Beyond the village where Wilbur lived, there was a forest, lush and green and overflowing with life. And beyond that, there were mountains. They towered above the rest of the world and the tips of their fang-sharp peaks were usually shrouded in clouds. Hidden somewhere near the top was a house that was older than most people alive, and most people would never see it.
Few people climbed up those mountains, and nobody ever climbed down. Wilbur could have understood why even if it wasn't for the danger that came with going near the treacherous terrain. Not much lived up there; there were tiny silver fish in the water and of course there were insects, but other than that, the only creatures populating the mountain range were corvids. Thousands of dark-feathered birds with beady black eyes, watching from everywhere at once.
Beyond the mountains there was a forest, growing in a wall-like ring around Wilbur's home. And beyond that, there was a village. One just small and insignificant and well-hidden enough that the man who was the reason that mountain range stayed desolate might just take six years to find it.
Philza Minecraft had been one of the last living elytrian soldiers before their extinction. The war that killed the rest of his kind had been started by humans, as a lot of awful things were. You'd think, of all species, the ones that were basically just humans with wings would be safe; and the reason humans wanted them dead so badly is because they were. Elytrians had more land and power than most non-human races, mostly due to living in high-up places that were dangerous or impossible for many creatures to venture into. But they were also very similar to humans; they were a strange anomaly, having almost entirely human bodies apart from pointy ears and some bird-like features, including large wings covered in black or grey feathers. And like humans, they had gained power using intelligence, craftiness and their ability to create tools and inventions for themselves. But unlike humans, they had natural defences of their own, being their wings and claw-like nails, which made them a serious threat to the seemingly harmless species' absolute power and control over the world. Humans had failed to oppress them like they had all other races that weren't their own, and they had tried, and tried hard.
A powerful human ruler had launched a war on the species, with propaganda portraying what they called 'crowmen' as black magic users because of their connections with birds and corvids, and as power-hungry beings who wanted to take the world for themselves and topple the humans from their rank as the most powerful race. As more human societies allied with the first and the elytrians fought back fiercely, it spiralled into a war between two whole species who resented each other deeply for its duration. And Wilbur's father, Philza, was in the middle of it.
He was a strong and noble fighter, and once his people had been driven out of everywhere but the mountain range where he'd been born, he led whatever was left of the elytrian race as ferociously as he ever had. They were few, weak and afraid and surrendering hadn't helped – this war wasn't about stealing land or showing power, it was about wiping every last elytrian out; and the young, elderly or injured weren't spared, so all that was left were the toughest soldiers and a few of their family members who they'd managed to protect, and even they were wearing thin.
Father had never told them how it happened, but when the war was soon to end with the humans victorious, he had died. Death had come to him in the form of a tall, beautiful human woman – ironic, really, for him to fall in love with the form of a species who had destroyed his own. The God of Death had taken a liking to the tragic and furiously loyal soldier, and come to visit him in Limbo. The two of them had talked and then Death had come again, and again, the pair falling for each other a little more each time they met. Until one day, she offered to let him out.
Philza was given a second life, and even knowing his species would be long dead, he took it. He arrived in the living world to the mountains he'd lived his whole life in barren, and returned to his house to find it burned to the ground. Bit by bit, over months, he rebuilt it from pieces of other destroyed homes and Death visited him frequently with gifts from human civilisations where an elytrian could never go. And after many, many more years of this, she gave him the gift of immortality. Well, near immortality. The ability to die over and over and return the same, with hundreds of lives that she could replenish any time to keep him alive forever.
Centuries passed with just the two of them, and as the Elytrian War became old history, humans would sometimes attempt to climb the mountains. Philza was furious. How dare they just come wandering back to the place where they slaughtered his kind? There were thousands of elytrian graves here, and the reason they were all dead were using it to go sightseeing. He had grown bitter from centuries of loneliness and the grief of his whole race being murdered, or maybe the isolation was starting to drive him insane. Whatever the reason, any human who made it far enough for him to see them would be killed.
The God of Death had two sons, born minutes apart but nothing alike. The older looked like nothing the world had seen before, with a short, broad snout and red-pink fur. The younger had pale skin, dark eyes, pointy ears and two black, feathered wings on his shoulders.
Wilbur could remember his whole life from the day he was born, the day he met his twin brother. Details were blurred and everything got less and less clear as he thought back further into his past, but each individual day from the past several years was clear in his head. And he remembered seeing his brother for the first time. He remembered noticing how different they were, but still knowing who Technoblade was, even without the words to think it.
Later on he also saw how different the two of them were from everybody else. Technoblade was born with unnatural strength and durability, and though Wilbur's power took a little longer for his parents to figure out, it became clear when he learned to read and speak long before his brother did – Wilbur had a mind more powerful than a mortal's. He'd always felt a few years older than he was and Mother and Father had seemed amazed by how quickly he'd learned, while his brother was far bigger and stronger than most children his age.
Despite being such opposites, Wilbur and Technoblade grew up very close. They weren't allowed far from the house, but loved to play in the little part of the mountains they had access to. The house itself was small and rickety, and dozens of crows were usually visible everywhere; some of them knew Father was safe and lived there most of the time, aware that they'd be provided with a warm place to sleep and leftovers from his dinner to eat. Others would come and go, finding whatever scraps they could around the house before soaring back off into nowhere. Father had names for most of them, and apparently a few had once died and been resurrected by Mother. That sounded odd to Wilbur; she'd always talked about how valuable gods' powers were and he felt she would have laughed at him if he ever had so much sympathy for an animal, but he also knew that before he and Techno were born, Father had lived alone for a long, long time, and the birds had probably been his only friends. He could definitely imagine his mother using her magic in such a silly way if it was to make Father happy.
Wilbur always wondered what was beyond the forest that protected them like a towering wall, and he dreamed of flying over oceans and deserts and gliding between trees, having the whole sky all to himself. He knew he never would, but even what was further down the mountains, away from where he and Techno were allowed to play was intriguing to him.
That dream was a little more sensible because he might actually get to see it when he was older, but he'd learned very early on that he could never leave the mountains, not with his wings marking him boldly as an elytrian. There was a good chance Techno wouldn't either, considering how different he looked from any other creatures. At least that meant they would always be trapped together.
"Get down here, Birdbrain," Techno would call as Wilbur clung to the top of a sharp, craggy rock while he tried to scramble his own way up.
"Birds are smart," Wilbur retorted from his perch, kicking some rock fragments down to land on his brother. "Smarter than pigs, I bet."
"And all they do is flap around and scream and get scared by everything," Techno sneered.
"I'm not scared of you," said Wilbur loftily.
"You should be!" Techno roared as he reached Wilbur and tackled him from his spot. Wilbur managed to wriggle free and fly to the branch of a nearby tree far out of his brother's reach, both of them laughing.
"Boys!" A voice called from back home, where Father was standing by the door waiting for them. "Time to come inside!" He gave them a faint, affectionate smile as they turned to him.
"Race?" Wilbur offered, and Technoblade grinned at him and sped off toward the little house without answering. Wilbur flapped clumsily from the branch to follow him and the two headed home on wings and hoof-like feet. As always, Techno was already there when Wilbur reached the door.
"I could have won if you hadn't cheated," Wilbur said, slightly out of breath.
"I didn't cheat," Techno replied. "And I would have won anyway."
"I bet I can beat you next time," Wilbur argued as Father took them inside, "If I get real fast at flying."
"Ha!" Technoblade laughed haughtily. "You can try, Birdbrain."
The mountains were their own little world, safe from everything outside. And safe was exactly what they needed to be, because along with Father they were all that was left of elytrians after the war, and unless other gods had any secret half-mortal children hiding somewhere, they were most likely the only demigods as well. Mother often wasn't there, but when she visited she would always tell them about how big a responsibility it was having immortal blood. They'd both known their whole lives that they were the last of their kind and the world didn't know they existed, and that they were always to stay within the mountains where Father could find them to keep safe from humans; the selfish, violent species that had killed the rest of the elytrians and were never, ever to be trusted.
But there were no humans here, and if there ever were, Father could protect Wilbur and his brother from them. They were alone and hidden, but safe; they stuck together and trusted nobody else.
It was when they both turned five that things started to change. On their fifth birthday, Mother came to visit and led her sons outside. She brought them to a wide, flat tree stump where a frantic magpie pulled at ropes that tied its ankles to the roots. The bird squawked when it saw them approach and hopped into the air, flapping its wings wildly in a futile attempt to escape. Father, who had been waiting there for them, poked it with one clawed finger and growled, "Sit still."
The twins were guided to stand in front of the trapped magpie, who was now determinedly chewing at its bindings. Wilbur couldn't help but feel bad for the poor creature, and he wondered what this could possibly be for. Mother pulled out a small knife and placed it in Wilbur's tiny hands. "Kill it."
Wilbur looked at the knife in his palms and wondered if he understood. "The.. the bird?"
"Yes," said Mother. "You're a demigod of death. If you want to be a good one you can't be squeamish about killing."
Wilbur watched the bird continuously, pointlessly try to free itself. It made sense, what she'd said. Did it? Who did she want him to kill, and why? Who was there to kill up here? And whatever she was trying to teach him, why was he practising it on a helpless animal?
"Go on," Father encouraged him with a hint of impatience in his voice. "Your mother will bring it back right after. You have nothing to worry about, all we're asking is to see what you can do."
Wilbur closed his eyes and breathed, gripping the knife tighter. It's just a bird. It can't be that hard, I can do this. But those tiny black eyes were so smart… This wasn't a mindless animal, this was a being who thought about things, and right now it was thinking about him. It looked at him with those weird, intelligent eyes, expectant and afraid, as if it too was waiting for him to take its life.
"I can do it," said Technoblade calmly from behind him. Wilbur handed him the knife. Techno stepped in front of Wilbur and before the terrified magpie could react, held it to the ground with disturbing strength and drove the weapon into its chest.
The bird struggled only for a moment and choked a spurt of blood out of its beak before falling limp on its side. Mother yanked the knife out of its abdomen, causing more blood to spill from where the blade had been, and smiled at Techno. "Very good."
Wilbur watched in bewildered horror. This didn't feel right. Was this what Mother and Father were training them for?
Don't cry, he reminded himself, but he had to fight hard not to, looking at the bird lying dead and blood-drenched on the stump, its black eyes frozen in its terror. Don't cry, don't cry, they'll only be more mad at you if you cry.
His parents had been strict, and taught them from birth that they needed to fight for themselves and not get too attached, that sympathy couldn't be wasted and they needed to be strong to survive. That had made enough sense to him, but this creature was defenceless and scared, what good could it do to kill it?
Mother held out her hand and a little red heart shape floated above it, glowing gently. She pressed the new life into the magpie's body and it twitched, its wound stitching itself together until it was intact, then stood up. It immediately cawed loudly and tried to fly away again, clearly shaken by being stabbed, thrown into whatever kind of Limbo a magpie went to, and then immediately pulled out and placed in front of its killer again.
Mother gave the knife back to Wilbur and said, "Now you try again."
Wilbur managed to catch the magpie out of the air and it screamed louder and beat its wings furiously against his fingers, squirming to try and get free. "It's okay," he whispered shakily, stroking the feathers on its head. "Don't be scared."
"What are you doing? You're meant to kill it, not comfort it," Father spat. Wilbur forced himself to ignore him and kept petting and talking to the petrified bird until it stopped struggling, still shaking silently in his hands. Swiftly and quietly, he picked up the knife from the ground and drew it across the animal's neck.
It began flapping and wriggling again but it was too late; blood was already bubbling from its throat, and after a few seconds it was still. Wilbur placed it gently on top of the stump where it had been and put down the knife.
"Disappointing," muttered Father, and Mother produced another life and brought the bird back as terrified as before, clearly just as displeased with him.
"Are we going to set it free now?" asked Wilbur.
Mother laughed cruelly. "No. We're going to keep using it for practice, until you don't feel bad for it anymore."
Wilbur felt sick. They were going to kill that bird again and again, for how long? Until Mother decided they were good enough? Until she'd stripped them of any sympathy?
"Next we're doing battle training. Follow me," said Father, and began heading home without waiting for a response.
Wilbur couldn't focus on training, but he knew Technoblade would have beaten him just as easily anyway. He couldn't stop thinking about the poor bird still tied to the roots, and didn't stop when he went to bed either.
Why did they want me to do that? Why were they so mad at me when I didn't? he stayed up wondering. Why did Techno do it? Why was it so easy for him? Is there something wrong with me? Is there a reason we have to learn this? But it all felt so wrong. He couldn't be the one being unreasonable, could he? But then were his parents not the role models he'd seen them as? Did his brother really care so little about an animal, about something that thought and felt like he did?
Wilbur couldn't stay up thinking about it. He got out of bed silently when he was sure Technoblade was asleep and looked for a light he could take outside. Candles sat on the windowsill; that would do. He took one and held it out in front of him as he found his way to the front door. He had to drag a chair all the way from the dining room and stand on top of it in order to open the door, and then wandered out into the dark.
It didn't take him long to find the stump with the magpie nestled in the grass next to it, pulling its bindings taut, and when he did he set the candle down and grabbed the ropes around its ankles. It woke up at his touch and once again began cawing and trying to escape.
"Shhh!" Wilbur hissed. "Stop it! I'm trying to help you!" He reached for its bindings multiple times but it hurled itself out of the way, and he began to worry about its squawks waking somebody up.
"It's alright, I'm not gonna hurt you," he said to it, hoping it would calm down like it had before, but it was no use now. The bird knew he'd killed it, he couldn't possibly make it trust him again.
Instead he grabbed it and tried to wrangle it so he could get the ropes off, but it kept squirming and managed to escape his hands a few times. When he finally got a firm hold on it, he inspected the ropes around its ankles. The magpie had already chewed on them so they thinned and frayed slightly, but he still couldn't break them with his fingers. He tried to loosen the knots but had no clue how; he wished he had the claws that Father and most elytrians had, but even just with his human fingers and short, blunt nails, one eventually came loose.
When its left leg was free Wilbur lost his grip and again, the magpie launched itself into the air pointlessly. He caught it again and kept working his fingers around the rope confining its right talon until it was untied as well. The magpie clawed at his fingers before he let go, then flew away without a moment's wait. Its black feathers quickly melted into the rest of the night, and after a moment it just looked like distant, floating shards of white, as if the moon had broken into pieces. Wilbur felt a little sad watching it go, though he couldn't quite pin down why.
"Goodbye," he muttered to the dark, as the pale flecks faded just like the rest, and the bird disappeared into the mountains.
Father was furious, as Wilbur had expected, and so was Mother when he told her during her next visit. Mother had always preferred Technoblade anyway, but Father had seemed to quite like Wilbur – even if it was just because he looked like an elytrian – and that incident along with Wilbur's pathetic performance in future training had definitely secured his brother's place as the favourite.
Father had found a replacement for the magpie Wilbur had set free, this time a raven who was bigger and blacker but had the same clever dark eyes. Sometimes they'd cut it open to show where all its bones and organs were and which spots would hurt the most or kill it the fastest when stabbed, but mostly, it was to teach them not to feel sorry for the creatures – and when they were older, people they killed. After that all the days became the same; Father taught them how to fight, about the history of the world and the abilities and weak points of different species, and when Mother visited she'd evaluate what they'd learned and take them both outside to each have a turn killing the poor raven, just to bring it back to life so it could die again weeks later.
Wilbur and Techno also had separate lessons where they practised whatever their power made them good at – for Wilbur it was trying to memorise or guess or find things. That was the only time the two of them had to be apart, but Wilbur almost preferred it; ever since their fifth birthday, ever since seeing him drive a knife into the helpless creature's beating heart, he couldn't see his brother the same way. Especially since Technoblade seemingly still had no problem with killing the new bird, and kept finding increasingly gruesome ways to do it; slitting its belly open, driving the blade further down its throat until it stopped moving, snapping its neck or crushing its ribs in his hands and not even touching the knife.
Wilbur always did better in the lessons that involved knowing and remembering things, and would have taken a thousand more history lectures over being made to battle his brother so he'd learn to fight. But Techno was smart as well, and did much better than him in anything that involved fighting, which was not Wilbur's greatest strength; in short, his brother could do everything he could and a hundred more things he couldn't.
That same year, Wilbur and Technoblade's younger brother was born. Tommy didn't have wings and didn't look like a god; he looked human apart from a short tail and a few black feathers in his hair. He was tall for his age and thin like Wilbur, and looked very ordinary aside from his elytrian features. And while the abilities Wilbur and Technoblade had inherited both emerged fairly early, their parents tried again and again to figure out what Tommy had gained from his immortal heritage while he was a toddler. And aside from looking more human, like Mother's disguise, than elytrian like Father, he seemed almost like he had no immortal blood in him at all.
He was also rowdier than either of his brothers had been and always finding ways to get himself in trouble, which often involved talking back to Father when he already was. Wilbur had accepted long ago that arguing did no good and all he could do was sit quietly and keep his mouth shut, but Tommy never really seemed to learn. It was painful to watch and a little confusing to Wilbur, who had spent all his life doing as he was told and just assumed that's how it worked for everyone, but he was also silently impressed by the tiny child's bravery when he himself had never been able to stand up to their father like that. And a part of him that he tried to bury down under years of lectures about listening to orders actually liked Tommy a little for not mindlessly following every word they said, and sometimes seeming like he understood right and wrong better than they did.
Their parents were clearly getting frustrated with how Tommy's immortal blood had seemingly given him nothing and often took it out on him, and his oldest brother wasn't much better. Technoblade would play too rough and call him weak or useless and all the things Mother and Father clearly thought about him, so as Wilbur and Techno kept drifting apart, he became a lot closer with Tommy. That situation certainly didn't improve when Tommy turned five and faced the same test Wilbur and Technoblade had. The two of them hadn't been allowed to watch, but Mother and Father had ushered him inside quietly crying and rubbing his eyes, with small scratch marks on his face and a deeper cut sliced across his nose bridge.
"Wilby!" he cried as his eyes brightened up and he immediately ran to hug Wilbur.
"Tommy," Wilbur replied with a bit of surprise, wrapping both his arms and wings around his brother. "Are you okay?"
"They took me outside and there was this bird tied to a tree and I had to cut it open!" Tommy rambled, his words tumbling over one another. "And they said it's so I learn to not feel bad about killing things but when I asked them why I needed to kill things they got really mad at me! OOWWW, stop touching that!" Wilbur brushed the red scratches with his hands. They were clearly from Father, who must have hit Tommy and ended up catching him with his claws in the process. "Sorry," Wilbur said quietly, pulling his hands away.
"You two, get ready for battle training," Father snapped. Wilbur let go of Tommy, took one of his little hands in his and walked him to the training hall. It was an empty room where voices bounced off the walls in eerie echoes, which were lined with different weapons and pieces of armour. Crows flapped in and out of the open doorway and perched on the equipment with their eyes on the brothers like an expectant audience. Technoblade appeared silently, seeming to come out of nowhere, and stood in a line beside his younger brothers. Mother took three simple wooden poles, two of which were as long as a man's body, and the third only a little bit shorter.
"I can fight Tommy first," Wilbur volunteered. Technoblade was already larger than Father and could easily snap the bones of a child Tommy's age, and Wilbur didn't want his little brother's first training session to be against him.
"You'll all be fighting each other," Father said sternly. "All three of you against one another at once."
Wilbur hardly managed to keep the fear off his face. "But they're so much bigger than me!" Tommy cried in disbelief, and Wilbur winced. "How am I meant to-"
"Don't argue," Mother said as she handed each of the boys a wooden pole, giving the smallest to Tommy. "We've had enough of that today already." She cast a deadly look at her youngest son. "You'll face opponents twice your size and strength in a real fight, and many of them at once. You need to learn."
Wilbur wanted to wrap his wings around Tommy again to shield him, but knew that would only get both of them in more trouble. He'd been fighting Techno for years and had learned to use his smarts to his advantage, memorise his brother's moves and make his muscles move as quickly as his brain did, hitting all the vulnerable spots right when they weren't guarded. He was a decent fighter, but Techno was quite literally built for combat, and Tommy was tiny and had never fought even a fake battle in his life – the idea of letting him be thrown into a free-for-all with someone who practically was twice his size and strength, as well as having much more training, made Wilbur's stomach uneasy.
Mother and Father stepped back to watch and Tommy looked up at Wilbur with frightened eyes. Wilbur looked back and let a bit of his own sadness and fear creep through his expression, before Father raised a hand and called, "FIGHT!"
As Father's voice reverberated around the training hall, the first thing Wilbur did was swing his weapon up in front of Technoblade's, knowing he would strike first, positioning himself between him and Tommy as he blocked the blow. Tommy hid behind Wilbur as he grappled with Techno, managing a hard hit to his stomach and two more to his sides but not much else, and getting many more blows thrown back at him.
Then out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tommy run from behind him to bat repeatedly at Techno's legs with his pole. It looked to do absolutely no damage, and Techno pulled his own weapon back to strike.
With barely any thought Wilbur dove and grabbed Tommy in his arms, taking the blow himself and lifting both of them into the air with a few strong beats of his wings. He winced and faltered with an irrepressible groan of pain – his back had been hit hard and for a moment he wasn't sure if he could fly, he could only be glad that he had taken the hit and not Tommy. Wilbur hovered with Tommy in the air for a moment, who was trying to wriggle free while shouting, "Hey! Let go of me! Let me fight!" Techno was still glaring up at them from the ground and Mother and Father ordered him to stop protecting what was meant to be his other opponent. Usually he would have listened obediently like he always did and always had, but something didn't let him, something that felt protecting Tommy was more important than his parents' approval. He flew up to the ceiling, still with Tommy in his arms, and clung to a chestplate of yellow-grey chainmail hung near the top of the wall. A crow who had already been sitting there lifted off at the last moment with a squawk of protest.
"What's wrong with you!?" he called down to Technoblade furiously. "A hit like that could have knocked him out, or worse!" Techno scowled up at him, his anger covering up his shame well, and started to open his mouth to argue.
"Wilbur, come down from there now," Mother ordered. "And stop defending Tommy. Don't be a coward."
Wilbur wished that just once he could have Tommy's bravery, or a fragment of it enough to protect him. But yelling at Technoblade in front of her and flying when he wasn't supposed to was one thing – one still quite terrifying thing – and directly disagreeing with Mother was another entirely.
He lowered himself and Tommy gently to the ground, where Mother and Father both stood looking displeased. "Technoblade, you need to learn to control your strength," said Father. Wilbur hated how much gentler his voice became when he spoke to Techno.
"Yes, Father," Technoblade answered obediently, the same way they always had to when he gave them an order.
"Wilbur, stop being soft," He continued, all the hostility back in his voice again. "Tommy needs to learn to fight for himself, losing and getting hurt is the only way he'll learn to handle it. You'll all be fighting alongside each other in the future, but you can't afford to protect him like a helpless child all the time. If he finds himself alone on the battlefield and can't defend himself, it'll be your fault he's dead." The last words came out slowly and coldly, or maybe it was just the chill that crept along Wilbur's spine. Wilbur helping Tommy in training couldn't really lead up to him dying, could it? It still wasn't right, making a child so young fight two opponents so much bigger and stronger than him alone… but if this was the only way he'd learn, was it right to let him?
It didn't matter anyway, it wasn't like they cared what he wanted. Or what was right, for that matter. He stopped himself from sighing and said in the strongest voice he could muster, "Yes, Father."
Father turned finally to Tommy. "And Tommy, stop cowering behind your brother."
"But I can't fight either of them!" Tommy cried. "And I did stop cowering! I tried
to fight Techno and it didn't do anything, and then Wilbur took me away before I could keep trying!" He was standing up with his chest puffed out like he was trying to look bigger than he was, despite being clearly close to tears.
"Just do it again," Mother dictated. "All of you for yourselves this time."
They all did as they were told, and by the end of it Tommy was spotted with bruises and bleeding in a few places, and Wilbur had needed to stop him several times from falling head-first into swords or clubs or spiky metal armour on the walls. After eating dinner while Mother evaluated all their battle abilities – as expected, Wilbur was squashed in the middle between his overachieving twin and his weak, rebellious younger brother – that night was the second time Wilbur snuck out of his and Techno's room, this time to visit Tommy in his. Father had offered countless times to separate them – or more accurately, to give Technoblade his own room and lump his two inferior siblings in with each other – but he didn't seem to mind, and of course, it meant nothing what Wilbur wanted. He didn't hate sharing a bedroom so much either, but he felt sorry for Tommy alone in his tiny room at night, and it made sneaking out much harder having to check that Techno was definitely asleep and wouldn't notice him leaving.
Wilbur managed to smuggle a rag and a pail of water to Tommy's bedroom. He knocked quietly, hoping he was still awake. Silence greeted him and he sighed and turned his back. He should have figured Tommy would be asleep by now, he was an idiot to have gotten his hopes up.
"Hello?" a tiny voice called when he was a few steps through the hall that connected his room to Tommy's, so soft he could have imagined it. He padded back to the door as silently as he could and opened it cautiously to poke his head in. Illuminated by dim orange torchlight, Tommy sat up in his bed and blinked tired blue eyes at him. "WIlbur?" he mumbled drowsily. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to visit you," Wilbur whispered, putting down the rag and pail and coming to stand by Tommy's bed.
"Why?" asked Tommy, rubbing his eyes. "Are you allowed to? How late is it?"
"About midnight, I think," said Wilbur, with a glance at the one small window in Tommy's room. "Usually I can tell by looking at the moon through my window, but I can't see it from yours."
"Wow," Tommy breathed. "I don't think I've ever been up at midnight before."
"That's because kids our age aren't supposed to," Wilbur said to him with a grin. Tommy smiled back but then looked away with a worried expression. "Yeah, Father's gonna be real mad at us."
"He… doesn't have to know," said Wilbur slowly. It was difficult convincing himself of this, too, having spent so long doing what his parents said unquestioningly.
Tommy looked up at him wide-eyed. "We can do that? Do stuff he doesn't like and just not tell him?"
"Yeah," Wilbur answered. "Other kids do it all the time, just promise you'll keep it a secret, okay?"
"Yes!" Tommy exclaimed in a loud whisper. "Yes, I will, I promise I will!"
Wilbur couldn't help laughing. "Alright, I trust you." he took the pail of water and the rag he'd left in the corner of Tommy's room and carried them back to his bed. "Besides, it's not like we're hurting anybody. I'm here to help you, actually."
"Help me with what?" asked Tommy curiously.
"You got pretty scratched up in training today, right?" said Wilbur, kneeling next to Tommy's bed. He dipped the rag into the water. "I brought something to make your cuts feel better."
"How's that s'posed to help?" Tommy asked as he held out his arm and pulled the sleeve up to his elbow, revealing a red scratch on his forearm.
Wilbur gingerly reached out to wipe the scratch and Tommy pulled away quickly with an indignant yelp as soon as the rag touched it.
"Hey, it's alright," Wilbur said gently. "I'm just trying to clean it. It'll only hurt a little."
Tommy hesitated, holding the arm with the scrape on it to his chest defensively, but then slowly held it out again to Wilbur. He winced and squirmed while Wilbur tried to clean the wound, all the while going "Ow!" and jerking his arm back, but they managed to finish without too much trouble. After that he cleaned the scratches on Tommy's face from Father's claws, and moved on to anything else that was open or had bled or could get infected.
"Feel any better?" He asked, and Tommy inspected all his sores. "I think so."
"Good," Wilbur said with a smile. "I'm sorry about training today. I didn't want your first session to go like that."
"It's okay," Tommy said sadly. He paused. "What did you mean when you said 'or worse', though?"
Wilbur remembered his words, and Tommy looked at him a little frightened. "Do you think Techno could have killed me?"
Wilbur got a lump in his throat. "Well, yes, maybe," he said softly. "He hurt me a lot, and you're a lot smaller than me, so it could have been much worse for you. Especially if you fell and hit your head."
"Do you think he knew that?" Tommy asked.
Wilbur wanted to say no, but Techno seemed smarter than that, and he hadn't looked nearly as guilty as someone who had just almost killed their little brother – by accident. "I don't know. But I don't think he meant to," Wilbur answered him. "Techno's mean, but he wouldn't kill his own brother." That was true, wasn't it?
"Yeah," muttered Tommy in the same quiet, gloomy voice. There was silence for a few moments before Wilbur said, "Do you want me to stay and talk to you any longer?"
"I don't mind," said Tommy genuinely. "But do you think you could come back again? Maybe one night?"
"Of course I can," said Wilbur with a smile, standing up and patting Tommy's head, ruffling his yellow hair. Gods, what was he getting himself into? Maybe it wasn't a good idea to come back, but he didn't think he could have said no to Tommy if he tried. Surely one more night wouldn't hurt.
He took his equipment and let the door squeak open about halfway, shining more torchlight into the room. "Goodnight, Tommy," he murmured as he turned his back.
"Night, Wilby," said a little voice from the bed, and Wilbur stepped out into the hall and closed the door silently behind him.
Wilbur came again the next night, and again, and soon Tommy would wait excitedly wide awake for him each night. Wilbur would sometimes bring the rag and pail to clean Tommy's scrapes, or bandages for especially bad wounds, but other times the two of them would just talk until Wilbur left and they both fell asleep. Mother's visits usually lasted only a day but sometimes she would stay the night at the house, and then Wilbur would have to go to Tommy carefully silent and empty-handed, because gods could hear and notice anything and Mother finding out would get them both in big trouble.
Wilbur still didn't have the courage to stand up to his parents, even when they were being especially awful to Tommy; he did all his rule-breaking behind darkness and doors, and he thought Mother and Father had actually started to like him. He'd definitely improved at fighting, although he was still stuck in second place behind Technoblade, but it felt good seeing them seemingly proud of him, if that's really what their smiles had meant.
It became less and less satisfying, though, as he started to realise – well, maybe he'd known for a long time. A part of him had, but it was hidden down somewhere inside of him, and he'd tried to dismiss it as him being soft and weak like they said he was. After all, he didn't know what other parents were like, his family was all he'd ever known. Maybe this was normal, but even if it was it still felt so, so wrong. Seeing how they treated Tommy, how they continued to treat him as he grew up, was what convinced him; Mother and Father weren't good parents. They weren't good people.
He was an idiot not to realise it sooner. Wasn't he meant to be the smart one? Wasn't he meant to take care of Tommy, not spend his whole life going, 'oh, maybe they just beat us and make us fight each other because they want to make us strong,' while his little brother lived in misery? And shouldn't he do something about it? But what? They'd never listen to what he had to say, Tommy had proved over and over that his input didn't matter to them, and Techno was endlessly loyal and obedient and didn't ever seem bothered by what Mother and Father did – what reason would he have to, anyway? And it wasn't like they could ever leave home; the mountains were treacherous and Tommy had no wings to fly down them with, and neither of them had the clawed nails made for climbing and clinging to rocks. Plus Mother and Father would know every inch of the mountain range by now, so there was nowhere here they could hide.
But then, there was a whole world outside the mountains bigger than Wilbur could imagine, one he'd always dreamed of exploring…
Wilbur shook off that thought quickly. Imagine, two elytrians wandering out into a world that thought they were long dead with no idea how to survive it – they could be killed on sight, have their wings or tails cut off to be sold… maybe humans would think they'd been hiding out since the war and torture them to find out where their base was.
But it had been centuries, maybe things had changed. Maybe humans didn't slaughter other species anymore, maybe they weren't all as malicious and power-hungry as Father said…
No, no, no. It was too dangerous, even if the world welcomed them with open arms and a grand parade. Getting down and out of the mountains alive and unseen would be near impossible, and Wilbur had to suppress a shudder just thinking about what Mother and Father would do to them if they were found sneaking out. They were still children and the world was still too vast and dangerous to venture into alone, not to mention the butterfly effect that could come from the whole world knowing elytrians were still around. There were a million reasons it just wasn't possible.
But Wilbur kept thinking about it. And the more he thought about it, the more it tempted him. Seeing the world; being normal kids with no expectations hanging over their heads, no tests to fail, no parents to disappoint, no great big murderous destinies lying ahead of them… they could go anywhere they wanted, they could travel the world or find a peaceful town to live the rest of their lives in. Everything would be theirs, nobody would tell them what to do or who to be. It all sounded like his dreams from his earliest childhood, the ones he'd always known were impossible. But what if they weren't? If they could get down the mountains, if they could find out what the world was like and how to survive out there…
Okay. But if he was going to do this, he'd have to learn a lot first.
Creeeaak. Wilbur opened the door as quietly as he could, just wide enough to slide through before closing it again. As usual, Tommy was awake waiting for him.
Wilbur was fifteen now, and Tommy was ten, and over the years Wilbur had been working on his plan, figuring out exactly how to make it work and if it was possible at all. He'd poked through all the books in the house for information, but they were all old as time and probably couldn't tell him anything about the world right now, so he'd timidly requested for Mother to bring back more the next time she visited one of the human cities outside the mountains. And to his surprise, she had.
"Hey, Wilbur," Tommy greeted him, sitting up at his arrival.
"Hey." Wilbur carefully kept his voice down. They couldn't be found out tonight; this visit was important, too important to take any risk of Father hearing them.
"You bring anything?" Tommy asked. He looked Wilbur up and down and seemed to droop slightly upon realising he wasn't carrying anything for his wounds.
"Yes, actually," said Wilbur, and reached into his pocket to produce a small glass bottle with a shimmering, bright-coloured liquid in it.
Tommy seemed to take a moment to believe his eyes. "Did you steal that?" he breathed, eyes round and fixed on the bottled potion, which looked even brighter and more magical in the light of the torches. "Father's going to kill you."
"I made it," Wilbur whispered proudly. "I've been figuring out how to brew them for a while, and I tested this one on myself, so I know it works." He remembered the shallow cut made in his arm that had healed over perfectly from one sip of the potion.
"Is… it for me?" Tommy asked incredulously.
"Of course it is," said Wilbur, handing over the glass bottle. "But you should only have a small sip, just enough to make everything stop hurting. Father will definitely notice if all your wounds disappear overnight."
Tommy removed the cork and held the healing potion to his lips, and instantly all the sores from the past few days of training looked better. Today Father had torn open the old wound clawed across his nose again, and it too returned to a small pink scar the moment Tommy tasted the potion.
"Woah," he said, holding out his arms in front of him. "It worked!"
"I could keep making them for you," said Wilbur. "Not every night though. I still have to steal these bottles, and I don't want to make Father suspicious."
"That's fine," Tommy said. He was still distracted feeling all the spots along his arms that had been hurt, but looked up to smile at Wilbur. "Thanks!" He said, passing the bottle back to him.
"No problem," Wilbur said with a responding smile, slipping it back into his pocket.
A moment passed before Tommy immediately swapped moods, falling backwards onto his bed with a heavy sigh.
"Hard day, huh?" Wilbur asked him.
"Same as it always is," Tommy said. "They get mad at me for existing and then I do everything right to make up for it and then they ignore me all day because GODS FORBID they admit I'm good for anything." Tommy looked and sounded more sad than angry, and Wilbur could understand; he felt sad just watching what things were like for Tommy every day, and his description hadn't been far off at all. Three years ago they'd finally put him down enough that he stopped arguing, just bowed his head and did as he was told. He still laughed and talked as much as ever around Wilbur, but sometimes he hardly seemed like his loud, spirited self at all. He'd improved in battle, too, though he still wasn't incredible; so after all his efforts it wasn't difficult to tell that Mother and Father mainly disliked him simply for being, effectively, a mortal.
"You are, though," said Wilbur. "And they know it, too. They know it's unfair, the way they treat you. You haven't done anything wrong to make them be that horrible to you, they just don't like who you are, so they refuse to see anything you've done right."
"That sure makes me feel better," Tommy mumbled gloomily.
Wilbur sat down next to Tommy's bed. "I'm sorry," he said, hoping it sounded genuine. "You shouldn't have to go through all this. Nobody should."
Tommy didn't respond, just turned over onto his stomach and lay with his face buried in his arms. He was silent but Wilbur could tell he was crying, and put a hand gently in his hair.
And Wilbur just sat with him for a while, neither of them saying a word.
Here, he realised. I have a window. I can tell him.
"I had an idea," Wilbur blurted. "What if we ran away?"
Tommy lifted his head and stared at him as if he was insane. "What? But- how? We can't- where would we go?"
"Well, we won't be able to hide anywhere in the mountains," Wilbur explained, "but there's so much more out there. I've been thinking about it – we'd have to hide the fact we're elytrians, but I don't think it would be that hard, we could pass for humans easily enough. And then we could just go and live on our own, no one would tell us what to do, we'd be free." Wilbur had an involuntary note of wistfulness in his voice when he spoke the last words. Tommy was still looking at him like he was speaking another language. He should've known he'd react like this – it was a crazy plan, but some part of Wilbur had stayed optimistic that Tommy would be as tempted by freedom as he was. And that, of all people, he'd understand that it was torture living with his family; giving Tommy a better life, a better home, and a real childhood before it was over was half the reason Wilbur wanted to escape, after all.
"First of all, it wouldn't be hard to disguise ourselves as humans if you didn't have two massive, obvious wings that only one species have ever had," he said.
"I have a plan for how I can hide them." Wilbur wasn't sure he should tell Tommy his solution just yet, and was definitely sure that he'd be much less inclined to leave once he knew.
"But that's insane!" he argued. "If anyone found out, we'd be dead! And how are we even meant to get there anyways?"
"Finding our way down the mountains would be hard, but I could fly down part of the way and probably help you climb. We'd have to leave at night, obviously, when Mother isn't here. Then once we're out of the mountains we cover up everything that would give us away as elytrians and go to the nearest settlement. Things have changed a lot since the Elytrian War, I think, so we could find somewhere that's safe, where not everyone hates non-humans. We'd still have to hide what we are just to be safe, but it would be good living somewhere more accepting, right?"
Tommy looked a little shocked at how thorough Wilbur's plan was. "How long have you been planning this?" He asked.
"Three years," said Wilbur, and Tommy only looked at him more bewildered. "Look, you don't have to do it. And if you want to stay here, I'll stay with you, I'm not leaving you alone. But face it, our lives are awful here. We don't have to do this for the rest of our years."
"Yes we do!" Tommy protested. "Don't you think I want to be anywhere else? We can't leave because it's dangerous out there, especially for us. At least here we're safe."
"I don't want to stay here in this prison my whole life," Wilbur said, pacing in circles. A shiver crawled through him as he realised that it could be longer than that – it could be forever. When they were older, would Mother give them more lives like she'd done with Father? If Wilbur didn't get out of here soon, would he be trapped in this desolate hellscape for centuries just like he had been?
Would he turn out like his Father, bitter and hateful, all his grief and misery rotten and fermented into constant bubbling fury?
"I'd rather take a risk – risk my life for a chance to live it somewhere else," he continued, trying to shake off that thought. "There's so much more to the world than we're allowed to see. So much they've been hiding from us – they stole the world from us, Tommy."
"Humans did that," said Tommy. "They're the reason we can't go anywhere. Mother and Father at least care enough to keep us alive." Wilbur could see that he still hadn't fully let go of the 'all humans are evil bloodthirsty killers' idea that Father had put in their heads so long ago.
He sighed, and turned to one of the biggest reasons he was so desperate to leave. "Tommy, you know what they'll make us do if we stay here much longer."
Wilbur's sixteenth birthday was less than a year away, and Father had promised that was the age he'd face his first real battle. People didn't often climb up the mountains, and the number had dwindled more and more as they realised that nobody who did made it very far. That was because of Wilbur's father – he hated humans sheerly and violently, and what enraged him more than anything was seeing them venture into the old elytrian territory where the last few dozen soldiers, including himself, had been killed.
That was the destiny his sons had laid out in front of them: learn to fight so they could kill in his name. And likely in Mother's as well, because she was more than happy to take any life she wanted for the sake of her power or her family or simple vengeance, with increasing goriness depending on what they'd done. And if Wilbur was still in the mountains when he reached his sixteenth birthday, he might have to become a murderer before he could become a man. Not to mention Tommy being set up for the same thing a few years from now.
Tommy looked like he saw the fear in Wilbur's face, and finally understood. "I'll think about it. But you're gonna need to tell me exactly how you plan on us surviving."
Every night from then on, Wilbur and Tommy would discuss their escape plan. They had to be much more careful than before about making as little noise as possible, and not say a word about running away when Mother was home at night. Wilbur studied a map of the mountains for hours to find the safest way down and told Tommy all his ideas of where they would go and how they would hide their feathers and how to make sure they were never found.
Tommy had agreed to go after several nights of indecision. And after many more of planning, they had found out all they needed and were ready to leave. Wilbur's sixteenth birthday was in four days, the day he and Techno were meant to move up in their training and at some point, do the first of what would be many times circling a section of the mountains with Father to make sure no humans were invading. Years would often go without any unwanted guests to the mountain range, but if his luck was especially bad, failing this escape tonight might mean having to kill the first unfortunate hiker Father could find.
"Tomorrow night, have everything packed by the time you can't see the moon," Wilbur had instructed Tommy in the lowest whisper he could manage. "I'll arrive with all my things at midnight and we go as soon as I'm there. You remember the plan, follow my lead and don't say a word until we're outside."
That was last night, and midnight was approaching steadily. Wilbur had put everything he'd need into a bag and ran over the plan at least fifty times in his head. In the time before he had to be in Tommy's room, he only had one thing to do.
So he woke up Technoblade.
His oldest brother was near impossible to move once asleep, but at least at night he could be sure they wouldn't be heard, and Wilbur felt he should say something to Techno before he left. They didn't talk much anymore, because frankly he was on track to be about as awful and violent as their parents, especially since in just a few days he'd be sixteen and ready to go on his first mission. But Wilbur believed he wasn't quite so far-gone yet, and he wouldn't have turned out this way if he hadn't been born, raised and encouraged to kill. And Wilbur's sentimentality seemed to have gotten the better of him, because he still held a tiny frail hope that he could make Technoblade see who Mother and Father really were, in exchange for his perfect life and his future as a god's warrior and everything he'd ever known.
Technoblade woke up with a confused grunt and opened his eyes just enough. "Huh?" he mumbled. "...Wilbur?"
"Get up," Wilbur said in a low voice.
"I don't see why I'm takin' orders from you," he replied, propping himself up to look Wilbur in the eyes anyway. "Some people are tryin' to sleep. What do you want?"
"I want to talk to you." Wilbur tried his best to keep his voice steady and his face neutral.
"Wow, I haven't heard that in ten years," said Technoblade drily. "After all this time, what's so important it can't even wait till morning?
"Do you really think what Mother and Father are doing is right?"
Techno looked at him confused, maybe suspicious, and furrowed his brow. "What are you sayin'?"
"Making us fight when we can barely read," Wilbur listed. "Torturing animals for training. Killing people for coming into the mountains. Having children just so they can be killers too."
Techno blinked at him. "It's too early for you to be this confusin'," he grumbled. "All they're teaching us is how to be strong and fight for ourselves. We're demigods, we can't afford to feel sorry for every little creature we have to hurt."
"We're children," said Wilbur. "We should have gotten to have a childhood. Tommy's only ten and he has to fight every day, when we're sixteen we might have to murder people, do you really not see anything wrong with that?"
"Bein' a demigod comes with a weight." Techno raised his voice and sharpened his gaze. "What I'm hearin' is you're too weak to carry it."
"What about all the people they've killed?" Wilbur was letting his own voice become dangerously loud. "What about their families? How many lives do you think they've destroyed?"
"Human lives," Techno snarled. He rose to his feet and glared down into Wilbur's eyes. He wasn't much taller than him, but still had a way of making him feel small, and his black eyes looked full of fire with the torches' light trapped inside them. "Human families. The people who murdered our ancestors, who still destroy everything between them and more power. How can you feel sorry for them?" He took heavy steps toward Wilbur, driving him back towards a wall. "Mother and Father are above us, just like we're above mortals. They are our superiors and we bow to them and obey their orders. They know what they're doin', I trust them. Maybe you should do the same instead of pretendin' you know everything."
"I know that it's wrong to make a child hate himself for not being able to fight from the moment he's born," Wilbur snapped. "Like you did. You're as awful as they are, you ruined Tommy's life."
"Tommy is weak, like you," Technoblade spat. "You're both traitorous cowards who don't know your place. I know mine, and soon enough I'll reach it. Mother will make me immortal, and I can stand next to her as an honorary god. I don't need you weighin' me down, Little Brother."
Then it's a good thing we never will again.
Techno turned away from him and Wilbur reluctantly went back to bed. It was well past midnight when he was sure his twin brother was asleep and crept off into Tommy's room.
Despite his late arrival, Tommy followed the plan perfectly and neither of them made a sound as they snuck out of the house. Wilbur held a flickering torch above his head and guided Tommy down the slopes and crags outside, with whispered instructions now being their only conversation. After a while of climbing Wilbur worked up the courage to say, "Tommy, before we get there, I should tell you something else about the plan."
"What is it?" Tommy asked without stopping.
"What I'm going to do about my wings." Wilbur hadn't wanted to explain this, and Tommy had eventually settled for the promise that Wilbur knew what he would do and he didn't need to worry. But he knew he should say something before it happened.
"Oh, yeah, how are you gonna hide them?" asked Tommy.
Wilbur breathed in. "I'm not."
Now Tommy did stop, giving him a confused look.
"There's no way for me to cover them. I've thought about it, the only safe option is to get rid of them."
"You don't mean-" Tommy's own feathers on his head ruffled and his eyes opened wide. "You're going to cut them off?"
Wilbur nodded. He felt sick to his stomach thinking about it, removing his wings felt no different to losing an arm or a leg or an eye, but he'd thought in circles about it for months and was sure it was the only way. "It won't be soon. I'll do it as late as I can, once we're down the mountains and don't have any more climbing to do."
"I don't want you to do it at all!" Tommy cried, raising his voice dangerously high. "There isn't any other way? Why didn't you tell me!?"
"I didn't want you to worry," Wilbur whispered. "I'll be alright. I promise."
"NO! I don't want to go if it means you have to do that to yourself!" Tommy yelled.
"Keep your voice down!" Wilbur hissed, ducking and pushing Tommy's head down, half-expecting a second pair of black wings to come flapping out of the dark to find them. He looked up and the house was as still and quiet as it had ever been; It was unlikely anybody would hear Tommy from here, but if they did… "Please, leaving means more to me than that. I'll be fine, we can't just give up after all this."
Apparently Wilbur's unguarded, desperate expression had done its job, because after looking at him for another long moment Tommy turned away and answered, "Okay," and the two of them climbed in silence for a long time after.
The sunrise couldn't have come soon enough. For one thing, they could actually see where they were going and didn't have to worry about monsters – They'd narrowly dodged several arrows from bow-wielding skeletons last night – but for another, to think that they had made it through the first night of travel made survival not seem so impossible anymore.
Wilbur and Tommy took a rest in a relatively well-hidden grove to eat and sleep after climbing all night and part of the morning, and woke up to hot sunlight beamed in their faces like fire. It was summer, but it never got very warm up in the mountains and they weren't used to the heat. Though, as they came further down it warmed up, and by noon that day they were in territory where Wilbur had never been before on his supervised trips with Father and the summer heat was beating down on them harshly.
Ahead was a stretch of sunny yellow gorse, which looked far too happy for a plant that could stab your eyes out and skewer you alive if you stepped too hastily down a rocky slope. Worse yet, there didn't seem to be any easy way around it – the ground dropped abruptly down into a sheer cliff in front of them and below was an ocean of needle-sharp thorns and deceptively pretty yellow flowers. On both sides were ground steep enough to easily send Tommy tumbling down with one slip, and rocks that didn't look any more inviting than the spiky bushes ahead of them.
In other words, they were trapped.
"I'll see if it's possible to climb down," Wilbur told Tommy, before lifting off into the air and sailing to one side off the cliff. From the sky it looked risky at best; steep, uneven and covered in rubble that could slip out from beneath their feet any time it wanted. Sharp, jagged rocks jutted out of the earth, and if Tommy did stumble, it was a long way down with plenty of places to fall.
Wilbur wheeled around in the air and swooped to the other side. It looked safer than the first, made out of orderly ledges of rock and clay, almost like a staircase. Wilbur wondered if once upon a time, it had been a staircase, back when this whole mountain range was a great elytrian civilization. He cautiously landed on a ledge and it broke off instantly under his feet, taking several more and a lot of rocks and dirt with it. Wilbur caught himself and jumped from the broken step to hover in the air above the crumbling ancient stairs, just before they could drag him down as well.
Nope. Not a good way around.
He landed next to Tommy, still standing patiently on the cliff gazing down at the gorse bushes.
"Did you find a way around?" He asked, looking up as Wilbur landed.
"No," Wilbur said with an apologetic shake of his head. "It could be possible, but neither side looks very safe."
"We'll, what's our plan B?" Asked Tommy. They both stared out at the yellow blossoms for a moment, stretching out to the horizon.
"Do you think I could fly you over?"
Tommy blinked at him. "Maybe. I mean, it's worth a shot, isn't it?"
"I'll see if I can carry you first," Wilbur said, holding out his arms. Tommy wrapped his own around Wilbur's middle and Wilbur held on to him as tight as he could. "You'd better not drop me," he said, shutting his eyes to brace himself.
Tommy was young, but not that much smaller than Wilbur. Not small enough that he'd happily carry him across a field of very spiky plants, but it was their best option at the moment.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
Wilbur flapped his wings and both of them lifted off the ground. Tommy let out a surprised shriek. He was lighter than Wilbur had expected, but still a whole person, and Wilbur wasn't sure just how far he could take them both. He flew in a wide semicircle away from the cliff's edge and didn't falter. "Okay, I think I can do it. Do you feel safe enough?"
"Yeah, I think so," answered Tommy.
"Alright. Then hold on tight."
Wilbur beat his wings hard and veered toward the cliff. The mountains whooshed past them and the wind was loud in his ears. Tommy screamed and Wilbur missed a wingbeat and wobbled in the air.
"Are you okay?" He called. Although they were closer than they'd ever been, the wind made it hard to hear much else.
"Uh, yeah," Tommy said, though clearly rattled. "But wow, we're high up." He looked down at the flowers, whose jolly yellow colour didn't seem so inappropriate now, as the wind brushed Wilbur's feathers and the sun shone hot and equally cheerful above them. Wilbur was trying to focus his whole brain on holding onto Tommy and keeping his wingbeats even, but he couldn't push away the elated feeling of freedom – this is what had been stolen from them, what they'd never have been able to do if they'd stayed up in the mountains.
"Alright, well try not to scream unless you're falling," he called to Tommy.
He fanned his wings out and let himself drop lower, slowing his pace, and far off beyond the forest he caught a glimpse of dark green water, rolling and crashing against itself in flurries of white foam.
The ocean.
Wilbur had dreamed so much of the ocean when he was little, about soaring over its surface, diving into the ice-cold tides from the air. He realised with a jab of regret that he wouldn't be able to; once he left the mountains, he'd never be able to fly again. The sea was still beautiful, though, and he still looked forward to seeing it up close.
Wilbur spotted bare, rocky ground not far ahead and tipped his wings to arrow downward. "Okay, I'm gonna have to put you down soon," He warned Tommy, who braced himself so Wilbur could shift his arms to hold on to his brother's. He let Tommy dangle for a moment as they approached the earth, and only let go once his feet were firmly on the ground.
Wilbur looked up, to all the ground they'd covered and the house's silhouette.
Mother and Father will have noticed we were gone this morning, he contemplated. Which means they're up there looking for us now. Maybe we should try to stay hidden while we walk.
He gazed up at the only home he'd ever known, that he was now leaving behind, for another moment. And then down, down, down at wherever he was going now. The house in the mountains already seemed distant, but they still had a long way to go.
It took three days of climbing to reach the forest wall, and every day Wilbur could feel the threat of what that meant looming closer. He tended to an arrow wound in his arm and Tommy had been scraped and bruised falling down a steep ridge, but luckily those had been the only injuries they suffered on their travels. They slept in a small crevice between rocks and shrouded with trees where the forest and the mountains met – well, Tommy slept. Wilbur stayed up as he had every night and waited.
He didn't need to warn Tommy about what was to come. Both of them already knew all too well, and Wilbur had seen it in his expression before he went to bed. Wilbur had hugged Tommy tight with his wings wrapped around him – they didn't do that often anymore, but there had been some silent agreement that they had to before Wilbur lost his wings forever.
He wished he'd had more of a chance to fly while they were coming down the mountains, like they had over the gorse field. He'd wanted to soar all the way up to the sun while he still could, but going too high would mean risking being seen by Mother or Father – or worse yet, by somebody outside, who didn't know about the surviving elytrians.
Wilbur knew it had to happen soon; this was the last night he'd be hidden enough to safely exist with his wings, even for just a few hours in pitch darkness. And he kept telling himself he'd do it, but hours had passed and the moon was already going down. Waiting much longer could mean enough light or enough people around that somebody would see him.
He pulled his bag toward himself, and fished out a small knife. The silver and gold lights of the moon and their campfire fought on its blade as he held it, staring at it, terrified of it.
Just do it. Don't think about it. Do it and then it'll be over.
That seemed impossible to do with so many thoughts scattered all over his head, all of them screaming, and 'it'll be over' didn't sound nearly as comforting as he'd expected it to.
Do it for Tommy, he told himself. He's the one who you need to protect more than anything. It'll be worth it all once he's safe.
Wilbur removed his shirt and a chill hit his bare arms and chest, and he set a rag and a roll of bandages next to him. He kept telling himself why he was doing this, why he had to do this, filling his head with nothing but the future this would mean for him and Tommy. With a shaking hand, he positioned the knife just above his right wing.
For what might have been the first time ever, he lost track of time. He had no idea how long he sat there too afraid to move the knife in his hand. He wasn't quite sure, either, what finally made it possible. But at some point he pressed his eyes shut so hard it made his head hurt, thrust his hand downward onto feathers and flesh, and a sharp, splitting pain sliced his shoulder in half.
He gritted his teeth until he heard one crack and opened his eyes to the same dark forest, this time obscured by tears. His wing hadn't come off, he realised; it was hanging. He must have cut through about half the flesh of the small part that connected to his shoulder, and the weight of the rest of the wing was pulling violently on what was left, trying to disconnect itself. Wilbur let out a cry of pain and didn't let himself think about what he was doing before he moved the knife down again. He managed a way to cut around the bone and once there was only a thin piece of flesh to slice through, brought the knife down as hard and fast as he could.
A soft thump, and a weight fell from his shoulder. He slammed the dry rag into his wound and let himself cry out again. He didn't dare look back.
Wilbur wrapped bandages around the bloody stump of his wing, and went through the same slow process again with the other. Once he was bandaged and wingless, all he had to do was get rid of the evidence. The campfire was big enough to hold one of his wings while it was folded, so he just had to try not to be sick while folding his own disembodied wing and dropping it in the flames. He sat there the rest of the night wearing a coat he'd stolen from Technoblade, one without holes cut for his wings, and watched bones char, black feathers burn away, skin and flesh turn to dark ash. He put out the fire as the sun came up and picked out bits of feather and bone from the pile of soot, and buried them in a hole in the dirt. And then he wrapped his arms around himself, and let himself cry.
When Tommy woke up he didn't say anything about what had happened to Wilbur overnight, or how red his eyes still were. Instead, Tommy just hugged him, carefully keeping his hands off the spots where his wings used to be. Wilbur found his eyes filling up with tears again.
"Are you okay?" Tommy asked quietly. Wilbur didn't answer, and Tommy didn't repeat his question. There wasn't any answer worth giving.
After that they ate and continued through the forest in silence. "I thought of a name," said Wilbur out of the blue.
"A… name?" Tommy repeated, confused.
"You know how we talked about changing our last name, to hide our identities?" Wilbur reminded him. "I came up with something. What do you think of the name Soot?"
"Soot," Tommy said to himself. "I think I like it. I mean, we'll have a while to think about it, won't we?"
"Depends on how long we take to find a place to stay," said Wilbur. "Tell me if you think of anything else."
The forest itself was beautiful enough to be a home. Birds he'd never seen before, even in books, sat on tree branches chirping happily to each other. Two white butterflies floated clumsily over undergrowth that reached up to Wilbur's knees and a reddish-brown rodent with a tail the same size as its body scurried up a tree with clever little clawed hands.
And there were voices up ahead. A lot of voices layered over one another.
A couple of hours of walking took them to the edge of the forest, and by now Wilbur could see glimpses of wooden structures from in between the trees.
"You remember everything?" he asked Tommy. Wilbur had covered the pointy tips of his ears with his hair, and Tommy had plucked out his head feathers and pulled a baggy sweatshirt over his tail. (It was still very hot, they'd need to get him lighter clothes that were big enough to hide it soon, once Wilbur found a job.)
"I'm a human boy and my parents are dead, so I went to find a new home with my older brother," Tommy recited, and then lowered his voice. "And I can never tell anyone about my family, or let anyone see my feathers."
It felt awful making Tommy lie and hide himself like that. He just kept telling himself that everything would be better now that they were free.
"Good," he said, and gave his brother a quick hug, and then they emerged from the forest out into the sunlight.
"And I like the last name you came up with," Tommy said as they stepped out. "If anybody asks, I think we should use that."
The village was tiny, but bustling with activity. Its population were mostly humans, but Wilbur spotted what he thought was a demon, enormously tall with pitch-black fur.
"There's so many people," Tommy whispered. Despite being a small settlement, even the thirty or so residents here were many more than either of them had ever seen, let alone in one place. They walked in a circle that looped around most of the village; there was a market where people sold food, material and small trinkets, what looked like a school filled with children from Wilbur's age to Tommy's and even younger, and a large, boxy building he thought was a hospital.
"Um, hello?" Wilbur turned around and a boy in raggedy overalls was standing in front of them, nervously fidgeting with his hands.
"Hi!" said Tommy, his voice a mix of surprise, nervousness and excitement.
"Are you the people who just arrived here?" asked the boy. He was shorter than Tommy, but looked about the same age, and had strange multicoloured hair that was a mix of brown and a pale gold-blond. Wilbur hadn't heard of humans having hair like that before, but then again, almost everything about what was outside the mountains was new to him. "My mum said I should go and talk to you," the human said awkwardly.
"I'm Tommy," said Tommy with a smile that the other boy returned shyly. "What's your name?"
"I'm Tubbo," said the stranger, and looked up at Wilbur. He had large blue eyes that matched Tommy's almost perfectly. "What's your name, Sir?"
"It's Wilbur," Wilbur said, and reached out to shake Tubbo's hand. "Wilbur Soot."
