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Technoblade is praying.
He doesn’t pray the way they teach in the temples anymore. Or well, he does, before battles, armies all lined up, standing in gold and red. That doesn’t really count though. That’s for inspiration, for the sake of the show. It’s easier than writing a speech.
Not that Techno minds writing a speech! He’s great at writing speeches. It’s just, after a dozen battles, after a hundred skirmishes, after you haven’t slept in four days, a nice catechism of the Blood God gets the job done just fine.
But now? When he needs some divine intervention? The prayer sounds a little more like Hey there. I know I sort of messed it all up by gettin’ myself captured, and the glories of the Blood God are probably bein’ tarnished and all that, but you know what would tarnish them more? Me gettin’ executed in about…six hours? Yeah. Okay. Thanks.
He’s sprawled in an armchair he heaved himself into when they’d tossed him in here.They haven’t put him in a cell at least. Though that might be more dignifying, actually. Instead he’s locked inside some plush upper story guest room in the castle. There’s tapestries on the wall. There’s a bed, if he wanted to sleep away the last few hours of his life. He supposes there’s some diplomatic expectation about royalty captured in war. A Prince of the Empire of Blood deserves better treatment than a barren dungeon, apparently.
Not that it’ll stop them from killing him. They’re probably exchanging pigeons and crows with the Empire and the Temple right now, trying to decide if there’s any chance of a ransom that’ll make them change their mind about taking him off the chessboard. But Techno knows there won’t be ransom. He’s one of fourteen Princes. The best of them, sure, but this was his screw-up. He led his army right into that trap. A strategic blunder of the highest degree.
They’d put a crossbow bolt through his horse. He’s still pissed about that. And then he’d ended up beneath it. His leg is still a shuddering mess. They’d had to drag him in here.
“Okay,” Techno says to the empty room. He makes eye contact with the pitcher of water sitting politely on the dresser across from him. “No rescue. I got a bum leg. I’m so tired I could sleep for a week.”
The pitcher, is, of course, silent.
“No allies nearby. It’s gotta be eighty miles to a friendly border?”
Nothing.
“I know you don’t wanna talk to me right now. But I’d really appreciate some ideas here.”
The problem is that Techno has an idea. He’s got everything he needs to get out of here at his fingertips. It’s just gonna cost him more than he has to spend. Especially right now, exhausted and shattered as he is. There’s a decent chance it’ll kill him as much as it’ll help him.
Oh well. He’s a dead man walking anyway.
“Desperate times,” he tells the pitcher.
Hey there. I know that the Temple is already plannin’ my funeral, but I’d really like to not have a funeral yet. Y’know? So if I could—
He lets the spillway of power open.
He feels the tug behind his soul, somewhere deep inside his ribcage. The wriggling weight of divine malice. Magic, eating through his veins. The gift, the curse of a paladin prince of the Blood God. It’s never far from him, but he’s gotten good at holding his god at arm’s length. He’s seen what happens when his brothers let that door hang open completely. And Techno really rather likes being himself.
There’s a snap and a spasm of pain as he stands. His leg is holding itself together by some miracle of strength, pain buried beneath power. A burning heat under his skin, his fur. His teeth feel sharp in his mouth.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
His mind is slipping from him, but he clings to it with the clawing desperation of the drowning. His eyes are seeing things uncertain, unreal. The room is flooded with red. Blood leaks out from under the bed. From behind the tapestries. He can smell iron, biting and hungry in the air. The lights are going out— or maybe that’s just his vision, dimming away.
No, he thinks. He’s trying to hold that door open halfway, but he’s so tired. He feels himself lurching upright. His hands are already sticky with blood. There’s a humming thrill of adrenaline pounding into his pulse. “C’mon,” he says, voice strained. He tries to turn himself away from the locked door. He can feel the hum of warm bodies, the guards probably, right outside.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
He is so very strong. He could push down that door, tear limbs and sinew and veins and—
No! He thinks again. The goal here isn’t the slaughter of this castle. That will get him killed, eventually. He needs to get out.
He wrenches his body away, towards the window. “C’mon,” he says. There is so much red in this damn room. Red and gold. Somewhere above him, in a place his eyes can’t reach, but his mind can, carrion birds are circling like ants. “We’re gettin’ out of here.”
And then…there’s nothing. Utter silence.
Techno wakes up with his body still moving. He’s stumbling through a rosebush. Thorns are tearing through his already bloodied shirt. His leg, the bad leg, stumbles as he blinks into awareness. He feels the fall before it comes— poised on the brink, the magic still holding him in one piece. And then it crashes away and he’s just Prince Technoblade again. Just Techno.
He crashes out of the bush, and onto a quiet nighttime lawn. There’s a sound of a fountain nearby. The pain hits him in waves. His leg is mangled beneath him, blood running in a slow tickle through the bristled fur, dripping off his hoof. And there’s new pain too. The Blood God is all power and little restraint, and the limits of mortals are not in its purview of concern.
He lifts a hand up to his brow, his snout and finds blood, though if it’s his, or whatever had come between him and escape he doesn’t know. There are shards of glass in his hands. “Okay,” he says. He’s a crumbled mass of blood and fur and he doesn't know where he is. He rolls over onto his back and stares up at the night sky. By the moon it’s still the same night. Maybe three or four hours have passed? He can’t have gotten very far at all.
“Okay,” he repeats. “Up we go.”
He starts trying to drag himself upright, on shaking arms. He feels hollow— the Blood God takes more than it gives, and he’d given it more reign than usual. He feels like he’s missing something irreparably important, some chunk of flesh or soul. He tucks his good leg beneath him. Starts to push himself off the quiet lawn. But he has no balance, no strength. The pain as he tries to drag the lame haunch under him sinks black spots into his vision.
He’s just as fucked as when he started. Worse, even.
“Need a hand, mate?”
Techno hadn’t heard anyone approach. Which means they’ve been here since he woke from the haze of the Blood God. Which means—
He twists, looks behind him. There’s an old, low hanging tree in the lawn, with a little bench beneath it. There’s a figure on the bench. A man, Techno thinks. It’s too shadowy to make out details. Just a shape and a voice. Friendly. But not too friendly— whoever this is, they’ve been watching him. Assessing him.
Techno swallows. “A hand would be great, actually. Would you—”
The figure stands immediately, ducking under a tree branch. In the moonlight, Techno can see it is indeed a man. Human. Early middle-age, perhaps. A touch of a beard. He’s wearing simple clothes, but his hair is long, and tied back into an intensely elaborate braid that runs down the center of his back. Nobility perhaps. Or maybe just a guy who is really into hair-care.
The man comes and stands over Techno, looking down at him. Techno’s running calculations. There’s no question about what he is. Tusks and snout and bloody hands and bloody clothes, deep into enemy territory. His best course of action is knocking the guy down quickly. Grabbing an ankle, wrestling him down on the perfect lawn, and strangling the life from him before he can call for help. He’s smaller than Techno. Even in his mangled state, Techno could probably pull it off.
Techno doesn’t do that.
The man, smoothly and incomprehensibly confident, kneels down beside him. “You’re kinda a mess.”
“Thanks.” Techno says. “Real nice to meet you too.”
The man laughs. “The leg is fucked.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
The man considers him. There are creases around his eyes. Techno thinks he must laugh a great deal. “I don’t think we’re moving you anywhere like that.”
“I don’t suppose I can ask where we’re movin’ me?” Techno hauls himself up so he’s sitting, meeting the man’s eyes. He leaves behind a patch of dark, wet moisture on the lawn.
“Well,” the man says. “That depends. Are you going to try to kill me, Blood God?”
There’s a thrill in Techno’s spine that cuts through his exhaustion. “Not my name,” he says.
The man raises his eyebrows.
“What d’you want?” Techno says. It comes out bitter. Fatigued.
“Maybe,” the man says. “I’m just curious.” he laughs again. It’s a very nice laugh, Techno thinks. And then Oh no. I’m gonna collapse. I’m not thinkin’ straight.
“Well,” Techno says stiffly. “If you’re curious, maybe you could be curious about what’d take to get me out of here.”
“Sure,” the man says. He’s got a pouch on his belt. A little kit. He pulls out something cold and glassy, the size of his pinky. “Healing,” he says. “Not much, but it’ll getcha moving again. I got a shed maybe a hundred yards from here? Better first-aid there.”
He presses the vial into Techno’s hand and closes his around it. “Do you believe in prophecy, Blood God?”
“Not my name,” Techno says again.
The man— this incomprehensible man— raises an eyebrow. His fingers are still closed around Techno’s, closed around the vial.
“Techno,” Technoblade says.
The man leans into him, conspiratorial. Their faces are inches apart. The Blood God is battering at the edges of Techno’s spent soul, screaming at him to stand and rip and tear and—
Techno shoves the Blood God aside.
“Phil,” the man says. “Techno. I am going to save your life. And then I’m taking you with me.”
He’s insane, Techno thinks. But there’s a hum in his veins, different from the howling strength of the Blood God. He doesn't know what it is. But there’s a thrill there, jittery and full of an anticipation he can’t articulate. Phil is insane, or he’s lying, or this is some game or trap that Techno is preparing to walk right into. Because he’s desperate and exhausted and broken to pieces.
“Okay,” he says. “Where are you takin’ me Phil?”
Phil laughs, bright and merry. As if that’s a very good joke. Not a cruel one— as if he’s got some delightful secret tucked away. “Anywhere,” Phil tells him. “Anywhere you like mate. I swear it.” He lets go of Techno’s hand, leaving behind the vial. “Ready for the leap of faith?”
Techno uncorks the vial and drinks it in a single swallow. It tastes so sweet it burns.