Chapter Text
In the city of Thebes, nestled in Boetica, and surrounded by Central Greece, a baby wails. His mother shushes him softly, cradling him to her chest and murmuring reassurances.
Shimmering red blood runs through his body, and if people look close enough, it’s almost like he shines, lighting up the dim room. But mortal children never shine, and mortals never look close enough to notice.
“Tommy…” she murmurs, and in an instant, her son quiets down at the sound of his name.
Up above, a goddess fumes. The baby has the blood of a god…but a mortal too, which means he’s not entirely immortal. A… demigod you could say. A demigod who has too much potential for power, and if he gets to it, immortality. She doesn’t want to get kicked out and replaced like Niki was with Jack, left behind to tend to the hearth quietly. She will not be left behind and be replaced by some newer and flashier god. They certainly will not get kicked out by some half-godling child of Philza, they won’t allow it.
Footsteps sound in the pristine white room, as she paces back and forth. Damn Philza and his demigod child, damn the three fates and damn her cursed luck. Well, they’re just going to have to make what they have out of this wretched situation and get rid of the child while they still can.
“Come along now dears, let’s not let the child live for too long…”
“The next born child shall be king of Mycenae, and rule all those near him-”
A door swings open and bangs loudly against the white walls of Olympus.
“The next born child, you say?” Eret asks heels clicking on the floor as she walks up to Philza.
“I did just say that Eret.” he responds light-heartedly, grinning and nudging them gently.
“Do you swear on it? Perhaps, swear on an oath?” she replies, a catlike grin sneaking upon her face. She won’t let some child of Philza have more power as an advantage to kick her out of one the twelve Olympian spots.
“You’re really taking this far mate, but sure, if it makes you believe me.”
Eret nods. Philza sighs, and takes a deep breath. He ignores Techno, who violently elbows him, shaking his head no. His father does not listen, and Techno glowers at Eret in response. They smile, and adjust their crown upon their head, winking at the god of war. He won’t be seeing his brother up here on her throne any time soon, she will make sure of it.
“I, Philza Minecraft, ruler of the gods, swear that the next born child shall be king of the Mycenaean kingdom, and rule all those near him.”
“Great, thanks, Phil! I’ll be on my way now, don’t let my visit derail your meeting.” the other gods and goddesses protest, obviously not fooled but her flawless acting.
“Ta ta!” Eret leaves the room with the same flair as she did while entering, and the door shuts behind her with a slam.
A long way below Mount Olympus, a child is born, two months before his time. He is to be king and rule all those around him, as decreed and sworn on by the king of the gods. His name is Ranboo. He is not the hero of this story. He will not be the hero of his kingdom, either.
In a different house, a woman screams in pain, her baby being delayed from his destined birth. She does not give birth until the wee hours of the morning the next day. If you look closely enough, a man dressed in green kneels by her side, holding onto her hand, and kissing her forehead. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers over and over, both to his wife and his unborn son.
The people of the town are not stupid, they know it is the wrath of a god. After all, no woman has ever gone into labor as long as Kristin did those two days.
Two snakes hiss, poison dripping from their teeth as they slither along the ground in the darkened night. Eret peers from above, and smiles. That’ll do. One less nuisance to worry about, and maybe they can finally sleep well for once in the entirety of their immortal life.
The two snakes slither into the baby’s cradle, silently posing to strike with their dripping teeth. The god nods from above, turning away to retire to her bedroom chamber. The two snakes position to strike— fangs glistening with poison and eyes focused on the target. Except they don’t. Two tiny fists grasp each snake before they can, choking them and gripping them tightly.
No child shall die tonight, especially not the one blessed with a touch of the power of a god. No, Tommy Innit does not die tonight, as it is not his time. ‘Not yet,’ the three fates cackle, ‘not yet’. Up above, a goddess peacefully sleeps. But not for long.
“Tubbo! Tubbo, come on, hurry up!” Tommy shouts as he runs down to the grassy field, full of flowers and illuminated by the bright afternoon sun.
“I’m coming, slow down!” Tubbo calls after him, not too far behind the other boy.
“Aren’t we racing?” he asks, stopping at the bottom middle of the field and huffing heavily.
“I mean yeah… but I’m supposed to win!” Tubbo insists, stopping next to Tommy.
Tommy shoots the boy a skeptical look. Tubbo never wins when they race, and he knows that.
“Oh shut up Tommy, let's just eat.” Tubbo rolls his eyes at him, and sits down on the warm grass, the sun highlighting his face.
Tommy eagerly sits down beside him, unwrapping the bundled cloth he’s holding in his hand. In it lies some bread and grapes stolen from his pantry, and the two boys dig in.
“What’s Kristin gonna say when she figures out you stole food from the pantry again?” Tubbo asks, interrupting the silence with a mouth full of bread. He lazily nudges Tommy with his foot.
“I don’t know, probably tell me the gods will get angry or something? She believes in that shit.” he nudges the other back with his foot in retaliation.
“You don’t believe in the gods? I mean, our whole village does.” Tubbo questions, cocking his head curiously.
Tommy shrugs. “I mean, I believe that they exist. I just don’t think that they’re gonna go out of their way just to punish me or some shit. I mean, they have their own fancy immortal lives up there anyways.” he gestures his index finger up towards the sky.
Tubbo shrugs in response, and pops another grape into his mouth.
“You believe in Prime though, right?” Tubbo questions.
“Of course I do!” Tommy scowls at Tubbo, throwing a grape at him. Somehow he catches it in his mouth, and grins at Tommy.
Tommy hastily grabs the now empty cloth and shoves it into his pocket, getting up and brushing any dirt off of his pants. Silently, he offers a hand to Tubbo, helping him up.
“Wanna wrestle?”
Tommy winces. He’s not sure if that’s a good idea, after the last time he wrestled with Tubbo, he ended up getting a huge bruise on his arm. He doesn’t want to explain to Tubbo’s mother that he hurt him again by accident. She isn’t that fond of him already anyway.
“If you win I’ll give you my necklace!” sensing his hesitance, Tubbo holds up a simple necklace made out of green sea glass to Tommy, cocking his head.
After a moment of thought, Tommy grins, and Tubbo takes that as a yes, tucking the necklace back under his shirt.
The two boys turn to face each other, shoulders hunched, knees bent and ready to fight. The grass tickles their knees, and Tubbo launches himself at Tommy, a thud sounding when he tackles them to the ground.
“Hey!” Tommy shouts, voice muffled by Tubbo on top of him.
They roll around in the grass, occasionally spitting out mouthfuls of grass and dirt. They ignore the dirt stains on their bodies that their mothers will surely be angry at and scold them for. Tommy is careful to make sure he doesn’t hurt Tubbo, playfully fighting and holding back. slightly Tubbo knees him in the stomach and in retaliation Tommy elbows him in the head lightly, huffing heavily.
The two boys don’t see the red smoke that slithers down from the heavens, quickly making its way towards one of them amidst their childish joy.
Tubbo laughs freely, his arms tangled with Tommy’s, messily fighting with each other. In a millisecond, Tubbo misses the flash of Tommy’s eyes turning a bright and brilliant crimson red, mid-blink. He doesn’t notice until suddenly, the other boy isn’t holding back his strength anymore, fighting against Tubbo roughly, like he has no motive but to fight.
Tubbo relaxes and stops fighting as if to send a silent message to Tommy, I’m done. You win. But Tommy doesn’t get the message and retaliates even more, his movements calculated. It’s almost as if–
Tubbo’s eyes grow wide in fear and realization as he takes his final breath in the grassy field, the blades of grass surrounding him now stained a deep blood red.
When Tommy comes back to focus, his hands are stained with red and in the grass lays… oh Prime. It can’t be. There is no way that Tommy did that, he must be in a nightmare. He quickly pinches himself, blood staining his arm as he does.
It’s real. I did that to Tubbo.
Tommy falls to his knees, crushing the fragrant flowers underneath his knees, staining his knees in the pool of blood surrounding his brother. Silent tears roll down his face, and his hands shake as they clutch at the stained fabric of Tubbo’s clothes.
Tommy did this. He’s a fucking monster.
“Tub…” Tommy croaks out hoarsely, sniffling loudly.
Tommy’s eyes catch sight of Tubbo’s necklace glimmering in the sunlight. Shakily, he unties it from around Tubbo’s neck and quickly ties it around his own.
“I guess I did win.” Tommy whispers. He can almost hear Tubbo’s bright voice replying. “I’m sorry.” he chokes out finally, taking a last look at his friend. He knows he has to run away and leave. His village will be angry once they figure out what he’s done, once they finally realize that Tommy doesn’t belong in this village, that he has done what only the cruelest can.
Tommy stands up slowly and casts a final look at his brother, best friend, and possibly the only one who will ever understand him. He runs out of the grassy field, never to return to his innocence ever again.
In the late of the night, sneaking through the now quiet and dark village, Tommy hurries his way through quickly. He slows down suddenly after seeing the statue of Prime. It wouldn’t hurt for him to pray, would it? If anything it would help his journey to escape… if Prime would even bless him after the things he’s done.
Lady Prime is tall and firm, casting her protective gaze over the village. Tommy approaches her to alter, and kneels down on the muddy ground, head tipped down. He sucks in a breath and hesitates. What if this just makes it worse? Gods are known for being vengeful, after all. Especially to monsters. Well… it can’t get any worse he supposes. It could. It definitely could.
“Lady…” Tommy’s voice trembles. “Lady Prime, I have—” I have sinned, my lady forgive me please, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be a monster. “I have sinned!” he gasps out, head spinning from his confession.
Lady Prime doesn’t respond. Tommy’s body begins to tremble again, and he dips his head even lower and his hair almost gets stained by the wet dirt of the ground.
“Please, Prime. Send me a sign, anything, I— I need to pay for my actions, how do I—” His knees dig into the ground, and silent tears begin to stream down his face in desperation. How do I become human again, how do I stop being a monster?
“Are you alright?”
It’s not every day that you see a sobbing child kneeling at an altar of Prime, choking out prayers in front of a stone statue, especially this late at night. He looks quite young if he’s being honest. About twelve or thirteen years old maybe? He’s not quite sure, time is kind of irrelevant to him since he is a god, after all. He supposes it wouldn’t hurt to approach the child, would it?
“Are you alright?”
At the sound of his voice, the child quiets his sobs quickly, but his body still trembles. How is he supposed to comfort him? This is exactly why Wilbur stays away from children, they make him nervous, always being so loud and chaotic. It’s never good for his migraines.
“There, there, I’m sure whatever you did wasn’t that bad…” he awkwardly says, squatting down next to the shaking child, patting him gently on the back. And with that, the child starts bawling. Again. He really isn’t good with children.
“Hey, it can’t be really bad! You didn’t kill someone, right?” he tries in an attempt to make the boy feel better.
The kid just starts wailing more in response. He might be hitting a sore spot there.
“How about I take you to my house, and you can tell me all about it.” he says as he lifts the kid from off the ground, trying his best to smile kindly. He doesn’t know why he’s even doing this.
The child just sniffles in response, and he takes that as a yes, trying to ignore the snot stain on his shirt from the kid blowing his nose with it.
“So tell me, what did you do?” he asks as he stares at the child from across him beside a fire in a quaint little home deep in the forest. Now that he’s in front of a hearth, he can see the kid more clearly, and the stains on his clothes and skin which look strangely like…blood.
The kid shakes his head, staring down at the cup of water in his hands.
“Just tell me! I won’t tell anyone, promise.”
The young boy only clutches onto his cup tighter and whips his head side to side quickly. He looks panicked.
He opens his mouth to ask again, but suddenly the kid lifts his head to look at him. He looks tired. Eyebags underline his eyes and his hair is ruffled up like someone anxiously ran their hands through it a bunch of times. Dull blue eyes bore into his warm chocolate ones, and somehow he can tell that they used to sparkle like the lightning bolts his father summons when he’s mad.
“I…” the kid finally speaks, voice trembling and hoarse. “I…” he tries again.
“You know what, it’s fine. I’ll just see for myself.” he decides. Obviously, the kid’s shaken up, it seems like even he hasn’t accepted whatever he did yet. He gets up and reaches over to the child, pressing a finger to the middle of his forehead and reaching through his webs of memories.
Red, almost invisible smoke creeping up onto him while playing with his friend in the smiling sun. His movements become more harsh and calculated, more deadly. His friend stops when he notices the sudden increase of brute force, but his blood-red eyes give no mercy and serve a final strike. Blue eyes clear out the red fog in his eyes and wake to a still body.
“Oh.” he says softly and sits down next to the child. He thinks he knows who he is.
He recognizes the red smoke, and who it’s from. Is this really who Eret has a grudge against? A young innocent little boy? Well, he might not be innocent anymore, thanks to her.
The kid is crying again, small sobs escaping his mouth. That’s a lot of baggage to put on a child. Eret has never given any mercy to anyone, he supposes.
“How did you— how did you do that?” the kid stutters out, sniffling loudly, and turns his head to look at him.
“The sun sees all.” he replies simply because it’s true. Whatever the sun touches, he can see.
“You know that wasn’t your fault?” he asks kindly. The boy looks up slowly, eyes red and a runny nose. “Well, a goddess has a grudge against you.”
“Is it— Prime?” the boy croaks out weakly, flinching back like the thought of Prime hating him could wreck him even more.
“No,” not my mother. “It's Ere– someone else.” the kid doesn’t have to know this young. He doesn’t need to be filled with loathing and vengeance, not at this age. The evils of the world don’t need to infect him just yet. He should be able to keep the innocence he has left before it gets swept away with everything else.
“What’s your name?”
“Wilbur.” it’s not his full name, but it’ll have to do—
“Your full name,” he insists. Wilbur wonders if he knows the power in full names.
He sighs and stares into the depths of the flickering orange sandstone flames homed in the hearth. “My name is Wilbur Soot, son of Philza Minecraft and brother of Techno Blade, god of— do I need to say all of it?” The kid nods quickly, his tears now dried salt water on his cheeks. Wilbur holds back another sigh. “–god of music, poetry, art, prophecy, truth, archery, sun and light, and healing.” and more, but then we would be here all day.
“So…you’re a god.” the kid states the obvious, and cocks his head, staring at Wilbur as if he’s forming a plan. He doesn’t seem that surprised, which is fair, Wilbur did kind of just look at his traumatizing experience by tapping his head. “That means that you can—”
“Nope, no questions until you tell me your name too, child. Your full one.” Wilbur cuts in smoothly. No way is he letting the kid get any ideas that he can grant some wish for him just because Wilbur helped him just this once.
“My name is Tommy Innit, son of Kristin Rosales and–” Tommy swallows nervously like there’s something else he can add on. “And that’s it.” it seems like he doesn’t even know what to add on.
Kristin Rosales… Wilbur has heard that name before. He searches through his memories quickly, searching for where he’s heard that name before.
Ah. One of his father’s mortal lovers, which means Tommy is his brother. No, there’s more to that. There’s…
“Your mother got hurt badly…in a final attempt to save herself she rebirthed herself to be mortal.” Philza informs his sons, grief written across his face.
“But isn’t that impossible? She didn’t have to do that, we don’t die!” Wilbur exclaims in protest.
“We can’t die, but we can be belittled down to a singular story. If she didn’t— if she didn’t rebirth herself to be mortal, we might only have Prime left behind from her.” his father’s voice cracks in pain, and his eyes harden at the thought of what could’ve happened to his wife.
“So she’s just stuck down there? Until she lives out her painfully short life?” Techno asks, fists clenched in anger.
“She’ll live on and rebirth until I find a way to make her immortal again. Until I find a way to bring her back.” Philza turns to face his sons, his face the most serious they’ve ever seen it. “I will bring her back to us, to our family. I swear it.”
Techno’s lips are thinned into a fine line, and his blood-red eyes furrow in frustration.
“I’ll help you–”
“No, Techno. You’re still young, and she wouldn’t want you to spend your youth like this.” Philza cuts in, stopping his son.
“...Fine.” Techno finally responds after Wilbur nudges him to let it go. There’s not much they could do to help anyway.
God. How long has it been since he'd last seen his mother? Wilbur can faintly remember his childhood, of his mother’s tales told to him and Techno before bed. He can almost remember her laugh, strong and clear, usually laughing at one of his or Techno’s shenanigans they got up to as kids. She and Philza were his whole world, for some time–
“Now punish me for what I’ve done.” Tommy’s voice pierces his thoughts, voice clear and strong, and it’s like he wasn’t just sobbing about ten minutes ago.
“What? No, I’m not going to punish you. You’re just a child, and that was a god who made you do that.” You’re my brother. I can’t hurt you more than you already have.
“Do it! Please. Please I’ll do anything–” Tommy begs him. “The guilt is heavy on my shoulders. I can't– it feels like I can’t breathe. I don’t want to die.”
“I don’t want to die.” Hyacinthus said.
“I don’t want to die.” Sally said.
“I don’t want to die, dad—” Fundy said.
Wilbur breathes in a shaky breath. He shouldn’t be doing this.
“Fine.”
Tommy doesn’t smile. Wilbur doesn’t expect him to, after all, he is punishing him. He wishes he could tell him it won’t make it any better. But Tommy won’t listen to him, Wilbur already knows. Their family always tends to be stubborn.
“Tommy Innit, son of Kristin Rosales,” and son of Philza Minecraft , “I decree you to perform twelve labors for King Ranboo, ruler of the Mycenean kingdom.” It was supposed to be yours and you were supposed to be happy. “After all the labors have all been finished, you will be freed of your guilt,” and achieve immortality. I will make sure of it.
Tommy nods determinedly, satisfied with his punishment, and meets Wilbur’s eyes. For once, Wilbur can see the life that lights them, lightening, sparkling loudly.
He doesn’t want to die.
Wilbur doesn’t want him to either.