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The boy is godsent sunshine. Riding in on pale white horses laden with rich supplies. He clears the rain and the rubble, lifts the spirits like good wine until it is almost unbearable.
The boy is noble-born.
He was sent to the battlefield as a show of honor, and the gratuitous supplies sent with as a show of allegiance.
It’s all stage. Send a son with blue blood to show it runs just as easy. It’s all a lie. A power that the hungry mouths of the North army consume easily. Or it’s an act put on by the family. They might expect the boy to die. An honored end to a bloodline, less messy than hiring someone to kill the poor bastard.
Techno knows better. Moreover, he knows the boy’s father better.
If anything, the scrawny, gold vested and red sashed young adult is a gift to him. A sword to hone, a blade to sharpen. Something unusable tuned into a flawless weapon. A test. A challenge.
And Phil knows Technoblade loves a challenge.
“What do you need me for?” Is the first question he asks. That’s a good first question Techno thinks. It means the kid might not have been so resistant to the idea of coming. Then again, he most likely does not know the full extent of warfare. This leaves the willingness of the boy a mystery, something that will be gratuitously tested.
He tells Techno that his name is Tommy, a name Techno will not be using anytime soon. Names are a shape of the mouth to be earned, not said by default. Not that the boy has a say.
Nobody has a say in anything Techno commands. This is what keeps great generals great, undermining second-hands will always muddle up commands until they might have been spat at a soldier by a street peasant.
If “What do you need me for?” is the first question the boy asks, then “Sir?” is the second. Perhaps intelligence should not be what this outsider is praised on first.
Of course, this is a response to Techno gruffly commanding him that he must “wake up with sunrise every morning.” He needs Tommy to cook something, scrub something, feel grain and work and strain in his gaunt palms for once in his lofty life.
“…sir I was told that I was here to fight.” Tommy looks curious, but not entirely shocked.
Techno scrapes back the chair he was planning in, folding long hair away from his eyes so he can properly loom over this twig. “By whom? Who told you?” His voice is gruff and rocky, an unsurprising fit to his stature.
Tommy fidgets, breaking the standstill by snapping his head towards the floor. “By my- Phil told me.”
“Phil instructed that you would be in my ranks soldier, this is your assignment.” Techno jabs a finger down at the boy, slicing right through his confidence. “If you came for a fight brat, you’re more than welcome to watch a few. I hear there are some scrappy ones behind the southern tents after curfew. Betting and everything. I’m not supposed to be clued into the secret undergoing of my militia but-“
“You misunderstand sir,” Tommy cuts him off. He’ll pay for that later. “I was… instructed that I was to be trained for fighting.”
“Then,” Techno marches to the end of his tent, standing in wait with one arm to hold the exit open for his guest, “it is you who misunderstands. Here we do battle, not fights. To confuse them would be death on the field. You have your assignment, now go.”
Tommy leaves with an obviously suppressed huff. Orders will come more frequently and easier in the coming months, he doesn’t have time to throw fits at every one.
Technoblade doesn’t see hide or tail of the golden-haired noble for a week after that. Let him feel forgotten, consumed by the endless ranks of his peers. A digit or a value to be counted, moved, counted again, and then sent away.
He doesn’t see the boy for a week. Until today.
Today the sun is wobbling from in and out of cloud cover, masking the sky with gray gloom that won’t be shaken until winter is over. The earth is less dry than usual, saved by the change in humidity.
Today, sunshine walks right into Techno’s tent. Or, sunshine is dragged in, like a fable where the hero valiantly ropes it down from the sky. If you would call the muddy, poorly dressed, and tobacco-scented guard a hero.
“Caught him running off.” The guardsman states, a hasty “sir” tacked onto the end.
“Leave him.” The guard does as he’s told, throwing Tommy to the ground and stalking off through the heavy tent flaps.
The kid gets to his feet shockingly fast, rage lashing from his irises like smoke. “This is a mistake, I didn’t do anything! Ask the cook and his stupid fucking-” he swallows quick, moving on in his stutterings with nothing more than an apologetic glance, “-The cook and his little workers they just don’t stop giving me idiot tasks and I can’t lift everything and why-”
Techno slams a slate onto the table, loudly interrupting Tommy’s stream of bickering. It’s full of bread crusts, the nice ones that are still fluffy and warm, freshly made from the same kitchen Tommy was dragged from. Heat rises from them like an embrace to the chilly morning air.
“Eat,” he commands, pushing the food away from where he sits.
The boy studies the bread like a dog, shuffling forward with springs in his heels. “Why- I’m not hungry,” Tommy mutters, tilting away from the table. He looks annoyed, beyond annoyed. The entitlement he has come to expect from life has not yet rubbed off from his skin, and it shimmers dimly like pearl.
There is news already of the boy’s adjustment. How he starts arguments in the barracks, leaves a mess of his cot, and even once how he tried to pitch in with the exact fights Techno warned him about. Apparently, it didn’t go over well.
Techno shrugs, and the lift and fall of his shoulders makes the boy feel small. A traveler gazing up at the peak of a mountain. “You looked hungry.” And if there was any chance of shutting the firecracker up, he would take it. “Listen, Tommy,” Techno doesn’t move to stand again but it’s clearer than a melted-snow stream that he holds all the power, no need for a display. “What should your punishment be?”
“Wh-” Tommy starts, eyes wide. He’s not used to making decisions.
“No more arguing, you clearly disobeyed the rules. I said, what should your punishment be?”
He thinks for a moment, glare roaming and jumping through the large tent. Tommy doesn’t seem to notice, but his eyes rest on the bread. “I want- I want to be trained. Teach me battle.”
Predictable . He knew the boy wouldn’t ask for less, and the kitchen and cleaning had worn him down. Techno grins and raises both hands, “All you had to do was ask. It’s a fair punishment.”
He watches Tommy splutter, boiling anger dissolving from his skin as his mind stutters with how easy the task is. “That was it?”
“You meet with me tomorrow, see Puffy for your uniform.” He brushes his hand through the air, not bothering to escort his guest out, “Dismissed.”
And when Tommy whirls to leave the tent, a bread crust disappears from the plate. Techno grins at the empty spot.
The next morning, before the sun broke from the horizon’s grip, there was sunshine on the training field.
Techno had silently handed the boy a battered training sword for practice, a brittle wooden splinter that did nothing to lessen the blow, just the sharpness. What is less sharp contains more bite. The rough grain digs into every patch of skin and burns it red. The swords war with the sun to see which can cause the most blisters in the heat of the afternoon.
Originally, the boy had hurled insults and jests across the square field marked with white chalk. The bravado becomes annoyance, partially to the lack of response and partially through exhaustion seeping away at his confidence. Now silence trails them both, biting their heels.
It is a gruesome affair, absent only of blood. Bruises, callouses, and blisters are washed with sweat and spit. Time has no room to heal wounds before the next blow falls.
None fall the general.
No swat, swing, lunge, or parry makes him any more than glare. His facade is armor in itself, and attacks fly awry from his body like scared birds. It is an abuse of skill.
Or, Tommy wishes it was an abuse. He did ask for this.
Not only is his attacker relentless, but he is also unskilled. The sword whips through the air like reigns on a wild horse. His new uniform is unyielding and stiff, limiting movement around his elbows and softening the direction of his attacks. It is a senseless task with no training, but Tommy is not much for sense, only victory.
Just as the sun was level with the peak of the first distant mountain, he was about to throw down the pitiful wooden stick.
And then the first soldiers appeared.
They come like cattle, small groups drifting over to observe the general under the safety of dry but shady trees. The air is soon filled again with noisy violence. Words stuck like toothpicks in Techno’s armor are now spit onto Tommy’s worn stature by their leering guests.
Nobility weighs with no respect here and the only thing of value is your skill. For which Tommy has none.
He doesn’t stop moving.
He can’t give in now, with his audience of snap-jawed hyenas. If he fails, the onslaught he will receive after dinner will be much worse. He will be left like scraps, lamb to their patient slaughter. Lowest of the ranks.
They move for hours, wood cracking under the beating sun. He won’t win. This is observable by even the lamest eye, there is no skill in his movements, no knowledge of the field mapped out in his mind. There must be some other way to best this beast.
Tommy searches for his prize.
Techno wears a wreath. It’s simple, gold gilded, and bearing no ornamental leaves. It’s the plainest display of status that the army needs. And Techno would ask for no less, it serves its purpose.
Techno wears a wreath, but if Tommy succeeds with his plan, the dirt will be kinged instead.
His blows become slower, his feet scuff against the sand, he masks his features into that of a cornered animal. He sets his trap. And he waits.
With each onslaught, the general approaches, steps even and steady, getting so close that the distance between them could be measured by their flimsy swords. Tommy studies his opponent with every bit of focus he can muster. His stature is wide and blunt, deeper dyed ornaments hanging from his uniform like gristle. Red irises flash from under thick brows furrowed in concentration. Rose hair is kept tame with braids, several smaller ones streaming into the main bundle, his prize nestled at the top.
In one motion Tommy lunges, stretching his jarringly lithe legs forward, right arm snaking behind. The round edge of the training sword lands just shy of Techno’s hairline, inches from the wreath. Practiced in his movements, the general ducks, assuming the attack was to his neck. Quickly the boy lifts up, spearing his sword through the sky, crown clattering down the handle.
He steps back to safety, grabs the gold band, and throws his new prize to the ground.
The livestock quiet, all eyes fixed on the wreath.
It is his Goliath’s head, Cretan bull, eye of Horus. For a split second, Tommy is legend, crowned by the steadily rising sun.
In the next, he is knocked to the dust, and the light fades when his back cracks against the floor. The crowd disperses hastily, only slightly satisfied. In the coming hours, none of them will claim to have been witnesses, none of them want to face those repercussions.
“Don’t,” the general leans down over the boy, “ever do that,” he pushes a knee lightly into his ribs, “again.” The warning, more of a death sentence, is echoed by the training sword ripped from his hand. Techno stomps away, stopping only to scoop the wreath from the dirt with the very sword responsible.
The next day they do it again.
The general has altered his appearance, ornaments no longer adorning every empty square of charcoal fabric. No more wreath.
He humbles himself to the boy, makes a man out of the beast. His honor of command slain for his pride.
The next day they do it again, and nobody is there to watch the pitiful defeat. No onlookers, no sun, and no king to dethrone.
And then again.
And again.
Tommy, who asked for this. Tommy, who has had training before. Tommy, who probably has more scars on his back than on his palms, keeps coming back.
There are no instructions. No words pass between the two opponents. They study in mind, measuring distance and calculating force of attack. And it shows. Each week of practice the red sun reaches a new mountain peak before the final thud.
“Who are we fighting?” Tommy flops over some furs in the general’s tent, spent from a day on the field. His hands move like butterflies, fluttering weakly through the space above his head.
Techno only grunts, folding and unfolding his arms robotically to remove different pieces of his armored uniform. Tommy has been coming back to his tent after practice. He started after the first week, barging in and complaining about how he was banished from the soldier’s tents in the early morning after being “too noisy.”
Tommy rolls his eyes, a gesture hidden from the general. “Right sir, who are we battling?
The general is more annoyed than most mornings, Tommy landed some hits on his weaker knee, and the muscles whine of past battles. “Nobody, not yet,” he answers bluntly.
The boy huffs, “Then what are we doing here?”
Techno turns as the last piece of armor hits the table. “You are training, as your father intended. And we are waiting for the Southern army,” he taps a stout finger to the giant map on the table, “Come here.” He commands.
The map is cracked and yellow, sprawling black ink pooling from the center like tentacles of a horrid monster. These are the king's armies, each dot and line containing thousands of soldiers and generals alike. And in one tiny dot to the north end, Tommy and Techno stand together, staring at a map.
“This,” the general sweeps his finger to the other side of the mountains, “is where the battle is. Generals Kitten and Nihachu are fighting for your glory while we wait. If they fall the opponent will have no choice but to squeeze through the pass. Our battle will be a trap,” he turns to Tommy, face set grim, “it is the last resort.”
“Listen, sir, I’m not…complaining, but aren’t you the best?” Tommy appears to study the map, moving his fingers across the worn parchment like the legs of a tiny person. They strut over rivers and valleys, miles of earth under the giant's stride. He makes a short game of it, stomping on the smaller black dots.
Techno sighs and goes to the end of the tent, tired and done with the boy, “I would never measure my skill against that of my peers, and I would never disrespect my orders. We are here for a reason boy, you would do well to remember that.”
Tommy’s fingers stop past the mountains, fingernails digging in. He glares at that dot. Their enemy, just out of reach by rocks and sand and another two armies.
Tommy will go to sleep tonight wishing that they fall.
It is a horrid thought, but as Techno said, it is his glory.
On most days, Tommy will return to his tent, sore and beat from the morning. There are always weapons to clean and dishes to scrub and floors to sweep. All days except for Saturdays, on which Techno is too busy meeting with his strategists to train.
On Saturdays, Tommy gets the most work because of the lack of protection. Tommy hates Saturdays.
And so, his brilliant solution, like every solution he has, is to get in trouble.
Before the sun is halfway through the sky he is thrown to the ground of Techno’s tent, advisors scuttling out like bugs before the fury of the general can fall them.
“Hey sir! I just was-” Tommy starts cheerily, smiling up and dusting his uniform with his hands.
“Stop,” the general’s unsurprising glare follows him. As the weeks drag on those advisors become more and more necessary to the army's survival. Dismissing them was no small decision. But, there is value in keeping Tommy away from further trouble. Maybe an entire army's worth.
He studies the boy for minutes on end before removing a long wooden box from the drawer of his desk. “Sit,” he commands, pointing lazily at a rickety chair to the side.
Tommy becomes worried. For all he knows, Techno has snapped, and plans to rid the boy with the contents of the fancy box.
But the box is not a box, Tommy sees, as he sits at the table, it is a board folded in half with brass latches and hinges. Neat squares of shinning precious stone unfolding with a click. A chessboard.
Techno works with precision, meticulously arranging the pieces in their place. They are beautiful, the darkest black and the most polished white Tommy has ever seen. It must be one of the most expensive items in the whole camp, and he wonders why the rugged general keeps it stashed so close.
The final piece in its place, Techno looks up from his work, “Do you know how to play?”
Tommy wonders at the “Yes, but-”
“Good,” the general moves first, a pawn forward by one, “Let’s play.”
And they do. For hours and hours, Tommy is consumed by learning the general all over again. He is more precise in his movements here, only striking with confidence. A confidence Tommy can’t seem to find any cracks in. He loses, over and over again, black pieces clattering against the wood board as his mind scrambles for purchase.
Finally, Techno raises a hand, “You did good, but it’s late.”
Tommy grunts in annoyance, and he has half the mind to throw the rook he holds to the floor. “Fine,” he mutters.
The general eyes the captured piece in Tommy’s white knuckles. “You can always come back to beat me next week.” he grins, taunting the boy with a challenge he knows Tommy won’t say no to.
“Whatever,” Tommy drops the rook into Techno’s outstretched palm. But he grins back before stomping out to bed.
Now, Tommy doesn’t hate Saturdays, but losing at chess to the general does still sting. And he keeps coming back. Between the training and the games, Tommy takes on a new challenge. He cracks jokes, causes trouble, says the dumbest things, all for the prize of Techno’s smile.
And it does come. It is fast and gone too quick, but the menacing grin that fades onto the general's face dissolves into a smile eventually. They play chess and train and sit around to talk about nothing. And it is endless. For the first time, the clouds part from the mountain top to let the sunshine in.
And there is peace.
In another two months, Tommy gets his grave wish.
The boy has changed. His hair is long and faded to the sun, near white tied with a crimson ribbon he stole from Techno. His limbs long outgrew their armor and then again when the new set was warn, it too was replaced. He was a good fighter, as heard around the camps, probably one of their best.
And if you asked this man again, he might not have wished the same.
The signal appears with the rising dawn.
It was so clear. Tommy had just made a hit to the general’s right arm when it happened. He didn’t notice and kept moving in strategy even after Techno had stilled. Bright flares, red as the sun, crested over the mountain tops. Each spark hung in air like the simmering bloodshed that lay on the other side of the peaks.
“Tommy,” the boy whipped around after hearing his name, and paled at the fear in Techno’s eyes, “Go to camp. Now!” His urgency was terrifying. No man could defeat this gentle monster. But an army might.
He bounded like a fox, straight to the barracks. Clusters of soldiers had solidified into one mass, moving with shuffling feet and shaking arms. Their whispers grew when he entered. He was the general’s student; It was to be expected he knew what it meant.
Tommy said nothing.
They wilted in their frenzy, operating on nothing but rumors for hours. The barracks bustled with movement, but no work. No man left to train or cook or clean or forge. They would wait, just as they had for months, for news.
After hours, at near sundown, the general enters. He fills the doorway, stares down the recruits. He is their statue, their hero their glory their victory.
The crowd ceases, every man waiting for their sentence.
He speaks, “There is a fortnight, maybe less.” The general had kept the room silent, but it was now death that muted their murmurs, “The opposition will clear the mountains by then.”
Two weeks.
Two weeks until their worth had to be proved. Two weeks until their bloody glory comes knocking.
The general leaves, and the room jumps to life. Masses of soldiers scramble to train, cramming work into their screaming muscles. Even more still bend over crates next to their straw mats, writing desperate letters to their families.
Tommy should do the same. Pick up a sword or a pen and finalize his purpose, decree his worth. He does neither. The entire earth moves and Tommy stands still. He is the dazed eye of the storm, blinking and confused.
He is a boy again, thwacking wood sticks on a dusty plain, struggling despite every odd. There is no clever idea or trick to win his victory. No, it must be earned.
Techno does not meet him the next morning.
He is too busy with command, strategizing over the inkblots on that worn map in his closed tent. He does not have time for the child with golden hair and quick wit. He does not have time for the sunshine that paces outside his keep.
After a week, Tommy is brave enough to enter.
He comes with food, roasted meat from the dining hall. It’s the last of their stores. After the battle, there will either be food from the enemies' stocks, or no mouths left to feed.
The general is a forge, coals sparking from the orders in his maw, sharp blades and pokers slicing into the table as he dictates direction. It’s terrifying, and the empty blackness in his eyes drowns Tommy.
Techno spots him enter immediately and softens. His sharp shoulders crumble like brittle cliffsides as he stands to dismiss the others. Councilmen shuffle away, glaring slightly at the boy for interrupting, but not enough that their esteemed general will notice.
Technoblade looks tired, worn from the strain of battle not yet fought. He shoulders every burden silently, and it is chiseled into his features with gentile care. He is an army for their army. “Hey,” he mutters, face down.
“Hey” Tommy responds gently, setting the meal down on the desk piled with inkpots, parchment, and quills.
They do not speak beside the greeting, silenced by the duet of fingers ripping through the overcooked meat. They eat together, their first and last meal well-spent.
After the plate is clean, Techno retrieves the chessboard from its ornate wooden box. It is a ritual. Tommy watches as he sets up the pieces, clicking into place on monochromatic tiles. Ready to serve. Perfect for war. At this moment, Tommy is not a soldier. He is their general, and he will win with strategy and a clear head.
At this moment, it is not a game, and Tommy is standing at the sidelines while onyx and ivory lay down their lives for him.
“Are you ready?” Techno asks softly, moving a pawn to start the game.
Tommy studies the checkered spaces for a second, “Would I ever be?” He moves his knight, and the clack commands the battlefield to attention.
Techno only grunts in agreement, staring at the boy for such a period that Tommy has to clear his throat to bring his attention back to the board.
“You look like me.”
It’s so quiet, Tommy does not believe the words were even spoken. It sounds like a fault, the admittance of a crime. The beast looked mournful, like they had lost already, like he was bowing his head to the gods in defeat.
But Techno does not bow, never to defeat.
And so, Tommy thinks nothing of it. It’s not his place. A peaceful silence falls the tent as they play for hours, both forgetting what war waits for them just outside the stoic walls they built. Because there is warmth inside those walls, and the air almost smells like sweet bread crusts.
Before Tommy can blink, he is suited in armor and taken to an empty battlefield.
The armies are stains in the dirt valley, fenced in by vibrantly dyed banners that shift gracefully in the low wind. Half crimson and gold, half black and emerald. They paint every inch in sharp malice, simmering in easy waves towards the opposition.
Tommy is positioned in the back, maybe twenty rows in. From his stance near the top of the slope, he can just make out the top of Techno’s head.
The general stands in the center, flanked by infantry with red shields and metal on their faces. There is only one flag bearer on the front line and he stands tall, with a trumpet slung like an already blooming wound across his chest.
In one moment, this land owned by no man will be covered in man's blood. They will spill for kings that will never see their faces, bury themselves under boots for the sake of royal gardens and polished marble floors.
“Ready!” A voice breaks the air, unrecognizable among the shuffle. The crowd crouches down, and Tommy watches as across the valley they all fall the same. Archers pull back, the stretch of sinew sickening above the din.
A single footsoldier, the flag-bearer, steps forward, and lifting the dented copper trumpet to his mouth, he blows.
The shriek commands the army better than any god, commander, or general. Rows upon rows upon rows sweep to their feet. All at once, they lunge, moving together like one mass. Arrows are let loose in shrill waves over their heads, flying with their black feathers like crows. They blanket the sky to protect the boy, to protect all of them. Men have already fallen around him, to much smaller enemies in the jagged cliff face. He loyally follows, sword drawn, face set, seething anger.
In one moment, they are at war.
Footsoldiers meet battle before Tommy, facing off at the base of the two slopes in fury. He watches them slide down the sides like magma, sparks flying when metal hits metal. Red soon paints their blank canvas, bodies piling like those of animals. They are unusable, unwanted, wasted.
Tommy strikes a blank-faced man and slices through his side while kicking up at his knee. The man goes down fast. Whether dead or dying, Tommy doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He just keeps moving.
His vision is splattered and slashed with rage. It keeps him going despite everything, the knowledge that he will be left for dead. That he is no better than any other ant crawling on this hillside. But, he has to be better, he has to survive.
Everything before this never existed. There is just the now, the rich space between flesh and the dangers of turning your back. Nothing matters besides the position of your blade. They all look familiar. They all look like him. They are soldiers, defined as boys dressed in ghosts armor enlisted to fight for somebody they will never know. But to put a sword through their ribs is to put a sword through their king's. And so they keep falling.
His training is not wasted, and he takes down an alarming number before a single blow is delivered to him.
It is a stout man, with full armor and a helmet, who bashes his legs with the end of his sword. Knee cracking under a steady hilt, he falls. And then his attacker does, weighing down on him from where he is run through with Tommy’s sword. An eye for an eye.
He’s trapped, stuck under the suffering crush of his opponent, pinned in place by his own blade.
No matter how it pains him to sit while fellow soldiers move together, there is nothing else to do. No fists or kicks or cries could divert the attention of the onslaught. The sounds of war are too explosive, too violent. They smother him.
His vision fades, his limbs sleep. But still, he fights. He pictures killing this man, ripping straight through his cavity with bare hands. It will do nothing to imagine impossible strength but it keeps his body awake. Hours pass, maybe minutes, maybe even seconds.
The trumpet blares again.
It sounds like a saint, copper and white feathers descending through the smoke-streaked sky to deliver him.
Men stand and stagger to their feet around him, the undead brought back at the call of victory. Tommy cries out, kicking with the last of his strength. Two young-looking soldiers run to help him up, together saving him from the crush of death. Tommy turns to thank them but they vanish into the smog after the body’s weight was lifted.
Infantry fellen to arrows and steel clog the dirt around his feet like a sick painting of skin and blood. It’s noxious, the sharp smell of rust mixing into the peaceful breath of the valley. They have destroyed this place. It is untamed land no longer.
Tommy stands.
His weight is mounted on the sword he pulled with a monstrous noise from the chest of his enemy. Everything is blurred and spinning, the ground seems to crumble under his feet like the noise of battle has awoken some ancient dormant creature. But nothing comes. Above all, there is silence. It stretches as far as any eye can see; Nothing stirs in the valley. No life is left to make use of it.
Medics in white, on either side of the slopes, rush around to aid those struck. Their urgent calls to each other and swishing robes awaken Tommy from his distant dreaming, and he begins to climb the hill.
He doesn’t ask who won, doesn’t meet any eye, doesn’t turn around. Not until he reaches the top.
Tommy stands among the wreckage, surveying the godless abandon beneath his feet. And in the center of it all, there is a mountain in the valley.
The world tilts.
The air screams a thousand voice chorus.
And the sunshine tumbles from his sky.
Down, down, down, feet scraping through muck, tripping over bodies, hands falling first into the rocky cliffside. He scrapes and scuffs spaces of already purple skin. The silence crushes him, so he screams. It eats him from the inside, hollows him to the darkness that overtakes his vision. Raw and rageful, he doesn’t stop, doesn't cease, doesn’t falter until he reaches the bottom. Not a soul makes their way to the boy. Medics stare with fixed blank and mechanical eyes, waiting for his approach, waiting for this banshee to fall on them.
Tommy’s knees hit the earth as the pale sheet silently coats the general like fallen snow. Techno is dead.
He has become blank, featureless, a marble statue. Red blooms and flowers from his chest, due to the dagger in his back.
His throat empties of sound as tears spill. Heart of steel, arteries snake like wire through his gut. There is nothing alive left. He is mindless, it was discarded before the first trumpets blare, and the cycle of time abandons the boy at the mountain’s side.
Tommy wakes three nights later, left in a dark tent. His body feels like a tree in a forest fire, charred and dead but still burning, lit with orange embers that crackle as he moves. They laid him in Techno’s tent. Alone. The table is void of each supply, the map is curled against one corner.
Someone with a candle enters, face erased by darkness, and he jumps. This ghostly figure tells him to dress, says the body will be burned with the rising sun, as is tradition.
Every scrap of human left in Tommy does as it told. He washes his face and buckles his shoes in silence. Alone.
When he exits the tent the stars bend to mourn their lost sun, slipping from the sky as the gray dawn breaks. There is a cluster of recruits, all portrait images of themselves, painted uniforms with glittering lapels and brushstroke hair. The men wait in divided ranks around a small pyre. They are there to watch them burn.
The space between them is as silent as their time spent on the training grounds. Technoblade is a well-manned corpse. Peaceful, lasting, and effortless. He is slain, and their army dies with him.
Everything that is his signature remains, shining epaulets, tidy uniform, even the gold wreath.
Everything that makes him human is gone, sharp red glare, furrowed brows, rare but lasting smirk.
Nothing short of taxidermied bravery falls the hero. A doll stitched with king's crest, a glossed chess piece banished to a shelf.
Tommy watches, silence crushing, as the spark of kindling is tossed onto the sleeping giant.
As every last bit of a person is ended between a dagger and a match.
“No family,” They whisper between the smoke, “Nobody.”
Tommy wants to correct them, but the words burn on his tongue, and ash is better swallowed than spoken.
He stays with the grave for the rest of the day, marvels at the impossibleness of it. He wonders of things someone his age would never, how lungs empty, how eyes close, how near he was to the same fate. He will not rise above the grief. He steals time. And he stays.
The next morning, Tommy rides out of camp on a pale horse. He will not be missed, and neither will the crown lifted from the pyre with nimble fingers. It lives, wrought of ash, nestled in his curls, escaping war with him.
The boy is going home.
The sun does not rise for any other day.