Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At first, it's a matter of pure practicality. They're short on the emeralds and with Philza looking at the sunsetting sky with a gentle pining, Techno elects to decide before Philza can suggest camping out in the stables. Silly crow, that's where Carl goes and Carl deserves a quiet rest away from the rabble (see: Philza trying to lockpick his way into their room for literally no reason—and succeeding, holy shit).

Techno cannot wait to get into an actual bed. They trudged through the swamp for weeks just to find and kill a single witch. It was hell on his knees, his back, his clothes. There was no place the muck did not solicit a stain upon and Techno's quietly resigned to scraping mud from his armour for the next few weeks.

It was barely even worth it, too. Unfortunately, killing every witch in the southwestern marsh until they found the one specified on the bounty did not qualify for extra credit. It doesn't matter that they were all assholes and started throwing potions first. They were even heavily fined for upsetting the ecological balance—whatever that means.

The quest giver was not happy to say the least.

Hence the shortage. And the bed.

Singular.

Techno casts a bleary eye towards the single-width mattress. His brain does the math in the background as Philza starts attacking the straps on his plate armour. One avian with big fuck-off wings and one piglin that measures well over eight feet—

Ah.

"Philza," Techno says calmly, arms beginning to strain from holding them up. Philza doesn't stop working at a stubborn fastener on the cuirass. Merely hums in acknowledgement, which Techno takes as good enough. "This is a bed for ants."

There's a few seconds of loading time as his meaning sinks in.

Philza's hands still. Techno feels very awkward with one pauldron on and the other lost somewhere in a muddy pile of iron that Philza's taken care to keep separate from the main living space.

"Not very good at rooming with ants," mutters Philza. "Tend to crush them underfoot or set them loose upon my enemies. Pants, y'know." There's an irritated grunt and Techno has to plead very quickly that no, please don't just cut the leather. He needs that. For his armour. His very important armour that kept him—and therefore Philza—alive today and every day before that. It's an heirloom piece and the pride of his—this is getting off track.

More metal's wiggled off in the interim. Techno's legs are freed of the schynbalds and it feels good to scuff his hooves against the wood without the weight dragging him down. The buckle is still stuck, but it's starting to lose the battle against Philza's dogged efforts.

"How about piglins?" Techno asks conversationally.

"Harder to squish."

Techno snorts. "But not impossible?" The memory strikes—talons sharp against his throat, the weight of a baby strider travelling at a speed of many deaths per second slamming him straight to the ground and black wings blotting out the glowstone sun.

As far as first meetings went, not his finest hour. He broke several of his attacker's bones in retaliation, but Philza breaks bones constantly just by existing so it's become less of a feather in his crown over the course of their time together.

"Gravity is more efficient," Philza says, cryptic and weird as always. And then the frustration rolls over, a rumble of complaints muttering out. Techno can imagine him narrowing his eyes and the tense set of his jaw. "This gods damned—" Techno's shoulder nearly wrenches out of its socket on the next few tugs. Ow. Philza apologises, but the death rattle that warbles in his throat dampens the sentiment.

"I hope you don't kick when you sleep," Techno says, remembering the sight of Philza nodding off against a tree and the squirrel that went flying when it poked too close to the warrior. Actually, has he ever seen Philza truly sleep? Philza takes watch more often than not. Techno's sleep schedule is all sorts of fucked, but Philza simply…doesn't.

"I only kick at my sleep paralysis demons, mate." Philza's voice drops low, suddenly conspiratorial. "You're not part demon, are you?"

"I've been called the spawn of Herobrine, does that count?"

"Bruh. Really?"

"Right?" Techno shakes his head. "Typical Overworlders thinking that their myths are universal."

"Oh, Herobrine's not a myth. He was an asshole. Emphasis on the ass—and probably the hole, too."

Pause. "Heh?"

Philza yarks, laughter travelling as he throws his head back and his hands slap together like a particularly amused sea lion.

"Philza Minecraft, what?" Techno twists around to stare. Blue eyes shimmer with all the mystique of the aether and the age of an old man who still laughs at shit-shaped clouds. "I-what? Philza. You can't just drop that and not elaborate. The Voices demand answers! They're going to be screaming about this for months!"

"Well, they're going to have to tune in next time, mate."

"I can respect the hustle," and Techno does because he would do the same, "—but what the fuck, Phil. Think of the audience retention."

There's a glint. Sharp-edged and silver, but despite that, Techno sees no danger in the curving blade of Philza's smile. Maybe he'll get hysterical about it later, but he doesn't feel the need for more theatrics.

"I think I'm pretty good at 'retaining' your attention," Phil says. "That counts for something, right?"

And—yeah. Yeah, it does. Because Techno is just now realising that he might have just made a friend.

A friend he's going to sleep with. Tonight. Right now. In the same shitty straw mattress with threadbare sheets and a window that can easily be picked or shattered.

It occurs to Techno that this might be kind of big. Probably? Avian flocks tend to huddle together at night and last Techno checked, their verbal contract stipulated that they were to remain firmly associates. Mainly because Philza found the word hilarious and Techno found it both legally and emotionally safe to hide behind in the event of budding attachments.

But they're way past attached. Hells, they're way past friends. Philza's been behind him for a full fifteen minutes, sword and endless daggers still strapped and ready to sink into Techno's back at a moment's notice. Techno doesn't do trust. Not anymore. Somewhere along the seventy-seventh betrayal, he closed off his heart. Tucked it behind bedrock and put up a sign in the language of intimidating blackiron armour warning all those who dared to fuck right off or be sentenced to painful death via thorns.

And yet.

And yet.

Philza chirps in victory and the cuirass slips off him. Techno rolls his shoulders and pauses all crises to groan in absolute bliss.

Fuck, that never gets old. The sudden relief that Techno can feel down to his very veins, the capillaries relaxing and opening up to allow more blood to flow. The flush of a weight now lifted. Warmth allowed to suffuse.

"Anyway—I was young, okay?" Philza picks up breezily, uncaring of the kindling he's tossing into Techno's mental hellfire. "I've done a lot of things I regret and maybe he was one of them. I go back and forth."

He's cackling. What a little shit.

"You can't just kiss and tell like that, Phil." That glint again. Techno feels something bubble and warm in the pit of his gut. The turkey legs they had for dinner must be attempting to roadrunner its way through his digestive tract. "Not in the privacy of our rooms. At least reveal it down in the tavern for maximum reach."

That gets him a domino chain of snickering to full-blown belly laughs and Techno suddenly feels like he can take on the world. It's easy to make Philza laugh. Just take a child and push 'em into the snowbanks. Easy clicks.

Except, Philza doesn't laugh with his back turned. There's a hand on the sword, still, but Philza stretches his wings. The feathers brush against the ceiling corners before drifting down in a relaxed manner, shaking off the subtle jitters and nerves.

"Help me with my clasps, mate?" Philza asks, gesturing towards his leather chestpiece. "I think the swamp guts hardened into rock on our way home. Won't be able to reach it myself so—"

"Uh," Techno says, eloquent and quick-witted. "Sure. I got you."

With extreme confidence, Techno undoes the clasp. First try. First…First try.

First try for real this time—

Techno's brow furrows. Fuck. He starts jolting the strap this way and that, poking at the caked in mud with a claw and all but mining through the solidified mess.

Holy shit, is it magic? Did the witch curse them with one final hurrah of inconvenience?

"First try," Techno manifests and finally. The armour is off and it only took a bit of elbow grease. After all, who would spend seven long minutes awkwardly puttering about something so small?

Cringe. Imagine being bested by a witch. Couldn't be him.

Gods, he's tired. Philza's been swaying on his feet and he still has a shitton of knives to put away and maybe Techno should do the same for his armour, but the bed is calling them. Philza is drifting there already, taking the side that faces the window and stripping off his haori and gloves. Techno follows much in the same fashion, sitting on the side that faces the door and tugging off his gambeson. For a long moment, there's only the sound of fabric scruffing against fabric.

And then it's gone. They pack in tight on the real estate available and Techno has a joke loaded in the crossbow about market value, but it dies on his tongue the moment feathers roll up and over his body.

They're warm, first of all. The kind of warm that makes Techno's internal heating shudder in relief, happy to clock off and let the wings take over the burden of not dying from exposure. Secondly, they're soft. Even bedraggled and messy in a way that Techno wonders how Philza can even stand it, they brush over the thin cotton of his undershirt with a gentleness that Techno's only seen Philza's crows enjoy the privilege of.

These are not wings mantled in warning or flared in an omen of Death. These are wings of protection.

Fuck. Techno's going to overheat under these and possibly cry about it, but Philza's not saying anything which means that Techno can't say anything about it and that's—fine.

That's fine. Just like the daggers under their single shared pillow are fine. Techno sleeps on his back and Philza moulds around his side, head tucked on a shoulder and eyes trained on the door with a vigilance that's not just learned, but forged into pure instinct. That's fine too. Techno is paranoid because he's played these games before and lost enough times to figure out how to win and keep winning. Philza is different. He isn't paranoid because that would imply he's capable of letting his guard down at all.

Nothing will be able to come at them in the night. Even if they did, Phil will take care of it. Techno knows this will be true with such vivid certainty.

Exhaustion comes for his head and Techno doesn't fight it. His breathing slows, the hummingbird heartbeat against his arm trailing after it, and before he knows it, he spirals down into the closest approximation of unconscious relaxation and then, he sleeps.

Chapter Text

"Oh," Philza says, voice tinted with sepia, "—it was so fucking good. Like. The best ever."

"What was it?"

"Would I could remember, mate."

Techno huffs over his brewing stand, refusing to turn and look at his friend. Even without sight, he knows Philza is probably curled by the window again, pressed against the panes he can't see and eyes faithfully cast towards the southwest even as he travels back through the past.

Techno hates it. That wistful tone and the distant look in Philza's eyes. A warmth from several hundred years ago on the knife's edge of extinction with only an ageing crow's memory keeping it from the grasp of Lethe.

He should leave it alone. Every synapse in his brain is screaming at him to let it go. A bloody chorus—concerned, frightened and grieving for a loss he doesn't even know the taste of yet.

His mouth opens. "Taste. What did it taste like?"

Techno abandons his potions and picks up a pencil.

"Sweet," Philza decides, almost on a whim. "It was like bananas, but not. Does that make sense?"

Techno thinks about the reason why banana flavouring doesn't taste anything like the real thing. Time marches on. They can march alongside it, but it's a race that, by its very definition, they will always lose—even Phil.

Losing sucks. Techno never liked flipping through a million chests only to realize the fishing rod he crafted was long gone. Not broken—just gone. He's honestly a little scared to make a new one. The recipe is all scrambled in his head and he knows that if he tries, it will come out wrong and Phil will laugh at him and the Voices will never let him live it down.

Philza chooses that moment to smile. "Hey," he says. "All this talk of food is making me hungry. What do you want for lunch?"

"Uhh, potatoes."

"Again? Mate, your kidneys are going to leave the land of beans and end up as actual spuds."

It's an old argument. It is not as comforting as it used to be.

"Just for now," Techno says tiredly. Philza goes strangely quiet after that.

The garden fence needs fixing.

Techno does not enjoy being the one to do it. He never has. Practicality takes him a far ways, but when the hammer and nails are in his hand, Techno finds himself regrettably present within the confines of his own skin. He notices how his breath fogs out, how the hammer is made for someone much smaller than him, how the replacement beam has three cracks running through it and a splinter ready to pierce him if he's not careful.

It takes him the better part of the day, but it works. The next time he does it will be better and the time after that even better than before.

Philza watches from the roof. His wings are relaxed and beautifully preened. He's been there since morning, warbling a forgotten song, fingers running through any crooked and broken feathers and leaving them neat again. His hands are gentle. Not soft—not by a long shot—but practised.

Techno doesn't offer to help much these days. Just as Philza no longer tends to the creeper holes dotting Techno's front yard.

Wilbur's letters from his father are hell to sort through. Philza can't touch them, for obvious reasons, so Techno does it for him.

Ranboo had recovered them before Fundy could scavenge them and Wilbur could find the courage (or panic) to set them ablaze. The enderkid didn't want to say why, just that it felt important.

(He will not remember doing this. Techno will not bear the burden of reminding him.)

Techno spends an hour each night sorting through the papers. No more, no less. Timed by a clock because his bell will not swing for this. He knows it'd be easy to lose himself and this household can't afford more than one wayward soul.

Dates are scribbled hastily above haphazard letters with inconsistent sizes and calligraphic flourishes as if the author forgot that might be important information. A lot of them are wrong. Techno finds at least three letters dated the first of September and somehow two of them are correct.

Time doesn't quite run the same way to Phil. Three months to an immortal might be three days to Wilbur and that means forty-five letters written in January alone because Phil wrote every day he could remember being a different one.

Most of them are short. Well wishes on his son's health, updates on current projects and the occasional story that could have ended tragically, but didn't and therefore it's safe to write and laugh about. The sketches Techno allows himself to linger on. The architectural promises, some grand and larger than life and others small and quaint. Domestic. He steals the plans for a tree garden and wonders what it must look like outside of the careful pencil lines and artistic interpretation. How Phil would bring it to life, improvising when it feels right.

There's surprisingly little about Phil himself. Or maybe it's just that well hidden. You really have to wade through it and find the shape the empty spaces make to glimpse at the author who uses 'you' far more often than he uses 'I'. Are you eating well? Phil would write. You should be eating if you're reading this. Go get lunch.

Techno bundles the letters in groups of fifty and bound by ancient twine dyed with moss and seagrass green.

Philza once suggests binding them into books. There is magic in these letters. It can't help but gather in the presence of such sincere words of love, especially ones penned by someone touched by the divine. Any enchanting table would be greedy for that knowledge.

Techno tosses everything inside the barrel into the ceiling with a bit more force than necessary. He wipes his glasses dry. Slips them back on, adjusts his braids and takes a very deep breath. He holds it in his chest until his hooves reach the bottom of the ladder.

Philza turns at the sound of him, hands freezing over the fireplace. "I was going to make some tea," Philza says. There is a kettle hooked over the hearth behind him.

There is no fire. It's dead cold.

Confusion worms a warpath across Philza's face at Techno's uncharacteristic silence. "Would you like some?" Philza prompts gently.

"Yeah," Techno says eventually, voice guttural and raw. "Sign me up."

The bananas do not take well to the Arctic.

Techno keeps trying anyway. Dives deep into the books to figure out a way to encourage them to evolve better and extrapolate with experiments and a little dark magic. He builds better structures to keep out the chill, covering his hands in the same splinters and calluses his friend had earned centuries ago.

"What's all this for?" Philza asks, looking at the garden with an impressed glance. "I didn't think you'd ever branch out of potatoes."

That—stings, a little bit.

"It's for a friend," Techno answers. "Someone I used to know."

The brewing stands are practically bubbling around the clock these days. Philza chimes in with half-remembered recipes and Techno bruteforces through exhaustion to finish his quota for the day.

Swiftness pots last forever. Health deteriorates after a day. Strength stays healthy for a solid week, but it's often the most volatile. Invisibility—heh. Invisibility will take care of itself.

The more he does it, the less his hands shake. He gets faster—as fast as anyone can be when relying on the boiling point of water. The practice is good and it passes the hours away.

"Don't just pour them down the drain," Philza scolds, watching the spoiled potions go glug glug glug. "You're going to fuck up your pipes, mate."

"I don't have pipes," Techno says. "It's just a pit of lava under there."

Philza waits patiently for Techno to open the cupboards underneath the sink like a curtain before a trick.

"Huh," says Philza. "So it is."

Techno looks at him—properly this time. watches as the information washes over his old friend, brows scrunching and typical old man wrinkles coming out to play.

Philza asks, "Where do you get water from for your taps?"

"From the ice," Techno says simply. He opens another door, revealing the water tank stored behind. It's sad Philza doesn't know about it, but Philza wasn't here when the house was built. He doesn't even live here—more so occupies unused space.

"Bruh. Please don't tell me you've been harvesting water from the glaciers—"

"Think about all the forbidden contaminants. The ancient organisms who are almost as old as you—" Techno guzzles down a full bottle of water and Philza shriek-laughs, trying in vain to swipe the glass from Techno's hooves.

Techno doesn't get a lot of brewing done that day. He ends up walking through the snow with Philza, leaving one pair of tracks in the snow as Philza flies ahead to scout the biome for less dubious sources of hydration.

Their journey takes them further up north and walking tirelessly under the Aurora's majesty, it feels close to how it was Before.

"It was something I made for Wil," Philza says quietly one day. "It was crunchy—and sticky. All of that sugar, y'know. I'd wipe his face clean with a damp cloth and he'd squirm, reaching for more."

He looks out the window again, southwest towards a city struggling to put itself back together again.

Techno's pencil hovers over paper in case there's anything more, but that is all the man has to say.

His attention drifts and the memory is gone.

For a time, the peaceful life worked.

And then they dropped an anvil on his head.

—if Techno were here, Phil wrote, he'd probably be rolling his eyes right now and calling it a skill issue. I can hear him now—'just evolve better'. Like that is something that I can control.

If you ever need to be told you can be doing something better, he's definitely the one to call. Did you know he hates the way I make tea? At least that's what he says. 'You can't just stare at the kettle until it starts making noise, Phil. You're making the water all shy! It's got performance issues now.' Nerd. He just wants to be the one who makes it. The big guy cares. Fork found in kitchen.

Oh! Speaking of kitchens, did I ever tell you about the time he—

Philza drifts out of the doorway, stepping lightly down the stairs. "What are you doing?" he asks, choosing his words carefully. There is an odd look in Philza'a eye, looking at someone over Techno's shoulder.

"I'm going to give you a proper eulogy," Techno says. He does not look back.

"There's still food on the stove," Philza counters. "You haven't eaten yet."

The stove is long cold.

"I'll eat when I come back," Techno promises and the Voices stutter in shock when they find that he means it. As if should be any surprise. Technoade never dies and he won't. Not when he has so much riding on his survival. "I still have to make you that banana thing, remember?"

Philza hums. "I don't remember that."

The honesty echoes around them. Sourceless and oppressive. The bananas wouldn't have helped him rest—that was just Techno trying to do something for his friend.

"I do," says Techno, heavy and hurt. "I will."

In another world, Phil might have joined him on this mission. Techno would have hated seeing him that close to danger, but it was something Phil needed to do and therefore needed to be done. Phil was always passive until he decided to be terrifying.

"Wait for me, Phil," Techno pleads. It sounds like an apology.

Phil has no answer to that. He never had a choice at all.

Chapter Text

"You are my soulmate. And I," Techno places a hoof over his heart, steady and confident and totally not trying to turn himself inside out from the cringe, "—am your soulmate."

The crow stares at him blankly.

And then it laughs at him.

Techno began to suspect the absurd when his heart decided to perform an entire Cirque du Soleil routine inside his chest. It shocked him from his grindstone, sword nearly clattering to the ground. The backflips continued, the Voices providing a backing track composed of excited—caws?

He ignored that. The important bit was the heart palpitations. The old tales by the fire moment of the raising heart rate, flushed cheeks and thunder in his ears signalling the approach of a very important someone. The prophesied compliment part to his life. The Universe's guarantee that no one was born to be alone.

His soulmate.

Techno calmly threw the door open with a bang and leisurely tore through the knee-high snow.

A startle of black feathers burst in his periphery, wings flapping up and away from the piglin on a mission. The forest yielded no body, living or otherwise. Empty the way winter woods tend to be. That was kind of the point of why Techno chose to live here.

"Hello?" he called out. He was panting. Hard. "I'll tell you now that I'm a beast at hide and seek so you're not going to get far. Unless you're as bad with 'hello, how are you's as I am—then I get it. Uh—"

Nothing answered him but the cold.

Techno grabbed his chest and tried yanking on the burst of warmth that powered him out here, but it was fading quick and then it was gone. Already too far away for him to sense because the Universe loved them, but evidently not enough to install better soulmate compasses.

Disappointment was an entirely bullshit feeling.

Techno marinated in it for days, feeling out his own shock at how the abandonment was affecting him. He grew up with the stories, of course. Same as anyone. In some cultures, a soulmate was about love. A person or collection of people who would look at you, all of you, and decide to stick by you because their configuration of self and personality happened to like what they saw.

To piglins, soulmates were about trust. Techno remembered how the brutes would patrol in units and you could tell who was bonded and who was not.

Soulmates moved like they were a beast with no back. There was no fear, no hesitation—just the calm certainty that they were being protected and watched and that whoever attacked one would immediately feel the wrath of the others. Their swords cut as if they were a single blade with two, three, or even five edges all screaming for the same blood and viscera.

As a warrior, this appealed to him.

As a shoat, he just thought it would be nice to have a cool friend.

Techno searched the woods for weeks afterwards, combing through the grounds with a critical eye and did not rest until his stomach started to get real tired of reminding Techno it existed.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

No footprints. No marks. Just a handful of feathers that were pretty enough to take as a conciliatory prize.

Yes, he figures it out. No, he will not tell you how or how long it took him to realize that fact.

The current problem at hand is how to catch the fucking bird and…soulmate it? Techno doesn't have a plan here. He's trying a new thing called following his heart and short of finding an orphanage to burn down for some emotional regulation, he's taken to non-lethally hunting his quarry until it accepts that the Universe tied their hearts together like a kid knotting someone's laces in anticipation of a spectacular fall.

The crow does not want to get caught. Usually, the wants of animals in the face of their apex predators do not matter, but the Universe apparently decided to send him an angel from hell.

It's clever, the little bastard. Techno's research into the life and habits of corvids all agree that crows possess the ability for abstract reasoning and complex problem solving. However, being able to evade his state of the art basket-and-stick trap elevates such intelligence beyond the realm of a mere bird. It tears into Techno's garden and swallows all his seeds, making minced straw of the scarecrow he sets up to deter it. It pinches his glasses, once, and leaves atop a high tree, watching from a distance with laughter that echoed through the forest.

"Wait," Techno heaves, entirely too old to be chasing a bird halfway up a mountain a whole thousand-block distance away from home. "Wait, let's make a deal."

To his eternal surprise, the other half of his soul actually decides to listen this time. It perches on a high enough branch that even a little jump boost won't do much in helping this piglin reach. It cocks his head to the side. Plumage ruffling from the near-ninety-degree tilt.

It seems purposefully unsettling.

"How about being friends?" Techno offers. "We don't have to be soulmates, but we can be friends, right?" The Voices that like to diagnose him from the inside of his head often tell Techno he's aggressively lonely and that's not very healthy. "Friends give each other things, right? Uh, let me look. How about some apples," the bird imparts a withering effect with a single twitch of its beak, "—I mean gold."

Techno holds up a ring.

It's an old little thing. He stole it from a merchant when he was very young after being shafted on the payment for his services. The old man took one look at the piglin-out-of-lava and decided that someone from a culture literally built around value, trade and gold would definitely not know the difference between fifteen emeralds and three.

The warmth from the ringbearer is long gone, but the shank is thin at the base from constant wear. There are dozens of nicks and scratches and the root of Techno's teeth hum whenever he hears the metal ring. It's pure gold. Well-taken care of and well-worn—so much so that by the time Techno lifted it from the merchant, it was more finger than jewellery.

It was heavy with soul. Precious, in a word. A value that can't be translated into Common, but is easily understood by any piglin worth their sand.

The crow, for the first time, hesitates.

Techno's heart does not come down from the treehouse of his throat until the crow gently flutters down to rest on his shoulder. He hands the ring over and the crow takes it into his beak.

And then the miraculous happens: it decides to give Techno a chance.

"You proposed to a bird."

"I did not," Techno insists. "It was a gesture of friendship. A stepping stone in the interest of establishing a long-term relationship."

Ranboo re-layers the hands they have resting on the bar table so that their left one settles on top. "As the resident expert on proposals," the ender hybrid says, laughter audible in their voice, "—congratulations on your engagement, Technoblade."

"Bleed me fucking dry."

The Voices go crazy with that one.

At some point, that fucking bird becomes Zephyrus after a long thirteen nights spent sitting down by the fire, rattling through names until the crow cawed at something it could tolerate—and Zephyrus becomes a fixture in Techno's life. 

It leaves little trinkets at his desk. A sprig of ivy from a continent far, far away. A definitely fake diamond that looks pretty when held up to the light with a flake of blood that pleases the God in his head. Scraps of old tabards—some with heraldry Techno even recognises. A story from a lifetime ago that he vaguely remembers telling a quiet crow that perched in the rafters while he worked his crop planner.

Techno's heart settles into the rhythms of Zephyrus' comings and goings, waxing like the sun cradling the permafrost to thaw and waning like the night that struggles to cling a little bit longer. The hurt with each exit might have been debilitating before, but it mellows into a paltry twinge every now and then. An old wound only flaring with the cold.

So Techno makes an effort to keep his fires stoked more often. He hangs a bird feeder outside and tries to be surprised when Zephyrus wiggles under a window left open and gorges itself on the fresh fruits Techno leaves in a bowl. Zephyrus tracks muddy tracks all through Techno's research, but it leaves the books alone. It even lingers on an armour design for Carl with a spark of appreciation if not actual understanding.

"Are you just a crow?" Techno asks one evening, bolstered by his experimental whiskey and three hours of sleep. "Or—or is this a curse situation that I should be aware of? Because I like you n' all, but if we're going to have to resort to true love's kiss, I'm going to have a lot of questions about logistics."

Zephyrus' eyes have always looked unnerving. Blue eyes—the colours of a fledgling with none of the youth that one could expect from it. Techno has a funny relationship with time. He aged out of watching all his friends and family die and graduated to being present for and sometimes the direct cause of empires rising and falling.

He knows age.

It stares back at him now.

Zephyrus doesn't laugh like last time. No rattling call or yarks and flapping wings. Still, it feels like it is. The air tastes of its amusement and barely noticeable amidst the cinnamon and spiced hot chocolate is a musty scent. Some rose infusion with a haunting of dead leaves and decay. The crow settles into the crook of Techno's neck and bleeds an appreciative warmth.

Techno falls asleep like that.

When he wakes up, Zephyrus has safely rescued the glass in his hand from falling and shattering at his feet. It's been further nudged out of the way of accidental stumbles and Zephyrus plonks a couple of nuts and berries into Techno's open palm to eat.

For no reason other than it would be extremely funny, Techno decides Zephyrus is the older of the two.

He dreams of a Lady who tells him that it is true.

Zephyrus has no opinion on this, mostly because he panics when Techno's heart stops in the middle of the night and its body weight cannot hope to punch the life back into him, no matter the encouraging cheers that scatters like petals in both their minds.

Zephyrus still leaves—sometimes for months at a time.

The difference is that Techno comes along now. Before, the option didn't seem available, but Techno can feel how it's different now. How it shivers through his veins and embeds itself into his muscles like they were always supposed to be there.

His heart doesn't have to work as hard. It's nice. A heart attack would be a terribly anticlimactic way to go so he'd like to keep the blood pressure to a minimum.

A caw pulls his attention to something far up ahead.

Techno strides over to the tree, hand on the trunk and Zephyrus lands on his shoulder. His beak points straight ahead and down. Wooden planks leak out of an open wound in the mountainside. An infestation of cobwebs, crushed lanterns, open railways to a dead drop below—an abandoned mineshaft.

The Testificates that once built these structures are even beyond Techno's time in this world, so he's curious to see what this one holds. He's found some exciting things before. Gold—always nice to find—refined redstone and very occasionally an apple that shimmered with the touch of a God. Books would be even better, but books have a tendency to rot over time.

A mine also promises an entire nest of spiders that ache to die by his sword. The Voices practically salivate at the thought. Techno wipes away the psychosomatic drool from his lips and considers the gear and tools he has on hand. It would be an easy thing to spelunk in and out. He's not even in danger of going in rusty with his bi-monthly spars and lessons with Ranboo.

Zephyrus caws once—encouragement—but it does not relax, beady eyes aimed and trained on anything that might jump out of the dark and hurt them.

Techno offers a hoof and Zephyrus presses its feather head into the keratin. There is no movement, not yet. But there is closeness.

Together, they descend.

Techno figured it out when Zephyrus crashed straight into his window. His heart squeezed in sympathetic pain and then it continued, threatening to burst the longer he just stayed there on the other side, watching Zephyrus try to gather itself and its bearings.

Go, something inside him said. It wasn't the Voices—though they were also screaming that same word, copying the initial voice's homework. Go.

He opened the window.

His crow stuttered towards him.

And then it was happening. Whatever the stories always said and romanticized, it was finally happening. His ears were loud with the sound of his own blood storming inside his skull. The ricochet of a covenant about to be forged under his God's bloodshot eyes.

This is the one. This is the one whom you'll commit such terrible things for.

Zephyrus, terrified of its heart expanding to make room for another piece of immortality, flew away—but the damage was done.

Winter swept in after the flighty crow's wake. But his chest stayed warm.

It stayed warm.

One caw is all it takes. Before the sound has even completed its course from throat to air to ear, Techno is moving. Instinct holds hand with muscle memory and his sword finds itself buried deep inside the spider's thorax, angling back from the fangs that hiss towards his throat and slipping straight out, breaking a few ribs in the process and slicing deep into a zombie to his left.

Two warning cries have him ducking behind a wooden post as arrows sail past where his head used to be. Water sloshes underhoof and he feels the current sliding him deeper into the mines.

The grace of an archer possesses him for a moment. Techno finds his bow before his mind catches up with him and the arrow is gone, gone, gone. The skeleton melts into a pile of bones that burns just briefly enough for the jaw to unhinge in a silent scream.

Zephyrus crashes into the second skeleton and the mob stumbles back, foot catching empty air as it falls to its death in darkness.

Clearing a mine has never been so easy. It's never been so fun.

They tear through floor after floor. His crow yanks on his ears when he misses a chest and Techno holds out the chunks of lapis and gold for Zephyrus' inspection. His crow's weight settles nicely on Techno's shoulder and it is no burden.

"What do you say, old man?" Zephyrus's head snaps towards Techno and Techno laughs. Full bellied and joyful. "Ready to press on ahead or are your old bones already getting tired?"

A chuff of hair pushes past the crow's beak. If a crow could roll its eye, it would be doing exactly that.

Instead, all it does is look forward.

Techno does not have to wonder at what it sees; he is facing the same way.

Chapter Text

Emperor Philza is on the outer wall when they return. A vision of Antarctic blue and royal red, gold chain catching the sunlight reigning high above him. A sparkly affair; Techno's personal siren call.

He's always there. It doesn't matter that they took a massive detour when the ice floes started to fracture—or that they're coming home with two fewer people and fifteen more dogs.

Phil is waiting. Looking like he had just happened to walk out that day, happened to have a spyglass in hand and happened to look over yonder to see their banners fly victorious.

Techno smiles.

Black wings flare in answer, flapping once to taste the wind before stepping on top of the stone ramparts. There's an alarmed movement of an archer—one of their newer recruits, Techno reckons—but it's too late.

Phil's gone.

Jumping straight off into the sky who greets him like an old friend and deposits him neatly into Techno's outstretched arms. They spin close, fastening arm, leg and wing around each other the further along the rotation they get until they're a single entity with exactly no room for Jesus between them.

Phil traces Techno's new scars. Clever little bird. How easily Phil finds them all, identifying what's different about his beloved and never hesitating to swoop in with the most sincere love and morbid fascination.

Techno thinks about all the things he should say. His heart has several ideas, all of them embarrassing and sappy. Everyone's watching, but fuck 'em.

Love on his tongue, Techno pulls back far enough for his eyes to stop crossing and—

"First," Phil chirps, because he's a fucking bastard.

But he is laughing. He's laughing and as Techno laughs with the same laughter, everything finally falls into place.

"Welcome home, Techno," Phil coos, pressing a kiss to a tusk.

His bastion. His friend. His Philza. The one constant in his life. Distressingly tired, but still happy enough to glow.

And then Pete appears on the walls, out of breath and leaning on the panicked archer for support. "Philza," he calls out, voice hoarse. "You gotta come back, man! Normally I'd let you two have your Moment, but daylight's burning. We have to come to a decision today!"

Phil groans and lays his forehead against Techno's. It's a shame that Techno's completely tapped of potions. A couple of splashes and they'd be out of here. They could probably looney tunes their way out of the front courtyard, but there's an army behind them. A very tired and very eager-to-get-home army who will not patiently wait outside their home to let their Emperors be sappy for much longer.

Alas.

"Busy?" Techno asks, sympathetic.

"Like you wouldn't believe, mate." Phil sighs, wings slumping and feathers risking a brush against the snow. "Fuck. I should really get back to it…"

"But you don't want to."

"'Course not. This is the first time I've seen you in months, Techno."

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, mate. Just find me later if you're free."

Phil gives Techno a parting peck on the cheek and with great reluctance, zooms back into the Stronghold, picking Pete along the way.

The screams fade quickly into silence. Gone before they can catch up. Like always.

Wait. Like always?

"Calvin," Techno calls.

"Sir?" His lieutenant hops to attention, offering the sloppiest salute Techno's ever seen from him.

"What's my schedule for tonight?"

Calvin scrunches his nose. "A bath to start."

"After that."

"Meetings, sir. Like. So many meetings. Uhh, let me think."

It's probably unfair to spring this on Calvin. Calvin's not an administrator and they're literal steps out from the main gates where an aide will waste no time in letting Techno know exactly what he has in store.

Oblivious, Calvin continues, "I'd imagine there'd be a debrief on how the war went with the rest of the council. Sounds like Emperor Philza's handling peace talks so you're going to be busy with handling the new territories. The engineers usually ambush you for detailed reports on how their 'babies' faired in live combat so probably expect to be kidnapped. Oh! And—"

And it goes on. A full twelve-hour workday sits waiting for Techno as soon as he steps into the Stronghold.

It's currently three o'clock in the afternoon. By the time Techno finishes this hypothetical shift, the sun will still be out because it's the middle of summer and the sun never sets at the height of the season.

Oh shit. That means Christmas is in two weeks. There's probably a trip wire rigged to explode with paperwork about the holiday celebrations somewhere in his office. Antarcticans take their celebrations very seriously. It's the closest thing to leisure that they have. Techno knows he will be mauled if he doesn't give that matter the attention it deserves.

A headache starts to build in his temples. Or maybe Techno's just realising he had one because he's tired and in sore need of a nap. He wants Phil. Phil knows how to make him better except Phil is busy. Techno is busy. What the fuck. He just won a war and this is the thanks he gets?

He should murder everyone about it. Right about now would be perfect for a war crime except he just won the war, fuck.

Stupidly, Techno asks, "Is that all?"

"Your people with clipboards would know better than me, sir. I'm just making an educated guess."

"And your educated guess is a heart attack," Techno says dryly. He knows he's not the poster boy for a healthy work-life balance, but surely even he's not this bad. "Is Phil's schedule like this too?"

Calvin pats his arm and nods. "Glad you finally noticed. The health of our workaholic Emperors has been a concern of the general population for years. We have a betting pool on which of you is going to croak first."

"Bruh."

They make their way inside and not a moment too soon. Techno saw several swords being sheathed and the grumblings of caesaricide cease.

"Emperor Philza is the popular vote," Calvin says. The stablehands and pages come swarming out of the castle to start manoeuvring their horses away.

No one touches Carl. No one touches Technoblade's armour.

Everyone learned that lesson early.

"Phil?" Techno asks, incredulous. "We're talking about the Angel of Death, right? The Immortal Wanderer. The Survivor. The Old Man with Bad Knees. That Phil."

"He offered to be the first on the plate when it comes to the cannibalism trials." Calvin pauses. Then dripping with disapproval to hide the laughter contained within, "Because, and I quote, 'it would be funny, mate'."

Techno is glad you can tell who's serious about cannibalism by whether they capitalize the words or not. It was just after the first wave of citizens came to live under the Antarctic banner. Techno's initial wheat plantation was never supposed to support more than a household of two. They were hungry and the seals had faced down worse threats than tired hunters who hadn't quite adapted yet. Their colony nearly starved. Someone suggested cannibalism a little too early in the process and Techno tuned out as the Voices got bloody. Wrestling over themselves about the ethics of cannibalism, the claim that all meat tasted of chicken and obligatory chants for wanton murder.

Phil had covered for him, then. Seamlessly tagging in and doing—something. Maybe Techno should have paid attention. Phil would look at a deviled egg on the window sill and tuck that away for 'later'. Whether 'later' meant the following evening or three centuries from then was anyone's guess. Phil was the most cautious of them all, but he was also the first to yeet caution to the winds.

"Anything for the bit," Techno sighs.

Calvin smiles and bumps their arms together. "I'll show you the spreadsheet, Emperor Technoblade."

And fuck. That actually sounds like fun.

It started out as an idle observation.

One day, Techno looked up and realised it had been years since he saw Phil last. It grew in his mind slowly. He would dig through his shed, tackle in one hand and two fishing rods awkwardly jammed together in the other and wondered why he didn't put the spare down. He would sit at his table and look across at the only other seat. An empty stool with plenty of space for those of the winged inclination. He thought of his gold. He thought of Phil dressed in his bangles and jewellery. The way he would sound as he moved, how the metal would glitter.

The days continued.

Then the invitation came. The flowery words talked of a brand new world with brand new possibilities. A handcrafted playground for factions, warfare and conquest.

He thought of Phil again. Sisyphus get out of the fucking way.

Over dinner, Techno wondered if Phil was eating too or if he was just grabbing a golden apple from the top of a stack and moving on as soon as his hunger was sated. He went to his fields and pulled his potatoes out of the dirt and didn't look at how he filled the baskets enough for two. He washed and peeled his harvest and stood at the stove and thought of—well, he thought about how fucking long potatoes always took to boil, but he also thought of Phil. Phil, who'd be complaining right about now. Restless and full of feathers, preening at the table despite how many times Techno's told him not to.

He looked at his sword on the wall. He thought about how it was within easy reaching distance. How he never wondered how close his sword had to be around Phil because wherever Techno kept his blade, Phil kept it closer. It was always in hand. A sword before it was a cane.

The server logs had their hot takes. What Techno had was the memory of a single crow waiting on a fence post. He remembered vividly how he approached. The bird cocked their head, fluffing out their wings to stretch and how they were not afraid of the dirt on his fingers.

We must band together, Phil wrote, to become gods.

The paper was crinkled and already starting to crumble under its own existence. As if the Universe was starting to catch on that this was not crafted from this world and so to its world the Universe implored that paper to return.

Just before the note and bird both went the way of Eurydice, Techno reflected on that last line.

Or not—up to you.

Stupid Phil. As if Techno would make any other choice.

Calvin's educated guess is accurate in the same way everyone can guess an anvil to the head will hurt like a bitch. Broadly correct but holy hells, living through blunt-force death is another thing entirely.

There are a lot of meetings. A relentless barrage that makes trudging through miles of the Antarctic white seem like a walk to the park compared to being shepherded from room to room just to talk.

Everyone wants to speak with Emperor Technoblade about peace. Normally not a problem. It's an annoying but necessary evil. The problem is that everyone also wants to speak to Commander Technoblade about war and he's kind of tied to the same body that pilots the Emperor. While the Voices rejoice over the bloodbath going on between his retainers over who will take the half-hour block at twenty hundred hours, Technoblade considers acquainting his head with the desk.

It doesn't help that he's bored by most of it.

In between border disputes, Techno pencils in plans to solve world hunger. They're going to need a rabbit and a few potatoes. Maybe he and Phil can take a vacation to Australia in the name of surveying their new territories. That will be nice.

He looks up from his doodles and sees someone drawing lines on a map and closing off the shape. They start arguing about the border running straight through a valuable mine again. He looks at the clock and despairs at how little it's wiggled.

It takes another day and a half before he can escape the white water rapids of their administration to wash up on the shores of a free evening. He almost doesn't believe it. It's not until Pete pokes at him with a boot that Techno startles to his feet, surprised that it's been a full fifteen minutes since he was last accosted.

"Go take a bath," Pete says.

"I did?" That was the first thing he did.

"Yeah. A week ago."

Oh. Techno takes a step back. Then another step when Pete doesn't pull a stack of paperwork from behind his back. He's all the way down the hall before Pete shakes his head and fields a harrowed aide away from their disappearing Emperor.

It's not a retreat. It's a victorious advance in the opposite direction and Techno is amazed that he's able to make it to his rooms at all. He checks the bed—no Phil. Fuck.

Whatever. Maybe he can go bother Phil after he's less sweaty and smells nice enough to entice a birdman from his papers.

He takes a bath.

Steam fogs his glasses, but Gods, the heat. How their engineers managed to punch their water past boiling and closer to instant evaporation, Techno doesn't know. He looks forward to reading the report about it later.

Techno slides down the tub until his snout is barely above water. It feels like home. Even the Voices settle into a sibilant whisper, simulating the constant bubble of soul sand.

What did Pete say when he left? Enjoy it, Techno. He worked day and night on this thing. Nearly blew us up like three times trying to get the pressure just right.

Oh, Phil. Whatever did he do to deserve an immortal bird that knew how redstone worked?

The bath relaxes him enough to do some light reading. Phil's fledglings passed along a streamlined brick of their entire inventory, each resource painstakingly accounted for with clipped observations about their rate of consumption, deficiencies and surplus. Every now and then, Techno will find a comment that's so empirically Phil that he can't help but read the entire thing just for the chance of another laugh.

By the time he's done, the water is still warm. When he lifts his eyes from the point-six font, he is mildly amused to see that he's seeing in shrimp colours.

It's a miracle he makes it out of the tub without slipping. Gods could you imagine how embarrassing that would be? Emperor Technoblade Eats Shit and Dies. Humiliating, but it would be pretty pog, in a way. Everyone would be talking about him for days. The second most inglorious death imaginable. Just beneath baby—

"Techno."

The tension living under his excessive defences immediately flees at the first syllable.

Techno looks up and Phil is smiling. All relaxed posture, walking towards him like he's being tugged along a wire.

It's the easiest thing to submit to the towel. To close his eyes and feel the water being soaked away from his fur. His quarters are full of heat, the furnace bright with a fresh catch of coal. How long has Phil been waiting?

It's very hard to do math when your ears are gently being scrubbed turns out. Especially when your partner pays special attention to the spot at the base of his ear that sends Techno crashing into a knee out of sheer bliss.

Now that they're eye to eye, it's easy for Phil to whip the towel over his head and pat his hair dry.

Then comes the comb. More pleasure. More rumbling churrs, his tail wagging in sincere appreciation.

By the time he opens his eyes again, his glasses have been cleaned and folded away. His hair is as smooth as water, smelling of rose petals and oakmoss. Techno's ears flap and he smiles at the familiar jingling of his earrings. Battle required practicality, not pageantry. He'd left most of his rings and shinies at home and it feels good to see the familiar glints from his hoard. The sparkling jewels and polished metals. The gold.

It's a shadow of his imperial set, but there's no need for the full regalia. Not when it's time for bed and there's no one around he feels the need to impress. Phil knows him without the armour. A living emerald of the man who will eventually be only known as the Blade by the many and by Techno by the one.

"Hey, mate," Phil greets, voice scored by exhaustion. It's been a long day. "Enjoy making piglin soup in there?"

"I have some ideas on how to improve the recipe," Techno says. Then, because it's the first time that they've been in the same room long enough to talk, Techno hugs him close. "Could do with a bit of chicken stock—the full sodium variety."

Phil tucks his head into Techno's neck. It's so easy to smother Phil with his bulk, so he does. The wings enshroud them both until it's just the sound of their breathing. Phil's hummingbird heart, loud and strong.

"Sorry it took so long," Phil murmurs. "I didn't think there were so many ways to say rob them for all they're worth, but apparently there are."

"It's that damn Hofstadter." Techno shakes his head. "I should repeal that law first chance I get."

"I don't think your jurisdiction extends into the metaphysical."

The yet goes unsaid. Somewhere, the Administrators are quaking in their boots.

"Eh, we still have the world to conquer. One step at a time and all that. We love having a numbered list and ticking things off in order. Very methodical, we Antarticans. That's what everyone says about us."

A snort buzzes through his skin and Techno could melt.

He settles for pulling Phil's hand up to his snout. He kisses the void-star ring tattooed into Phil's fourth finger. Grazes his tusks across the scarred flesh, worn bone against the more human bits. It satisfies the urge to gore into Phil's chest and spray them black with blood and guts and Kristin's gifted ichor.

Phil pulls his hand back when he feels Techno's heart stop.

Blink and you miss it. Most people won't even notice that the Blood God had to manually pump blood through his chambers until Techno's body remembers it's supposed to be alive.

"Off to the nest with you," Phil says, something complicated in his expression at the near press of Death. Techno hates to have put it there, but it's worth the price for that crescent of softness just to the side where Phil thinks is hidden from all, but never truly is. Not from Techno.

"Will you tell me a story?" Techno does not go far.

Phil closes the distance. "I think I have a few."

Chapter Text

"Hey there, mate," says Philza, pausing for effect the same way one pauses all they're doing to watch the waves crash down on a sand castle, "—I'm a spy."

Admittedly, Techno doesn't take it well.

The castle gifted to him was already a vacuous thing when Technoblade arrived. An empty carcass stripped clean of everything but the bones that themselves were drained of marrow. That the secret rooms looked like they had already been ransacked did little to put Techno at ease regarding his new…station.

The long hallway he's walking down proves to be very long. Stretching on forever with only the intermittent splashes of iced blue and blood-soaked red to interrupt the giant walls of dark grey brick. Ranboo tried to beat the overbearing impression of misery with blocks of random grass and it's trying, which is a kinder word for pathetic.

"Is there a reason we keep him in the eastern tower?" Techno asks, wincing at the echo.

"It was the furthest from your room," Pete answers.

"Oh." Another eternity of walking. "And how is the prisoner? Physically speaking. Will he be well enough to withstand an interrogation?"

"Well, provided you stick to the questions, he should be right as rain." Pete tosses a grin over his shoulder. "Rest assured, the prisoner has a pale complexion to start with so the bruising around his neck looks worse than it is. In fact, he's been cooperating with our medic on staff—no potions, of course. Not that we have any to spare, anyway."

"Good…job." Techno rummages around for something else to say. "You've been monitoring him?"

"'Round the clock, your grace," Pete says. "The prisoner looks the type to cause problems if left unsupervised."

Techno thinks about the first words out of the man's mouth. About how he showed up on Techno's doorstep with nothing but a letter of introduction to justify his presence there and—

The leather wraps around his sword handle creaks. Pressure eases off his pommel.

He takes a deep breath.

People don't usually come out of an altercation with him alive and even if they do, Techno chooses to leave first and go far away. Having the repercussions of his actions roost so close to home is a new experience.

"This is it."

Techno looks at the guard stationed outside as she stares out into the middle distance. Niki looks for all the world like she's incapable of eavesdropping. A bulwark of stoicism and professionalism contrasted with Pete's dancing amusement.

She survived the war. She's more than enough strong for a flighty bird that has a death wish and wise enough to humour their jokester-in-contenia, but not fall prey to amusement, anger or sympathy. Which is really what Techno was worried about. That the spy is still alive speaks to how much his words have wormed into Techno's mind, giving just enough doubt to stay his sword.

Even if it's a joke, the dangers by implication are too much to ignore. They'll squeeze him dry of information and send him on his way to the River Styx. Techno can laugh about it after the guy is dead.

"Let there be light," he commands, stepping forward. Niki nods and swings the door open. His blade slides out of his scabbard, an inch of blackened steel glinting in the low lantern light.

His mind empties. The Blade steps across onto colder stone, instincts searching out and breathing growing tight. Air prickles at his exposed skin, jaw feeling the bite of frost and that sliver of exposed neck feeling twice as large.

There is someone in the bed. An unmoving lump of blankets and deeper still, blood and flesh.

And it snores.

Techno blinks. His sight comes back to him as the indignity continues. Behind him, Pete stifles a chortle.

That—is pretty funny, he's not going to lie. Techno was prepared to go all dread lord on this, but the more that he thinks about it, the more he's considering hysteria as a career path because what is his life? He wins a war, gets a castle—not through domination, sadly, it was a gift—and the politics continue to juggle daggers around him. Now a guy is sleeping in the presence of a man more bloodlust than human and it's genuine.

The breathing is even and deep. Imperfect in just the right way with occasional hiccups that may belie a health condition and—

Chirps.

The bird metaphors were a joke.

Techno decides to honour that thematic consistency and kicks him out of bed.

"What the—" Crash goes the crow. Blond hair, tangled and flustered spills out from the sheets and sharp blue eyes glare at him with genuine intent to kill that makes Techno's blood start to purr in caustic approval. Pale skin. Dark bruises—just like Pete said. The aftermath of raw violence encased inside the shell of a metaphorical teenager that just woke up, "Mate," the man scolds. "Was that really necessary?"

"Spy," Techno cuts to the chase.

A heavy sigh. "Duke."

Techno narrows his eyes. The hog skull hides that action completely, but he knows about it and an audience of one is better than an audience of none.

"Leave us," Techno orders. Pete notes, moving towards the door with a hop. He doesn't miss the prisoner's eyes flashing towards the only escape route and the quick cataloguing of not only Techno's prowess and weapons, but Niki's sword and Pete's relaxed shoulders.

Curious faces linger through the thinning crack into the outside world until the last possible moment. The heavy wooden doors close shut with an audible sound. Dust whistles out from underneath and settles.

It's quiet.

Techno breaks it with the slithering sound of metal being drawn from leather. He strides forward, staring down the fine edge with a measure of malice. The shadows seem to thicken around his heels, clinging to his boots and bubbling around his shoulders.

The point rests a feather away from the spy's slender neck.

Boredom meets the voids where Techno's eyes should be.

"I'll give it to you straight." Black metal gleams brightly against purple-black bruising. The shape of a hand—a twin to the one that holds his sword steady. "There are two ears pressed against the door right now and they all have the attention span of a very bored goldfish. How about you say we get to the guts of the good stuff so they don't start setting the castle on fire in search of stimulation?"

The prisoner hums. "What if I refuse?"

"You'd be cooked alive," Techno says. "And die painfully."

"Seems like a waste of a castle, mate."

"Trust me, it would be a mercy."

"True," the spy agrees and Techno can feel the truth of it like a jagged tooth growing the wrong way. Blond hair tickles the sharp edge of steel as the spy leans towards it. Not enough to cut—calculated enough to leave the pressure and save the blood for a better performance.

Unafraid and unrelenting. Those eyes have not blinked once.

"What are you doing here, Philza?"

Philza eyes smile for him, glittering like a sky of ancient stars. "Crimes," he says, "—and punishment."

If Techno's name is roared and never spoken, Philza's name is always whispered.

There is a story of a warrior whose greatest deed was ridding the sky of dragons. Oh, we can sit here all day and talk about the bricks of glory paving his legacy and the terror baked in between, bones ground down into mortar while death haunted his every step like a shadow.

Unfortunately, that's not important.

Because the only deed anyone will remember is the tragedy of Ser Philza Craft slaughtering his only son. It was his sword that killed the first prince. His oath shattered at the first touch of blood and now lay around him like a cage, cursed to blacken his name for centuries to come. It was thirteen years ago that the city fell. The memory was fresh. At least, fresh enough for the wary eyes and hushed tones behind cupped hands, glancing away as the fallen knight walked past.

Later, Techno is resting his forehead against his desk while Ranboo makes him a cup of boiled grass tea.

"Ranboo," Techno mumbles into the slipshot plank of wood he affectionately calls his desk. "How did I end up here?"

"Um," says Ranboo, the stutter in the clink of chipped porcelain giving away his nerves. "You walked."

"Let's take a step out of the literal, for a moment, and peel back the curtain on the figurative: imagine you're me and you've been staring into the Void for a moment—"

"I think the Void would look away," Ranboo says, calmly and diplomatically while the kettle whistles and tries to vibrate out of place. The sharp little breath is all packed with nerves. "You, uh, told me to tell you that next time you got existential, by the way. I am not taking responsibility for that. I wrote it down, just let me…"

He's being bullied by Ranboo. Incredible.

Techno slumps into himself. "What sin did I commit that prompted the Universe to balance the scales with Philza Craft, of all people? Real answers only, please."

"You backed the wrong prince," comes the immediate answer.

"Philza killed one!"

"In our current sample pool of flaws, that's surprisingly not that high on the list." Sugar may coat that peel, but the critic acid still stings. His squire pushes a cup of tea towards Techno's direction, close enough to his check for the residual cheek to play nice with his flushed complexion. Ranboo starts to neaten the stacks of paperwork that are trying to overthrow the claim Techno has to his desk.

Prince Regent Tubbo's letter is amongst them. Complete with a single layer of pleasantry hiding a deeply unpleasant grudge. No doubt the North is in need of funds and support, Tubbo's steward wrote on the sly. Ser Craft is a knight who needs no introduction. His blade has never wavered from the neck of its enemies. As a token of L'Manberg's generosity, we hope such a sword finds its place in your very capable hands.

Nothing more than a chalice burnished with poison, blood sliding thickly inside.

"I'm not sure who the punishment is for at this rate. I can't imagine either of us are pleased."

"Oh, it's definitely you." Tehno lifts his head. Ranboo turns away. "Ser Craft currently enjoys three square meals, a comfortable bed and with the outdoor privileges you granted him, he can even exercise and get his steps in. I heard from Niki that he recently took up stitching people's old ripped clothing as a way to pass to time. Last I saw him he was eating a cookie."

Aggrieved, Techno's head drops back onto the desk with a hollow thunk.

Techno was a warrior. Philza Craft was a survivor.

The difference mattered when you knew that only winners walked away from a fight. And what did survivors do?

They won.

And won a lot.

Techno didn't think when he heard Philza stuck flint against the steel of his words. The Blade acted before Death could show her favour and rushed ahead, forgoing his sword for his oldest weapon of all—his arms.

A week later, the bruises are more of a mottled patch of yellowgrass and sickly green. Philza sits up in his chair, arms crossed but posture a brush stroke of relaxed and head held high. Despite his short stature, Philza manages to sell the impression of looking down his nose at Techno fairly well.

Techno remains standing and looming to dispel that illusion.

He wanted to play chess and have a riveting conversation on top of that, but Philza had never played before which kind of defeats the purpose.

It's been loss after loss ever since this guy showed up here. His statistics won't be able to take much more. The time for action is now.

"So you're a spy."

"Yup." Philza pops the 'p'. Patient, like this is a small matter of waiting for the snow to let up. "His Royal Highness sent me here to keep an eye on you."

"Just an eye?"

"Maybe two, if you're being extra naughty."

Techno feels flattered they pulled the Sword of Damocles out of retirement for him. He leaves a hand on his own blade and Ser Craft is good, but instinct is instinct and the knight can't help the way his eyes are drawn to every portent of danger in this room. Death may be second nature to him, but Techno is the master of all threats and threatening.

"Why'd you tell me?" he asks. "You should have asked about the weather we were having first. That gives me a huge debuff, but you just skipped all dialogue options and went for the jugular."

"You would have fucking killed me, mate," Philza says bluntly.

"…Nooooo."

"You totally could have, but you didn't, in the end." There's a grin spread wide on Philza's cheek and the shoulders find a more genuine ease, easing a few degrees off from turtle-hunched tense. The last three words must be sore from carrying the whole of that statement. At Techno's lack of a response, Philza piles his salesman pitch with a flashy show of teeth. "Prince Regent Tubbo told me to spy on you, but he never said to do it well and he never specified I couldn't spy on him back. All he wanted was a sword that could cut no matter whose hand held it."

Techno considers those words carefully. "He owns you."

A silent smile, unnaturally frozen and a shift of one leg—his left. Techno doesn't look down, he doesn't acknowledge it beyond the pause. There's magic in this room—restrictive and tight.

"So we're going for the 'enemy of my enemy' route." Techno scratches at his chin. Genuinely because there's an itch he has to scratch, but Philza is paying attention. Very closely, in fact. "Friends, huh?"

The knight twirls a strand of hair around a finger, coiling it tight until his skin turns shock-white. "You could use a couple more friends—"

"Hey."

"—and I want this story to have a happy ending."

It's whispered so quietly, Techno considers letting it pass unnoticed into the stream, but when has he ever banged his drum to the beat of someone else's symphony?

"You aren't exactly the poster boy for that kind of thing," Techno points out. He leans back in his chair, looking outside the barred window of Philza's room. The musty furnishing is less musty here. Dust long disturbed and swept away from the natural course of movement and living in a space.

To his credit, Philza's eyes dilate with the blatant opportunity of an easy kill in front of him and nothing else. Not even a twitch of movement in his limbs, each muscle meticulously locked down in anticipation of a such a bait.

"That's not a good reason to not try."

Techno's hook comes clean. Philza's hook sinks deep.

"Fuck it," Techno says. He extends out a hand. "I'm in."

"I'm not even tapped into the fine print yet, mate—"

"Nope. That double-convinced me." Techno offers his other hand and then looks at Philza's clenched fists and crossed his hands at the wrist so all Philza would have to do is reach forward. "We have to shake on both hands now."

His voice hangs in the air. Philza's eyes wide and uncompromisingly open.

"You're exactly like I thought you would be," Philza says, something true and blue softening the edges of his voice. The knight in him must be stronger than anything else in his personality wheelhouse because Philza drops to one knee, meeting Techno's hands with his own.

Hand in hand, firm and measuring out each other's relative strength. Despite the ridiculous image that they make, Philza's hands are incredibly warm.

"Techno," Ser Craft breathes, air starting to shudder. The pebbles on the floor shake and dance and even the sun outside must pause its arc over the earth to stare at what must be taking place. "Will you wield me as your hidden sword to give everyone the endings they all deserve?"

Everyone talks about how Ser Craft is a knight who brought his lord twenty dragons' heads and countless more. No one ever talks about how the first head Philza would have brought was his own.

"As long as you let me handle yours," Techno swears, feeling the oath sink on his tongue.

"Wh—"

They shake on it.

Deal made. No takesies-backsies. No returns or refunds.

Techno grins, wild and full of a promise for fun. "Let's go take down an empire, Philza."

"Please," Philza smiles. "Call me Phil.