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The sun is steadily sinking behind the horizon, birds head back to their nests and the moon prepares to rise as night starts to fall on Quesadilla Island.
And as is the case every night, the soft tones of guitar strumming come from a small hut just East of Philza's tower.
It's a modest little hut compared to the other buildings on the Island, but it's bursting at the seams to hold all the love inside of it.
"Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting," Wilbur sings softly, sitting at the edge of his chair as he plucks the strings of his guitar.
It's an old guitar, but seeing as his little girl is listening with stars in her eyes from her bed, he thinks it still does its job all the same.
He sings on, gently singing along with the chords he really only vaguely remembers.
"Here comes the sun," he sings, then says "sing along honey, you know this part."
"Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo," Tallulah chimes up and Wilbur smiles wider than he has all day.
"And I say, it's alright," he hums, slowly letting his strumming hand come to standstill.
"How was that?"
Tallulah claps, kicking her legs and Wilbur laughs, doing a little mock-bow with his head before reaching out to ruffle his girl's hair.
"Papa?" She asks after a bit, Wilbur tilting his head, curiosity in her little eyes, "why's the ice you sang about melting?"
Wilbur chuckles a bit, folding his arms over his guitar and leaning his head on them. "That's what ice does after winter."
He hums, eyebrows knitting together as he does so. "But you probably haven't seen a winter before, have you, darling?"
Tallulah shakes her head, a little confused but looking all too eager to learn. Much like her dad always was growing up (and, really still is), Wilbur thinks fondly.
“Well,” Wilbur starts, his hand idly strumming a little as he speaks, “everything gets really cold in winter, and there’s ice and snow everywhere, covering the ground and the trees and everything. It’s like…” he pauses, chuckling softly, “it’s hard to describe. But it shouldn’t be much longer until winter comes around, I’ll show you when it’s here.”
Tallulah blinks, her head tilting to the side. “It’s on everything? What about the flowers?”
“Even the flowers. Well— not really, most of them wither in autumn already.”
Wilbur instantly realises the mistake he’s made as the words leave his lips. But even if he hadn’t, it’s instantly shown by the quivering of his daughter’s bottom lip and the watering of her eyes.
Alright. Fatherhood lesson #165: don’t give your child upsetting information about how the world works right before bedtime when they’re already exhausted and thus in a fragile emotional state. Noted.
“Okay, uh— how about another song, honey? D’you want papa to sing you another song?” Wilbur practically begs.
“Sí,” Tallulah mumbles, rubbing at her eye with the sleeve of her jumper.
That’s the most enthusiasm Wilbur supposes he’s going to get after telling her that flowers die, so he starts immediately. Damage control and all.
“Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning,” Wilbur sings, his hands strumming a slow rhythm. He glances up at his little girl on the bed, smiling softly as she leans back against the wooden frame of her bed. “ Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile.”
She’s so small now. Her hair is only just long enough for proper braids (a craft Wilbur very quickly had to relearn) and she’s still drowning in his jumpers she insists on wearing.
“I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness, and I have to sit down for a while.”
One day, he knows, she’ll fit them perfectly. Maybe her wings will grow so big that the jumpers won’t fit at all anymore— he’ll have to ask Phil how to properly deal with that.
Or maybe she’ll want to figure it all out herself by then. Maybe she won’t want her papa’s help with anything anymore.
“The feeling that I'm losing her forever…”
And Wilbur— he’ll let her. There comes a time when she’ll need to explore the world on her own, he knows.
“And without really entering her world.”
Maybe she won’t even need his songs anymore then.
But for now, Tallulah is still his little girl. And he’ll sing for her until his vocal chords and guitar strings give out, and then some.
“I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter, that funny little girl,” Wilbur sings, a gentle smile on his lips as his eyes travel back over to his daughter.
Her eyes are heavy, locks of curly hair falling in her face. She definitely gets that from her dad— his is, at least, cut short, but Tallulah refuses to even think about cutting it. Wilbur very much regrets telling her the story of Rapunzel and her long locks of hair (but not really. Wilbur loves braiding her little curls).
“Slipping through my fingers all the time, I try to capture every minute, the feeling in it.”
Maybe he doesn’t cherish it enough. Being a single dad is stressful to say the least, especially since they don’t have much to sustain themselves. Phil takes care of her plenty as well when he has to go out for work, but there isn't a second that Wilbur doesn't worry about his daughter.
And sometimes he… gets caught up in that too much. Forgets to see what’s happening in front of him, how his little girl is growing up.
“Each time I think I'm close to knowing, she keeps on growing. Slipping through my fingers all the time,” Wilbur falls quiet, finishing off with a few soft strums. He slowly picks his guitar up and leans it against the wall, trying not to make too much noise as he does so.
“Schoolbag in hand,” he whispers, gently picking his little girl up. She only barely holds onto him, two seconds away from lulling to sleep. “She leaves home in the early morning…”
“Waving goodbye,” he whispers, laying her down with a small kiss on her forehead before he tucks her in, “with an absent-minded smile.”
Wilbur smiles softly, slowly standing back up again. Before he leaves the room and heads outside, though, he pauses, a soft “Goodnight, Lula,” leaving his lips.
Wilbur, however, won’t be going to sleep for what he assumes to be a long, long time.
So instead of preparing to go to sleep himself, he wraps his scarf around himself a little tighter and takes his shield from where it's leaning against their little hut.
He's sure Tallulah will be alright, she's no stranger to being on her own for a little while, but it still hurts a little to leave her behind all the same.
Not more than seeing her upset, though. That's one thing he can't bear, and so Wilbur trudges onward, leaving the hut behind him to disappear into the distance as he enters the forest.
The night, for Wilbur, is long. The moon is far and high by the time he returns to the hut, slumping in his chair and falling asleep almost instantly.
♤
"Papa?"
Wilbur blinks his eyes open slowly, taking a few seconds to fully come back to the waking world to see Tallulah shaking his leg.
The first rays of sunshine are already filtering through the window— he should really try to save up for some cheap curtains, though he doubts it would stop the little one from getting up at the crack of dawn. He'll have to wait a few years to get over that phase.
"Yes, darling?" Wilbur yawns, sitting up and rather lazily hoisting her up onto his lap.
She looks up at him, pointing over at the two objects standing on the chest beside her bed. "What're those?"
Wilbur smiles, eyeing the two torchflowers he had acquired the previous night. It hadn't been easy, per se, but Wilbur's a pretty decent tracker, and once you've got the trail of a Sniffer, finding torchflowers is hardly difficult.
And now, here they stand: two torchflowers, each in their own little pot, a faint orange glow emitting from them.
"These are flowers, Tallulah. They're not the amapolas you like so much, but they're nice too, right?" Tullulah nods, a look of wonder in her eyes as she eyes the pots.
"These are torchflowers. It's because they glow a little, can you see?" The little girl nods again, reaching out from where she sits in Wilbur's lap until she can get ahold of one of the pots, pulling it onto her lap.
"Torchflower…" she whispers, holding the flower in front of her face.
"But you know what?" Wilbur continues, chuckling lightly at how closely she's inspecting the flower, "they're a little bit hot too. The flower makes a bit of warmth, so they're the only flowers that will live through the winter."
Well, those and witherflowers, but there's no way in hell he's gifting his little girl one of those. She's far too young to learn about the nether, anyway.
"The only ones?" She repeats, and Wilbur can already sense the storm coming from afar. But unlike last night, he nods and sails right into it, gently combing one hand through her messy curls.
"Mhm. But they come back in spring, mi amor," Wilbur hums, placing a kiss atop her head. "You have to remember the other flowers through this one during the winter. If you remember them, they'll never really be gone. They'll always come back to you."
"Even the amapolas?" She pipes up, and Wilbur laughs softly, nodding.
"Even the amapolas."
Tallulah beams, a smile Wilbur is sure could light up the night sky, hugging the pot with the torchflower close to her chest. "I'm going to think of all the flowers every night!"
"You do that," Wilbur smiles, ruffling her hair before sitting up and hauling Tallulah back onto her feet on the ground.
He moves across the room and takes the second pot with the torchflower under his arm. "Now that we're both up anyway, papa is going to go get us some breakfast, alright?"
Tallulah nods, though she looks a little confused at the flower Wilbur had picked up.
Wilbur only smiles gently, glancing down at the flower. "There's someone else I think could use a flower as well. I'll be right back, okay?"
"Mkay," Tallulah nods, "te amo, papi!"
"Love you too, mi amor."
♤
Wilbur hasn't been here before many times. Only once, really— before Tallulah came into his life.
Maybe that's why he decided to return. Because he… understands it better, now.
He didn't think he could ever fathom the pain of losing a child, but now that he has his own, now that the fear of losing her is so ever-present in anything he does, Wilbur thinks he understands.
Quackity has always been a complicated man, from the moment they met so many years ago up until today. But heartbreak isn't complicated, not really.
Wilbur kneels before the grave.
"I'm sorry we never got to meet, Tilín."
And it doesn't matter if Tilín was his or not, in the end. Maybe it never really did.
He was Quackity's son, and Quackity had wanted Wilbur in the boy's life. He'd wanted help to protect him from the dangers of this world.
Wilbur understands, now. He's a single father in a world filled with various dangers that could all mean an early end for his daughter, the light of his life.
He only wishes he'd understood it sooner. But knowledge comes with time, he supposes.
He sighs, gently placing the pot with the gently glowing torchflower down on the cold stone.
"If you remember them, they'll never really be gone."
He stays there for a few more minutes in silence, before slowly getting up.
Wilbur glances behind him once more, then walks away.
He has a little girl waiting for him at home, after all.