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Meeting up with Phil is always a bit of a guessing game, even though they have a standing agreement to spend every tenth winter together. Unfortunately, neither of them has the best grasp of the passage of time. Techno's is marginally better if only because he can count the winters spent with his brothers in-between but sometimes even those sometimes blur together. Especially if someone is deliberately misleading him as a prank, Dream.
Having to drown other witchers (who shouldn't even be there because they're part of a whole different order) in snowbanks aside, neither of them has a solid way to measure time and its fleetingness.
Which has lead to Phil just showing up at the School of the Boar on an eighth or ninth winter because he thought it was a tenth and he was being stood up.
It also meant there was one time when Phil missed their winter rendezvous altogether because one of his stolen children (the first of many) got sick and he flew them south like a migrating bird. By the time they'd met up again the kid was grown up and off to university in L'Manberg and Techno had to sit through multiple enthused monologues listing "William's" many accomplishments.
He hadn't bothered to give more than distracted grunts in response. If Phil wanted Techno to be invested in the lives of his brats then he should have introduced him at some point. (No, Niki, he's not jealous shut up. He didn't spend years deliberately avoiding meeting them just to cave for a dumb reason like that.)
It's not like he needs more people following him around. He's got enough with Wilbur and his two gremlins. Not to mention Ranboo.
Ranboo. Now there's a situation.
Phil is going to laugh his feathery ass off.
Which is why when they pull into a village in the south of Essempi and the headman pulls Techno aside to whisper of a stranger with wings as dark as night casting black magic on the crops and livestock, Techno considers just leaving. If Phi is actually cursing their fields they probably deserve it. If he isn't and they're just being narrowminded idiots then it would still put Techno in his path with an attached bard and two teenagers and one teenage surprise child he's spent the better part of a decade and a half pretending didn't exist but that finally caught up with him anyway. (It's all Tommy and Tubbo's fault and he will stand by that to his dying day.)
Before the can find the kids though, Phil finds him.
"You know when they said the witcher was going to kill me for them, I was hoping it was Dream."
Despite himself, Techno's shoulders relax before he even looks up into the branches of the tree outside the inn. "Hey, Old Man."
Phil!
PHIL!!!
Philza Minecraft what will he do
Birb
murder birb with his murder
no crows sadge
Phil grins down at him, blue eyes glittering as bright and sharp as his teeth in the shadows of the leaves and his mantled wings. "Hey, yourself." He hops down from the branch he is perched on to land beside Techno on the road. Carl doesn't even flinch, because he is the best.
"Really, Dream?" Techno says, instead of any of the dozen things he wants to say, or throwing his arms around Phil for a hug. They're in public still and both of them have reputations to mind. With Techno's luck, Wilbur would walk around the corner just in time to witness it and spend the next two days composing a song about "Technoblade the Soft-Hearted" or some such nonsense. And then Techno will have to murder him and the kids will want to do their own murders and next thing you know they're banned from yet another province.
"I have some things for George," Phil shrugs, his feathers fluttering behind him. "Somehow I don't think you would want to play messenger."
Techno snorts an agreement and makes a mental note to mock Dream later for being such a simp he's become the errand boy for the (unofficial) association of (more or less) rogue sorcerers.
Phil leans up against him, just the slightest bit and Techno leans back, enjoying the security of the presence of the one person outside his brothers who has saved his life as often as he's saved theirs.
They stand in silence for a long moment, the only sounds the rustling of the wind in the leaves and Phil's feathers, the muted bustle of the village, and the near silent tinkle of Techno's earring against the beads and stones stitched to the brim of Phil's hat.
"So," Phil says eventually, "Is that bard of yours with you? I'd really like to meet him?"
Techno's blood runs cold.
"Ah, nope." He cringes internally, entirely aware he'd said that far too fast to be remotely believable. He sticks to it anyway, like a burr in Carl's tail. "You just missed him. We split in the last city we passed, yup."
"Hey, Techno! Good news!" Wilbur's voice precedes him out the inn door and into the street. "I was able to talk the landlady down to half off for a second room so we don't have to sleep three to a-"
And then he cuts off. Probably saw Phil, he's kind of noticeable, what with the wings and all.
Techno closes his eyes and regrets everything.
asdfadsf hes abot to regret more
sshhh no spoilers
music man music man does whatever a music man can
"Dad?!"
Techno's eyes pop open.
"Wil?"
Phil and Wilbur are staring at each other.
"Uhhhh," Wilbur looks more startled than Techno's seen him since the time he got jumped by some drowned on the road from to El Rapids. (He'd needed a bath anyway.) "Phil what are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" Phil has his hands on his hips, one eyebrow raised. "William Craft, what happened to university?"
Wilbur straightens out of his habitual slouch, his shoulders canting defensively as he stands at his full height, going from eye-to-eye with Techno to nearly a half-head taller in the space of a breath. "I dropped out," he says it slow and lazy, in the same tone he uses to convince people that hey, you don't actually need to execute us, you can just let us go and we'll never darken your door again, 'kay?
"I decided I'd learn more from traveling and so I left." He crosses his arms tightly in front of himself. "And I know you're mad but I was going crazy, Ph-"
"What?" Phil cuts him off, blinking in birdlike bewilderment. "Why would I be mad?"
That stops Wilbur short, equally confused in the opposite direction. "You aren't mad?"
Phil sighs and it's more fond than anything. "William, I dropped out. It would be incredibly hypocritical of me to be angry with you."
Wilbur just gapes at him. "Phil you didn't drop out you were expelled. For gender crimes!"
Phil waves one hand casually as if shooing a fly. Or casting a minor curse. "If they didn't want me to reshape my body into how I always saw myself they shouldn't have told me to."
Wilbur looks at Techno like 'can you believe this man?'
Techno, who's been putting up with Phil for a couple centuries now, just shrugs.
Phil frowns suddenly and looks around. "Where are the boys? Tell me you didn't just leave them in the city?"
As if summoned, Tommy throws open the window to one of the rooms on the second floor of the inn. "Hey! This place isn't half bad! Dibs on sharing with Wilbur and Techno! Oh hey! Phil! Tubbo," He turns to yell back into the room. "Tubbo, Phil's here!" and he slams the shutters closed again.
"Well, I guess that answers that," Phil says, amused.
Wilbur still seems to be processing that he isn't in trouble for taking his little brothers and running away into the wilds of the world. (Though to be fair, given Tommy's heritage and Tubbo's general...cursedyness, it was probably safer for both of them outside the main hubs of civilization.)
"But...dangerous?" He waves aimlessly at the road out of the village. "Irresponsible?"
Phil laughs, bright and carefree, swooping forward, away from Techno's side to scoop Wilbur up in a hug. "Mate, you're with Techno. That's the safest you could be."
Techno starts to nod but...
Wilbur, as if in a trance, walking towards the Noonwraith, hands brushing the tops of the grain as he passed through it like water, his eyes already far away, ears deaf to Techno's shouts.
Tommy and Tubbo, scrambling desperately, mud and blood smeared faces pale with fear as they dodged strikes from the kikimore, their screams and shouts nearly inaudible under its shrieks if it weren't for witcher hearing.
Wilbur and Tommy, baking away slowly before the approaching leshen.
If Phil finds out how many times his kids have almost died on Techno's watch he'll kill him. He'll kill all of them.
Wilbur must be thinking the same thing because he makes eye contact with Techno over Phil's head and the two of them, in that moment, come to a silent agreement.
He can never know.
All three of them stand there for a moment longer, until Wilbur slowly, tentatively, wraps his arms around his father's shoulders, careful of his wings.
"I, uh, I go by Wilbur Soot now."
Phil pulls back and looks up at his son and even from the back Techno can see the love and pride he's radiating. "It is an honor to meet you, Wilbur Soot."
For a moment Techno thinks Wilbur is going to do something terrible, like burst into tears, but fortunately, the door to the inn flies open and the kids spill out; one, two, three. Tommy and Tubbo with loud shouts as they throw themselves at Phil, Ranboo slower and quieter, bringing up the rear. Ranboo scurries over to Techno's side, wide-eyed.
It takes a moment for everyone to settle down, but eventually, Phil pulls back from his kids and turns around, beaming and a little bit teary-eyed. "And who is this?"
Oh. Oh no.
jigs up boys
dadza knows now
technodad exposed
e
e
e
Ranboo looks between Techno and Phil for a moment before stepping forward and offering a hand.
"I'm uh, I'm Ranboo, sir."
Phil shakes their hand. "It's nice to meet you Ranboo. How did you end up stuck with these idiots?"
Techno grits his teeth, might as well get it over with.
"Ranboo is the child of the queens of the Enderlands."
Phil doesn't stop laughing for almost ten minutes.