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"Phil!" Comes the echoey call. Philza looks up from his crafting table in his house and spies just who he expected out the window. But the ghost is looking unusually worried.
"Hey, Ghostbur!" He opens the door and peers out. Ghostbur hurries over to him, clutching some of his "blue". He automatically gives a piece to Phil, who pockets it with a smile.
"Thank you. What's wrong? You don't look as happy as usual."
Ghostbur holds out a lead in his hands and looks down at it, and then back up at Phil. A few possibilities run through his head, the first being that his beloved blue sheep, "Friend", he had called it, had died.
"Friend has gone," Ghostbur says quietly, clutching his blue tighter.
"Gone?"
"Look, it broke," and he separates the lead that Phil thought was in one piece. "He wandered off and I can't find him anywhere."
"Okay, it'll be alright. You want me to help?"
"If... if that isn't too much trouble. If you're busy-"
Phil is already out and shutting the door behind him, not able to stand his son, even as a ghost, looking in so much distress.
"No, no mate, don't worry about it. Where have you looked?"
“I don’t know all the place names but I looked by the big tower that’s all red, and Tommy’s house, and I already asked Ranboo and Technoblade here,” he lists as he remembers, staring at the sky as if the places would appear right there for him to show Phil where he means.
“Alright. Let’s just get to the path and look as we go, yeah?”
“Okay Phil! Thank you,” and he gives him a few pieces of blue and a new lead as they head off.
Phil begins to understand why Friend hasn’t been found yet. Ghostbur’s “looking” is really just that, examining every little thing three or more times over before deciding whether he could take it with him or not. It took some explaining to get him to understand that no, you can’t take that cow because that’s part of a farm and definitely not a pet, and Phil doesn’t have the heart to tell him it’ll probably be killed.
He quickly realises the direction they’re heading in. Straight down the path wasn’t a good idea.
"Wil, let’s look elsewhere-”
But ghost is already floating down the prime path to what was once his symphony.
A symphony that ended in explosion and ash.
All Phil can do is watch for a moment, praying that there’s no recognition as he steps over the threshold.
"Where is this? I forgot," he asks absently as he peers through the glass. The drop underneath doesn’t seem to affect him.
"It's... uh... it's L'Manberg, Wil. You know about L'Manberg," he treads carefully.
"Oh! It got all exploded by a bad person," Ghostbur straightens up and declares with a smile much too soft for the topic, but Phil breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn't remember. "Phil, can you go look over by the water? Maybe Friend went there because the colour matches his."
"How about we both search over there, mate?" Phil suggests, not wanting to let Ghostbur out of his sight in case he discovers something he shouldn't.
“No, it’s okay! I want to go over there!” He points at the charred remains of what seemed to be a tree.
“I don’t think-”
But he’s already off again. Phil sighs and decides to accept that he’ll find out about it at some point, just hopefully not today.
He can admit that Ghostbur wasn’t wrong when he said Friend wasn’t anywhere. A sheep couldn’t have wandered all the way to L’Manberg, could it? The ghost keeps a close eye on Friend so he’d be surprised if it had enough time to go that far. Maybe it despawned? No, it has a nametag. Did it die? Ghostbur would’ve seen the “Friend fell from a high place” or similar message appear. So where the hell…
There’s a distant bleat. Phil’s head spins round, and he hears it again. It doesn’t seem to be coming from a specific direction, though.
“Wil! I hear him!” Phil calls and then sees movement and realises the sheep is below, under the glass. “He got down through the water!”
There’s no response. Either Phil has to save the sheep himself, or go and find Ghostbur. He decides on the sheep, because if he loses him again he really can’t be bothered to keep searching. He also doesn’t know what’ll happen if it touches the Egg.
Getting a sheep up a waterfall without it drowning proved to be harder than Phil thought. Friend is lovely, but really doesn’t seem to know what direction he’s going in and nearly fell on multiple occasions.
“Wil!” Phil calls again when the sheep is safely on the glass and trailing behind him. “I got ‘im!”
He looks around a bit, but like the sheep, he’d just disappeared. Unless…
Phil is right. He wishes he’d gone to Ghostbur first.
He’s standing in the biggest crater, the one that hasn’t been covered over. And he’s staring at the scribbles on the remaining pieces of the wall.
“Wil…?” He asks quietly, but he can tell the damage is done. “I have Friend…”
“What is this, Phil?” His voice is soft and breaks when he says Phil’s name. Both of them know he already knows.
“It’s… you know, it’s the... room. The one where everything happened.”
“But what is it? Why do I feel…” He’s on his knees now, and Phil can see how he’s gripping his blue through his translucent body. Phil has noticed when he’s happy he becomes more saturated, and almost looks like Alivebur again.
But now he’s worried that he might fade entirely.
“Wil, just come back. I have Friend, we can go now.”
“Tell me what happened,” he ignores Phil and demands in a much lower voice. Ghostbur never talks like that. He’s sounding like…
“Tell me what happened, Phil!”
Friend decides to take this as an opportunity to go towards the ghost to provide a source of comfort, but Phil pulls him back, ignoring his unappreciative bleat. If something snaps and Ghostbur hurts Friend, he knows he’ll break even more.
“Do you really want this? It’ll change everything you know…” He knows he’ll say yes anyway but maybe there’s a chance they can just leave, they can just walk away with the sheep and forget L’Manberg ever existed, and sit at the table with Tommy and Techno, and laugh together and-
“Tell me.”
It’s said with such force and demand, so similar to the tone of Alivebur, the one ordering that he…
Phil can’t refuse. Yet again.
“This is the room where it all blew up. There was a button, and I came in and tried to stop you but it was too late...”
He doesn’t need to say anymore. The blunt explanation does it, and Phil sees the recognition flash in Ghostbur’s eyes and watches the memories flood in. They overlap and mingle and while he knows it all now, everything is more confusing than before.
If I can’t have L’Manberg, no one-
I heard there was a special place, where-
It was never meant to-
Do it Phil, kill me, they all-
Tears fall from his eyes, hissing against his skin, and he drops to his knees – he didn’t even think he could cry anymore.
“I did this…?” He chokes out, and Phil, still clutching Friend’s leash, kneels too and holds out his arms. Ghostbur shuffles forward into them and buries his face in Phil’s shoulder.
"Alivebur did this, not you," he says softly and hugs him tighter. "You've only brought joy to us."
The feeling of his protective wings is comforting, and the ghost calms a little, and everything seems even better when Friend tries to join in.
But the longer he’s held there, the more Ghostbur swears he can feel something sharp tear through his jumper, and blue begins to stain it, turning to red in his mind and pooling across the stone. His chest tightens and begins to ache, and he feels like he’s choking on nothing, and he clings onto the other for support, trying to process what’s happening, what memory this is, because it’s ringing so many bells-
Suddenly, Phil doesn’t seem so warm.