Work Text:
Are we friends?
The golden armor clinked as the guards’ horses whinnied. The molten-honey armor gleamed brightly in the sunshine. It was the type of day when spring faded into summer, a warm day when the leaves turned the tough green of summer and the blossoms on the apple tree became unripe apples.
“So what’s the plan, Parrot?” Arthur asked.
“Well, the Capital City police have pretty much turned completely against me and Theo.” Parrot paused. It’s fine. “And… honestly, I’m pretty sure I know how they, like, already framed me in the first place.” Arthur nodded. Go on, he said silently. “Uh, how did they do it?” Theo asked. (Snow drifting downwards, coating the spruce cabin’s roof in a sheet of white-) It’s fine. It’s fine. (It’s not fine. Wifies is talking to him, and he’s the Director, and it’s not fine, and nothing will ever be fine anymo-)
“Dogs,” Parrot choked out the word. “Assuming that the Capital City police were hired to do this, they… probably tamed a bunch of dogs, named them after W- after me,” thankfully, no one seemed to catch his stutter, “and then had them kill a bunch of old players in the city. ‘Cause people say that they saw the death message. That’s the only way that my name could possibly show up in chat.”
Snow is drifting around the Director, hazy halos of light appearing and disappearing, like fireflies, specks of light emitted by the invisibility potion. The invisibility flickers out of-
“Parrot?” Theo asked, concern flickering across his face, although Parrot wasn’t quite quick enough to catch it.
“Oh- um, I-I need to talk to Fymada.”
- existence, a half-transparent body coming back into the realm of light-
“The only way that I'm going to be able to prove my innocence to everybody is to get the capital city police to, like, confess and admit that they did this.”
- the figure’s wearing Wifies’ headband, but it can’t be because-
- because Wifies is dead. He’s dead, but it’s Wifies alright, Wifies looking at Parrot serenely, as if he didn’t just trap his friends, as if-
- as if Wifies could lie to him, trick him for months on end, and then pretend everything was alright. Because it wasn’t! Nothing was alright, because-
“...rot?”
Because he was trapped and obsidian walls were on all sides of him and lava was creeping up to his little obsidian prison-
“Paro…?” Who was calling him?
- and he was on pressure plates, ending as they had begun, choosing life, walking away, useless as usual, couldn’t stop another friend’s death, spyglass-
“Parrot?”
Spyglass gone.
“Parrot?” Theo shook him. “Are you good?” The guards were gone, the last puffs of dust from their horses disappearing into the clear spring air.
“Yeah - yeah, I’m good.” Parrot hated how useless and strangled his voice sounded; hand twitching uselessly to hold a cool metal tube that wasn't there.
God, I miss you.
“You know, I really didn’t expect this from you. After I left, I thought you’d go and take my place. But this is what you’re doing.” Theo shifts, breath hitching as his leg screams in protest. Billy’s standing across from him, eyes disappointed. Somehow, Theo feels guilty - but why is he? “Seriously, helping all these new players into spawn. What?” Billy shakes his head disappointedly (like he used to do when Theo underperformed). “You’re an old player like me, Theo,” he snorts. “If anything, you should know how wrong that is. Come down,” he says (like he used to say when he helped Theo sort his inventory).
For a moment, Theo feels a Sure bubble to his lips, an automatic, friendly response from days long past. It takes all he has to swallow the bitter, sickly-sweet word and replace it with a No.
“Fine. I guess if you want to hide from me,” Billy smirks, “I’ll go kill the king myself. I heard he’s currently at the top of the Capital Tower right now.” Billy’s playing him, and Theo knows it. He’s exploiting his friendship with Parrot (is it really friendship? Theo never really knew, and even at the Tomb of the Mafia there was that long, long pause) to make him come down and fight him. Nevertheless, he hops down from the strange chandelier-thing he was standing on, desperately blocking Billy’s way. He has a knee-jerk impulse to tug at Billy’s arm (like he used to do back in golden-hazed days on the hillside, filled with the merry clash of netherite swords and the occasional explosion, before the Mafia came and everything went to hell) to stop him. His hand twitches by his side.
“Stop-Stop. Stop,” the words spill out clumsily from his lips. He can’t let Parrot die. “Oh, did you not learn anything from training together?” Together. The word cuts like a knife, leaving trails of blood-red memories trickling downwards. “You know, one of the first things I taught you was that having someone - or something - you care about makes you weak.”
“I-I- I know you said that, but, like, Parrot’s different - okay?” Some treacherous part of him is desperately hoping Billy will say okay and tell Theo to improve on his carting timing or something. “Different,” Billy scoffs. “Different. You and I both know if it came down to it, he’d leave you in a heartbeat. You know, you might die here.” Parrot wouldn’t. (Would he?) “You might die here if you decide to fight me. You’re going to die because of the king. That scum,” Billy laughs.
“Don’t talk about my friend like that!” Theo snarls at Billy.
“You know, Theo, you and me, we’re not so different. We’re killers at heart.” Billy smiles, the cunning grin of a wolf before going for the kill. I’m not a killer, Theo thinks. (Are you, though? How can you not be a killer, with the blood of hundreds staining your hands? And even though you tried to change, how will that fix everything you did? Everyone you massacred?) “That’s the only reason I ever took you in. Killers aren’t supposed to have friends, you know.” (I thought we were friends, right up until the end. Right up until the moment you left with cutting words that I thought were made in the heat of the moment. I thought you didn’t mean them)
“Can I ask you something, Theo?” There’s a long pause, enough time for Theo to think of before.
Billy’s laughing about something, showing Theo how to clean his sword properly. There are a few blood-red stains, and he says that it’s important to keep Theo’s weapon clean and sharp. He grabs a cloth and wipes his sword down, cleaning off most of the still-fresh blood. Through the hazy gold mist, Theo mirrors his mentor’s - his friend’s - actions, polishing his sword until it gleams. Billy shakes his head, says something that’s lost in the fog, and helps him polish it again. In that haze of gold, in those times long ago, Theo truly believed they were friends.
He should have known better.
“Do you think the king sees you as a friend?” Billy smiles again. His smile is predatory. For a moment, Theo’s frozen there in shock A haze of red (gold) covers his vision, and he snarls out a “COME HERE!” before chasing after Billy.
(If it came to it, could he kill him? Theo thinks not.)
“Parrot,” Theo calls, steering the happy ghast along the side of the building. “A-” Are you my friend? He wants to scream, but he catches himself. It’s selfish of him, and he knows it. Parrot might be dying, and all Theo can think about is if Parrot’s his friend. Still, he can’t stop. “Parrot,” he calls again. He hears a distant, familiar voice call back. “Theo?” A figure with some lopsided diamond armor steps out of a window. “Come down, come down, come down,” the green-winged avian says frantically. There’s a blooming stain of red on one of his wings, and the feathered spike of an arrow pokes out. So that’s why he didn’t glide out.
“What’s going on?” Theo asks, urging the ghast faster. Parrot doesn’t answer, just says: “Let’s go, let’s go. Get out of here, get us out of here. Get us out.”
“Okay,” Theo says. “Jump!” Parrot takes a running start from the sandstone ledge he’s perched on, wings extending as he glides onto the ghast. He tumbles onto the saddle. “Go. Go. Go. Up, up. Up. Fly away, fly away, Theo.”
“Ar- What’s - what’s going on?” Theo asks, even though the question on his tongue is Are we friends?