Chapter Text
Wemmbu had maybe a minute to think.
There wasn't enough time to weigh the potential consequences and there certainly wasn't time to ask permission. Eggchan probably wouldn't be able to answer even if there was time.
He looked terrible.
Obviously. He was dying.
Egg laid half-sprawled in the long grass. Wemmbu didn't even know what had happened. Had he been attacked? By what? Was it still around? Wemmbu eyed the tree line, he was loosing valuable seconds. One of Egg's hands was pressed weakly over a gaping wound in the side of his chest. Blood seeped steadily between his fingers, soaking into his shirt and spreading across the earth beneath him. Every breath hitched as they came out shallow and wet, each sounding smaller than the last.
"Wem..." Egg's voice was barely audible above Wemmbu's own heaving breaths.
Wemmbu landed on his knees beside him so hard that they stung. His hands hovered uselessly over the wound for a moment. There was too much blood. Far too much.
He already knew that.
Wemmbu was going to fix this.
His gaze flicked to the battered wooden sword lying a few feet away that he had discarded after training that morning. Egg's own wooden sword was imbedded in the dirt a little further away. It was prettier, better taken care of, but his was closer.
His stomach lurched.
"No, no, no..." he muttered, more to himself than Egg. "You're not doing this. You're not dying."
Egg's eyes brightened for a moment as he managed a weak laugh that immediately dissolved into a spluttered cough. "I—" he winced, "...think that's a little out of my control."
Wemmbu scrambled to grab the wooden sword, nearly dropping it in his haste. It felt absurdly light in his hands.
It was a toy. A splintered practice weapon that he'd neither cared for nor been gentle with.
His grip tightened.
He'd never done this before.
He knew what he was supposed to do, in theory at least. The motions were etched into his soul, but knowing wasn't the same as doing, and doing wasn't the same as succeeding.
Egg's breathing stuttered again.
Twenty seconds.
Probably less.
Brilliant.
"Wem?" Egg questioned quietly.
He looked tired. Not at all frightened of the reaper that was looming over him, just tired.
It would have been kinder to warn him of what Wemmbu was about to do.
But there simply wasn't time.
Wemmbu hadn't gotten here soon enough.
The sword rose above Wemmbu's head and for one horrible second, he hesitated.
Then he drove it down with every ounce of strength he had.
The wood punched through flesh with a sickening crack that would have been impossible if it wasn't reinforced with enough enchantments to survive sparring. Egg's eyes that had drifted closed flew open, shock replacing exhaustion in an instant.
Their eyes met. Fear and betrayal swirled between them like it was a tangible thing.
Then the light behind Egg's eyes guttered.
Silence.
The world around Wemmbu may as well have come to a stop. He couldn't breath. His hands shook so violently that he nearly lost his grip on the hilt buried in Egg's chest. Horror crept into his voice as he started to mutter, "What have I..."
No.
No, no, no! There wasn't time for that either.
He squeezed his eyes shut and reached inward.
There.
A thread.
Hundreds of them.
They peeled away from Egg's body in fuzzy strands of pale blue light, so fine they almost disappeared against the afternoon sun. They wavered for a moment, but quickly moved to curl around Wemmbu's shaking hands. Threading between his fingers that were still wrapped tightly around the hilt of the sword.
It was the edge of a soul. Still tethered close enough to grab. It hadn't gone anywhere.
Relief crashed into him so hard it made him dizzy.
Please. He begged. Please.
The threads wandered around his hands, seeking out the luring tone that Wemmbu's own soul sung. They shimmered as they began to lift off his hands slightly as though they were uncertain whether to unravel into the sky or remain anchored to the world below.
Wemmbu could feel them searching. His soul called out to them and to his relief, they settled back down, winding up from his hand around the blade of the sword still embedded in Egg's chest.
Wemmbu finally exhaled.
The word clawed its way out of him before he consciously chose to speak it.
"SEVER."
Power exploded outwards. A pulse rippled through the field, flattening the grass in every direction. The sword vibrated between his hands, humming with a low note that echoed more inside of him than it did through the air. For a brief moment, the grain of the wood glowed just as bright as Egg's soul had. Then...
Nothing.
The light vanished and all Wemmbu could do was stare.
The sword felt different. It felt heavier in his grip, though he could think of more than one reason why that might be.
He let his hands loosen around the hilt, letting it slowly lower into the space where eggs body had been moments ago.
"...Egg?"
Nothing.
Panic bloomed all over again as he stared down at blood that had pooled in the grass. Maybe he had failed. Maybe he had been too slow. Maybe he'd—
A flicker of blue caught the corner of his eye. A translucent figure stood several paces away, blurred around the edges as hundreds of strands wove themselves back together.
Egg.
Egg was looking down at his own hands, turning them over slowly.
"...Huh." His voice sounded strangely distant, as if it was echoing from somewhere impossibly far away.
Wemmbu didn't move, he could only stare. He was terrified that even the sound of him breathing too loud might unravel what he'd managed to do. That one wrong move would send Egg's soul scattering into the wind. Lost forever.
Egg turned his hands back over and flexed his fingers experimentally before lowering his gaze to the blood soaked path of earth in front of Wemmbu.
"That's..." he frowned. "...probably bad."
Wemmbu snorted. It was probably inappropriate considering the circumstance, but it came out before he could stop it.
The air chimed, a distant tinny noise carried on the wind. Blue light engulfed Egg as the last few threads fell into place around his feet. The light surged, blindingly bright. Then, the apparition shattered like glass, sending fragments flying in ever direction across the clearing. For a heartbeat they danced aimlessly between the tufts of grass, pulsing fainter and fainter as they drifted further away.
Then, all at once, every fragment rushed towards the sword.
Wemmbu barely had time to blink before something solid slammed into his chest.
"WOAH—"
The impact knocked the breath from his lungs.
The two of them toppled backwards together, tumbling down the gentle slope in an undignified tangle of limbs. Grass and dirt flew everywhere as they rolled, neither managing to gain any purchase until they crashed to the ground at the bottom of the the hill in a breathless heap.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Egg groaned. "...Ow."
Wemmbu blinked up at the sky dumbly, his ears still ringing. "...Ow."
Egg moved first, wincing as he pushed himself upright, hand pushing squarely into Wemmbu's stomach.
"Um," Egg started. He rubbed absently at the centre of his chest trying to find the wet spot he expected to be there. Wemmbu stared up at him. Then his his hand stopped. His eyebrows furrowed and his face fell into a confused sort of baffled expression. Slowly, almost cautiously, he looked down.
There wasn't even a tear in his shirt anymore. No blood. No wound. No nothing. He pressed his fingers into his chest harder, as though trying to sink them into a hole that wasn't there anymore. His heartbeat thudded steadily beneath his palm.
"...Huh."
He pulled his hand away and stared at it harder.
Wemmbu couldn't look away.
Egg was breathing. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm and colour had returned to his face.
He was alive. Or, at the very least, he was still here.
Before Egg could could find the words to articulate any of the quesions that were swirling around his head, Wemmbu lurched upright and threw both his arms around Egg's shoulders, squeezing as tight as he could. Egg made a noise somewhere between a squeak and an indignant cough.
"Bro."
No response.
"Wemmbu."
Nothing.
"...You're kind of crushing me and my internal organs."
Wemmbu turned his head away, tightening his grip.
Egg wheezed dramatically. "You know, I feel like if you wanted a hug, there were significantly less violent ways of asking for one."
A laugh escaped Wemmbu again before he could stop it.
"Bro. Are you seriously laughing at me right now?" Eggchan huffed, poking at Wemmbu's head.
Wemmbu shook his hand off. "I thought you were gone."
The air hung heavy between them and Egg's awkward grin faded a little.
"I mean..." Egg hesitated for a moment. "I thought I was too?"
Wemmbu shook his head against Egg's shoulder.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
The clearing was quiet again. The wind whispered though the trees and somewhere overhead birds tentatively began to return to their tentative songs breaking the silence one note at a time.
Egg let out a long, quiet sigh and leant his head back against the top of Wemmbu's head.
"You can let go now, you know."
"No."
"...okay," Egg sighed.
"I'm serious."
Egg narrowed his eyes, muttering quietly, "I gathered that."
Egg shifted slightly, testing if he could wiggle free.
The answer was a resounding no.
So Egg lent back, putting his full weight on Wemmbu to try and ware him down quicker. He stared up at the sky, watching the clouds drift by.
Wait.
Egg suddenly sat up straighter, staring at the patch of flattened grass.
"Wemmbu?"
A quiet mumble answered him. "...Yeah?"
Egg frowned.
He lifted his hand to his chest again, fingers brushing where he was sure he'd just been stabbed. An ache still lingered despite the lack of an actual wound.
"Did you..." Egg started as he pointed vaguely at his own chest.
He stopped, trying to find the right words.
"Wemmbu?" he asked. "Did you just murder me?"
Wemmbu winced. "When you say it like that—"
Egg blinked, then cut him off. "Is there a better way of saying it?"
"I—"
"You stabbed me," Egg spoke in a carful tone. "With a sword."
He glanced down at himself again, patting experimentally at his perfectly intact shirt.
"I distinctly remember you," he paused waving his his hand from Wemmbu to himself. "Stabbing me."
Another pause.
"With a sword." His eyes drifted back to Wemmbu "...Which was rude, by the way."
Wemmbu let out a defeated groan.
"I know."
"Possibly even a little excessive," Egg hummed.
"I know, Egg."
"You didn't even give me a heads up."
"I'm sorry!" Wemmbu cried. "I didn't want you to die!"
"And you thought that stabbing me was going to keep me alive?" Egg questioned. "How am I alive? Is it like, how two negatives make a positive?"
Wemmbu finally looked up from where he'd hidden himself, equal parts horrified and exhausted.
"You are taking this way better than I expected."
"I mean..." Egg shrugged awkwardly. "I'm alive."
"Yeah," Wemmbu said, letting out a shakey laugh. "You are."
"I'm alive."
"As we've established."
Egg jammed a finger into the centre of his chest. "No hole."
"No hole," Wemmbu agreed.
Egg frowned. "No blood."
"No blood."
Egg eyes slowly narrowed. "No sword."
He turned to stare at Wemmbu with growing suspicion, "...Where'd it go?"
Wemmbu suddenly found the grass very fascinating. Woah! Was that a ladybug crawling around down there?
"...Well."
Egg waited.
"Wemmbu."
"...So."
"Wemmbu."
Wemmbu grimaced. "...You are the sword."
Silence.
"What?" Egg blinked once.
"You," Wemmbu squeezed Egg again. "Are the sword."
Another long pause followed.
"I don't understand."
"You were dying."
"Right..."
"And I couldn't stop it."
Egg's expression softened a bit.
"So," Wemmbu swallowed. "I bound your soul to the sword."
Another pause.
"So you wouldn't..." Wemmbu couldn't quite bring himself to say it. "...You know."
Egg stared.
"...Die," Wemmbu whispered miserably. "So... yeah."
Egg looked down at himself. Then back at Wemmbu. The back at himself, poking his chest one more time. Then back at Wemmbu.
"So." He pointed at Wemmbu. "I..." He pointed at himself. "Am the sword."
"Yes. That."
"Huh," he muttered.
Egg absorbed this information for exactly three seconds.
"...WHAT?"
The air exploded with blue light.
Wemmbu let out a terrified noise, grasping at Egg tighter. "Wai—"
The weight against Wemmbu vanished so suddenly he nearly pitched forward into the grass.
"...Egg?" He called quietly.
His stomach lurched. For one dreadful moment, Wemmbu was convinced he'd failed after all. That the magic binding Egg's soul had shattered the instant he'd revealed the truth, and now it had been torn free, swept away to whatever unknown place souls disappeared to when there was nothing left anchoring them.
'WEMMBU!'
The voice slammed into his mind. Tinny and echoey. Somehow sounding both impossibly close and impossibly distant, like someone shouting through a tunnel directly inside his skull.
Wemmbu physically jumped. The sword that had landed on his knees went clattering to the ground.
Wemmbu stared.
"EGG?"
'This feels so weird!' Egg cried. 'Why can't I blink?'
"I... don't think swords usually do that," Wemmbu replied.
'I know that!'
Wemmbu cautiously picked up the sword. It felt the same as it had before, physically, maybe a little warmer than he remembered. But he was a lot more worried about it breaking now.
'Don't hold me like that,' Egg hissed.
Wemmbu nearly dropped him.
"Sorry," Wemmbu winced.
'I know,' Egg muttered. 'I can physically see behind myself. It's trippy.'
"Really?"
'Yes.'
"...Neat?"
'NO WEMMBU!' Egg yelled. 'NOT 'NEAT', I AM A SWORD! A WOODEN SWORD!'
Egg paused.
'Actually,' he hummed. 'Like, no one could sneak up on us, I could see them coming like this.'
Wemmbu smiled a little.
After a moment Egg asked, 'How do I go back?'
"Back?" Wemmbu questioned.
'Back to being human shaped,' Egg clarified. 'This is uncomfortable!'
"You know," Wemmbu said meekly. "I don't actually know how."
He could feel Egg's blank stare even though he currently had no eyes to speak of.
Wemmbu put the sword down on the ground in front of him and poked at the blade.
"Maybe..." he hesitates. "Try thinking more... persony."
'That is singlehandedly the worst advice anyone has ever given me. Ever.'
"I don't know!" Wemmbu hissed. "I am not a sword! Just think persony shaped thought!"
'I am thinking persony shaped thoughts!' Egg yelled.
"Are you?"
'I AM!'
"You don't sound very persony," Wemmbu muttered, staring at Egg as he rested his chin on his hands.
'I AM A SWORD!' Egg growled inside his head. 'You made me a sword.'
"You managed it earlier," Wemmbu shrugged.
'I wasn't trying earlier,' Egg ground out.
"Maybe don't try then."
'I am literally trying not to try!'
Wemmbu knew he was possibly the most unhelpful person to ever exist, but it did not at all stop him from saying, "...Try harder?"
'THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID!'
The sword flashed blue,. Threads slowly started spilling out of the wood.
Wemmbu's eyes widened. "See? It's working."
The threads swirled upwards, wrapping around each other loosely.
The immediately collapsed back into the black with an audible crack.
Wemmbu waited a moment longer, but nothing happened. The sword lay exactly where he had put it on the ground. It hadn't moved an inch.
'I hate this,' Egg mumbled in defeat.
Wemmbu reached down and picked him up.
"We'll figure it out," he promised. "I'm just going to—"
He used Egg to indicate to the sheath he had strapped to his hip, asking for Egg's permission.
'Fine.'
Wemmbu gave the sword, Egg, a sympathetic look before sliding it back into the sheath.
'This is so not aura,' Egg grumbled.
-
Some friendships survive betrayal.
A very select few survive death.
An even smaller number survive one of them murdering the other, on purpose, binding his fleeing soul to a poorly crafted wooden sword, and then spending the foreseeable future trying to pretend that it counted as a reasonable solution.
As far as either of them knew, they were the only example.
Regardless, it worked.
They could not be divided now. Not that it was particularly hard to find one without the other before. Wherever Wemmbu went, Egg followed. Where ever Egg ended up, Wemmbu wasn't far behind. It was something that existed between an unbreakable friendship, and Wemmbu not really being completely sure if Egg would survive if he was too far away from him. He didn't actually know how all of this was supposed to work. Which Egg argued he really should have before binding his soul to a wooden sword for all of eternity.
It didn't take long for Egg to hold a tentative mastery on the two forms. There was at least a seventy percent chance on any given day that he'd be able to switch between the two forms with out issue.
"You know," Egg observed one afternoon as he trudged alongside Wemmbu up a dusty road, "most people tame a dog."
"Hm?"
"For companionship," Egg clarified.
"I've got you."
"I am significantly more expensive than a dog," Egg laughed.
"I don't have to feed you," Wemmbu countered.
"No," Egg agreed. "But I do require emotional support."
Wemmbu blinked. "You do?"
"Absolutely."
"Since when?"
"Roughly since the stabbing," Egg said with a smirk.
"Maybe we should get a dog," Wemmbu mused. "For your emotional support."
-
Although some friendships survived death.
Most villages didn't survive Wemmbu.
It didn't take long for Wemmbu and Egg to become infamous.
Not for heroics, but instead for being politely, but firmly, asked to leave.
A coin was flipped every time Wemmbu entered a new village.
There was only so much chaos one person could accidently generate before an entire community collectively decided enough was enough. If Wemmbu was alone, he might have stood his ground more often, but Egg seemed awfully fragile and he didn't want to take any chances with him.
It's why Wemmbu insisted they keep moving.
A week was usually the limit.
Sometimes they would manage ten days if Egg could successfully distract Wemmbu with odd jobs, fishing, or convincing him that the terrible ideas brewing inside his head were, in fact, terrible ideas that he should not act on.
Sometimes they were gone by lunchtime.
It depended entirely on how long it took Wemmbu to become completely and utterly bored, so much so that he'd start asking the question "I wonder what would happen if..." It was almost never a constructive line of thought. Normally, it was quite destructive.
It took a few years of travel for the inevitable to happen.
The guard that had stopped him in the market had demanded Wemmbu hand over Egg. Egg, who was a wooden sword, exactly like the ones that children played with. Completely harmless.
The guard stood firm all the same. All weapons.
Wemmbu supposed his name was starting to get around.
So when the guard had reached for the sword again, Wemmbu had grabbed it first despite Egg's protests.
"Nope," he snapped skipping back a few steps.
"Hand it over."
Wemmbu flashed his teeth
"Just hand me the sword."
"It's a children's toy," Wemmbu mocked. "Are you really saying you're scared of wooden sword?"
The guard lunged.
Wemmbu turned and bolted.
He ran cackling down the main road, weaving between market stalls and pushing though crowds of people. It seemed there was a more organised attempt to bring him in than Wemmbu had thought. There were guards everywhere, all with eyes tracking him. Every time a hand reached for him, he ducked beneath it or simply waved Egg threateningly in it's direction.
The guards stumbled back every time.
If any of them had stopped to look at the weapon a little closer before grabbing at him, they would have realised how remarkably little danger they were in. The wooden sword was roughly crafted and had long since lost whatever sharp edge it had once had. The only thing the sword had successfully killed, was Egg, and he was dying already so that hardly counted.
None of the guards knew that.
Confidence was key
And Wemmbu had nothing but confidence.
'Wemmbu!' Egg shouted at him again.
"What?"
'Stop running!'
"They're chasing me!" Wemmbu snarked.
'Because you're running!'
"They were following me before!"
'Barely,' Egg hissed.
"Stop!" someone yelled behind them.
Wemmbu was not stopping. No chance.
A brilliant streak of manic inspiration struck him. The sort of brilliant idea that usually, decidedly, wasn't all that brilliant for those other than Wemmbu.
He skidded to a halt, spun on his heels, one arm wound back.
Egg got the chance to squeak out a confused, '...Wemmbu?' Before he was hurled like a spear at their pursuers.
'WEMMBU—'
Egg sailed through the air. Halfway through the arc, the air rippled, threads of light unfurled and Egg unfolded with them. A bewildered face replaced the sword and he had just enough time to come to terms with the fact that he was airborne before gravity remembered him.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
He crashed bodily into the guards with a yelp. The entire group slamming into the ground with varied shouts of confusion and anger.
Wemmbu stared for a moment as if surprised by his own actions, "Huh."
"Don't just stand there!" Egg shouted as he tried to sit up. One of the guards already had a firm hold on his arm. "RUN!"
Wemmbu grinned and took off again, laughter echoing down the street before any of the guards managed to separate themselves enough to give chase.
The guards watched him disappear around the corner. It didn't matter, they still had his accomplice. One of them pushed himself to his feet, dusted off his armour, and reached to take hold of Egg so his comrade could let go.
A ribbon of blue light curled through the air.
Every head snapped towards it.
The person they'd had in custody dissolved before their eyes, his body unravelling into hundreds of glowing threads that scattered like fireworks into the air. For a single bewildered heartbeat, everybody just stared.
"...What?"
The strands wheeled through the air in a tight spiral before hurtling away. They streaked over rooftops and vanished after the laughing idiot who had thrown them in the first place.
'You are never doing that again,' Egg hissed as Wemmbu held out his hand letting Egg snap back into existence. He quickly closed his fingers around the hilt as the wood form against his hand. 'Do not include me in your fights!'
Wemmbu's laugh carried all the way back to the village.