(3rd person POV)
It had been written in an ancient script, in a book that looked exactly like all the others in the forgotten library: heavy-bound and dust-covered. Philza had flipped gingerly through it, afraid that one wrong move could turn the fragile paper into ash, and had found the words on the last pages.
You seek power, reader, it had said, but all things come with a price. Power for power. Divinity for divinity.
If you wish to be a god among gods, one must be the vessel, the other the sacrifice.
Philza had promised it would be their last resort. Only until push came to shove, Techno had said.
And the Green God had definitely shoved.
And so Philza had pulled Techno back, and the two of them had talked: one god to another, for the last time. They had both known it was time, just as they had known, that first day on that battlefield of ice and snow, arrows flying overhead and both of them lit from within by divine fire, that their roads had crossed, and there was no going back.
Technoblade, blood god and emperor, had offered his scarred hand to Philza, Angel of Death and god of freedom, and they had clasped each other's fingers like old friends did after a long separation.
For a moment, there was only the two of them in that forest of dreams, and when Philza whispered the ancient words, it almost sounded like a solemn prayer. A prayer to the god Techno used to be, and to the god Philza was becoming.
Towards the end, Techno's hand had betrayed his pain. It shook, just a bit, as his veins burned gold, turning him into gilded patchwork—half-mortal, half-god—his very soul caught in the crossfire between mortality and divinity.
His breaths came quick and labored, and still Philza murmured, slipping silent apologies between the primordial spell. When the final word was said, Techno had fallen to his knees before Philza, a wicked reversal of fortunes, but he did not let go.
Technoblade forsook his godhood without protest. There was barely a struggle, barely a scream of agony. It had been his sacrifice to make, and he would be damned if he'd let himself regret it. He had wrestled with martyrdom, and won.
When Techno stood again, he was human—simple and breakable, with numbered years and numb hands. Inside him, there was a hollow pit where his godhood used to rest. He was going to make a landfill out of it.
And Philza was awake.
Now, he stood in a belltower overlooking a ruined city. Fires raged until the horizon, burning away homes and streets that once teemed with easy life. Families and friends gathered in bunches like sweet-smelling bouquets.
But like flowers unaware of the gardener's plucking hands, they had existed in the shadow of a being too large to comprehend, their lives already decided for them—all their tragedies and loves, their hopes and their secrets, laid into predetermined places on the Green God's mosaic.
But that would end today.
Because Philza was his antithesis, and he was going to set everybody free.
The bell tolled as he and Dream continued their deadly danced around the tower, swords meeting and then unmeeting.
Dream must have sensed the change. He must have seen it in the way Philza moved, taking each step with utmost confidence that the ground would meet him and not the other way around. He must have felt it in the renewed strength behind Philza's blows.
He must have known Philza was still holding back.
For the first time since their encounter, the Green God had the wits to finally be unnerved.
One mistake was all it took. A misstep in their eons-old waltz. The Green God swung to early, his sword cutting through air as Philza simply ducked out of the way. The bell shuddered as Dream's blade bit into the bronze and stuck there.
As Dream tried to pull it free, Philza kicked at his knees and sent him spinning against one of the pillars holding up the tower's roof, unarmed.
Dream stumbled against the pillar, nearly toppling over the edge of the tower, and before he could regain his balance, Philza swung at him. Dream managed to duck just in time, but Philza's sword cut through the pillar behind him as easily as a hot knife through butter.
The pillar buckled and fell apart, and the roof of the tower began leaning, almost halfway to caving in on itself.
The Green God whistled as he jumped back from Philza's advance. "Listen, Philza—"
"I'm done listening to you." Philza swung again, this time managing to nick Dream's forearm. Brilliant red blood ran from the cut. It did not heal.
Dream looked down at his wounded arm, his brows furrowed with confusion. "Why did that hurt?" he asked no one in particular. He raised his eyes to Phil, and his confusion turned to fury. "What have you done?"
"The very thing you tried to keep me from doing," said Philza, raising his sword above his head. "Now, hold still, Dream. Let me take everything away from you as you took everything from me."
The Green God made to raise his hand, perhaps to conjure himself a new sword or attempt to throw Philza into another dream. Philza's hand shot out, gripping Dream's wrist and twisting. He leaned in to watch the other god's discomfort turn to pain, turn to panic, as he struggled to free himself from Philza's crushing hold.
"Little spider," Philza whispered, "caught in your own web."
"You think this fazes me?" Dream demanded, still trying to pull his wrist away. "Do you think I'm afraid of you?"
The Angel of Death looked at the Green God with the eyes of a son taken too soon. "Yes," he said. "I think you are."
Dream snarled. An animal cornered. "You forget you've tried this before. You've always failed. Always."
"Ah, but that was before I came to realize what you were." Philza made sure Dream could see every inch of his expression, every depleted line, every mark the long years had etched into his skin.
"You would have us think that you're doing all this—the rewrites, this infinite loop—just for the fun of it, but you don't really have the luxury of indulging yourself, do you? Because you're afraid. Every second of every day of every life, you are afraid."
" You have known me since you were made. You have known since your first breath that I was the only creature capable of breaking you. And before I could even try, before you gave me any reason to, you ran."
"You pretended it was all some silly little game to keep your heart from exploding out of your chest with fear, and you ran. You sculpted worlds, rewrote histories, just to keep me from seeing you squirm. Because you're a coward. That's what you are, Dream."
"You're a godsdamned coward." Eryn muttered.
"Take that back," the Green God whispered. "Take that back right now."
"Make me," challenged Philza. "Oh, wait, you can't."
They were equal forces, once upon a time. The Spider and the Songbird, Control and Freedom, the two oldest powers in the universe, the first of the gods—maintaining a delicate balance until one tipped the scale.
Philza was merely tipping it back.
"You bought yourself some time," said Philza. "Eons of it. But the clock is ticking, and there's nowhere else to run. The game is over."
Dream was breathing heavily, his emerald eyes wide. "You can hurt me," he said, "but you can't kill me. You can't. That's not—That's not how we do this. We'll always be hunting each other. You have the upper hand now, but not forever."
"You're right." Philza loosened his hold on Dream, allowing him to step away. The Green God gave him a look of mistrustful confusion as he rubbed his wrist where Philza's hand had left scorch marks.
"I can't kill you. If I did, you'll simply be reborn, and the chase will continue. I know that now. And I also know what I have to do." Phil concluded, almost sorrowfully.
He glanced over Dream's shoulder, and the other god turned on his heel to follow Philza's line of sight. When he finally saw what Philza meant, he whirled around with an incredulous, almost fearful expression.
"You can't be serious," Dream said, voice trembling. "You're can't be." Then, regaining a bit of confidence, he said, "No, you really can't be, because I'd just break out. I can carve my way out, little by little."
"Not if you have someone watching you," Philza said simply.
What little hope the Green God still had died in his eyes. "You're an idiot," he declared, with equal parts disbelief and alarm. He moved towards Philza, grabbing fistfuls of his tunic and shaking him. It would be the closest to begging he would stoop to.
"Do you have any idea what I would lose? What you would lose?" Eryn suddenly pieced everything together, look of disbelief on her face as she said that aloud.
"All things come with a price," Philza said, surprised by the sudden burn of tears in his eyes. "And I pay it, so they don't have to. I'm done running away from my problems. I'm done begging the stars for answers. I've brought the stars low, Dream, and they will do my bidding for me."
Why does it feel like you're saying goodbye? Wilbur had asked. Because he was. He'd said his farewells, even if he was the only one who would truly know it. He'd pressed one last gift into his son's hands, but his eyes had been on Techno as he'd spoken of never letting go—so Techno might understand, in hindsight, ten days or ten years from now, that Philza was leaving Wilbur to him, and him to Wilbur.
Behind the Green God, far below in the middle of the broken earth, was a cut in the universe, a jagged gate to a place of unmaking. It stood waiting, waiting for a green-eyed god and his keeper. A prison of infinite void for the two loneliest gods on earth.
Philza grabbed Dream's wrists once more, manacles of flesh and blood.
"It's been you and me since the beginning, Dream," Philza said solemnly. "And it'll be me and you in the end."
"Father?"
Philza froze.
"What are you doing?"
a/n
ohhhhhhhhhhhh shooooooooottttt
have a good day, afternoon or night wherever you are!!!!!!!!!
byeeeeee mah bootyful muffinss!!!