Far away and many years ago, there was a place so beautiful it might have been a dream once, with only a few now left to remember it. Above the cities, high in the upper hills of Britain, lay a secret in those hidden dells that still sleep as though the land had never moved beyond the 19th century. Deep in a valley almost nobody knew about, rose a more ancient city crowned with a castle that would never fall, or so the people who lived there thought. This city ringed with wooded hills was the home of the winged people, the only place on earth where they lived…and none was more powerful or fair or gracious than the captain of the king's guard: Philza Goldcraft–also called the Angel of Death.

He was known throughout the city for his steadfastness in the cruelest battle, but also his goodness to the lowliest maidservant in the castle. They say he had been the companion of the legend Technoblade in his youth, sweeping out of brackened downs and cloud-set hills with his massive black wings like those of the thousands of crows that followed him wherever he went.

And Philza had a son.

Once.


"Dad, Dad, sing my song now! Please sing my song."

The little four-year-old tugged on Philza's trouser leg, hazel eyes round and pleading. His tiny black wings flapped as if he aspired to be a hummingbird, though as yet he couldn't fly. A few more years training with the other fledglings, and soon they wouldn't be able to keep him out of the sky. Philza leaned over the lute in his lap and stroked the dark feathers of his son's hair, touched the feather charm on the long necklace hanging down the front of the child's tunic. Light filled the airy music room, their favorite place in their great house just off the castle walls. A gathering of Philza's crows sat in the large open window, watching and listening.

"Sing to us…sing us a lullaby…" they whispered in Philza's mind.

"All right then, Wilbur. We shall sing for you." Philza turned to his lovely wife sitting at the harp across from him. A pair of wings, similar to his but white, curved around her like a curtain of cloud. "Kristin, would you please?"

Kristin smiled and poised her hands over the harp. The music danced from her fingertips, as if pulled on the breeze wafting in through the window. Philza strummed the lute and sang in a high tender voice, caressing the air with his words; and Wilbur swayed to the sound, his wings quieting at last:

"I heard there was a special place,

Beneath the stars above,

Beneath the light of unending grace,

A place of perfect love.

Well, the darkness flees before His face,

The light of life has come to this place,

So know that you will never be alone."

Kristin joined him in gentle harmony:

"As we sing,

Alleluia,

Stay with me,

Alleluia,

Don't you cry,

Alleluia,

Singing again,

Alleluia."

The crows hummed. "Sing for us a lullaby…"

But the darkness still found them, even there in that sleeping city in the hidden valley. Fire rained from the sky that night, and Philza knew there could only be one ending. He brought his family into the music room, the last time they would all be there together, though only Philza must have been thinking that.

The crows watched and waited.

"Fire and death…they come, they come, but we didn't know…we didn't know…"

"Kristin." Philza caught her face in his hands, kissed her lips. "Go. Take Wilbur and fly, but stay low to the ground so they won't see you. As soon as you break out from the hills, take off, make for Scotland, but don't try to cross the sea. If I can, Lord willing, I will meet you somewhere out there."

She searched his eyes. A whisper: "You don't think you'll come back."

He blinked away the tears. "It may be that the next time I see you will be in the next life."

She pressed her lips together, but she didn't cry. That was his bonny lass.

"Lord willing, we'll come…we'll come…"

Philza bent down and embraced his son, wrapped in a blanket and sucking on his fingers. A couple stray downy feathers poked over the edge of the blanket. "I love you, Wilbur."

The stubby little arms reached around his neck, into his hair. "I love you, Dad."

Philza touched the feather charm on the necklace. "Remember who you are, Wilbur. You are a son of the King."

He saw the confusion thread across his son's face, though they had discussed this many times before. No more time now. Kristin would remind him.

"Remember, remember, child with hair like feathers…do not go astray…remember…"

Philza straightened. "Go. And may God go with you."

Kristin went to the window, picked up Wilbur, and, holding him tight in her arms, slipped through the casement, her cloud-like wings lifting behind her, her dark hair tangling in the wind as she sailed down toward the forest beneath the city.

A stray line from a song filled Philza's mind, and he could hear the crows taking it up in their warbling voices: "And safe forever may my darling be..."

He turned away from them, toward the screams and the fire and the place that he loved bleeding away into darkness with the other winged soldiers of the land–for his king, for his bride and his son, and surely, though not willingly, for death.

No one who was there that night and lived ever forgot the terror paralyzing every muscle as the Angel of Death thundered out of the shadows from on high in a whorl of moon-shredded fog and light and weeping crows, firing arrows and metal darts, like a thousand falling stars. For one moment, the enemy panicked, almost turned back, having no idea that the giant, silent crow did not intend to survive this night, but only give his family time enough to flee.

But then the enemy stood fast once more, firing upon his brethren until they fell, until they pierced his wing with a bullet–and he fell as well, not so much a star as a fallen angel, folded into the cold earth where the fire dimmed and almost went out.

Lord willing, I'll come…


They had captured him, put him in some bunker far away from the land he loved. Philza bided his time, endured the questions and tests for five years, before he escaped. His wing had healed from the bullet wound by that point, though he felt in his heart that there would always be a place that would never seal up, not after that night and those five long years. He flew back to the circle of hills in the north, to see if anything was left, to see if he could find news of Kristin and Wilbur.

They got to Scotland, surely. Please, Lord, let them have got to Scotland, please…

The city ringed by hills lay in black ruins, nothing left to remember the winged people by. And of course, no Kristin or Wilbur, nor anything else living in that place, even after five years. Nothing but Philza's own thousand flock of crows, guarding the piles of dead pillars and walls, awaiting his return.

"Gone…gone…everything is gone…no one sees, no one knows…all gone…"

"They left them all, and we haven't seen Kristin or Wilbur…all gone…"

"Perhaps others saw them," said Philza as they gathered around once more in a black veil, silent except for their whispers in his head. He set out for the city some kilometers down from the hills, and he prayed.

"Let them live, let them love…or else show us how…but please do not let…"

The people in the city stared at the stranger with wings and the shroud of crows following him everywhere he walked, a green and white-striped sedge hat pulled over his blond hair falling down his back and twisted into a braid. They must have seen the legendary winged people sometimes flying high above their hills, probably supposing they were only large birds of some sort. At least, up until five years ago, when smoke rose from the north, and they flew no more.

"Have you seen my wife and son? My wife has wings like me, hard not to spot. My son will be older now…nine years old…thick, curly brown hair and hazel eyes, like mine, also with wings…"

But every person Philza approached, asking about his wife and child, kept walking, not even glancing at him in acknowledgement–save when they were far enough away to shoot him wide-eyed stares.

"Frightened…don't hold against them…too scared…poor children…"

At last, one middle-aged woman with a nervous gaze, in the shadow of a smelly pub, beckoned him over and whispered, "I ain't seen none like your wife, sir, but I seen a wee bairn like that, a few years back. Plucked wings like a chicken's, and all covered in soot, he was. The local charity sent him to the hospital, and then on down to a children's home in London. Probably there now."

"Hair like feathers…Wilbur…"

And so Philza Goldcraft flew down to London Town, keeping his wings hidden as best he could under a dark cloak when he landed. His feathers dragged too far behind him to conceal completely, but they blended in with the cloak well, making it look like he wore some sort of long, fancy cape trimmed with feathers. He sent his crows into the surrounding trees and building rooftops while he searched so as not to raise suspicions–but even so, people still talk about the day the foreboding stranger with the dragging cloak came to London, crows watching from every available perch, and generally making everyone uncomfortable.

No one had seen Kristin.

But the register at a children's home, a shabby place by the Thames, had on record one "Wilbur Soot," brought in from the Tyne area five years ago, only four years old, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Nothing about wings, but Philza still felt it had to be his son. The helpful (and very flirtatious) lady behind the desk also mentioned seeing the child wearing a necklace much too big for him, with a collection of little charms at the end. The boy had clutched it like it had held his soul, and hadn't let anyone else touch it.

"What happened to him?" asked Philza.

"I heard he ran away a couple years ago. No one ever found him. What did you say your name was, handsome?"

"I must go now."

"Creepy lady…"

Yes, indeed.

The months dragged behind him like his wings, collecting dust and regrets and despair. Why had Wilbur been sent to London, but no one had seen a beautiful woman with white wings like great warm clouds come to earth? And where was Wilbur now? What had happened to his wings? Why had he run away? Was he still alive? Or had he been dead these past few years, fallen into the Thames the day he ran away from the children's home?

"And where is Kristin? No one knows…no one knows…"

He worked where and when he could, eventually saving up enough to purchase decent weapons: a bow and a sword. He could not stop searching, though the months became years, and he felt the weight of the world on his heart and not just his sodden wings. Every crow that followed him carried a burden as well, for he sent them out, as far as they might fly, to find news of his family. And every one came back, silent and heavy.

So he kept searching.

And then one day, one of his crows–one he had not seen for months, it had been gone so far–returned, weary and half-dead, but a message on its wings:

"Wilbur…hair like feathers…wingless boy, across the sea…land from the past…Wilbur…"

"Are you certain?"

"Hair like feathers…Wilbur…taller, older, with a necklace, but no wings…loves his music…and a country called L'Manberg…Wilbur…they call him Wilbur Soot now…"

After nursing the poor bird back to health, Philza gathered the others and followed the crow out beyond the shores of Britain, out into the middle of the ocean–or so all coordinates and maps and radar would say. But on that day, Lord willing, Philza found the mysterious land in the middle of the Atlantic. The same mysterious land from his youth where he and Technoblade shared so many adventures. Philza returned there on a mid-November night of spangled stars and soot, close to dawn.

"New country…Wilbur's country…L'Manberg…"

"Exiled…faraway with a child…"

"War…war with Wilbur's country…won his country back…poor children…"

A number of the crows circled down, into the smoke and glowing fires rising from a tattered edge of the land, off a little jutting place almost like a peninsula, split by black, frozen rivers on two sides and an inlet on another.

Another war.

The screams, the clang of metal, the smell of smoke and blood and burning souls. It didn't look as though anything had been won. Philza's insides went cold, but surely, surely not from the icy wind.

"Where are they all going? Going…they are gone…"

Then Philza realized what had caused the coldness inside him as he banked closer, the firelight and nearly full moon illuminating the faces of the contenders as they grappled with each other.

Children.

They were children down there, children fighting children, teenagers, young adults, none even yet thirty. And there–it couldn't be: Technoblade, his old ally, his majestic pink hair (longer than Philza last remembered) flying behind him as he blew rockets from a launcher at the children, swinging his sword at them with his other hand.

"Where has he been? Too long ago…"

Philza soared over them, listening to his crows, the ones which had gone on before him, now returning, and the others coming and going in frantic, panicked circles, rounding and sweeping, crying and weeping:

"Wilbur…Wilbur Soot…hair like feathers…wingless child…in the cave…hidden cave…"

"Raised a nation and won it back…now insane…about to blow up everything…though he won it back…he won it back…"

"Beautiful child, wingless child…now insane…"

"Save the child…the beautiful child with hair like feathers…go to the cave…"

"The cave…he's in the cave…"

One of the crows brought him a torn poster with a drawing on it–a wanted poster for providing evidence of the death of Wilbur Soot. Philza stared at the face, the crazed eyes, the feathery hair. He tucked the poster into his robe and came down to the large hill leaning over the slower river branch.

Then he heard the song, the one from ages past, the lullaby he and Kristin sang to Wilbur. He could not catch the words yet, but he could hear the raw, harsh edge to them, even in that gentle melody. It came up to him on that late autumn wind from behind the hill, against the front of which something like a large podium had been constructed. Above it rose the dingy form of what might have been a building–or maybe it was just a pile of wreckage in the shape of a building. Yes, that must be it. He flew to the cave, a hole so concealed by rocks and dead bracken that he might have missed it had it not been for the crows guiding him to it. Now he could hear the words, different from ones he had sung before.

"...well, this place is true, you needn't fret,

With Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo, not Eret.

A pretty big and not blown-up L'Manberg.

Ahhhhhhhh...

It's L'Manberg.

Ahhhhhhh...

It's L'Manberg.

Ahhhhhhh...

It's L'Manberg.

Ahhhhhhh...

It's L'Manberg."

As Philza touched down in front of the entrance, he heard a the voice drop off, then begin to speak in deep, tremulous voice overcome with its own power and fear:

"There once was a place called L'Manberg…it did exist once…it did, it did…But now, the thing that I built this nation for doesn't exist anymore! It's over."

Philza stepped inside, blocking the fading moonlight pouring in with his black wings, outlining the young man standing in the recesses of the deep cave. "What are you doing?"

The man–boy more like–froze and turned; haunted, red-rimmed hazel eyes latching onto Philza. Philza's breath caught in his throat. Any doubts about the identity of this sad boy dissolved. The child from so many years ago stared back at him, older, wilder, the wings of his hair falling into his strained face.

The crows swirled just outside the cave.

"It's him! The one with the hair like feathers…"

"He's going to blow up everything he built!"

Philza sent them away.

Oh, what have you been through, my son? Where are your beautiful wings?

"Who are you?" came the breathy voice. Philza saw his chest heaving, his limbs shaking.

"You are Wilbur Soot, aye?" Philza asked in a gentle voice.

"Yes…" The boy hesitated, and when he spoke again, his voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Who are you?"

Philza did not speak again for a long moment, but took in the lost, broken child before him. He longed to bury that head in his arms, tell him everything would work out just fine, that he would take him home and that everything would go back to the way they used to be.

When we sang our songs in the music room, us three. Do you remember?

"Your father, Wilbur."

The young man's gaze flickered to the side, then back on Philza, up and down, then away again.

"You can't."

Philza placed a hand on the cave wall. He noticed large, angry words scrawled all over the inside, from charcoal or soot, most likely. "All covered in soot, he was." "Why not?"

The young man frowned, looking at the ground as though digging up some long-held but dead excuse from the earth. The words marched out mechanically. "I'm an orphan. I grew up in a children's home. Everyone told me my parents were dead." His eyes quivered up once. "And you have wings."

The chorus of the crows echoed in Philza's mind, though the birds had gone.

"Remember…do not go astray…remember…"

He doesn't want me to be his father.

"You used to have wings."

Wilbur reached a hand behind his back. "There are scars…"

My poor boy…Were they so damaged in your escape they had to be cut off?

Philza stepped closer, and Wilbur shrunk away, further into the word-riddled walls. "I am your father," Philza repeated, and Wilbur did not counter this time. "My name is Philza Goldcraft. So your true name is Wilbur Skye Goldcraft." Wilbur kept edging backward, saying nothing, no more reaction to this revelation than to a dull comment about the weather. "What are you doing?"

"I'm…about…to" Wilbur placed his hands on the rocks, curling his fingers inward.

"This is L'Manberg?" Philza gestured outside the cave, where the children were fighting, dying.

The voice lowered, almost shameful. "Yes. It's my–it was–my country."

"Raised a nation…" the crows had said.

"Isn't it still? Why do you want to blow it up then?"

Wilbur lifted his head, met Philza's gaze. "Did you hear me singing the song, the song I've written on the walls? I was just saying that there was a special place, but it's not there anymore."

"It is there." Philza gestured outside again. "You just won it back, Will." So why are they all still fighting?

Wilbur drew his hands in front of him, shaking them like he had something on them. The words on the walls crowded around him, like so many silent screaming voices, voices of ghosts not yet dead. He stared at the ground as he spoke, too fast, too close to tears. "I'm always so close to doing this–to blowing it all up. I have been here so many times, so close, so many…"

"You just want to blow it all up?"

Wilbur did not look at him. "Yes, I do. I think, I…"

Philza gazed up at the cave ceiling. "You fought so hard to get this land back." Why did you love it? Can't we go somewhere and talk? Tell me everything that has happened since I last saw you?

Do you know what happened to your mother?

"I don't even know if it works…" Wilbur mumbled.

Philza ignored that. "You're risking everything."

Wilbur took a deep breath and lifted his head, smiling a little. "There was a saying, Phil–or should I say, father." He shook his head, the smile growing, like he didn't actually believe it. "There was a saying, by a traitor, once part of L'Manberg." He let out a tiny, quivering laugh, and a single teardrop shone on his cheek as it slid down his face. " 'It was never meant to be.' " He raised his hand in a salute and leaned against the wall–and Philza realized that there must have been a trigger or a button of some kind there, because–

The rocks exploded, taking down the ceiling and everything else. Philza leapt forward, catching Wilbur in his arms and shielding him from the blast with his right wing, landing hard on his side as rock and fire ripped over them.

Sound plunged below the surface, except for the ringing in his ears. From faraway, he heard the rough, choked cry of a child, shrieking, "NO!"

Slowly, more voices joined his, far-off and panicked, except for one which kept screaming with twisted exultation, "Yes! Yes! Finally!" Philza could hear bombs still going off in the distance, screams, curses, weeping. Pain shot through his right wing, down the barb of every feather. He opened his eyes, blinking in the sharp gray dust settling around them.

The back of the cave–the front of the hill and the podium built into it–had vanished into piles of rubble, laying bare the whole of the land in the silky pink web of light threading across the horizon, no longer hiding, every mask laid bare, or so it seemed at that time. The wreck of a building above no longer even looked like anything anymore. Torrents of water from burst underground pipes poured on either side of the wrecked hill front. Down below, buildings crumbled, farmlands split as cavities opened in the earth, taking the bones with them, the inlet's gentle shores disintegrating and letting the frigid ocean waters pour in and fill the holes. A blackened ramshackle tower on the coast rocked and plummeted to its dark grave.

Philza eased himself off Wilbur, trying to keep his right wing steady. He glanced at it, saw burned feathers and blood dribbling down them. Wilbur hardly felt any heavier than he had been, even at only four, fragile, breakable. Wilbur untangled himself from Philza's hands and stumbled to his feet, stood on the now-exposed edge of the cliff in front of the dawn, swaying.

"My L'Manberg, Phil!" Wilbur cackled, so loud, the people below must have heard him, even over the explosions and rushing waters. He spread his arms wide. The light ringed him with a faint glow, casting all else in silhouette. "My unfinished symphony, forever unfinished! If I can't have this, Phil, then no one can!

Philza stood a little behind him and gazed over the hill. Between the smoke, he saw fleeing animals, horses, chickens, maybe a cat or two, and the people–the children–yelling and running, clambering out of burned-out holes, looking toward the hill, pointing, reaching for their weapons, clawing over to Philza and Wilbur, though they wouldn't be able to scale the side of the hill with all the water gushing around it, making a moat at its feet. Bloodlust filled the air, thick and noxious. The crows flapping down onto the rocky piles murmured.

"Death…they want death…so much death…"

Philza drew his shortsword. He did not intend to hurt any of the children, did not think any of them would come up here, but it was a warning. "Wilbur, stay back. They–" Wilbur now faced him, just centimeters away, eyes glassy and swimming. "Wilbur? We can't stay here. I don't think they like that you blew everything up." I can't carry him, even if I could still fly.

Wilbur leaned almost on top of him, his hands bearing down on Philza's shoulders. His gaze found his father's–wild, unreasonable, deadly. "Kill me, Phil. Kill me. Do it, Phil. Kill me."


"Dad, Dad, sing my song now! Please sing my song."


The words came out as though someone else was saying them, cracked and raw. "Y-You're my son!"

"Phil! This isn't–look–look!" Wilbur raised his arms again, encompassing the world. "How much work went into this and it's gone. Gone. There's nothing–left."

Movement fell into something like dream, vision blurred, instincts and reflexes long hammered into his unbending submission faltered, frayed, split. Wilbur grasped Philza's hand, the one holding his sword, and pulled it up, his gaze flicking to it and then into his father's eyes. Philza wrenched it away–

Right as Wilbur threw himself on the blade.


"As we sing,

Alleluia,

Stay with me,

Alleluia,

Don't you cry,

Alleluia,

Singing again,

Alleluia."


The wings came down again, hiding them both from the world of children and adults and all good and evil.

The angry shouts of the children below cut short, their gasps and cries of confusion lifting above the dust and storm of water–one voice, so agonized and stricken, Philza could not determine the gender of the speaker, rose in a single, tormented cry: "WILBUR!"

Philza still clutched the body of his son, pulling into him as if he could impart warmth to this dead flesh, heart bleeding beneath him, brain staggering in drops of blood…What to do now? What could he do? Everything he had done in the past…how many years had it been? Fifteen? Twenty? Fifty? What did it matter. All those many years had been filled with the purpose of finding his son. And now his son was dead, hanging on his own sword in a puddle of blood. Though Philza wanted to, he couldn't stay here forever, forever covering his son with his broken wings, wishing, somewhere in his heart, that he had taken the blow instead, wishing even now, he could fall on it.

Oh Lord, why? Why would this burden fall on me?

Philza drew Wilbur off his shoulder. He closed the harrowed eyes, brushed the curly dark feathers back, and kissed the pale forehead.

"I love you, Wilbur."

He laid his son on the cold ground of the cave and stood. He felt nothing, nothing but a growing hole, too big to contain. This body with the bloody wing that now stepped out of the cave, gazing at the broken land, riddled with watery craters, the heart of the little country ruptured and filling with the inlet–this was a shell, a ghost of the man once known as Philza Goldcraft, once feared as the Angel of Death.

The irony. Angel of Death indeed.

The children and animals of that land lay strewn about, numb, all of them covered in soot in the midst of the water and debris. The harsh dawn light had turned them into cold statues. One of the children caught Philza's gaze, a girl with what was probably pink hair under all the dust and ash, helping up a young man with fluffy orange fox ears. He held a hand to one of them, blood bubbling around his gloved fingers, dribbling down the side of his face. The girl leaned against him, and he held her with his other hand. She looked bewildered; he looked wrathful.

The crows whispered above Philza.

"Wilbur loved her…the other one also loves her…Wilbur, beautiful child, loved her, the one with hair like roses…"

For the briefest of moments, Philza saw someone with large white and gold wings, and for that one second, the hole filled, and he thought it was Kristin. He blinked. No, it was a boy, with pokey black hair, wandering with aimless intent, limping on a bloody leg. Kristin would never hold her beautiful cloud wings like that, shamefully pressed into the ground as though trying to make them disappear. Those wings actually looked terrible, Philza now saw, scraggily and unkempt. Did the boy not know how to care for his own wings? Philza couldn't remember having seen this young man before, though the wings still looked familiar, in spite of their ill-use. That pattern of gold on the edges…one of the captains…?

"Gambled on the wrong side…doesn't fly…wants a family…gambled on the wrong side…"

He saw two young teen boys, clutching each other as if they would die if they let go. The taller one's left arm was crimson, exposed through the broken netherite armor. The smaller boy, bandages poking through where his armor did not cover, looked like he might disappear into nothing as he leaned into his companion.

"Best friends…always together…will never…"

There was a very tall man with a blindfold; someone whose face was not visible on account of a deep black hood; a person like a creeper with long green hair; a boy in a white cloak, murder in his eyes, though his right arm was clearly beyond use. These last two stood beside a figure with a blank white face, on the other side of the biggest of the craters. No–a mask. A mask with a smiling face on it. Below the mask, the person grinned with terrifying abandon.

So many children–so many strange children.

Who were these people? Which of them had been Wilbur's enemies? Which of them had been his friends? Why had he betrayed them?

And there was Technoblade, also on the other side of the crater, drawing a black skull from under his cape.

"Techno has withers…will destroy them all…he was betrayed…death for all…"

Philza lunged onto the utmost edge of the cliff, almost forgetting he couldn't fly. "Get away! Get away from him!" he screamed at the children. "Get away from Technoblade! He's got withers! Get away!"

The taller of the teen boys, with pale curly hair, looked up at him, his face dirt- and teared-stained. "Wot?" His voice cracked and shuddered, trying to find its way around the words and rubble. "Wot are withers? Who are you? Why do you look like Quacki'y?"

"Technoblade! Stop!" Philza continued yelling. "What are you doing?"

I can't fly down there; I'll have to climb…

Technoblade looked up, shielded his eyes. "Hey, it's Philza!"

"Looks almost the same as the last time we saw him…so many years ago…almost the same…no change…"

"Techno, don't!"

Having acknowledged his old friend, Technoblade lowered his gaze, fixed it on the teenager wobbling along the rim of the chasm toward him. "I'm sorry, Phil, but you kinda came in the middle of somethin'."

The child crept closer. "Techno, what are you–"

Technoblade returned the skull under his cloak and raised the rocket launcher. "You stay right over there, Tommy Innit!" He swung the launcher around at the others who had also started approaching him from around the flood and ruin. "Y'all stand back!"

The child–Tommy–stopped, his hands held high. Blood dripped down his left arm, dotted his boots. "Techno, stop right now! Stop now! I know you're angry–I know–I can pull it! Whatever you're going to do, stop it! Please! Remember the deathless land! Dream, Dream, where are you? Don't you see–"

The girl leaned away from the fox-eared boy, and lifted her voice. "What are you doing, Techno?"

"You stop it now! You don't 'ave to do this! You don't 'ave to do this!" Tommy cried.

"You listen to me right here, Tommy!" Technoblade snapped. "Do you think you are a hero? Is that what this is?"

Oh no, he's going to monologue.

Philza knelt to start climbing down the hill, but then thought better of it. He straightened and watched, listened, tried not to think, tried to think.

Techno will stop at nothing.

I can't leave Wilbur.

"They want blood…he has withers…"

Tommy stared at Technoblade, trembling. "I just wanted–I just wanted L'Manberg…"

"You wanted power," said Techno. He did not lower the launcher.

"I didn't! I just wanted–" Tommy glanced at the others. Philza could see tears glistening in his eyes, marking lines in the grime on his cheeks.

"Tommy, you just did a coup. You just did a hostile-government-takeover and then immediately instilled your friend as president," Technoblade jabbed the launcher in the direction of the other teenager, "but that's still a tyrant, Tommy!"

"He's right…" the small personage with wings murmured.

"That was Wilbur…" the girl started.

Tommy said nothing, just stared at Techno, a mask of incomprehension on his dirty young face.

Technoblade's voice evened out, and his hand slipped under the cloak again. "But the thing about this world, Tommy…it's that good things don't happen to heroes. Let me tell you a story." The child narrowed his eyes, but he listened intently. "A story of a man called Theseus. His country–well a city-state technically–was in danger and he sent himself forward into enemy lines. He slayed the Minotaur and saved his city. You know what his people did to him, Tommy?"

Tommy frowned. "What did they do–?"

"They exiled him. He died in disgrace. Despised by his people. That's what happens to heroes, Tommy."

"But he saved everyone…" the small teenager beside Tommy squeaked.

"Theseus…we know him, we know…"

"The Greeks knew the score," Technoblade continued. "But if you want to be a hero, Tommy? That's fine, that's fine…" His hand under his cloak shifted. Philza tensed, felt for his bow.

Tommy started forward, stopped at the edge of the crater. "Technoblade! What is–! What are you–"

"Don't do this, Techno," Philza called down. "Don't–"

"We're so close! I'm not the hero!" cried Tommy. "What are you doing?"

"You want to be a hero, Tommy?" Technoblade grinned, almost looking like Wilbur had just minutes earlier.

"My L'Manberg, Phil!"

"No one's the hero! We've got L'Manberg for each other!" Tommy wailed, voice pitching higher. Fresh tears spilled down his face. He leaned forward, hands reaching out, trying to grasp the last shreds of familiarity, of understanding.

"Please, we can rebuild–" wept the girl.

"You want to be the hero, Tommy? Then DIE LIKE ONE!" And Technoblade swept the skull out from under his cloak and threw it–but wait, there were two, two black skulls thrown into the air at Tommy and the others across the chasm. They only jumped back at first, though Tommy grabbed hold of the little teenager beside him and wrapped his arms around his companion's small body, protecting him. But then the skulls burst into white flame, seeming to grow bigger as they rose into the air in billowing smoke and fire, each one sprouting two more skulls beside it and an empty white rib cage below. They glowed and trembled as they flew to and fro, shaking faster and faster until they both burst into flame again–white, orange, black. They stabilized, shedding their white skins, and exposing their black bones underneath.

A horrible hollow sound like a rushing wind laced with a gurgle deadened the air, embedding in the eardrums and curdling the stomach. The empty jaws of the skulls opened and spewed flaming black things–skulls, like the ones hurling them. The air snapped, and whatever trance that had held the children in place before vanished, and they scattered, screaming, helping each other along as they slipped in puddles of water and blood, some pausing to fire their bows at the creatures. Technoblade guzzled a couple potions and chased those attempting to bring the withers down, laughing as he yelled, "Don't think I'm just goin' to let you kill my withers!"

The beasts crashed through what buildings still stood, turning the ground orange and red with their skull missiles. The huge half-finished building across the river crumbled to dust, along with the mighty trestle bridge. The towers banking the little country rocked, the near side of the eastern one shattering as a skull hit it. The few horses left–not dead or run away–ran about in a frenzy, masterless and directionless. A couple of the people tried catching them, to no avail.

"They'll die, the poor children…beautiful children…all dead…"

Philza watched, as if from far away. His heart ached, and he wished he could go somewhere to be alone with his son, but right now the children–Wilbur's children–needed him. They would never escape both the withers and Technoblade.

Please protect them. Be with them. Be with me, I pray.

A stray skull launched by one of the withers sailed over the larger river gorge, instantly pulverizing the little shack just off the path beyond. He heard Tommy cry, "Aw, man, our tollgate!"

Philza strung his bow and shot at the left-hand wither.

The arrow lodged in its crooked spine. The beast swung around, screeching as it rushed at him. The crows, which had been watching and whispering on the rocks around the hills, flew up in all directions, raining black feathers behind them. Philza darted into the remains of the cave, though it would provide little protection–even if the roof and walls hadn't been blown up. He glanced at Wilbur, still lying on the ground, then up again as the wither leveled at the top of the hill. Philza jumped onto the debris along the sides and fired again, but missed as the wither swerved away from him, one of its skulls sending a smoking head his way as it turned. Philza just barely dodged it, getting the end of his cloak singed. He jumped down the front of the hillside, sliding and tripping on loose stones and fragments of ice, splashing through the right-hand waterfall spilling from the pulverized pipes. The wither remained hot behind him, still firing skulls. It took all of Philza's battle training to not pitch over the hill and break all his hollow bones on the earth or get swept away in the gushing water.

He reached the bottom, half jumping, half flying through the water onto relatively dry ground. Everything ached, especially his wing, which throbbed down the arm into his shoulder.

Another explosion rattled the frozen air, boulders and dust filling the cracks. Philza dodged the rocks, looked back up, and saw that the wither–now floating off in the opposite direction–had blasted the top of the hill completely off, and the last of the water from the pipes dribbled down the rocks. The cave, the cliff–it was all gone.

No, Wilbur, Wilbur my son…

Philza forced himself to focus on the task at hand and find Technoblade. There–the legend crouched over the fox-eared man, who was curled into a fetal position and covering both his ears as Technoblade stripped him of his iron-plated armor.

"Techno! Stop this madness! What are you doing?" snapped Philza. His crows gathered around him in excited circles.

"The Blade has returned! Remember us, Techno?"

Technoblade straightened and turned. His fair face–indeed, almost unchanged since Philza remembered fighting alongside him in his youth–remained emotionless. "Phil, now is not the time. You don't know what's goin' on."

"I know you shouldn't be hunting down these poor people like this, regardless. I imagine this has something to do with your ideals of anarchy, am I right?"

Technoblade looked up at the ashy sky. "Uhhh…"

"Because it seems like it almost always comes down to that. That, or you can't stand being the second-best in anything."

"Phil, the thing is–"

"And don't you go blaming it on the supposed blood-thirsty voices in your head."

"Didn't you say your crows–" Technoblade let out an exasperated sigh. "Philza–" He turned his blade on Philza. The fox-eared man scrambled away. "Stay away from me," Techno hissed.

Philza hoisted his sword. Arrows were reserved for true enemies. "I will not let you hurt these children."

Technoblade let out a hollow laugh. "They're not children, Phil. They're monsters, just like us."

"Monsters…children with masks…all monsters…all children…"

"They don't remember…where are they going?...no King's…"

Philza met his blade with a clang. They spun around, equally matched, never getting ahead of each other.

Just like old times.

Above them, the withers shrieked and disgorged their skulls while the children ran and or tried to fight, all in vain. Almost everything–buildings, tenements, landmarks, farmlands–had been destroyed. If someone did not stop them soon, the beasts would kill everyone there as well.

"I don't have time for you, Phil!" Technoblade cried, and shot away after the small person with wings. His victim could barely run on account of his shattered leg, but then he came up to the brink of the biggest craters, teetered, and toppled over the side with a cry, barely catching the edge with one white-spotted brown hand. "TOMMY!" he cried. Techno jumped in after him, and the boy slipped under.

Philza started after them, when a blur of purple and ashy blond hair streaked past his peripheral vision. It was a young man, one he had not seen before, chasing after the withers with a netherite bow. Above them, on a pile of debris, stood the tall man with the blindfold–but no longer wearing the blindfold; now holding the cloth aloft like a little banner.

Philza scanned the area to see where the small winged person and Technoblade had disappeared. There was Techno, climbing out of the crater, now chasing the little teenager who had been leaning against Tommy. Philza ran over to the crater. There lay the winged boy, trying to crawl out as the hollow filled with choking water running red with dawn. Philza extended his arm. "Here," he called.

The boy looked up, tears blotching his face, eyes foggy and distant, but he managed to reach up and grasp the offered arm. Philza pulled him out of the crater–nothing to it– and onto the frozen ground, the boy collapsing into a shivering, gasping heap. After a moment, he lifted his head and nodded, his gaze floating over Philza like someone beholding a vision. "Th-Thanks."

Philza bent beside him, a thousand sounds, a thousand voices clawing for attention, but he focused on the boy.

"Poor wingless boy…"

Stop it.

"Are you all right?" Philza whispered.

The boy nodded, still gasping. "Yeah–yeah."

"Don't try to walk with that leg." Philza ripped a strip of cloth from his robe. "Can you sit up?"

The boy nodded, and struggled into an upright position, wincing. Philza wrapped the cloth around the boy's leg. As he worked, he glanced back to see where the boy with the ashy blond hair and the netherite bow had gone. There–almost below one of the withers now. Not a boy, not quite–his youthful face looked simultaneously haggard, and then Philza noticed his brilliant violet eyes fixated on the withers.

Those eyes…Where is this boy getting regeneration potions? Why is he taking so many? Does he realize if he keeps this up he'll be dead within a year?

Philza tied off the makeshift bandage and watched, as mesmerized as the others on the outskirts also spectating.

The boy took out a vial from the pouch at his hip and drank all of it, then another and another, his eyes glowing brighter, and his hands gripping his netherite bow harder. One of the withers turned on him, and suddenly charged, spitting flaming skulls. The boy dodged them all with inhuman swiftness–one of those potions must have been for speed. Still running, he fired his bow–and Philza saw the metal cord attached to the end of the arrow. The arrow lodged into the wither's middle skull, dead in the center of the forehead as it whirled by.

Philza looked around for Technoblade, to see if he would try to stop the boy, but he was now preoccupied with the child, Tommy.

The purple boy detached the cord from his bow, wound it around his wrist and pulled, running the opposite way now. The wither bellowed, but tumbled after him on the leash. The boy jerked the cord sideways, swinging the wither into the other one, and a billow of black, putrid smoke exploded around them, darkening the frozen sky with roiling clouds. They both fell in a screaming, flaming comet, plummeting into the depths of the biggest crater, now almost full of the inlet water. The earth trembled, fireballs hurtled into the sky like rockets.

The boy stopped running, shaking as he unwound the cord from his wrist, striped with red lines, and glanced once at Philza.

"Terrible boy, terrible…mercenary…evil doings in dark places…poor child…"

Philza caught the unhinged, feverish look in those dead violet eyes, and his stomach tightened. The boy removed a small water skin from his belt and took a deep draught. His body convulsed, and he doubled over. Philza started to rise, but the tremors subsided almost at once, and the boy straightened again. He cast a sideways glance at the man with the blindfold, gave him a curt nod, and took off running.

"That was too cool," breathed the small winged person. He waved after the boy. "Thank you!" he called.

Silence fell like the ash raining on them all as snow.

Philza became aware of his pounding heart, his own trembling limbs, the coldness settling into his veins. He stood, bones and muscles cracking, and dropped onto a boulder–or maybe it had been a pillar, once upon a time. He leaned over his knees, stared at the blackened ground. His wings sagged behind him, carrying more weight than they ever had before. The right one still ached with pain, almost unbearable, but mostly drowned out in the overwhelming numbness covering Philza. He could hear his crows, perched on his head, his shoulders, on the rocks strewn around him, whispering to each other, but he ignored them. A tentative shuffling caught his attention and he looked up.

The child–Tommy–clambered over the debris to him, no longer wearing armor. He stopped a few meters in front of Philza, staring up at him with wide, haunted, red-rimmed eyes. Philza vaguely wondered where Technoblade had gone.

"Wha-What 'appened?" Tommy croaked. "I saw you up there with Wilbur. Wot 'appened? Where is 'e?"

Philza sucked in his breath and looked the child in the eyes. "Wilbur Soot is dead."

"In this deathless land."


And that is it for Tell Me a Dream Book 1: Of a Deathless Land! Thank you to everyone who has read, followed, favorited, and reviewed our story. VAERYS and I are currently working on Book 2: Of a Child's Requiem; we are hoping to finish it by this summer, so keep an eye out for it!

May God bless you in your ways,

Unicadia and VAERYS