#yassburger.

“...There has to be some reason.” Phil wonders aloud as he props a large log onto a stone wet from the fresh rain, readying Woodsbane on its surface in preparation to swing. With the amount of trees he chopped, it became inevitable that he’d eventually have to organize the mess. Treecapitator was nice, but it could only do so much in the way of organization.

Sneeg hums as he sits off to the side, handing off the occasional item for Crinkle to munch on– from his own inventory this time, Phil hoped. “Them having someone go rogue is pretty possible, I mean– I’ve seen it before, y’know?” Phil then adds. “There’s always some bigger force, and– and then there’s someone who wants to go against that force by getting help from outside, but…” Phil cuts himself off as he raises the axe high above his head and throws it down onto the log, splitting it cleanly in two. He immediately reaches for another log, swiping the other pieces away as if they weighed nothing and putting the new log in their place. If there was one thing he’d become from woodcutting, it was fast. Being maxed out and all– fast was the one thing he had left to be.

“...What if it wasn’t?? What if… They really only wanted you and Foolish to have them? And– And if not for an Elytra, then for what? Why wouldn’t they take it away the second you made it?” Sneeg simply shrugs. “I dunno. It doesn’t make a lotta sense to me either.” Phil sighs, zoning in on the log as he chops it cleanly once more, and then he chops another. And another. And another again. 

…What had the keepers of the realm meant when they said it “wasn’t time”?

He wondered if it was something to do with the factions like Sneeg had suggested earlier; Both him and Foolish were a part of the Kingdom, after all… Maybe that was it...? 

Or perhaps, it was due to Phil not being in a faction altogether..?

Placing another log on the stone, his eyes glance over to Sneeg. “...The fuck do you have that I don’t, mate?” He asks. He means it as a joke– he thinks that he means it as a joke. But Sneeg stands with a huff. “Look, Phil. I don’t know why this shit happened. We’re all kinda in the same boat right now.” He says defensively. “You’re gonna get your elytra eventually– this shit wasn’t fair. It’s just…”

He stares off into the distance. Something else was clearly on his mind, but Phil either didn’t particularly care right now. “...You’re just gonna have to wait a little longer, I guess.”

Phil’s grip on Woodsbane’s handle tightens despite the rain. He stares down to the last log he struck before silently flipping one of the halves on its flat end, kicking the other to the wayside. Sneeg sighs. “...I’ll leave you be for now. I gotta explain what happened to Foolish anyways, so… I dunno. Maybe he’ll have an idea of what happened.” Likely not; Phil wanted to say, but he kept silent.

Sneeg silently walks off– the only noise coming from his boots as they squelch in the wet mycelium, and his trident when he takes off into the now stormy sky. He didn’t have to look at Sneeg to know the look he was probably giving him as he left. Across what felt like a thousand different timelines, he’d seen it before about a million times over.

The apologies for his sake, the endless droves of sympathy. The sad look in people’s eyes when they said: “Oh well! There’s nothing to be done about that!”

Pity.

Every time without fail, it bore into Phil’s soul. It dug around deep in his chest until he was all but crying out in anguish, begging for it to cease, and he hated it. He hated it so, so very much.

Phil raised Woodsbane high above his head, straining as if the blade itself had hitched the loop of a halo that wasn’t there. “An angel lost his wings today.”

But they’d been lost for a long time now, hadn’t they?

“It is not yet time.”

And when would it be time?

“You’re just gonna have to wait a little longer.”

Phil’s breath hitches as he stares down at the halved log; not quite registering how his arms shook from both strain and rage as he held the axe in a crushing grip. He gritted his teeth together until his head began to pound–

–and to nobody in particular, he screamed as he swung the axe down onto the log with remarkable speed. “HOW MUCH LONGER?!” He asks, raising the axe again and barrelling down on the log once more. “HOW MUCH LONGER DO I HAVE TO WAIT?!”

And then repeatedly, Woodsbane fell upon the same log, each cut sloppier than the last as Phil hollered obscenities at the top of his lungs until his throat went hoarse. His blinding rage fizzled out into pathetic cries as he swung tiredly at nothing in particular; the log now too scattered and in pieces by then to even be truly called a log.

The cries turn hushed as he coughs and unceremoniously drops Woodsbane to the ground as he too, falls to his knees.

“...How much longer?” He rhetorically asks again, now tired and muffled as he stares to the ground, uncaring of the rain as it soaks into his clothing and frazzled hair. He thinks about what Pili had said earlier once more. Perhaps he was truly serious when he said it, but…

…An angel without wings.