Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I sprint away, terrified.

    The hunters shout to each other, reporting where I am, how fast I’m going, if I’m phased or not. An arrow whizzes past me, digging itself deep in a tree. My fear spikes by a couple notches. Obsidian-tipped weapons. Now they only need to catch me.

    Starting to gain control of my fear stricken mind, I dare to look back. The shock from seeing they’re only a mere twenty yards away is almost enough to knock me off my feet. I phase, and run through the trees instead of around. The hunters' calls become more panicked, and I calm down. As long as I’m phased, they can’t see me, and it’s easier to flee.

    Of course, every awesome advantage has some terrible downside.

    I see the hint of a wall through the trees, then am horrified to see a huge, fifty foot obsidian wall appear in front of me. I can’t phase through obsidian. The hunters don’t need to see me to kill me, and my phasing does nothing against their obsidian weapons.

    Cries of victory come from the hunters. “Show yourself, poltergeist!” someone shouts, and the rest of them start yelling their own taunts. I skid to a stop before the tall boundary, then turn to face the hunters. There’s practically another wall of them. I can’t imagine any way out of this.

     I should just unphase. I’ll die anyway, it would make it quicker, I think.

    Fighting my thoughts of staying hidden, I unphase. The people from my old village have now joined the wall, and they laugh as they see the ghost that’s been haunting them for the past nine years. It terrifies me, but I’m also infuriated by it.

    Slowly and timidly, I reach behind me and pull out the worn down stone sword I’ve always had. When I was alive, I must’ve died with it, since it’s something that phases with me. My shaky hands hold it in front of me, but the villagers’ and hunters’ laughter only doubles.

    One of the hunters steps apart from the crowd, sword in hand, and I can’t help but step back. My back bumps into the wall, and I quickly take two small steps forward, swallowing my fear. The hunter snickers and beckons me closer.

    I know he doesn’t have any good intentions, so I stay still as a rock, eyes wide and my translucent skin paler than usual. He gestures again, and gives me a crooked smile, as if everything was okay. The crowd has quieted somewhat, looking forward to the show coming up.

    The hunter keeps his hand held out as I inch closer, awaiting whatever doom fate holds for me. My hands are gripping my sword so tightly my fingers accidentally phase around the edges. The stress makes it hard to not drop the weapon.

    “Here, take my hand, I’ll help you out of this mess,” he says. I gulp, knowing this can only lead to something bad. Could anything be worse, though?

    I let go of the sword with my left hand, and cautiously put my hand in his. His green eyes flash with some emotion I don’t understand. At first he only smiles reassuringly, but then closes his fingers around mine and kicks me hard in the stomach. My knees give out and I clutch my one free arm over my chest, as the hunter punches my face hard .

    Strength has left me to the point where I couldn’t even phase. He proceeds to let go of my arm so I drop to the ground, then kick me again and again. The crowd is now cheering, chanting “Down with the ghost!” over and over.

     It takes me a couple seconds to realize the beating has ceased. I meekly roll over my curled up form, to see a man in a long brown trench coat, black cape, and a green and white hat with his hand on the hunter’s shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, and his hat hides his eyes. 

    The hunter turns to face him. “What do you want? You want a turn too?” he asks. I just barely see the man’s eyes peek out from the hat’s brim. They meet mine, and they’re kind, ocean blue in color. For some reason, I know he won’t hurt me. He turns his head so the hat blocks them again, then his mouth opens to reply.

    “You sick fuck ,” he says softly, so only the hunter and I can hear.

    Then he straightens his shoulders and looks up, and the cape shifts as two enormous black wings emerge, spreading to their full length of more than twenty feet. The crowd’s cheers quickly turn to shrieks and shouts of fury.

    He launches a punch at the hunter, sending him to the ground with a jarring impact. The man then spins around and forces his wings to slam together with power, sending a gust of air knocking many of the audience off their feet. Others scatter, running into the forest, while a few come at him. It’s eerie how easily he knocks them out and defeats each one.

    The fallen hunters quickly get up and run away as the man spreads his wings wide, and I can’t tell if his wingspan is bigger. I can’t see his face, but I imagine his expression is scary.

    “You all deserve to burn! We’re people too! How can you find entertainment in our suffering?!” he yells into the trees. The birds silence for him, as if respectfully giving their distant relative a chance to speak.

    The young man stays there for a couple of seconds, as if looking for challengers, then turns and faces me. I do my best to push myself away, for fear that he might want to hurt me, but he only folds in his wings and takes a knee.

    His hand reaches into one of his trench coat's pockets, then pulls out an apple and holds it out for me. “Hey mate, what’s your name?”

    I stare at the apple, trying to decide if it was poisonous or not. I’m practically starving from running through the woods and phasing, and the apple is ripe and looks delicious. It doesn’t take much time to decide the fruit was worth the risk.

    “Wilbur,” I say, and take a big bite out of it. Oh, it’s scrumptious. The sweet flavor bursts in my mouth, and a trickle of juice drips down the skin from where I bit it. I don’t hesitate to eat it again, truly realizing just how hungry I was.

    “Ok Wilbur, I’m Philza, or Phil. Whatever you want. Mind if I call you Wil?” he asks. He has blonde locks of medium length that curl around his face, and I pause to think about it, but I don’t see the harm.

    “Sure,” I reply.

    “Well Wil, I don’t know how long you’ve been in hiding, but you don’t have to anymore. You don’t need to run from the hunters. I swear I’ll do my best to keep you safe, because everyone needs a home.”

Chapter Text

         Seven years later…

“Tommy—you gremlin child—give it back!”

    I stood on the porch and glared at my adoptive brother, who was a few feet away, in the sun. Where I couldn’t go.

    “You’re a child too, ya know. Okay, now say I’m a big man and I’ll give it back. The biggest man,” Tommy said, putting my red beanie on his head and crossing his arms.

    “Forget it. Give it back, or I’m taking it back myself,” I said in annoyance, pinching the bridge of my nose.  I preferred not to phase without anything for other people to see me with, but I still can, and that doesn’t mean I won’t.

    “Say I’m the biggest man,” Tommy said.

    “Absolutely not,” I replied, then phased and walked right over, plucking it off his head. “Hey! You jerk! Stop! I can’t see you!”

    “You can’t see me? What a surprise!” I said, trying to avoid Tommy’s arms as he tried to take back the beanie. He swatted me in the face(giving me a small mouthful of feathers from some of the pluming on his arm) and “ha-ha!” ’d in triumph. I swatted him right back, and he tried to start a fistfight(though he couldn’t really find his opponent).

    “Ay! No fighting! Wil, unphase, and Tommy, stop trying to beat up your brother,” Phil said, making a graceful landing from above. That’s right. Above. Phil has wings. Tommy also has wings, plus many other feathers, but they’re not big enough to fly yet. For now he can only glide, though someday he’ll not have to deal with such limits.

    I walked over to the porch, putting the beanie back on my head. Once the sun couldn’t reach me, I unphased, glaring at Tommy. He scowled back at me, though his expression was more dramatic than angry.

    “What happened? Tommy, you go first,” Phil said, just as I was opening my mouth to defend myself. Tommy smirked and stuck his tongue out at me. “And stop taunting each other, you aren’t gonna get anywhere with it,” Phil continued. Tommy put his tongue back in his mouth.

    “I was just minding my own business when Wil walked in and started going on about how he was taller than me and the biggest man in the world, and how I was so short and probably the smallest man in the world! He was being an arse, Dadza, so I took his beanie until he would get some manners,” Tommy said, adopting a whiny tone that made me want to kick him.

    “Okay first of all—” I began, but was cut off by Phil. “Wait your turn!”

    “And then—” Tommy went on, but again Phil interrupted him. “You’ve said enough. Wil, your turn to speak now.”

    I gave Tommy a smirk, trying to imitate his face, which was getting redder the longer he looked at me. “He wasn’t minding his own business, he was in my house, in my room, looking through my stuff, which was totally uncalled for! I decided to do some friendly brother-brother teasing, but he had a mental breakdown about it and took my favorite beanie! Then when I kindly asked—”

    “He did not ask kindly,” Tommy commented.

    “No, I did. When I asked for my beanie back, he went in the sun and teased me back, except he was not nearly as nice about it!”

    Phil sighed. “You guys share a house, Wil, and I know he was in your room. Tommy, what were you doing there?”

    Tommy took one of his exclusive shaky breaths through his nose, and out his mouth. “I needed some iron because my pickaxe broke, and I didn’t want to get some iron, so I decided to just check and see if Wilbur had any! I was gonna repay him, like, sometime!”

    “Next time, ask first, then you can go look after Wil’s okay with it. You shouldn’t invade people’s personal space, nor their things, especially not without their permission,” Phil said, then turned to me. “Wil, things you say can make people feel bad, so just try to think before you speak, okay?”

    I nodded, just barely holding back an eye roll. “Both of you, apologize, then we can put it behind us.”

    “Sorry,” both of us muttered. “With meaning,” Phil urged on. “Sorry,” we said, this time where you could actually hear it.

    “Great. Tubbo and Jack were hanging out at the Pub, and were wondering if you wanted to go over there too, Tommy,” Phil said. Seeing Tommy’s face light up was almost enough to make me forget our quarrel, though I didn’t think about it again as he ran off in his so-called “slightly above average” run. If I phased, I was faster than him, so what’s so above average about that?

    I turned to walk back into my house, but was stopped. “Wil.”

    As I faced my father, I could tell that he had something serious on his mind. Phil had that look that he got when something was actually important, the one he had when he saved me from the hunters almost eight years ago. A small frown on his face, his wings tucked back, a slight furrow in his brow.

    “Yeah?” I asked, nervous. Not for myself. He rarely had that expression and told me something that I needed to fix. This was for everyone, including myself. Last time he had told me there was going to be a band of elytrians coming by our village, but they were known for being insane savages, and anyone they saw needed to run and hide as fast as they could. Other times had been not as severe, though a couple were worse.

    Phil walked up to me, and with a hand on my back, brought us into my room. I sat on my bed, crisscrossed, and Phil sat on the edge of the bed. We kept respectful silence as I got out the pale blue bouncy ball that I used to stay unphased. Sometimes when I got scared, I accidentally phased. Phil got me this ball for my tenth birthday, and though I hate to admit it, it does help have something to focus on whenever I’m nervous. It’s sort of like an anchor to not disappearing.

    “Son, I’m gonna ask you to stay calm when I tell you this. It might make you angry, or be scary, but I want you to keep your emotions in check,” Phil said soothingly. Now I was really anxious. What could be so bad that he’d need to ask me to stay calm?

    “I will,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything better to say. Phil paused for a couple of seconds, then went on.

    “The last several years have been relatively peaceful for us, no hunters, no attacks, and we haven’t had to go into hiding yet. That’s about to change.” I sucked in a breath, and didn’t realize I held it. Phil eyed me for any more of a reaction, then continued again. “The hunters were sort of...dormant. The origins fought back shortly after I saved you from those other guys, and it was enough to scare the humans into sparing us for a couple years. Neither side was fond of the other, really, but they didn’t come looking for us either.

    “But as of late, another one of the humans has started back up the practice of killing origins for sport. Though this time, I don’t think he’s doing it just for show. He’s gaining followers, and some smaller origin villages have been taken out by them. This guy’s also taking it seriously, and one of our neighboring origin towns says he made a speech to incite humans to ‘fight back’. And when someone asked how far they were going to take it, he said they needed to go until their world was ‘completely clean of halfbreeds’.”

    I squeezed the blue ball, feeling my fingers start to phase. It took a lot of self control to not sink right through the bed. No, no, no! God please don’t let this be true. Please just let him give up on it and move on, or have no humans agree with him. Or just die.

    “Wil, Wil, relax. You’re safe right now,” Phil said, and I barely noticed him come closer and pull me into a hug. I realized I was hyperventilating, and tried to match my breathing to Phil’s.

    His hand rubbed gentle circles on my back, and I soon was able to get my brain to calm down. I had dropped about four inches into the comforter, so I sat back on the surface of the bed. Phil, knowing I didn’t like it when he treated me like a little kid, backed up.

    “The new hunters aren’t anywhere near here, and we live in a rather big origin community. If the hunters do manage to wipe out the smaller towns, we’re probably going to be one of the last they target. Even so, if that does happen, we’ll be long gone. I’m not gonna let them get you, nor is anyone else.”

    I nodded, reassured by that. It was weird how he could say something so simple, and I’d truly believe it. Sometimes I wondered if other kids were like that, or just origins.

    “Wil, I told you this because I think you’re old enough to know, and mature enough to handle it. There are a few other people who are also aware of it, but most people aren’t,” Phil said. “I’m not sure how Tommy might react, and it’s not your business to share it with anybody else. So I’m gonna ask you to keep this between you and me. Good?”

    “Good,” I replied. He patted me on the back, then left the room. I thought I had handled that pretty well, like he had said. I hadn’t broken down crying, or been paralyzed by fear(okay, I sort of did, but anyone who’s holding that against me has to lower their standards). 

    In truth, I was terrified.

Chapter Text

For a few minutes I just sat on my bed, thinking. Part of me wanted to run into Phil’s arms and hide there, another part wondered if they had come searching for me specifically(which upon second thought, was very unlikely), and another wanted to get my things, grab Tommy and Phil, and flee as far as we possibly can.

    Finally I decided to just leave my room, go about my day as usual, and try to forget about it. I wished Phil had told me late at night, so I wouldn’t have a full day to think about it. Wait, no, I’m happy he didn’t, I’d probably have the worst nightmares of the century. Actually, I wished he had just not told me at all.

    The sun was still up, so I had to phase to safely get through it(with my beanie, of course). I couldn’t really imagine doing anything, though I had a whole day to kill, and I didn’t want to just sit in bed the entire time.

    I made my way to the cliff holding Ranboo’s cave. We had argued over whether it was a place and should have a capital “C”, or if it was just his cave and should have a lowercase one. We hadn’t decided, but I was going to be thinking of it as lowercase.

    I threw my beanie up to his cave, because it couldn’t phase into the stone wall. Usually I tried not to go fully underground, since I couldn’t stay down for long and it felt suffocating, but I made an exception whenever I went to his cave and just toughened up. There were a few ledges too, so I popped out on those to catch my breath.

    When I reached the top, I saw Ranboo rummaging through his chests. “You got any slimeballs, by chance?” he asked, not looking up. 

    “Nope,” I replied, unphasing and putting my beanie back on. “Why?”

    “Your brother got a pair of chickens, and he won’t shut up about them. He also got them stuck in a window, don’t know how, so I’m going to free them, but I’m also going to dangle them off the Pub,” Ranboo said, closing the chest and looking through another one.

    “You say that like you’re jealous. Would you like a pet chicken? I can get ya one for Christmas, but this might put you on the naughty list!” I teased, causing Ranboo to look up long enough for me to see his glare.

    “No, I wouldn’t like a pet chicken. But if I did, I would certainly be a better owner. He’s playing favorites already, he only named one of them,” Ranboo said, muttering the last part. “There we go.”

    He pulled out a lead, a look of accomplishment on his face. I rolled my eyes, though he didn’t see it. Without another word, he burst into purple particles, and I saw him outside on the grass. I scoffed and phased, then jumped out after him, landing in the river below. I quickly got out and sprinted to the ladder leading to the Pub.

    It took a while for me to get up the ladder, but eventually I did. I saw Tommy, Tubbo, and Jack in the house on the floating island, messing around, and Tommy shouting(as usual). I quickly phased and hurried around the house after seeing Ranboo wasn’t inside.

    “Hey! Over here!” someone whispered, but I recognized their voice as Ranboo’s.

    Ranboo was kneeling on the edge of the floating island, tying a lead to a fence. “Oh—” I said, unsure what I should say. He pauses and looks at his watch.

    “Shit! I said I’d take two minutes, but it’s been three! Make a distraction!” he said.

    “OH! UH—one sec!” I replied, then phased and went through the Pub’s wall.

    “OH MY GOD YOU GUYS YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED!” I shouted as I unphased, my mind scrambling for ideas.

    “WHAT?! WHAT?!” Tommy yelled back.

    “UH—PHILZA FLEW INTO A WINDOW AGAIN!” I practically shrieked.

    “WHA—NOOOOOOO!” Tommy screamed, then leaped off the grassy balcony and glided down on his feathery arms.

    “WHY IS EVERYBODY SCREAMING?!” Tubbo screeched.

    I gave him a weird look and phased again, walking back through the wall to Ranboo. He finished off the knot and stood up, taller than me by a couple inches.

    “Nice, I finished it. Bet you a diamond he’ll notice in the next ten minutes,” Ranboo said.

    “That’s a bad bet, ender-boy. He couldn’t even get back here in the next ten minutes,” I pointed out. Ranboo rolled his eyes. “We’ll see,” he said.

    I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Ranboo, messing with Tommy and his friends, and just trying to get my mind off the hunters. It half worked, since at lunch, I wasn’t directly thinking about the possibility of being killed by humans, though every bite of my bread made me feel sick thanks to the pit in my stomach.

    I sat at the picnic table, Ranboo to my left and Jack to my right, with Tommy and Tubbo across. “Can I have your hat, Wil?” Tommy asked out of the blue. Normally I would have said no, but I didn’t see the harm at the moment. I took off my beanie and gave it to him, aware that nobody could see me(the picnic table was in the sunlight, so I had to phase so I didn’t burn).

    I looked out at the river beside us, and saw a figure swimming closer. “Hey, Niki’s here!” I said, and she popped her head out near the bank.

    “Hi Niki!” Tubbo said.

    “Hello! Has anyone seen Wilbur?” she asked. Ranboo and Jack glanced at me, but since I didn’t make an appearance, they didn’t say anything.

    “NO, I have not seen Wilbur,” Tommy said. I was surprised Niki didn’t see right through him.

    “Can you tell him something from Fundy?” Niki went on.

    “Sure!” Tubbo replied, sounding absolutely delighted.

    “Well, you should probably phrase it a bit differently when you tell him, but Fundy stole his stuff, then ran off to the nearest village. He asked me to ‘spread the rumor’ that somebody else did it, so he could steal from them without anyone getting mad. He had this whole scheme about it, I even feel a bit bad ruining it. Just tell Wilbur that Fundy did what Fundy does, or something,” Niki said, her normally sweet voice turning to one of slight irritation.

    I snatched my beanie off Tommy’s head, letting Niki know I was there. “OH! He IS here! I did not know that!” Tommy exclaimed dramatically.

    “Wilbur! I didn’t notice you!” Niki said.

    “ Which village did that bastard fox go to?” I demanded.

    “He headed northeast, so probably the closest one up there,” Niki replied. I nodded(though she couldn’t see it).

    “Anyone got a horse?”

Chapter Text

I spent the remainder of the afternoon riding on a random horse, making my way to the village north of us. Ranboo had lended me a sturdy iron sword, and I’d quickly gotten a good supply of food and water for the trip. Niki had advised me to wait until he inevitably came back, but I was already pissed off with Fundy, and I knew the village was only four or five hours away.

    The horse whinnied and halted as we trotted through a forest, seeming spooked by some unseen thing. I tried to get it going again, but the animal was so intent on not going any further, that eventually it bucked me off and galloped back home.

    After about thirty seconds trying to chase it down, I gave up and started walking to the village. It would take forever to get back, anyway, and I might as well finish what I started. The village would probably give me a horse to ride back, and if they didn’t I’d figure something out.

    I phased and walked straight ahead, zoning out. Stupid fucking fox, wasting my time. If he had just left my stuff alone, I wouldn’t be stranded here for the night. I think I’ll scare him a bit before I get my things back.

    A few more minutes later, the trees stopped and I saw the first couple houses. I smirked and took off my beanie, putting it at the base of a tree so no one would see me.

    At first, I didn’t see anyone. The village was quiet, and felt sort of…empty. Not a single person appeared, though I could see signs of people that had been there not long ago. A bowl of bread on a picnic table, a lit campfire, toys left out with no child to play with them.

    The deeper into the village I got, the more unsettling it became. I started unpausing and going up to doors and knocking, or quietly calling if anyone was there. But worst of all, I started seeing smudges of blood in places, and signs of a scuffle.

    A distinct, nasty odor wafted out of the town’s center, and I pulled my shirt up to cover my nose. Then, When the stench was almost overwhelming, I rounded a house and saw it.

    In the town square, a pile of bodies twenty feet high was stacked before me. Elytrian parents protectively clutching their avian children, Blazeborns burning in rage but covered with water scars, Arachnids trying to web a protective shell around themselves as daggers pierced them. There were so many others, too.

    I stumbled back in shock, and saw Fundy on the side of the pile, a spear pinning him to the rest, right through his heart. At the sight of his face frozen in terror, I stumbled back, and tripped. I scrambled backward until my back was against something, then put my hands around my head, memories rushing back like a tsunami.

    The village.

    Hunters.

    Sold origin bodies.

    Running.

    Underground tunnels.

    Guards.

    Wall.

    My breathing gets heavier, but Phil isn’t there to wrap his arms and wings around me, and I only get sucked deeper and deeper into the abyss of ptsd. I start to sink into the ground, and my hands grope around for something to hang onto, and my fingers close around a cool, thin, circular object.

    What did Phil say to do? Name five things around me. Describe them. Define the adjectives. Houses, dirt, corpses , no, no, forget about the bodies, other things, round object, um, blood , NO, not that, no no no no no—

    A long, low sound ruptured my thoughts, one that I hadn’t heard for a long time, but was all too familiar. A war horn. I opened my eyes and saw my old village, except I was in the forest around it, running from hunters. Seven years ago, when I had been living in hiding, staying phased for days without becoming solid. The underground tunnels had been reinforced with obsidian, to hold phantoms in or keep them out, I didn’t know. 

    I was hungry, so hungry, after almost seven days without food or water. Everyone had been guarding their food closely, and though I could touch things while phasing, I couldn’t eat or drink. The tunnels were a last resort, since the chances of getting trapped were high. But that meant the humans wouldn’t think that an origin would be down there.

    The workers were having their lunch, and were spread throughout the tunnels. One of them left their lunch out, and I was starving. All common sense had left me, and I didn’t look for signs of danger, or anything. I fell right into the hunter’s hands.

    And before I knew it I was sprinting away, praying they wouldn’t catch me. An obsidian wall reaching the clouds fell down on me, casting a dark shadow over everything. I screamed and it crushed me against the ground, and I couldn’t phase through the dirt, I was cornered, stuck, a ghost dying.

    My eyes popped open for real and I saw that I wasn’t suffocating under an obsidian wall, but still sitting in the dirt, facing the pile of bodies. I was almost entirely in the wooden wall I had been leaning on, and my fingers had gone through the coin and it had fallen out of my grip.

     You’re safe. The hunters have left. Nobody’s there. You’re fine. You’re in a village, in a forest, not too far from home. Tomorrow you’re going back. Or today. Just take a horse and leave.

    I breathed in, out, in, out, then finally got up, repeating that I was safe, the hunters were gone, and I was not far from home. Finally I was stable enough to get up, and stumbled away from the town square, looking for a way to get back home.