Chapter Text
“Wilbur, be careful!”
“I’m fine!” the boy shouts back, wide, mahogany eyes trained on the water that trickles past the slippery stone he balances on. He hops to another stone and he pinwheels his little arms to maintain his balance. A small gasp escapes his lips, quickly chased by a giggle that’s as bubbly as the shallow stream.
Phil’s wings twitch as he wades out into the stream, uncaring of how the water immediately soaks through his boots and the tips of his feathers. He hovers nearby and wearily eyes the stones that Wilbur jumps between. The leaps that Wilbur is making are becoming larger as the stones he jumps between shrink in surface area, and Phil isn’t sure about it, not one bit. “Uh, maybe you shouldn’t—”
And right on cue, Wilbur’s boot slips against the next stone. Just as Phil is reaching out, the boy tips over and lands butt-first in the stream with a splash.
“Wilbur!” Phil gasps, rushing forward. Concern clenches his chest as Wilbur sits in the stream and lets the water flow around his stomach, seemingly stunned. Phil braces for the tears to come.
But all of his worries melt away at the sound of his son’s laughter, shoulders shaking up and down with the force of it. A smile bursts to life on his once stony face, missing teeth and rosy cheeks on full display. “Dad, Dad, didja see that? I almos’ had that jump!”
Phil exhales, and a smile of his own creeps onto his lips. He can’t be blamed for it, honestly—Wilbur’s smiles are more infectious than sunlight on a clear morning. “You sure did, mate. Now come on, up you get.” Phil motions for both of Wilbur’s hands, an offer that Wilbur accepts as he pops up to his feet. Phil releases one of his hands and looks down at him. “You ready to move on?”
“Yeah, m’ready.”
Phil squeezes the hand that lingers in his. “Alright, let’s keep looking around.”
They shuffle their way out of the stream and up onto the banks where the trail continues through the woods. Though the trees offer plenty of shade, the summer sun slips through the gaps in the canopy and paints a mosaic of shadow and light on the forest floor. It brings warmth with it too, a heat that would be unbearable in the fields but is tolerable out here. Wilbur’s hand stays in Phil’s for all of thirty seconds before he squirms his way out of Phil’s grip and trots over to the side of the trail to look at the flowers that have popped up in the summer’s inviting warmth. He zig-zags back and forth across the trail; Phil watches him with no small amount of amusement.
Wilbur eventually spots something interesting enough to make him stop and crouch down beside it. “Daaad. Think I found somethin’.”
Phil heads over to Wilbur and sweeps his wings out on either side, crouching as well. “What is it?”
Wilbur shrugs. “I dunno.”
“Well what does it look like?”
The boy tilts his head at the plant in question. “Well…well, it’s mushrooms.”
“Yep,” Phil encourages with a nod. He twirls his wrist around. “Go on.”
“Uhmm… They’re orangey. Kinda small, but—but all mushrooms are small?”
“The ones we’ve seen so far are small, yeah. What else?”
“There’s a lot.” He motions around them with both of his hands, though he’s careful not to touch them just like Phil has taught him to do when he’s not sure about what, precisely, a plant is. “All in a big ‘ol bunch.”
“Do you have any idea what they are?”
“Have I sawed them before?” Wilbur asks, tilting his head to the side.
“Seen,” Phil corrects. “‘Have I seen them before.’ And maybe, maybe you’ve seen them before.”
Wilbur hums for a moment, brow furrowed as he concentrates. Then, his face brightens. “Oh! Oh, I know! They’re the—the, y’know, the—shuhh…shinntaah…”
Phil tries not to laugh as he provides, “Is ‘chanterelles’ what you mean?”
“Yeah! Shun-trills!”
“ Chanterelles .”
“Shun-trills!” Wilbur giggles.
“ Chanter —you know what, yeah, that’s close enough. Right, so, that’s what you think?”
Wilbur bobs his head.
“Are you sure?”
Wilbur bobs his head again. “Super sure!”
“So what would you do if I told you you were wrong?”
“I’m not wrong!” he squawks, affronted by the very notion.
It’s honestly adorable how offended he is, cheeks all puffed up. Phil forces himself to suppress a laugh. “Sorry mate, but you kind of are.”
“But they look just like shun-trills!” Phil doesn’t quite catch his snort at the butchered pronunciation before it leaves him. “They’re small ‘n orange!”
“Right, see, that’s the thing. They look like chanterelles when they’re actually not. They’re called ‘jack-o’-lanterns’ .”
Wilbur blinks up at him with the most baffled expression. “Dad—they aren’t pumpkins,” he says like he’s trying to explain the concept to a toddler (which is rich, coming from him).
“No, they’re not pumpkins,” Phil agrees. “Good observation, mate.”
“Then why are they called jack-o-lanterns?! ”
“I don’t know. I didn’t name them.”
“Well, it’s a stupid name,” Wilbur huffs, crossing his arms. “And it’s a stupid mushroom. Why’s it gotta look like the other one?”
“They’re trying to trick you into thinking they’re chanterelles so you’ll eat them and give yourself a belly ache.”
“But why?”
At that, Phil levels him with a firm look. “Because mushrooms are bad.”
“Why?”
“They’re conniving bastards.”
Wilbur blinks. “ Oh. ”
He wags a finger at Wilbur. “Never trust a mushroom, alright? There are look-alikes everywhere.” Wilbur nods, staring up at him like Phil has just bestowed the knowledge of the Universe on him. “Good. Now, let’s keep looking around.”
They carry on along the trail, Wilbur humming some mindless tune. He pauses after a moment and asks, “But how did you know they were jack-o-lanterns?”
When Phil looks over to tell him, he catches a glimpse of that curious glint in Wilbur’s gaze, that naive, wide-eyed wonder that you don’t find in most adults. And to think that the cause of such fascination is a rather mundane little forest fungi he found sprouting out of the corner of the trail, something that Phil would’ve otherwise overlooked.
But who is he to deny his son the beauty of the world?
So he tells Wilbur about how chanterelles don’t grow in bunches and only like to take root by trees; and he shows Wilbur where to look for sweet berry brambles, and he points to the fennel sprouting up in the sunlight, points to the stinging nettles lurking nearby, points to the foxgloves swaying in the breeze. Wilbur drinks it all in with unmatched eagerness, nodding and asking question after question. He runs his hands over the fluffy bushes and laughs when the leaves’ sap sticks to his fingers.
Phil has no doubt that Wilbur will know these woods like the backs of his hands by the time he’s eight years old.
They take a shortcut on their way back to speed up the trip home, and the side trail brings them back to the babbling brook Wilbur fell in an hour before. Phil takes one of Wilbur’s hands and helps him skip across the rocks with ease, making a show of landing on one foot each and every time. “Dad, I’m dancing!” he proclaims, looking up at Phil with glee. “I’m dancing on water!”
Phil smiles, fond. “That you are.”
As they pass through the deeper section of the stream, Wilbur diverts his jump away from the rocks so he can land right in front of Phil and splash him with a spray of water. The boy cackles in satisfaction.
Phil raises an eyebrow. “You think that’s funny, do you?” Wilbur giggles and splashes him again. “Ohhh-ho-ho, are you sure this is a fight you’re willing to start, mate?”
When Wilbur splashes him a third time, he does so with a mischievous wrinkle in his nose. “Fight me, old man.”
Phil can’t help the laugh that’s punched out of his gut upon hearing that come from his six-year-old son. “You cheeky—! Get over here!”
Wilbur yelps as Phil descends upon him and scoops him up from behind before he can scurry away, spinning him around. “AAAAAH! Put me down! I want down!”
“Nope, not after that!” He spins Wilbur around again, letting the boy’s legs fan out with the motion. He tickles under Wilbur’s armpits, causing the boy to shriek with laughter. “‘Old man’? Did you really just call me that?”
“N-No, I didn’t, I didn’t—!” The rest of his words are lost to a squeal as Phil blows raspberries onto the back of his neck.
“Sure did sound like it to me!”
Wilbur kicks desperately, but his efforts are thwarted when Phil shifts his weight so he can hook an arm around and pin Wilbur’s legs to his hip. “Lemme go lemme go lemme go lemme go —”
“Never,” Phil growls in false threat, squeezing his son tight to his chest. His wings curl around him to shut down any further attempts at escape. “You don’t get to call me ‘old man’ and walk away. You’re stuck with me—”
“No!”
“—foreverrrr!”
“NOOOOOO!”
Despite his exclamation of pure terror at the very thought, Phil can hear Wilbur’s bubbling laughter, muffled against his chest. He shifts Wilbur around again until he has the boy thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. After adjusting his emerald earring (whose long chain had gotten caught on its own hook during the tussle), he carries on with the trek home.
This is what Techno sees about ten minutes later as Phil enters the house through the back door, kicking it shut behind him. “I found a boy in the forest,” Phil deadpans.
“Oh?” says the piglin, getting up from his seat on the couch.
“Yup. His name’s Tiptup. I think he’s feral.”
“My name’s not Tiptup!” Wilbur shouts, slamming his hands against the arch of Phil’s wings. “And what’s ‘feral’ mean?”
“It means you’ve got a mouth on ya,” Phil informs him, “and like to call your loving, caring father, ‘old man’.”
Techno snorts.
“Don’t laugh at that.”
“I mean,” says Techno, blood red eyes darting to the side, “it is kinda funny… And true.”
“Oi!” Phil exclaims as Wilbur cackles behind him. “The disrespect I face in this house! You two are almost worse than the crows.” He shrugs Wilbur off his shoulder and shoves him at Techno. “Here, take him, you traitor, he’s your problem now. I’m gonna go make dinner.”
Techno scoops up Wilbur without missing a beat, easily able to hold him on his hip since his piglin build means he dwarfs the human toddler. Wilbur pokes at the emerald earring dangling from one of Techno’s floppy ears, making the piglin give a hoggish chuff. The boy giggles and attempts to wrap his arms around Techno’s chest. He gets his arms maybe half way around, if Phil is generous in his observations. Either way, Techno is still the one to carry Wilbur into the kitchen after him.
As Phil is pulling out the mixing bowls, he hears Techno sniff. “You’re all wet and you smell like river. What did you two do out there?”
“We jumpt-ed around in the stream,” says Wilbur.
“Jumped,” Techno amends. “Is that all you did for…” He trails as he looks at the clock. “...An hour and a half?”
“No, Dad told me some stuff too. Stuff ‘bout the forest.”
“Like…?”
Wilbur lifts his head and fixes Techno with a serious look. “Mushrooms are bad.”
Techno raises an eyebrow at him. “Are they now,” he drawls.
“Yeah! And you can’t trust them. They’re con… cuhn–nai–ving bastards.”
Techno blinks. “...Alright then.” He sets Wilbur down and nudges him on the back. “Go change into some fresh clothes, river boy, you’re startin’ to stink.”
“You stink!” cackles Wilbur.
“Ahhh. The comeback of the century. How will I ever recover.” Techno nudges him again. “Go.”
Wilbur giggles to himself as he scampers out of the kitchen.
When Wilbur has vanished upstairs, Techno’s eyes flick to Phil. “‘Conniving bastards’? Really, man?”
“Hey, if it means he remembers not to eat any of the mushrooms out in the woods, then it’s fine by me,” Phil says as he sorts through one of the drawers of utensils.
“You don’t think just tellin’ him not to eat them is enough?”
Phil pulls out the wooden spoon and levels it in Techno’s direction. “Need I mention the sand incident?”
“Point proven.” Techno leans back against the table and watches as Phil starts to rummage around in the pantry for ideas. “How was the rest of your walk?”
“Fun. I got to show him a lot of the plants I wanted him to know about. We kept to the main trail for the most part, too, but I did take us along a shortcut on the way home.”
“You think he’s gonna retain anything you taught him like you hoped?”
“Ah, besides the mushroom thing, probably not.” Phil dumps his haul of dry spices on the counter. He thinks he has enough of everything for a simple meat rub, if he wants to go that route. “He’s a smart kid, but I think it’s gonna take a few more trips before the info starts to stick.”
“You’re gonna take him out there again?”
“Yeah, in a day or two, probably. I really want him to get to know the area. He’s gonna be living next to those woods for the next, what, twelve-or-so years? Besides, it’s just good stuff to know in general.”
Techno snorts. “Teachin’ wilderness survival to a literal toddler. Philza Minecraft, everyone.”
“Oh, shut your fuck, Techno,” Phil shoots back, though there isn’t any real heat in it. “Knowing how to survive in the wilds is an important life-skill to have.”
“He’s six , and he lives in a house.”
Phil fires a glare at him. “Look, I don’t want to find him turning purple in a ditch somewhere ‘cause he went for a walk in the woods and shoved some pretty-looking shit in his mouth, alright?”
“Alright, alright,” Techno relents, holding up his hands in surrender. “No need to get so snippy ‘bout it.”
Phil rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they might just roll out of his head and onto the counter. “Just—make yourself useful and go pull some chicken out of the cellar, yeah?”
Techno turns and lumbers out of the kitchen. “And so bossy too…”
“I heard that!”
“You were supposed to!”
Phil tips his head back in a laugh.
~*~
Just as planned, Phil and Wilbur are back in the forest two days later, this time with the addition of Techno. The piglin has some thick potions set to brew in the basement, but it will take an hour or two before they’re done with the semi-coagulation process and ready to be made into some proper potions. He has decided that, in the meantime, he can join the two of them on their mini excursion into the forest.
The crows have decided to come along too—entirely uninvited, mind you, though social conventions have never been a concern of theirs. Thankfully, they mostly keep their chaos up in the canopies save for the occasional playful dive bomb that has Wilbur laughing and ducking as he scurries back and forth across the path.
“...So then Jerry comes by while I’m closing up my stall,” says Techno, he and Phil strolling side-by-side, “which is weird, because I could’ve sworn I saw him pass by headin’ in the other direction just a couple minutes before. Like, what’re the chances he ran all the way around the block just to pass by my stall again?”
“I swear there’s fuckin’ two of him,” Phil remarks as he watches Wilbur skip around the edges of the trail, humming some nonsensical tune to himself. “That man gets around way too fast to be normal.”
“ Right? Anyway, Jerry comes around, and he’s like, ‘Bro, you gotta see this,’ and he hands me a newspaper clipping from a couple towns over—uhhhh, Bluefeld, I think? I’ll have to check again, but the point is that it’s a column talking about some—”
“Dad, Techie! Look!”
Phil and Techno pause their conversation to turn to Wilbur. The boy seems to have befriended some of the summertime butterflies drifting about. One of the delicate creatures is perched on his outstretched finger while others dance around the dandelion he has tucked behind his ear. A few more dare to emerge from the thicket to see what all the fuss is about. Wilbur beams, cheeks bright and rosy.
“...Are you sure that kid’s not magic?” Techno remarks in an undertone, sounding genuinely perplexed.
Phil snorts. “No, he’s probably got pollen all over him from rolling around in the flowers earlier—nice one, mate!” he adds louder, offering Wilbur a smile and a thumbs up.
The boy makes a gleeful sound and returns to his playing. The dazzling creatures flutter after him, weaving around his arms and legs.
Phil turns back to Techno as they resume their walk. “So, you were saying?”
“Right, so, the column Jerry showed me was talking about some random dude in maybe-probably-Bluefeld. He’s got a farm that apparently has a bigger potato haul than mine.”
Phil’s eyebrows creep up at that. “Really?”
“Yeah! And the worst part is, I was reading what the article had to offer about his set-up, and Phil, you would not believe the absolute disrespect his enchantment distribution holds for agricultural magic.” Phil bursts out laughing. “No, seriously, Phil, you don’t get it, it’s so bad…”
Techno trails off as his eye seems to catch on something. Phil looks where he’s staring and notices that Wilbur has gone eerily still in the middle of the path. The boy’s back is turned to them, so Phil can’t make out his expression, but his shoulders are pulled taut as he seems to stare down at the ground, unmoving.
Phil furrows his brow, concern blossoming in his chest. “...Wil?”
Wilbur makes a small, distressed sound in response. Phil hurries over in a few quick strides—Techno follows suit—and crouches down beside Wilbur to get a better look at his face. His expression is stricken, slack with shock and eyes brimming with tears.
“Wilbur,” murmurs Phil, placing a careful hand on his son’s arm. “Wilbur, what’s wrong?”
Wilbur points to his shoes. Phil looks, and at first, he doesn’t exactly know what Wilbur is trying to get at; but then he notices a small dark stain on the forest floor. He briefly thinks it’s blood, causing panic to spike in his heart, though he takes a second longer to have a closer look.
He finds that there, beneath the toes of Wilbur’s boots, lies the crushed remains of a dandelion yellow butterfly.
Phil lets out a silent breath of relief, glad to know that Wilbur isn’t hurt or anything of the sort. “Skies, you had me worried there for a second. Are you alright?”
“I killd-ed it,” the boy whispers, horrified.
Phil hears Techno audibly hold back a laugh; he smacks his friend on the side, causing Techno to hide the rest of his laugh behind a cough. He then slides a comforting hand to Wilbur’s back, rubbing soothing circles. “Wil, it—it’s just a butterfly,” he assures his son, “it’s okay.”
Wilbur bursts into tears.
“Ah—” Phil winces. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. Phil gives a gentle sigh and scoops Wilbur up into his arms. “Alright, alright,” he murmurs as Wilbur presses his face into the front of Phil’s shoulder; Phil places a hand on top of Wilbur’s head, runs his fingers through the fringe on the back of his neck. “Easy, mate. Do you want to keep walking?”
Wilbur sounds like he tries to give a reply, but he isn’t able to get more than a syllable past his lips without breaking off into a sob. Phil makes a noise of sympathy and presses a soft kiss into his hair.
“I’m startin’ to get the vibe that this isn’t a ‘walk around and move on’ sort of deal,” Techno remarks to Phil. He brushes some of the frazzled hair out of Wilbur’s eyes. “You alright there, man?”
Wilbur makes a sound not unlike the whine of a wounded animal, mumbling something that’s entirely unintelligible into Phil’s shoulder.
“Mmm yeah, didn’t think so.” He looks back to Phil. “I think we’re better off just headin’ home.”
Phil agrees, and they start the walk back to the house. Wilbur cries the entire way, shedding mournful tears for the unfortunate creature of frail beauty.