Chapter Text
Let him rest longer.
He is not resting. The boy is dead. He crossed the boundary, yet he perished.
He made it out, did he not? Wemmbu made it out of Instabilis and-
That was not his goal. This does not count for either of us, escaping Instabilis and making it to Traum was not the wager's main constituent.
Do not interrupt me. Let him live.
Absolutely not-
Let him, or we both die of boredom once more.
A balance must be kept.
You shattered that balance when you gave those boys your books.
NO. You don't get to use that against me when you were the one who sent down one of your angels! Books are nothing compared to him.
One exception can be made, it should be. His story should not end here. Not like this.
...
...
One exception.
Just one.
Send your crow. Then I propose a new wager.
‘Find the boy with purple hair and broken wings’
At some point the air had gotten colder. Snow particles appeared once again, lightly covering his cloak and elytra in a sparse layer of ice. It had been days since Wemmbu had even seen proper biomes. All the abnormal block formations floating mid-air had faded into the distance. He hadn't realised it yet, but he had overshot his return to the Farlands by hundreds of chunks. Everything looked the same to him and in the midst of battle both his communicator and navigation systems had been destroyed by a stray axe swing. There was no way to know where he was, but that didn't bother him. He just needed to get as far away from spawn as possible.
It had been an ambush. A fairly successful one at that. Somehow, Lettuce had found Wemmbu just a few blocks from the Stronghold. Still recovering from his last encounter with the Law, Wemmbu's armour had yet to be fully repaired. Egg had done his best to his loot crate abilities but even the partially enchanted Netherite armour could only do so much. His orbital strike supply had been running low as well, the pair had been planning a trip back to the Farlands but hadn't gotten a chance. The journey back was exhausting, and while Egg didn't need any sleep, Wemmbu could only handle so many days of travel at a time. The long distance had depleted their travel supplies, leaving only one elytra with full durability left. Wemmbu had considered using it himself, but he much preferred his friend to have the ability to escape, especially with Egg's track record of combat. For now, he had to make do with all he had. An unenchanted axe, both his maces, a totem and his remaining few orbital strike cannon shots were all he had by the end of it. Even his armour had been swapped out in favour for the weaker diamond gear taken from the Law.
Lettuce and a few hundred Law men had found where Egg and Wemmbu had been last seen. The pair didn’t end up moving too far out. They were still in close proximity to their last known location, leading to their discovery. Despite having joined his army, Lettuce was absent most of the battle, seemingly hiding amongst the crowd for protection. For once, Wemmbu had ended up being on the defensive for much of the fight. He did his best to attract most of the attacks, letting Egg escape to somewhere nearby. It was another attempt to imprison him. Wemmbu was certain of their failure, but he knew that if they couldn’t capture him then they would surely go for Egg as their next target.
Wemmbu had exhausted almost all of his resources against the Law, losing more armour durability than he had prepared for and eventually finding himself with no choice but to escape. He didn't have a clue where Egg was, all he was certain of was that he wasn't present for the last few moments of that whole ordeal. Good. He wasn't sure what he could even do if the Law took Egg. If his friend was lucky, he could disguise himself as part of their army. Wemmbu's mind kept drifting, there wasn't much for him to focus on while flying thousands of blocks anyway but he needed to stay focused.
If he could just find another player, someone weak preferably, he could get a new communicator to contact Egg or MinuteTech, maybe even Jaden. He doubted he would find someone as far out as he was, and Wemmbu knew the inhabitants of the Farlands wouldn’t willingly lend him any devices. Not after he commandeered access to their orbital cannon. For the moment, he had just a few remaining charges in his inventory. Wemmbu had a good shulker or two full in his Enderchest, but he didn’t have access to one, not since he had been relying on Egg. Still, it was too dangerous for them to reconvene especially with how quickly Lettuce was able to replenish the Law, always seeming to have recruits ready. Even with their inexperience and underpowered gear, their numbers were always their greatest strength.
He could already hear it. The rumours that would be spread around Unstable, about how he ran from the Law. It was a tactical retreat, he would argue, he had done his damage and came out with his life. That was enough for Wemmbu to consider the outcome a victory.
The atmosphere was thin, he had purposefully gone higher than normal to avoid being spotted from underneath. In the state he was in, Wemmbu needed to take every precaution, even if it meant he had to make do with shallow breaths. He must have been flying for hours, keeping to the same direction as best he could without any way of navigating the Farlands. With no notable land marks, let alone stable land for that matter, Wemmbu was certain that if there had been anyone following him, they would have given up by the umpteenth biome change or long before. The gradual gradient changes of the grass and ocean below him had been replaced by constant snow. Even the broken islands were whole again. Wemmbu racked his mind trying to remember when that had happened but everything was too foggy. The combination of no sleep and high altitudes had finally gotten to him.
The snow should have stopped by now, that was something he did find strange. Had he somehow gone in circles? At one point he did remember changing his flight trajectory, but he believed it was necessary to account for the wind throwing him off course. The land around him looked barren, but naturally generated. Though there weren’t any man made structures around to indicate where he was, that and a good twelve million blocks made it fairly difficult to estimate whereabouts he was without a navigator. Wemmbu just had to trust that he remembered the right path he had to fly.
The constant wind against his ears became eerie. It had been so long since he had seen anyone else. Even Wemmbu’s hunch of someone following him had been proven wrong as he came to realise just how much time had passed. Still, there was no way to tell how many days had passed. The cycles of the sun and moon were put off balance by the glitches native to the Farlands.
Then it happened. All at once. One moment he had a perfect view of the horizon. The next, a rush of wind against his body. A different feeling to that he typically experienced while flying. He was falling.
Wemmbu was falling towards the ground. His elytra had broken and in his delirious state he had forgotten about its dwindling durability. He was plummeting through the air and all he could do was scream. There was nowhere to pearl to, no one to call for help. His hair had fallen loose and gotten tangled up in his broken elytra. The gold crown he wore slipped off his head soon after.
“No… no- no!” he yelled, panicked as he searched his inventory for something, anything that could help him.
A totem appeared in his hand, summoned out of his inventory in an instant. His clawed hands gripped at it, raggedly clutching it to his chest as he fell to the snow covered ground. The familiar sound of the totem activating provided him with some comfort that we wouldn’t meet his end to fall damage.
The impact was still brutal. Even with the totem popped, Wemmbu could still feel the ache of his body absorbing the force of his fall. The snow did little to help the collision, barely cushioning him from the cold, frozen dirt beneath it.
His body had been running off of adrenaline for so long, but for the first time since the Law's formation he actually felt at peace. A preternatural feeling to have while lying in negative temperature snow. Wemmbu's heart had slowed, his breathing no longer erratic like when he was gasping for oxygen at the previous high altitude. Maybe it was because he finally had a chance to lay down, he finally had a chance to rest outside of constant flying and fighting for his life.
The totem disintegrated in his palm as he laid on his stomach atop the snow. It had served its use, he survived the fall, but it could only do so much. Wemmbu could tell his right horn had cracked somewhere in the middle while his left had almost fully broken off. It must have been somewhere in the snow along with his crown. The uneven weight on his head made it all the more harder for him to get up. It was a numb pain through the front of his skull. It wasn’t the first time his horns had been broken, hell, he’d been the one to initially break them to blend in while he wandered the server as the Invisible Knight. They would grow back, that wasn’t his main worry. His tail had curled in under his vest, trying to keep warm in the frigid arctic.The purple coat we had draped on his shoulders was torn and barely covering him, not like it would have helped anyways since it was never sewn to withstand frigid temperatures.
He tried once to push himself off the ground, only to fall back right where he had crash landed. Another attempt would just waste energy, he could try again once he had rested for a moment.
Just a short rest, he told himself, nothing more. Wemmbu could never afford a full night's sleep, not even when Minute or Egg were by his side. They would always need to take shifts to keep watch even in the End. The snow was no longer cold, it felt warm. Pressed against his face like a pillow, the fog from his breathing becoming less and less visible. As his eyes grew heavier and his breathing slowed, Wemmbu didn't feel much other than the soft lull of void.
...
Let him rest longer
…
Send your crow
It wasn't often that Phil received an order from his wife. They often exchanged letters, but the message had come as a surprise to both him and Techno who was beside him when the crow had dropped the letter right in front of him. The two had just fed the hound army, closing up the gate to their enclosure when Phil noticed the little messenger. Out of courtesy, Techno had turned away, acting like he hadn’t noticed the crow or the letter it dropped. Though, he didn’t play it off all that well. Awkwardly, Techno acted like he had forgotten something in the pets enclosure. He peered over the gate, doing his best to seem occupied with some imaginary chore.
Phil could tell it was an act, but he appreciated how his friend stepped away to give him some form of privacy. He knelt down to pick up the letter. The envelope protecting it was barely full. Inside was just one page. It was short. A single sentence, but not a simple request.
Find the boy with purple hair and broken wings.
There were many people on the server, and to Phil's knowledge, none with such a description. Especially the wings. Only so few avians resided in Traum, or colloquially known as the Dream SMP, and none of them had their wings broken. On the back of the letter, an even shorter sentence.
Protect him.- Kristin
Phil had only been on the server for a few months. He couldn't say that he knew every resident off by heart but he was sure that no one matched the description. Wings and even elytras were a rare thing on the server. While not entirely absent, the trade of such End items was heavily restricted by XD. Even their Syndicate table was initially destroyed by the god, having misinterpreted their discovery of the Stronghold as them seeking to enter the other dimension.
“I need to go,” he spoke with urgency. It was all Phil could think to say. He promptly excused himself, pocketing the letter as he walked back over towards their cabins.
Techno hadn’t seen a word of the letter, all he knew was that it must have been urgent. He walked after Phil when he realised the other had rushed back into his cabin, seemingly to retrieve some supplies. Ascending the steps to their cabins, Techno stopped in front of his own house, only glancing into Phil’s home as the older man had left the door ajar. He could tell that the avian was busy switching out his winter coat for his netherite gauntlets and chest plate. That, along with various other gear Phil equipped, made Techno rather confused.
"It's that serious you’re grabbing armour? Sure you don’t need my help?” Techno offered, mainly out of concern. The wind had been picking up in the last hour and visibility was getting low in the Arctic. Usually he would tell his friend to wait out the incoming storm, but from the looks of things, whatever Phil was tending to was time sensitive. “I could bring some of the dogs, come with you?” he kept offering his help, seeming rather insistent about joining.
Phil considered it. He really did, and no part in the letter did it say he had to go alone. Whoever he was looking for, it was likely that they would need to be housed at their Arctic base.
“You don’t need to do that. Keep Ranboo company through the storm, he shouldn’t be alone.” He reasoned it as the younger boy needing company, but in reality he just didn’t want Techno to feel burdened nor obligated to join him.
“Ranboo’s safe in his house, plus he’s got plot armour. Come on, it’s getting dark. I’m coming with you,” Techno had decided, no longer leaving the choice with Phil.
Phil knew better than to argue against receiving help, so he grabbed a couple extra supplies for Techno as well. He stayed by his chest but extended a wing to push the door open further, letting the other step inside his cabin. It was a wordless gesture, but the two had known each other for long enough that there was a mutual understanding. A mutual respect for one another both as friends and allies. It took a couple more minutes to gather everything Phil deemed necessary to pack, having no exact clue where to start looking. He had handed off some extra items to Techno, letting the taller man be in charge of the lantern for their journey.
Soon enough, the two were out the door.
Techno had brought a couple hounds to assist them in their adventure, whatever it was they were doing. He trusted Phil, implicitly. Even after their ordeal with the Butcher Army, he felt like Phil was the only person on the server Techno could trust.
He didn’t even ask about the contents of the letter, but from context clues, Techno could tell they were most likely searching for someone. Earlier in the cabin, he had noticed when Phil packed extra health potions, even a blanket and some additional food. All helpful items, nothing to make traps or inflict damage with, leading to a good number of the voices to whine and complain.
The two had decided to head North first. It was further out from spawn and more likely that it would lead out to uninhabited areas. If whoever they were searching for had landed in a settlement with a population, there would have been a message in the global communication channel. The server was always abuzz when new members joined, people quick to greet and try to recruit new additions to their nations. It was strange that no one made mention of anyone joining.
Techno noticed how Phil kept checking his communicator. He subtly glanced down at his own to see if he had missed anything. But with nothing out of the ordinary, he could only assume it was nothing to be worried over. A more pressing concern was the growing storm. The depth of the snow at their feet was getting thicker, harder to walk through. The dogs were just fine, Techno had picked the husky breeds to take with him.
They had been walking for around an hour or so when the hounds ran ahead of them. Techno raised the lantern for better light, assuming the dogs were reacting to whatever mobs had begun to spawn in the growing dark. When the huskies began to dig, the two became all the more confused.
Phil was first to pick up his pace, noticing a mound of snow with something poking out of it. He was cautious at first, but when he noticed the strands of purple being unearthed by the dogs he fell to the ground and began to dig as well.
“Phil? What are you-”
“Bring the lantern! Get the snow off of him,” Phil called out to Techno, hoping the other would help, though when he peered up at the other it was evident that he was suspicious.
“Off of who!? I don’t even know what we’re doing out here!” He protested, the voices being of no favour to Phil as they all sided with Techno.
“Techno, I know just as much as you do,” his voice was shaky, Phil was still brushing snow off of the figure on the ground, but he was ready to plead for Techno’s help. “Just this once, I need-”
Before Phil could finish asking, his friend was already on the other side of the figure scooping off handfuls of snow at a time.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it. At least let me complain a little, bruh.”
Phil could only flash Techno a grateful look before he went back to uncovering the body. He heard Techno say something about the wings and tail, but Phil was too focused on wrapping the boy up in a blanket to properly respond. Some of the huskies went to search the area, retrieving items they assumed belonged to the unconscious figure.
Techno had moved aside to give Phil some space, watching his friend attend to the stranger when one of his dogs brushed up against his leg.
Looking down, Techno saw it. A gold crown, dented and broken. A bit smaller than his own, but the right size for the kid in front of him. For now, he took it and placed it in his inventory for safe keeping. It would be a long journey back to their base with their new addition, but the relieved look on Phil’s face was enough to make Techno set that complaint aside for the moment.