[ NOT A QUOTE. ] due to changes to twitter's API, this unfortunately doesn't work anymore. i will attempt to manually reply with a generated quote, however this will not be instantaneous.

He took to his soul the vow of an Angel, fragile yet undying still. A defiance equal to His own, an emerald star woven from a thousand thousand eyes and the ashen shadows of the sky.

A Blood of the Covenant pauses by the door frame before he leaves, eyes flicking back down at the Angel of Death before facing the Dreamer once again. “You probably just saved my best friend’s life in the long run there. I’m not forgetting that, Dream. Read that as you will.”

Their long tails wrap around each other’s legs, and they cry. Not a single tear leaves Philza’s hollow eyes or unmoving smile, but the Blood of the Covenant can mourn for them both. (They cry.)

“I will come for you,” Techno plainly promises. “I will do whatever it takes.” For you, the world, something half-forgotten whispers.

And Tubbo almost wonders why Fundy cares so much about Philza being around, until he remembers. Wilbur was Fundy’s dad. And now Wilbur’s gone. Philza’s all that’s left of him.

He reminded Tommy of Phil in a lot of ways. A scruffy old man with too much shit in his pockets, who looks and sounds like he hasn’t slept since the dawn of time. As if old J. Schlatt and his apothecary had simply sprouted out of the ground one day, here to stay for eternity..

Wilbur breathes out a noise that might have been a laugh, the first sound that’s come out of his mouth since he let Quackity drag him away from the noise of the world. “Pick my brain?” His low voice mutters, a resting smile threatening to break on his face.

He grimaces as the sea of whispers crashes into screaming, riding out the migraine of their latest temper tantrum as he checks his stores. He’s low on food- nothing but gold pickled root, wither bone meal, and the old urn of ghast blubber chips.

War and drugs. Gods and kings. It begins and it ends the way many things do around here- with a man named Wilbur Soot and an unlucky 16.

Techno has always loved his friends. Tommy extended his waiting hand, asking for an axe, and fool that he was, Techno gave it to him.

Do not imagine how the Angel of Death was the most beloved thing of all the King’s treasures. Do not imagine how a young King’s isolation might have made his affections all the more desperate, the way an old Angel’s lonely heart might have let it happen.

And the moment Techno says it, Wilbur knows it’s true. Philza, Philza, so happy for his son, his eyas, his little star, his wings, only to find out that Wilbur’s just a needy clingy fraud who needs to lie about everything to make himself look better.

MY STAR. MY WINGS. MY SUN. MY SON. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

Tommy frowns. “Then why do it?” “Someone has to,” Techno wearily asserts. “Someone has to make sure that newer, better things are allowed to grow. To move on from the mistakes of the past. People can hate me as much as they want, Tommy. They’ll still live in a better world.”

“He does that,” Chekhov lightly says. “He’s always been a bit of an anarchist. He was like that when Wilbur was a kid, too.”

“Wilbur really just told you everything huh?” “That’s the superpower of being his childhood teacher,” Techno jokes. “He’s already trained to be a teacher’s pet.” “He just poured his heart out to you like it was nothing!” Tommy stresses. Ah. “That’s not your fault, Tommy.”

Somewhere in this world there is a traveler, draped in a cloak of blood. A traveler with hounds, and a lion’s mane covered in gold, and he rides forever on a horse stronger than a storm.

Sometime after being bandaged up, and maybe a little more like himself, Philza starts shaking, talons curling around the red cloak Techno put over his body. Techno takes a step back, moving his hands away. “Do you need me to leave?” Philza shakes his head.

He was forged, as all living Totems were, by the hands of the gods from worldspawn and molten gold. They spun silver hair upon his head, laid emeralds in his eyes, and they branded beautiful wings upon his back.

And self-deception, however temporary, is an old friend to someone like Philza. And just this once he wants. (Let him love, just this once, something that death cannot touch.) “With all my heart,” he dares to confess. “So don’t you dare go and break it. I’ve only got the one.”