Chapter Text
Suddenly, curling up in a hole and dying doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Compared to Phil’s actions last night, nothing seems quite as bad. He’s supposed to be atoning for Sanguinis’ sins! Not f*cking the man most directly responsible for his death! A man who literally can’t say no. It was terrible of him to even think of, let alone actually do.
Phil admittedly spent most of the morning languishing in his nest in abject misery and trying to figure out how he ever thought that was a good idea. By the time he pulls himself out, breakfast has already passed. So no seeing Tommy today.
Unless he wants to force Tommy to be in his presence. Quite frankly, that sounds like a terrible idea. Then again, isn’t Phil a master of those? Yeah, the time he spends alone did little for him in understanding his own thought process. So what if they were instincts? Phil isn’t an animal. He should have been able to control himself better than that.
Dressed again in his crown, silly hat, and a heavily layered robe mimicking a bamboo forest, Phil flees to Sanguinis’ office in shame. His wings sag behind him, betraying his mood. The servants avoid even looking at him. It stings.
He doesn’t want them to avoid him, he doesn’t want Tommy to be hurt, he wants all the characters in Love Paradox, now people truly suffering beneath Sanguinis’ hand, to be happy and free. He wants to live.
The door opens, letting him into the office. All Phil can do now is survive. Survive and try to make the world a little bit of a better place, made much harder by no one trusting him not to snap. Blood stains his hands and he had no choice in having it there.
Exhaustion clinging to his bones is truly a testament to how much he’s suffering. Sanguinis is immortal and invulnerable up until that macguffin thing is destroyed, he should be allowed to be tired. Phil calls bullsh*t.
No one dares follow him into Sanguinis’ office. When the doors click shut, he is completely and utterly alone. Technically, the butler is right at the entrance should Phil need anything, if that even counts.
Instincts sing in his head about how happy he made his mate last night, completely opposite of his actual mood. Jagged edges marking where he ends and these new feelings begin. Feelings which are an ethical nightmare.
Clambering behind his new desk, he hides his face in his hand. Being in love with a client is possibly one of the worst things a therapist can do. Getting too close to a situation changes how you approach it, completely ruining the fact that therapists are supposed to be a supportive third party.
Mild protective feelings or empathy is fine. Phil worked primarily with kids and teenagers, it’s rather impossible not to feel something for them. But love? A curling, nearly obsessive love trilling in his chest? That’s bad. That’s really f*cking bad.
Although, maybe this was doomed to happen from the start. Sanguinis had a pre-established relationship with these guys, Phil is now Sanguinis, and it’s not like the gods are letting him keep anything but the memories of his old life. The attachments Sanguinis never wanted now doom his efforts.
New approach. He can’t just stop feeling, that’s even more unhealthy, and nor can he really successfully give therapy to someone without their consent. Consent they can’t give because who would trust a word Phil says? But, surely, he can still use some of his hard earned, licensed skills.
“Not therapy, just support,” Phil whispers, uncertain of just how soundproof this room is. He fumbles around the desk’s drawers. Papers from yesterday sit in two neat stacks, finance reports for the palace in one and finance for the rest of the kingdom in the other. It’s telling that the budget for the palace is easily three times the budget for the entire empire.
‘Ruling by fear’ is inaccurate with how angry the citizens must be at Sanguinis. ‘Ruling by eldritch horror’ might be more accurate. If Sanguinis weren’t literally blessed to be emperor by three separate gods, Phil imagines he’d either already be dead or the empire in ruins. As it is, they’re already close enough to the latter.
Paper in the third drawer on the write, ink and pen on the table. A dip pen, formed of swirling blue glass. Thank god Phil actually knows how to use one and there wasn’t, like, a quill or he’d be screwed. Quills make no sense.
Okay, time to make a plan. Phil scrawls out his thoughts along the page, that same looping handwriting his new hand insists on taking. What a discovery to have made last night when he decided to leave a note for Wiblur. Nothing like his old chicken scratch at all.
First of all, no pushing boundaries, which means he has to be aware of the incredibly terrible situation everyone is in. No one in the harem can say no to him. That does not mean he gets free reign of their bodies and lives. Mating instincts get no opinion there.
Last night is not getting a repeat if Phil has anything to say about it. No matter how warm and fuzzy those instincts want to make him. He needs to get all of that under control. Maybe there’s a book about it?
Yeah, a good part one to the plan, since the first bullet point is more a rule than anything else. Research everything before changing things. He notes down a few topics. His new biology, the current state of the empire, the harem’s rules. All things he only knows the bare bones of from Love Paradox.
Jumping directly into things he doesn’t understand can only go poorly. Even ignoring the elephant in the room, the financial reports alone proved that. He barely recognizes half the things they’re spending money on!
“Maybe I should move into the library for the foreseeable future,” Phil muses. After that, part two would be increasing the general standard of living. Education, healthcare, financial aid, all that lovely stuff that makes the economy run and the people happy. Oh, and making sure the money reaches the people, not just his own pockets.
What even is the current income tax? Something to find as well. He makes a note of it. If he does a good enough job, the revolution will have no more reason to kill him. Hopefully. Hopes and prayers and all that.
Part three is interchangeable with part two, good to work on them simultaneously. Phil needs to make the harem, plus Tommy, plus Techno, plus the entire palace really, less scared of him. Making them like him would be great but…
He’s not an idiot. Hate and love may be opposites of the same coin but that does not make flipping the coin any easier. Before love, he needs them to at least tolerate him. In this case, tolerate would preferably mean ‘not abjectly terrified of him’.
Even if that means having to let them go. They are people, not Phil’s to keep. No croon of instincts drawing an unnatural upset at the mere thought of them ever leaving will change that. If the harem, Techno, even Tommy want to leave him by the end of this, so be it.
And his end goal… Phil pauses, thinks, a single drop of ink staining the paper. What is the end goal of all this? To make the world a better place? To save his own life? Does it even matter? It doesn’t.
Under the weight of sins he never asked for, his will does not truly matter. The gods hammered that lesson hard when they stripped all emotion from his past life, leaving him unable to mourn everything he worked so hard to achieve. Even now he works under them.
‘Be better than he ever was.’ A phantom of warmth, the embrace of a god. Yeah, Phil can do that at least. He takes a deep breath, and sets the pen down. Then he folds the plan into an origami crane to keep on his desk. You know, just in case someone snoops and starts asking questions he can’t answer.
No weird divine plans here, not at all. Just an origami crane sitting all pretty atop an obsidian paperweight carved to look like an eye. Which, kind of odd. Not the strangest decoration by far though.
That award goes to the crystal adorned skull sitting on the shelf behind him, allegedly the skull of the king Sanguinis had killed to take the throne. Or his own father. Really, it was never considered important to specify how Sanguinis got the throne.
Right! Okay, onto part one of that plan, research. He’s already learned a little bit from his couple hours the other day but, understandable, his highly stressed state of mind was very confused. Phil should probably be concerned he’s adapting so fast…
Phil will instead choose to be grateful because that means he can drown out the sweet sounds still ringing in his ears with bureaucracy. Maybe he can answer his question about income tax.
Funding is never fun to figure out, nothing you do will make everyone happy so all you can really do is try and go with what works. Sanguinis, clearly, never tried. Phil’s organized a few events, mostly for schools, which is not a lot of experience but enough to understand some of the lingo here.
Yes, taxes are really high. He really did not miss that yesterday. The population compared to the amount of money the empire is making would not make any sense otherwise. Hunting down the exact number takes a little digging.
88% is not the number he should have found when doing so. That’s just highway robbery, who can even survive while barely keeping a tenth of their income? No amount of minimum wage makes that number make sense. Not that Phil thinks Sanguinis would even mandate a minimum wage but still.
How much money would a person even have to make to survive under that? If they made 100k before taxes, they’d only keep roughly 12k of that. That cannot be enough. The people must be starving! Phil’s slashing that immediately, as soon as feasibly possible in fact.
…how does he do that? Does he just, like, tell someone? What’s the process of doing that… Does Sanguinis have a court he doesn’t listen to? Phil kind of remembers a ball scene he always skipped over after the first time, that could be it. Maybe he has to call a council of elders or some sh*t like that.
Sanguinis was an absolute monarch, a tyrannical one, by definition. He has to have a court hiding somewhere that deals with all the stupid laws he puts into play. Though to get the empire this bad, he probably killed anyone who disagreed with him. Which means Phil is going to have to deal with a bunch of yes-men.
“Maybe I can just replace them?” Phil questions the air. Nothing’s stopping him, but that can be said about literally everything. Phil’s actions right now have next to no actual consequences for him beyond his crushing guilt and sense of morals. He should at least meet with them before dismissing them.
Who knows? Maybe it’s not that bad. Sardonic laughter bubbles in his chest, as if anything involving Sanguinis is ‘not that bad’. Please.
Phil should find a notebook so he can make a note of everything he has to change. Diving back into the financial report, it really does seem like everything has to be fixed from the ground up.
Establish actual funding for public services for one. The list of things Sanguinis actually pays for for the kingdom is terrifyingly short. Food, fabric, policing, done. That’s it. That’s the list.
Healthcare? Who needs it? Education? Why bother? Sanitation? Amenities? Keeping public buildings up to code? Phil can’t even find a single library listed and yet there’s a complete breakdown of every last gram of food and individual needle given to the police listed.
To think he thought there’d be something actually helpful within all that paper. Sanguinis’ empire should be dead. No wonder nearly the entire population is trying to overthrow him, only stopped by the blessings of three actual gods turning him into a glorified nuke in a playground.
Claws scratch at the side of his head, likely marring the sides of his ‘crown’, not that he cares. Slashing taxes shouldn’t do much to the funding issue, considering he can easily just take from the palace’s twelve figure budget. There are a few income sources from trade deals as well.
Which are being funneled directly into the palace for some reason. Who even needs this much money? Nobody. No ruler should be making multiples of billions a year while their people starve. Phil growls, low and unnatural.
Right, okay, yeah, that budget? How about he moves 80% of that to the rest of the kingdom. He’ll still be a multi-millionaire and the people might learn what a library is. Though he doesn’t doubt literacy is in the ground…
Free classes at the libraries for those who don’t know how to read? Or just don’t put an age limit on the elementary schools, everyone deserves to learn. Wait, but how would he even staff the elementary schools? Are there, like, tutors he can hire? He doesn’t know.
A headache grows in his skull, pressing against his temples. So much to do, so little time, so little ideas. Maybe starting a food bank would be a simpler place to start. There are bound to be some warehouses he can convert or abandoned buildings to revamp.
“Except none of this is simple, because why would it be?” Phil sighs, resting his head against the now paper covered desk, financial reports covered in notes and circles and lines. Half formed ideas on how to even begin fixing this glorified gordian knot.
“Right, okay. Deep breaths. Start small, start at step one and go from there,” Phil assures himself. He stands, shuffling the papers into a mockery of order. Time to go to the library, find some books about the history of the kingdom, maybe a law book? Would the royal library have a lawbook?
But where else would it be? In Sanguinis office? Phil glances around at all the unopened shelving units, the parts he can see covered in expensive knick knacks with bloody pasts. Yeah, that’s a question for later.
He’ll just… find a book on Elytrans. In the library. Take a break. The gilded grandfather clock standing near the door tells him he’s already been in here for… four hours? Damn, time really flies when you’re trying to ignore life.
About half an effort goes into making himself look ‘presentable’ by any meaning of the word. Comb back his hair, preen a stray feather that got squished at some point, pull his layers into the odd gradient pattern the servants did. Perfect, neat, good.
‘Find mate?’ that part of Phil he’s trying to classify as a separate thing for his own self control asks. No, he’s not finding any of his ‘mates’. He’s going to the library. A trill rubs the back of his throat, warming his chest. Odd sign but he’s suffocating in this office so too late to turn back.
“Greetings, your Imperial Highness, Sanguinis Philza Momentus-Mortis,” the butler greets just like before. Phil bites back a wince at his new ‘full name’. He’s just going to- the butler is the first person to neither stiffen nor flinch when he raises his hand.
“Dismissed, just a walk,” Phil excuses himself. Finding the library in the palace shouldn’t be too hard, right? He was able to find the dining hall no problem. So long as that wasn’t a fluke, he can probably go anywhere Sanguinis has been just by trusting his feet and his… instincts.
Is it possible for an animalistic hindbrain to feel smug? If not, Phil’s going insane from the stress. Both are somehow equally as likely. It’s fine. He just has to balance trusting his instincts enough to get around but not so much they take over. Simple!
…
Not simple, not simple at all. Well, okay, finding the library was fairly simple. It only took Phil ten minutes and most of that was the sheer size of the palace at play. Golden doors, a plaque Phil can’t read, and silent hinges letting him into the library.
Magic must be at play in the library, or else the palace is even larger than it seemed from above. Towering bookshelves stretch hundreds of feet above, with walkways and ladders and platforms only meant to be reachable with wings. Phil cranes his neck back and can barely see where it ends.
Blue swirling magic is partially responsible for that. It sits in a haze, glittering like the sun peaking through ocean water as seen from below, shifting with each wave. Papers and books fly past him all on their own, organizing and reorganizing themselves.
Dark corners stop him from seeing just how wide the room is, though Phil feels it may be just as wide as it is tall. A library easily fitting an entire village within itself. Lanterns marking the way making it all the more familiar.
“Woah,” Phil breathes, entranced by the gorgeous display. His wings itch to spread, to propel himself in the depths and get lost in the knowledge all around him. It’s only the fact that he face-planted again this morning that keeps him from doing so. Maybe once he learns how to land from thirty feet up.
“Greetings, Crownsoul Crow,” an unfamiliar voice greets. Phil startles back to himself, wings pinning behind him, creating a sudden gust of wind that knocks a few books off course. He spins about to see yet another bowing servant.
Wait, not a servant, not a regular one at least. Their dress is too fancy, fabric of a magenta toned purple stitched with fractal patterns of nearly neon green, silver, and gold that hurt his head the longer he tries to comprehend them. A set of goggles sits in their hair. Gemstones of impossible shapes hang on chains that almost look like spiderwebs.
Definitely fancy enough to be a named character. Phil curses the little time he’d gotten to play Love Paradox because who the f*ck is this? Techno’s route had a few library scenes but this guy never appeared. Is he the librarian? Whose route is he in? Charlie’s? Foolish’s? But why them and not Techno, the scholar?
“Hello, Archivist,” Phil greets back, the title feeling right in his lips. The Archivist pulls from their bow, revealing their face. A placid smile rests on them, calm and faker than a barbie doll, uncomfortable in a way as incomprehensible as the rest of them.
“What are you requesting today, my immortal lord?” The Archivist asks with a barest tilt of their neck. More of a twitch. Mismatched eyes squint a little, yet no emotion can be picked from their glassy sheen. One a mid-toned brown, the other a vibrant green that seems to melt and swirl in time with the magic above.
“Personal study,” Phil answers after a moment. What the f*ck. Who the f*ck. Why the f*ck. Many questions, no answers, only a slow spinning and the sudden knowledge of what sunshine tastes like… f*ck it.
“Who are you?” He breaks and asks. No one can blame him! Just then, as if to mock him, something in his brain clicks and looking at the Archivist no longer hurts. It doesn’t make sense but he can somehow comprehend the incomprehensible.
“The Archivist, Karl Jacobs. These are my archives, just as you requested. Permanent access, forever,” Karl explains without explaining jack sh*t. Phil nods. Sure, why not. No more questions of whatever eldritch creature Sanguinis hired.
Walking away is the only safe move so walk away he shall. Phil will find what he needs on his own. The moment Karl leaves his sight, the knowledge of the incomprehensible leaves with him. Seriously, what the f*ck.
Getting lost amongst the shelves is a much better alternative, glancing at the titles and trying to figure out the rough organizational system. He’s not a librarian, or an Archivist, so he doesn’t have much experience to draw from. Most libraries are sectioned by genre, that’s the depths of his knowledge. The genre he needs is law.
Climbing ladders, falling on his ass after gliding down from small heights to floors below, Phil finds all sorts of genres both familiar and not. Romance, whatever counts for ‘sci-fi’ in this world, magical history, books specifically on elves, dragons, slimes, the end, all sorts of hybrids.
No, not just ‘books’, entire sections dedicated to them, seemingly organized by color to form a rainbow of unfamiliar books. Rune crafting, ancient history so old it uses a dating system so outdated it has a reference book magically superglued to every shelf, potioncraft, witchery, sorcery, myths from all kinds of societies yet to ring a bell. As if all of time is held within these walls.
Phil could read for millenia and not find an end. He dodges a school of origami fish, rolling off one platform and onto another. Sanguinis’ feet are silent the whole time. No matter how Phil moves, not a single sound echoes in the silent library.
“She calls out, yet her voice is lost to the wind and the snow. Her crew is beyond her. Only a whiteout burning her eyes, her fear for their very souls, that they might be the next lost to this dreadful haunted mountain. A monument to pain.” Except for a voice.
A cadence of a story teller, deep as it recites the book in hand. It pulls Phil still. What a wonderful voice, warm and fairly monotone, managing to perfectly carry the tension the story demands.
“Wait, why even climb a mountain if this Leora,” “Elilenora.” “Right, Lenora knew it was haunted?” Tommy’s voice rings out. Phil distantly recognizes the teller’s voice as Techno’s. The presence of his sun draws him forward, wanting just a glimpse since he hadn’t been allowed this morning.
It won’t hurt anything, not pushing any boundaries for a moment’s glance. Phil will confirm Tommy is in one piece and nothing else. Looking should be fine. He keeps up the reassurances, tip-toeing out of one section into another long hall reminiscent of the entrance.
A railing protects anyone from falling off. Thin cords dotted with crystals make him reminiscent of fairy lights decorate it. Below, strung between the two monoliths of knowledge, a corded mesh sits. Blankets and pillows cushion several reading nooks along the mesh.
Tommy and Techno rest on one of them. Techno lounges with a book in his hand, Tommy laying half on his chest, wings squished behind him. Both are so very relaxed. Far more than their last meeting, finally allowed to be themselves.
‘Flock! Join!’ His instincts goad. No, don’t join, they don’t need him ruining their good mood with his presence. Phil swallows back any coos or chirps building in his throat, keeps his wings tight, and refuses to feel jealousy over such a silly thing. A good thing, even. Techno is the father Tommy never had.
Exploring their relationship was a decent part of Techno’s route after all, little looks into who he is beyond a war machine. His relationship with Tommy played as sweet. And it is sweet! Tommy asks every question under the sun and Techno answers with love and patience. Two things Sanguinis was never capable of.
Phil would gladly be both if he were allowed. No, Phil forces himself to take a step back, roughly shaking his head. That’s the instincts talking. He barely knows Tommy and Tommy doesn’t know him at all. Tommy only knows a man of pain and suffering.
Gold eyes lock onto him, sensing the movement. The noise cuts out, Phil has been found and he’s ruined it, just like he thought. He looks back down at them. Wide eyes, lips sealed shut, looking for all the world like children caught stealing from the cookie jar. Except there’s too much fear for it to be just that.
Smiling hurts. Phil does it anyway. A calm, warm smile meant to be as unintimidating as possible. He nods down at them then flees. Back to the shelves, far away from them so they can relax and be free.
They will all be free one day, they just have to wait for Phil to get everything in order. He will make it possible for everyone to be safe, free, and healthy. It’s the only thing that matters anymore.
…
Nerves drum beneath Tommy’s skin, heart pounding and wings trying to mantle against Techno’s chest. Look bigger, be bigger, more dangerous. Shock lingers in the air. It’s never nice to see the bitch supreme himself show up out of nowhere.
Actually, there are no circ*mstances where it’s nice to see Sanguinis. Tommy can’t think of a single time where meeting his father hasn’t been accompanied by an all consuming dread, premature exhaustion clinging to his limbs. Each breath is deceptively calm.
“Relax, he’s gone,” Techno assures him. Burning warm hands scratch the back of Tommy’s skull, Techno always running hotter than a furnace. Tommy trills out his nerves. Relaxing back, regardless of how warm and safe Techno feels, is not that easy.
“Why was he even here?” Tommy whines. He covers his face, squishing his eyes closed. Sanguinis stares back in the darkness, never safe in the dark, never safe when he can’t be seen. Can’t protect himself in the dark. Tommy shudders.
“I… don’t know. Maybe researching new ways to be a tyrannical dictator?” Techno jokes. Tommy tears his hands away, fleeing the ghost of his father, and glares. Not the time. They could have been seriously hurt then! Techno is strong but no one is that strong. Never strong enough to stand up to Sanguinis.
“Bladeee, we could have been hurt! I don’t want you to die,” Tommy protests the mere existence of that joke. Feathers flare against unmoving muscle. He balls his hands, refusing to admit he might be shaking.
“Theseus, if I lived my life terrified of you father, I’d probably die immediately. And Technoblade never dies so that’s not allowed,” Techno brushes it off. Bullsh*t. Tommy knows Techno is scared of Sanguinis. Everyone is. He’s seen Techno tremble just being brushed past before.
“He didn’t even do anything. Just… watched us a bit and… left,” Techno trails off. He glances back up at the ledge. Right, the bitch supreme did leave without doing anything. It slowly clicks in Tommy’s mind.
Sanguinis just left. He stood there for a bit, nodded, and left. Doubt claws the sides of his skull, unable to toss aside the possibility of the archives playing tricks on him. But, no, The Archivist, Karl Jacobs, isn’t so cruel. If his father’s image is here, it’s really him.
But the last time Sanguinis stumbled upon them being close, Tommy ended up with three broken ribs, a shattered thigh, and Techno couldn’t walk for two weeks. Only quick application of healing potions put his spine back together.
He still has scars from where bone ripped through skin. Tommy growls. It’s not fair. He’s not even allowed warm hugs and soft things, only able to steal them away in moments he won’t be missed.
“I hate him,” Tommy mutters, turning into Techno’s side. There goes his good mood. Warm tears burn his eyes, forced to bite back sniffles out of habit since crying is apparently oh so loud and annoying.
“I hate him too,” Techno commiserates. Protective arms wrap around him, caging him in muscles more akin to iron than flesh. Unlike any time Sanguinis has touched him, they don’t feel like a cage.
A huff, pulling Tommy full on top of Techno, tucking his head protectively into the brute’s neck. Quite chuffs rumble from Techno’s chest. Undoubtable afraid, but stronger than Tommy has ever been. Stronger than he ever will be.
It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. Tommy hate hate hates that man. He wants to tear him limb from limb, rip out his wings, spill his blood and- A sob racks from his chest. He wants his instincts to stop trying to label that man as flock.
Father is not flock, has never been flock, and has made it clear he never will be flock. It’s a rejection Tommy has felt for nine years. He got it hammered home after trying to sneak into the- into Sanguinis’ nest and getting kicked across the room. A three day coma should have made it clear.
‘Want flock,’ Tommy chirps, the closest thing he has right in front of him. Except he’s read the books, he learned every bit he could about himself to make sure Sanguinis could never hurt him again. His parents are supposed to activate his flock instincts.
No matter how much Tommy wants him to, Techno doesn’t count. His mom is dead, Sanguinis hates him, and it hurts so much. Fat tears roll down his face. Fear and anger and grief for a life he’ll never get.
‘Lonely’ he warbles. Always so alone no matter how many servants are around. Techno is a soothing balm, yet as fleeting as autumn leaves. The moment he leaves, the gnawing hunger wraps its teeth around his throat again.
Because Tommy doesn’t have a flock, or a nest, or a family. And he never will. Tommy’s chest heaves, fighting the rising shame that he should be over this. He knows all of this already. He’s fine!
Except Techno is safe. Techno traces patterns between his wings, sending every attempt to pull himself together back into hiccuping tears. Techno is warm, and heavy, and safe… like a father should be.
“I’ve got you, he’s not here. He isn’t hurting you,” Techno mumbles weak assurances, knowing as well as Tommy that isn’t true. He hurts and hurts and nothing can stop it. But at least Techno tries.
And a childish, weakly hopeful part of him wishes that Sanguinis would too.
