#otsats

Tommy sets his jaw, glaring up at Technoblade. "I'm going to get Wilbur back, Techno."

Techno nods with an exhaustion that doesn't suit him, arms crossing as he leans against the door frame. He isn't in his usual gear that he wears when he leaves for his godly duties, instead dressed in a simple cotton shirt and loose pants. A long pink braid, frayed and falling apart, drifts over one shoulder. Tommy almost delays himself, beginning to reach out to rebraid it, but he pulls himself back. "It's just- he's not going to be the same, Tommy. You know that. You saw him last time."

"I know." Tommy stamps one foot, the cloak rippling around him. "But he's still my dad, Techno, it's still Phil. I have to try."

"It's not just him," Techno warns gravely, and Tommy feels a shiver run down his spine.

"I know that," he repeats wearily, head dipping. "I know."

A heavy hand settles on his shoulder, and Tommy looks up from the floor to meet Techno's burning eyes, managing to keep from shying away from the ever-roaring fire within them. "In that case, I will not hinder you on your quest." He leans forward, pressing a light kiss to the top of the teen's forehead. "May the deities and gods grant you sight and blessing, and may your quest reap the rewards you seek."

Warmth pricks at Tommy's eyes, the source from the same grief that had been sitting in his throat for weeks or years, and he grunts to hide the emotion welling up in him. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the sight, Blade."

Techno scoffed, ruffling Tommy's hair as he steps back. "Bring him home, Tommy. Go where I cannot go, find who I cannot find."

Tommy tilts his head slightly, and for a moment he isn't sure who they're talking about anymore. Techno has that faraway look in his eyes again, the one that holds memories from centuries of a friendship that was now splintered and left to wither.

"I will," he whispers, the words sticking in his throat. There is no more dawdling. There is no more point in stalling, there is nothing left to say.

Tommy leaves Technoblade in the threshold of their home, and goes where the Blood God cannot.

Frostbitten leaves crunch underfoot as he passes the treeline, hands drifting along snow-covered bark as he traverses the forest beyond the fields of their property. The trees grow more dense as he travels, tall aspen trees stretching their empty arms across the bleak, cloudy sky. Further overhead, crows dot the treetops, their caws echoing in the otherwise silent forest.

Tommy turns, listening to their cries as he stumbles blindly through the forest. Banking left, the caws grow louder, and two crows balance on a lower branch, peering at him with eyes far too intelligent for any normal animal. Tommy knows who these crows belong to, and it takes all his patience to find his politeness instead of attacking with barbed grief.

"Hello," he murmurs, approaching them gently. The two birds dart back, heads tilting forward as they examine him. "You know where I'm looking to go, don't you?" One caws, blinking once, skittering along the branch. "Yeah," he encourages. "You think you can show me?"

The two crows exchange a look, then look to a third as it flutters down to join them on their branch. In unison, the three birds take flight, easily weaving through the icy branches as they flutter off.

Tommy gapes, clutching his cloak around him as he breaks into a run. "Wait!" he calls, struggling to keep his head up to follow the birds as he navigates the dense forest. "Wait, please! I need to know the way!"

He follows them until his stamina runs out and he staggers to a stop, leaning against a tree as he folds forward, his hands on his knees. "Oh, fuck," he gasps, chest heaving. "Fuck, no, wait, I've lost you all, you haven't-"

An ear piercing caw catches his ear, and from the sound, more crows are startled from their branches, beginning to circle in the sky above him. Tommy watches the murder, transfixed for a moment, until another caw brings his head snapping back down.

Directly across from him is a hill that hadn't been there a moment ago, a cave in the center of it sloping gently downward into what Tommy wished was merely darkness unknown.

"Right," he says, throat suddenly bone-dry. "Thank you, I suppose."

He doesn't want to enter the space, it barely looks tall enough for him as it is. The cave whistles with the wind and whispers words Tommy can't quite make out, and doesn't want to strain to hear.

But the notes lingering in the air sound like Wilbur when he sings in springtime, light and gentle in the warm breeze. It's the image of the three of them on the porch, Tommy watching Phil whittle some wood into a carved pattern as Wilbur plucks away at a beautiful melody.

Phil sighs again, wings fluttering behind him with a never-ending restlessness. His mind is a cycle of endless, meaningless thoughts that swirl like the clouds in the sky above him, parting briefly to reveal unconnected constellations that span across the dark sky.

The kitchen is barely big enough to fit his wingspan but Phil extends his extra limbs anyways, wings trembling as they brush against cabinet doors and pass the open doorway to touch upon the main room. Some of the moonlight catches on his feathers, glossy cream feathers dappled with the floral hues of light green, pink, and blue, the colors of a clear spring sky over a field of campions.

He wants nothing more than to take flight, now, soar until he finds a field exactly like that, but there will be no flowers blooming this late in the year, not without his coaxing. It is the time for deciduous trees to change the colors of their leaves from a summer green to a display of fire without the heat. A burning, brilliant showcase of shades before winter winds sweep in to douse the flames and bring bare branches and bright white snow to cover the ground completely.

Spring can not come early, nor disrupt the flow of the seasons that mortals so desperately rely upon to track the course of their lives until they no longer make it to the next turn of temperature. The Winter-Bringer flies the skies now, with his wings made of dark, opaque ice and endlessly calm disposition, for fall and winter move slowly, relentless yet patient in their arrival. Phil, in great contrast, is scattered and hasty, ready to melt snowdrifts with a flap of his wings at any second to watch bright flowers bloom under his gaze.

He has lived far too many centuries now to try and disrupt this cycle that he and Bad have fallen into, not willing to push his luck with The Balance any more than he does already.

Phil folds his wings and steps outside, pausing carefully to listen for either of his human sons' movements in the dead of night. There is silence, and so he steps outside, shivering as a cool autumn breeze rushes at him from the forest beyond. Hours left until they wake and he can fill another day with the love and care he has set aside for them, but now is no longer that time.

Outside, standing on the porch and looking out over his fields that he coaxed from the earth with careful hands, his fingers twitch. The knife sits in its sheath against his side, and he knows how trivially easy it would be to call upon Technoblade. Centuries ago, now, he could have flown into battle over Techno's head, landing his own blow as the Blood God took what was within his name to do.

Phil held his tongue to keep from cursing out The Balance aloud. It wouldn't give him anything except a visit that would fucking terrify his kids, which is the last thing he wanted. Now, he knows, that when he calls upon Technoblade that all he'll receive is a sorrowful look hidden behind the gentle smile given to the two mortal children who crowd his legs and beg for stories of grandeur and glory.

His wings catch the breeze a little as he steps out into the fields, barefoot, and he flaps them once, twice, watching the grain ripple out like the waves of the ocean. It shimmers, briefly, before settling, and Phil casts his eyes to the skies, wishing for something he can do nothing about except wait for.

Waiting, that's all a god's existence is, these days. Waiting for the moment of allowance when what was within a domain could be used or brought upon the world. Order, it was called. Balance, it was decreed. Chaos, dosed out in controlled segments, punished for being overused on a whim.

Bullshit, Phil sometimes privately thinks, when selfish thoughts crowd his mind.

He reaches the edge of the forest, casting a backwards glance at the house before departing into the treeline, forced to bend his wings to accommodate the interspersed tree trunks and bushes that crowded the forest floor. His fingers snatched leaves from the sky and scooped them up along the forest floor, feeling the cool plant matter against his fingers before he released it back to the rest of the rotting leaves along the floor. A trail of freshly green leaves followed him, from his footsteps and fingertips, turning in wandering circles until he is entirely surrounded by trees that are slowly blossoming to life again underneath his touch. They are the same leaves that thread throughout his hair, an array of flora blossoming along his scalp, intertwining with his blond locks. His coat, too, is made of those same spring-green leaves, shifting in dappled sunlight, sadly stagnant so late at night.

Around him, the animals that haven't already found shelter for slumber scamper across the forest floor, looking for a place undisturbed by a deity and his widespread wings. Crickets chirp in the undergrowth, and a few curious birds flutter along the treetops, wings beating among the leaves as they settle on branches to peer down at him from their perches above.

Soon, Phil stops underneath the stars, a spot where the trees have pulled back from each other just far enough that when he tips his head back, he can see the clouds clearing to display the stars, and when he looks around again, he can see no fields just beyond.

"Oh, shit," Phil mutters aloud, slowly realizing how far into the forest he's walked. "Where the fuck have I wandered to?"

He isn't answered so much as heard by a single crow, hopping down a few branches to perch upon a limb just a few feet taller than him. Phil meets the bird's gaze, and the two winged beings look curiously at each other for a moment, searching for more than what might meet the eye.

The crow takes flight in a blur, brushing right past Phil's cheek in a brush of wing that makes him yelp in surprise, turning his head to follow the crow's movements. "Hey!"

A few paces away, the bird waits on another perch in a different tree, still staring dead in his eyes, head tilted in clear expectancy.

Two more crows join the first, hopping on branches and the knots that jut out from various trunks of aspen trees. Phil continues to follow the first crow even further into the forest, a sense of uneasiness curling within him as more and more birds populate the trees around him, all staring down at him with the exact same inquisitive eyes, staring, watching, waiting.

It would be easy to turn around, or to fly out of here in an instant, back to the safety and stillness of the farmhouse and the two safe children that sleep within it. It would be easy to shake off the curiosity and excitement that mingles with this nervous feeling, to return to a routine of simplicity and ease.

But there is not much that Phil would consider to be beyond his knowing, these days. Now, hundreds of crows stare down at him from the trees that stretch high in the sky, nearly blocking out the orange leaves entirely as their round black bodies press together and their wings fluff out, all identical and yet Phil is certain he knows exactly which crow is the first one to appear to him, the one continuing to hop between branches as he follows, nearly dashing across the forest floor. Even more crows flutter around him as he moves, wings brushing against his own and landing on top of his striped hat or resting on his arm for a moment before taking flight again.

It's overwhelming, it's overbearing, and it's exciting. A wide, wild grin stretches across Phil's face as he spreads his arms, turning and laughing as the crows fly around him in a blur, hiding even the trunks of the trees from him now as he spins with them.

And then they're gone, off in a mass of beating wings and flurrying feathers, and Phil stands at the mouth of a large, dark cave, watching as the murder descends down into the darkness that lies below.

"Wait!" he calls, but the crows do not answer. They move as if they had never pressed their wings close to his cheeks, they move as if direct by something else entirely, they move as one.

Phil analyzes the structure of the cave, the width and angle of descent in a few quick glances. The cave is wide, and he cannot remember if he had been able to see the walls of it before, but when he looks at it again the slope is more than wide enough to accommodate his wingspan, walls consumed with shadow. The calls of the crows are growing fainter, and Phil does not spare a glance back to the forest and what rests outside of it.

His wings snap out, pastel coloring swallowed by dark shadow, and he flies, wings carrying him down in a quick descent as he takes off after the murder of crows who had led him here.

A breathless laugh leaves him as he flies again, wings maneuvering through the wide tunnels and closing to dart between smaller spaces held up by pillars of dirt and stone. He can barely see, and yet instinct takes over, following the distant cries of the crows through turns and tunnels and pausing, once, in a wide open space where a pool of water opens over a great cavern. Phil stays aloft there for a moment, marveling at the dark water he cannot see the bottom of and the ceiling he cannot reach, before taking off after the crows he can still hear, though deep inside him he knows they should be so much farther now, and he knows that they are waiting for him.

The tunnels narrow the more he flies, and soon Phil is struggling to keep his wings from brushing harshly against the sides of the tunnels, wincing as he dives through narrow gaps and struggles to keep aloft. He can no longer hear the crows, but he continues to fly anyways, pushing himself through the ever-narrowing tunnels until he can no longer flap his wings. Phil tumbles to the ground, pulling his wings against his back before standing again, staring at tunnel that waits ahead for him, barely taller than he is, and just as dark as everything before him.

Phil frowns, the sense of adventure draining from him as the mobility of his wings is restricted again. He scoffs lightly, listens out for the crows and hears nothing, and turns to find his way back out again.

Phil leans over the side of the cloud, hands pausing for a moment as he looks down. "Oh, they're fine." Phil snorts dismissively, sitting back up, and plucks a dandelion from between his third and fourth finger to weave between a braid. "Crops have their good and bad years, Techno, I'm just elevating the cycle a little."

"You're makin' them freak out, is what you're doing," Techno says gruffly, but Phil is certain he can hear the edges of a smile in his friend's voice.

"They'll live," Phil says with a wave of his hand. Looking back out below, he can see a wide field of crops, weeds overtaking a flourishing section that threaten to choke brightly colored vegetables, overwhelmed with growth before they can properly be harvested.

"I don't know, you might crush some of them with a gigantic zucchini," Techno replies dryly, shifting sideways so he's looking over the sky, same as Phil. Their shoulders, one covered with a fur-lined cloak, the other bare, press together as Phil's wing extends to cover Techno's back. Half-finished braids are left to unravel as their attention is drawn to three mortals wrestling with a particularly stubborn patch of weeds that are in the process of creeping up upon a patch of tomato plants.

"That'd be their own error," Phil says lightly. "Nothing to do with my for their own idiocy."

"Though you wouldn't be opposed to it happening," Techno points out.

Phil laughs, bright and clear. "You're right about that," he says, cheery tone fading to a sort of fondness as he watches the tomatoes be rescued by a crowd of now-triumphant farmers. "But see? They persevered."

Techno joins him in laughter as one of the younger ones begins to toss the red crops in the air, passing them between his hands with ease as if they are toys, and not the very sustenance they need to continue living. "They tend to do that," Techno agrees as the two of them settle once more. "Inventive, definitely a word I'd use to describe them."

"Needly," Phil offers teasingly.

"Overwhelming," Techno counters. "Stubborn little shits."

Before he can reply, Techno's attention is drawn away, blood-red eyes flashing as the blade he has left beside him begins to drip an identical crimson.

Phil peeks over Techno's shoulder, barely able to keep excitement from bubbling through his voice. "What's this, now?"

Techno picks up the knife by the hand, turning it over in his hand and allowing beads of the blood of a stranger to fall onto his hand. "Another war," he says solemnly. "Someone's callin' on me."