Chapter Text
The man came during the night.
His skin transformed from diamond to flesh and back. His hair, held back haphazardly by a braid, following the skin’s mannerisms - turning into inorganic matter at seemingly random intervals.
Technoblade had never seen anything like him.
Eyes fully black - he looked like a fabled daemon.
Like the one the villagers would speak about in hushed tones when they thought the twins couldn’t hear.
Technoblade must’ve been only six years old, yet he can still remember the day clearly.
The man's hands were bloody, he held them close to his chest. Something held close to his chest, muttering something he couldn’t understand - the translator did not work (was it a rare dialect?). The man’s steps were steady, yet his hands shook.
Small drops of blood falling on the dirt path.
The scent is the reason he woke up.
Technoblade isn’t as graceful as he is now, he steps back, falling on a branch.
His intent to get away is thwarted as the man’s head snaps to him. Irisless eyes staring into Technoblade’s soul. His breath hitches, eyes watering.
“Who are you?” Techno growls, puffing himself out.
The man doesn’t respond, remaining motionless for what seems like an eternity. Black eyes wide and wet, crystal-like tears falling down his face. Only his mouth moves, making those strange sounds, words Technoblade assumes, and his translator must agree for it makes sense of something from the man’s sounds.
“-o-orph-han-n.”
The back of Techno’s throat dries up.
He knows what Wilbur and he are.
‘Orphans,’ that had never been much of a problem, but in the face of a man with blood on his hands and an unintelligible language that the translator* can’t understand.
The warm glow of a torch illuminates the man’s face.
The light exposes tan skin, a diamond in the middle of his face, it being slightly cracked, hands clutching a mass of purple and black.
The stranger is drenched in crimson.
Technoblade scrambles to his feet and runs.
His heart beats wildly in his chest.
‘Wilbur,’ Technoblade thinks.
A promise ringing in his head. Something more emotional stabbing his heart. Forcing him into a panic.
They’d taken refuge in a library, among the dusty bookshelves and moth eaten books. Wilbur is curled against one of the bookshelves - asleep, a book across his lap, a music note on its cover. Drool threatens to fall onto the yellowed page.
He all but drags Wilbur, who awakens with a confused “Techno?” that he ignores. Technoblade grabs his twin, uncaring about the meager supplies they have stashed among the shelves, the man drenched with blood taking forefront on his mind.
‘Orphan,’ running laps around his mind.
As they exit the library the man is being surrounded by the men in the village. He only sees the crowd from the corner of his eyes. Wanting a better look, he glances back, just for a moment.
Crystals sprout from underneath the village men’s feet. Impaling anyone unlucky to stand underneath them. Cutting off some of their limbs. Red and gore splattering across the clearing.
They lock eyes.
Black meeting red.
Technoblade whips his head around fast enough to crack it, yet keeps running. Dragging Wilbur along.
The mantra of 'orphan' and the pounding of his heart deafening in his ears.
By some miracle, they run into the guards who had been dispatched to help their village. They stick with them, making the journey back to a destroyed village.
What greets them are the skeletal frames of huts and bodies burnt beyond recognition stacked upon the side of the road.
The smell of burnt flesh and rot threatens to make Technoblade pass out. His brother is not faring any better. Copper hangs heavy in the air. The mounds of crystal are gone, apart from a few shards left on the ground, glittering in the sunlight.
Technoblade has a macabre desire to stash them in his pockets, but doesn’t under the watchful eyes of the guards.
Wilbur searches for their items, finding them stashed right where they had left them. His twin finds the book he had been reading, wordlessly slipping it into their things. A few crystals also make their way into the pack.
Technoblade overhears the guards talk then, as they are heading back to the kingdom.
“It was one of those Inbetweeners,” Simon, a centaur, the horse part speckled gray, his hair black as well, suddenly says.
“You can’t control any of them,” Tobi, a man with brown wings and dark curly hair, responds.
“No you can’t,” Harry pipes, of small stature and a sort of sheep, the youngest out of all of them.
“They’re freaks,” Ethan, a broad man with gray wings and ginger hair, shrugs.
“I’m pretty sure it was one of the Trio,” Simon adds.
“No, it can’t be!” Harry exclaims.
“What are the Trio?” Wilbur asks, interrupting the sudden uproar between the guards.
Simon laughs, his tail swishing, “not a what kid, a who .”
Tobi continues, “they’re the most feared assassins in all of the dimensions:”
“Who are they?” Wilbur asks, tilting his head.
Simon shrugs, chuckling, “no one really knows.”
Wilbur laughs, yet Technoblade can’t find the humor in it.
Remembering a man made out of crystal wearing blood like clothes.
“Everything alright kid?” Ethan asks, interrupting Technoblade’s thoughts, a kind smile on his face.
Mechanically, the piglin-hybrid nods.
Technoblade doesn't care much for the kingdom he resides in, much less for its ruler. However he knows a few basic facts about the king of the land he lives on.
The Antarctic Kingdom is ruled by a man who was married once, but his wife passed away after childbirth. The baby is the sole heir to the throne. The king has the moniker 'Angel of Death'.
Reasonably, Technoblade isn’t exactly thrilled to meet the king.
“King Philza? We bring the survivors,” Simon says with a bow, the rest of the guards following suit.
Technoblade keeps his gaze on the floor, Wilbur smiling up at the man. A nudge from his twin causes his eyes to meet the man’s.
They’re blue.
Sickly warm and pitiful. Yet there is an underlying coldness decoding their very being. Underneath the man’s eyes Technoblade feels his very worth be measured.
He makes himself stand taller, meet the man's eyes head on.
Technoblade will never run away from danger.