Chapter Text
The fire eventually dies out, and the playful bickering dies down with it. By the time the ash has settled, Wemmbu has built himself a three-block high platform of endstone on which to lounge - apparently out of spite for Parrot’s suggestion that they all preserve the durability of their tools as long as possible, in the absence of any exp with which to repair them. Theo has disappeared off, ostensibly to scout the island for the most suitable area for flying practice - and just the idea of that makes Flame a little nauseous. He resolves to distract himself by focusing on the fourth member of their unlikely collective; Parrot has set up in front of him like a lecturer preparing for an exam, all solemn sincerity and professionalism. Like they aren’t all trapped in an unknown prison with their only chance of escape resting on Flame’s newly winged shoulders.
He finds himself wondering, not for the first time, why a guy like this chose to live on an anarchy server. He seems like he’d fit in better as a scholar, or an investigator, or- in any kind of civilized society, actually. Maybe on some cultured city-server, a place with admins and laws and respawns, instead of the chaotic hardcore they all chose to call home.
But nobody joins Unstable because they’re rational.
“So you have primaries, secondaries, coverts.” Parrot points to sections of his own extended wing as he explains, and Flame forces himself to pay attention. “And then the coverts are split into primary coverts, secondary coverts, marginal coverts-”
“Holy yap, bro.” Wemmbu yawns loudly from his podium, interrupting the seminar. “He doesn’t need an anatomy lesson. Let’s just push him off the edge and let him figure it out.”
Irritation flares alongside something he doesn’t want to acknowledge as nerves, with the suggestion, and Flame finds himself sniping back without missing a beat; twisting around to glare up at the purple idiot.
“You realise if I die, you’re all stuck here too, right?”
Wemmbu whistles.
“Did the immortal FlameFrags just admit that he can die?”
“Actually shut up bro, oh my god.”
Parrot pinches the bridge of his nose, exhales a breath that speaks of long-suffering patience.
“Wemmbu, if you’re not going to help, you can go somewhere else.”
“Yeah, ‘cause memorising nomenclature is super helpful.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yeah, I do.” He swings his legs around to hang over the edge, then draws something from his inventory and rolls it with a flourish into his hand. The glossy green-black surface is unmistakeable, looking perfectly at home in the cool ambient light of the End. He raises a brow at them both. “Pearlcharge up, then launch.”
Parrot doesn’t even blink.
“That’s a terrible idea.”
Wemmbu exhales a disparaging noise and closes his fingers around the pearl. His arm drops to hang loosely at his side, and he leans forward over the edge in a way which would probably be precarious, for someone without two massive sails behind him to balance his weight.
“He’s used an elytra before, it’s not like gliding is advanced-”
“He needs to learn the basics-”
“Bullshit, that is basic, it’s how I learned!”
“And you’re such a shining example.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His feathers bristle and puff up when he’s affronted, Flame notices. Like the way Parrot’s wings arch a little over his shoulders whenever he’s trying to prove a point, punctuating his statements with quiet little rustles of movement. They communicate so much more than he ever realised, and he wonders how much nuance he’s missed out on by simply never observing that.
“Bro, I’ve watched you fly into a wall before-” Parrot insists, and Wemmbu interrupts with a scoff.
“I’ve watched you fly into an orbital strike, Parrot, let’s not play this game.”
He drops easily from his perch to land beside Flame. Flame tries not to be envious of how lightly his feet touch down.
“He doesn’t need to worry about taking off if he can pearl up, he just needs to figure out holding still.” He continues.
“And landing?” Parrot’s arms fold over his chest. The motion makes him look even more like a disapproving teacher than he did before.
Wemmbu grins.
“I mean, that’ll happen anyway.”
“Real responsible.”
“He isn’t made of glass.”
“Bro, I’m stood right here.” Flame complains. He doesn’t bother to mask the irritation in his tone. Parrot at least looks abashed and mutters an apology, though Wemmbu only rolls his eyes.
It’s hard not to feel like a petulant child, in this situation - the both of them arguing over how best to teach him a skill they obviously barely remember learning themselves, something innate and automatic, while he can barely grasp basic motions. As someone who prides himself on being unbeatable at every turn, it’s infuriating to find himself the novice, here. Flame is used to being the best. It’s hard enough to humble himself to the point of begging for help; but being talked about like he isn’t even present makes him want to hit something.
Probably Wemmbu.
The man in question seems wholly unrepentant, in fact; he just hums and readjusts his grip on the pearl, shifting his weight like he’s assuring himself Flame is paying attention.
“Then watch, duh.”
The pearl sails up into the blank sky as he speaks - followed up quickly with a wind charge, whistling along behind it - and Wemmbu disappears from sight with a snap of collapsing atmosphere. His shadow reappears against the endstone within the same breath, form teleporting high above - and it half-extends its wings to drift in lazy circles downwards, wheeling around and around in a smooth spiral. After a handful of loops he comes to a graceful touchdown, taking only a few extra steps to slow his momentum.
“Easy.” He declares.
Flame flickers a glance towards Parrot. It looks easy - easier than the heavy complicated manoeuvres he’s seen the others take to launch, at least. It looks like progress.
“Sure. I’m game.”
If it will circumvent the months it might otherwise take him to learn, if it will mean improving faster, he’s willing to take whatever shortcuts are available to him. Parrot meets his gaze, and he sees the moment determination turns to defeat - wings slumping along with his shoulders on a sigh.
“Do you have totems?”
“Three.” He confirms - not that he especially wants to waste them on fall damage, without restocks available, but his current situation seems to make that inevitable.
“Just- please hold one.”
He rolls his eyes, though the effect is largely limited by the blindfold covering them. It’s a dramatic and overprotective request, especially when he already has feather falling glinting on his boots, and he’s survived far worse falls than pearl-height in his life - but he still dutifully extracts the golden idol from his inventory and offhands it.
“Happy?” He asks. Parrot meets his gaze with a flat stare which makes it clear that no, he isn’t - but he doesn’t argue.
He turns to Wemmbu’s smirk, next, and holds out an expectant, obnoxious hand.
“You gotta supply the wind charges, bro, I don’t carry that trash.” He demands.
It only elicits a laugh, a stack tossed easily towards him and tucked into his inventory in the same moment. It’s more than he needs, but knowing Wemmbu the guy has a stack of spare breeze rods on hand to craft more. Pearls are a little more valuable, but he has his own - and he finds himself grateful for the impromptu farming he’d done while being chased across the End before all of this.
His bravado falters, just briefly, as he readies the pearl in his hand. It isn’t even the fall that intimidates him, if he’s being honest with himself- but if he can’t do this, if he fails-
He blows out a breath. Steels himself. Failure isn’t an option. This is just a skill, like any other; if he falls, he’ll get back up, and go again.
And probably endure a lifetime of mockery for it.
“Just hold yourself still and take your time.” Parrot encourages as he stares up towards the dark sky. “We’ll follow you up so you don’t go off course.”
It’s more reassuring than it reasonably should be. His fingers tighten briefly around the totem. One deep breath.
And he launches first the pearl, then a wind charge right behind it.
In the space it takes him to exhale, the world blinks, and his perspective changes.
For a moment, the air is still. There’s no longer ground beneath his feet. He can see the whole expanse of the island. A vast mass surrounded by darkness, floating alone in the nothingness, the barrier that cages them in entirely invisible but undeniably present. He sees both blue-green and purple forms extend below, Parrot and Wemmbu pushing themselves from the ground the traditional way to rise up and meet him. He dares to flex unfamiliar muscle, to half-extend his wings into the space behind him as gravity creeps up to claim him again, to lean a fraction forward into that pull.
He feels the moment they catch. The sensation of resistance gathering beneath his feathers, attuned to the wind like they’re made for it. It’s like cutting through water, like the air has its own weight, and for the briefest of moments his nerves fade away in the face of giddy relief.
But the force of the air doesn’t just stay beneath him.
As he leans into it, that wind presses on top of his wings, too - he feels it flattening his feathers, feels his weight shift into an unwilling dive as he starts to drop; not in a graceful spiral, but a rapid plunge.
He hears a voice come to him on the wind, apparently not infected by the panic beginning to flood his own bloodstream, a manic laugh.
“Holy fucking shit, he’s fast!”
Too fast. Rocketing forwards with no means of stopping, air whipping past him so quickly it’s turned sharp against his skin. Endstone blurs beneath him to a pale yellow expanse, the yawning void at the edge of it approaching ever closer. Wemmbu’s voice comes from behind him, now, more distant than before, more urgent.
“Flame- Flame, buddy, bank! Bank!”
He doesn’t know how. In desperation, he tries throwing his wings wide, hoping they’ll catch the air and slow him - but they’re yanked back painfully out from his power, streaming behind him in the sheer force of the wind, joints screaming protest. A horrible liquid burn ripples through his left wing from the shoulder, searing away all thought.
Any control he might have had is gone. He’s tumbling through the sky, rushing forward and down, he can feel the thud of his heart against his ribs and his lungs robbed of air, the void is beneath him, he’s going to die-
“I can’t- Flame- fuck, Theo!”
The impact comes first.
He doesn’t see the invisible barrier, but it meets him all the same, an impassible force slamming into him at impossible speed, like air turned solid. Pain explodes white-hot and violent in his skull, the black of the void momentarily leaching away to the black of nothingness, hot iron blood filling his mouth- before green and gold sparks assault his senses, jolt his veins with vicious regen to jerk him back from the brink while the totem in his hand crumbles into grit and leaves him reeling.
But he’s still falling.
He ricochets off and away, back into the abyss to fall, forward momentum lost. In desperation, he launches a pearl in the direction of the island - but his damaged shoulder wrenches with the motion and it sails short, falling past him into the dark. There isn’t even time to feel the agony of his new injuries before the icy bite of void wraps around him, dark spots in his eyes obscuring the endstone island high above, the charcoal wings streaming uselessly either side of him, the blur of gray and yellow rushing down in his direction-
The sudden impact of arms around his midsection hits him almost as hard as the wall had.
He might black out. Or perhaps his brain just stops processing anything that isn’t his imminent demise; it isn’t clear. There’s pain, a rush of air, panicked voices and a hideously rough landing, rolling hard onto dusty ground, skidding with enough force to kick up grit which catches in his teeth on his next gasp of air. But it’s land, not void, not the freezing death he’d been so close to.
“Theo-”
“I got it, Parrot, just let me-”
“Holy shit, holy fucking shit, bro-”
“Fuck, is he-”
“I think so.”
He manages to push himself to his knees, but the world spins and he nearly retches, every nerve ending screaming that something is horribly wrong.
“Can you handle this?” When he blinks his vision clear, Theo is knelt in front of him, and he feels a steady grip on his forearms - but his dark eyes (bizzarrely uncovered, when did he take off his glasses?) are fixed over Flame’s shoulder. Parrot hovers just in view behind him, so the presence he senses at his back has to be Wemmbu. He watches Theo give a faint nod in response to whatever answer he’s gotten - it’s hard to tell if he’s missed the exchange, because his head is swimming with pain.
The wide hands gripping his arms squeeze, force him to direct his attention.
“Hey. Flame. Look at me, bro. You’ve dislocated your left wing, okay? We’re gonna fix it, but it’ll hurt like a motherfucker.”
He grits his teeth. He already hurts like a motherfucker. The left side of his body burns with enough sickening heat to make him nauseous, and the rest of him feels like he’s gone ten rounds with a Warden and zero gear.
“Do it.” He grinds out, because he doesn’t care, doesn’t give a damn if it will make the burning stop.
“Atta boy.” Theo flashes him a grin. The grip on his arms turns to iron, and he realises abruptly that he’s being held still. Restrained. His heart - already racing - begins to hammer harder in his chest. Through the haze of pain, he feels a different hand (Wemmbu? He can’t tell) take hold at the top of his wing, one more resting a palm at the base, and instinct tells him to flinch from the contact; but he only succeeds in sending another bolt of lighting through the joint and hissing out a sharp breath through a clenched jaw.
“On three, okay?” Theo warns. Flame tenses. “One-”
Before he gets further than that, there’s a pulse of agony down his spine, crushing pressure that raises bile in his throat, makes him want to turn and lash out at the threat at his back, the hands on his wings, to fight defend kill - but Theo is pinning him in place. He can’t turn, can’t reach for his sword, can’t thrash but for the one uninjured wing which flaps pathetically against his attacker.
For a moment, the whole world is pain pain pain pain- then a horrible wet thunk that he feels in his teeth.
The burn settles immediately into a dull ache, throbbing in time with his racing heart. The relief is a physical force; slamming into him despite the remaining soreness, making him sag in Theo’s grip. Before he can think to fight against it, the larger man is guiding him forwards to slump against his shoulder, breathing hard as he tries to recover his wits.
“There we go.” It’s cheerful and easy, and there’s a cool hand which feels too good against the damp overheated skin at the back of his neck, fire in his blood rising to answer the jolt of panic. “That’s it, take a sec, that was rough.”
He allows breathing to be more of a priority than his surroundings while he remembers how his lungs work, for the space of three deep breaths. Lets himself feel every limb protesting the aftermath of being thrown at high speed against an immovable wall. Accepts the pounding against his ribs from the realisation of how close he came to death. Doesn’t allow himself to picture how weak he must look.
One. Two. Three.
Then he pulls back. He places a hand on Theo’s chest to separate himself, hold him at bay, and shakes his head slowly, eyes still cast low at the unfocused endstone.
“I’m fine. Thanks, bro. I’m okay, I’m fine.” He mutters, and does his best to believe it.
It must be at least somewhat convincing, because Theo releases him without complaint, and claps him on the shoulder - lightly enough, though he still winces from the contact.
“Okay, bro. I’m just gonna- ah-”
And with that, he’s gone entirely. Perhaps Flame isn’t as fine as he’d like to believe, because he barely registers him moving. In fact, as he raises his eyes to his surroundings, only Parrot remains.
He sits a little straighter, and tries rolling his shoulder. Flinches as the motion sends another jolt through his wing.
“Ow, fuck.”
“So like, maybe don’t slam on the brakes so hard at two hundred miles per hour.” Parrot suggests dryly. Flame tilts his head to glare at him - but the guy is holding out a golden apple like a peace offering, and his gaze is a little too searching. “Regen.” He explains when Flame eyes it with suspicion. “For your… everything.”
He snatches the apple up with the arm that doesn’t feel like it’s been crushed in a vice, and brings it to his lips.
“I’m never doing that again.”
Parrot grins crookedly as the cool wash of regeneration pulses through his limbs, dampens the worst of the aches with each saccharine bite of the fruit.
“We can call it a learning experience.” He offers.
Flame swallows thickly. Wipes juice from his lips with the sleeve of his hoodie.
“Never. Again.”
- - -
“You okay?” Theo’s footfalls are heavier than either of the other two, even if his voice didn’t give him away. Wemmbu doesn’t turn. He’s sat at the edge of the island, past the ridge, staring out over the inky sky that’s all that surrounds them. Out towards the invisible barrier trapping all of them in this prison. Towards the hungry End that had almost just claimed Flame’s life.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Dunno. Kinda scary to watch, right?”
“No.”
“Right.” Theo drawls. He comes into view at Wemmbu’s periphery, settling himself at his side to look out over the nothingness. “So you’re totally chill with watching your friend fall into the void. Gotcha.”
“He wasn’t gonna die.” Wemmbu rolls his eyes hard, paints his words thick with skepticism and mockery. “He’s the Immortal Demon, remember?”
Theo’s gaze on him is like a physical presence. Heavy, and unwanted. He feels his fingers curl where they rest against the endstone, dust and grit catching beneath his nails.
“Demon or not, I figure this is kind of a lot to deal with.” There’s a rustle of feathers, and he doesn’t have to look to know that Theo has spread out his wings - he can feel the slight disturbance in the air as it whispers past his own. “If you’re new to this shit, I mean.”
Irritation flares, and Wemmbu can’t even pinpoint why. He just acts.
“Then you’re doing a great job of holding his hand.” The words come out bitter, and he’s pushing himself to his feet without really thinking it through.
It’s not as though he has somewhere else to go. No landmarks on this barren landscape, no reason to go anywhere at all. No excuses.
So he doesn’t make one. Just crosses the two steps that take him to the edge, and without hesitation lets himself fall. In the second before the familiar rush of air drowns out all other sound, he hears Theo sigh.
Then he catches the breeze, and soars his way into the blank empty void beneath the island.