was never again fully submerged into the vast oceans of lava, but his legs slipped in when he didn't catch himself fast enough, or his back was scorched when he didn't react fast enough, or maybe that was Herobrine’s way of punishing him for his failing. But slowly, as each day went past of burning heat and lava on his skin, he learned how to manipulate the air around him, and how to glide through the air and then soar.
After days and days of his father carelessly tossing him into the air, Sky finally managed to catch himself the instant he was thrown, facing his father as he hovered over the endless expanse of unforgiving oceans.
Herobrine didn't congratulate him. He didn't give him rest. He didn’t care to know that Sky would forever have a horrendously warped burn on the back of his leg from the constant exposure to molten rock and liquid fire. He simply nodded once. "Now to teach you how to use it in battle."