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“Wilbur? Where are your wings?” Techno asked, sounding horrified as he looked at his twin, his own wings shining in the torchlight of the small ravine.
“No flying allowed, haven’t you been told?” Wilbur laughed humorlessly. Tommy had already been sent away to go mining, it was just the twins standing in the center of the ravine.
“What. Wilbur, what does that mean?” Techno sounded panicked, moving forward as though he were about to search his Twin’s back for any evidence of wings.
“They’ve not been cut off, if that’s what you’re worried about, I’ve just had to get really good about hiding them,” Wilbur explained, gesturing for Techno to follow him into the little bedroom that Wilbur had carved out earlier that day. He shrugged off his tattered trench coat and pulled up his t-shirt, showing where bandages had been wrapped around his wings, forcing them flat, and then tied to his waist so that they could be hidden easily underneath his clothes.
“That can’t be comfortable, you couldn’t just wear a cape like Dad does sometimes?” Techno asked, his own wings twitching in sympathy.
“It’s not comfortable, but it was this or getting them clipped,” Techno nodded in understanding, making a mental note to murder whoever forced his brother to make that decision. No avian would let someone clip their wings, but even then.
“Are your wings even in a state where you could fly if you needed to? Let me see,” Techno demanded. Wilbur’s face fell, but he carefully undid all of the wrappings, saving the bandages off to the side. Wilbur's usually sleep brown wings were in a state of total disrepair, feathers knocked out of place everywhere, sticking up in the wrong direction, they looked like they hadn’t been preened in months, which based on Wilbur’s comments, it was very possible that they hadn’t been.
“Wilbur,” Techno made a choked noise as he instinctually moved his hands to his twin’s wings, smoothing out some of the feathers and discarding a few broken ones that had clearly only been held in place by the bindings. Wilbur flinched at the contact, his wings flaring out for a second, before he melted into the touch, letting out a little chirp of contentment. Both twins moved into a more comfortable position on the bed, Techno continuing to preen Wilbur’s wings, hands moving methodically through the feathers.
“Why would you let someone do this to you?” Techno asked as he removed a particularly badly broken feather.
“Had to, I had to stay, for Tommy. Tommy would never leave, not with Tubbo here, not with his disks. I couldn’t leave him alone, he’s just a kid,” Wilbur explained, and it really did explain a lot, Wilbur had always been empathetic and incredibly loyal, even as a young child.
“Tell me about him,” Techno demanded.
“He’s the best kid, you’ll love him. Stubborn as a rock, but he’s got a good heart, and he always manages to impress me, you should have seen him in the revolution, he picked up brewing so quickly, he was mastering potions in weeks that dad took months to teach me,” Techno sighed at the mention of war, he had hoped that his twin might have managed to escape the violence that always seemed to follow their family.
“Sounds like a good kid,” Techno commented as he moved from one wing to the other, starting the preening process over again.
“Yeah. Dad would love him, too, would see him and just go nuts over having a new kid, and you should see Tommy’s wings, oh they’re just the cutest cardinal wings,”
“Wait, Tommy has wings? Are his like yours too? Thats. I saw him, he was wearing a thin t-shirt, surely I would have seen wings,”
“Oh they’re not nearly as big as ours, he’s only 16, barely old enough to be flying. Not to mention that this isn’t the first place that he’s lived where he’s had to bind his wings, he’s gotten down to a science, really,” Wilbur explained, and Techno’s heart broke, a 16 year old kid shouldn’t have to hide their wings, they should be flying around with friends, playing tag in the air and riding the air currents.
“This is unacceptable, Wil, you can’t keep living like this! Is there anything good left here, why don’t you just take Tommy and leave, we could go live with Dad for a bit, you said it yourself that Dad would adopt Tommy in an instant,”
“There is good here, there’s the people of L’Manburg, my people, there’s Niki, and Tubbo, and, and Fundy, my son,”
“Your what?” Techno asked, monotone.
“My son, my little champion gifted to me by a magical river salmon just after we started L’Manburg. He’s a fox hybrid, and he grew really fast, he’s older than Tommy now despite being thirteen years younger. His aging seems to have slowed down to a normal rate now, though,”
“I’m sorry, a magical river salmon?”
“Don’t ask me how it works, all I know is that I have a son now and he’s… misguided but he’s still good. They’re all good. They’re what we’re fighting for,”
“Alright, then let’s fight,”
In the end, Wilbur agreed that they would call in Phil, his eyes looking much cleared than they had when Techno first arrived, wearing his wings proudly. They had tracked down Tommy and convinced him to unbind his wings as well. They would be the winged rebellion, and no one would see them coming. Phil arrived in only a few days, bringing gear for all of them and raging at the conditions that his son had been forced to endure. Much like had been anticipated, Phil had immediately taken a liking to Tommy, and together they all prepared to take back L’manburg at their festival, using the information that Wilbur was able to gather from their spies on the inside. They came down like streaks of light, firing on the city from the air, using arrows to hit carefully placed TNT to blow up just the government buildings. It was over before anyone on the ground even registered what was happening, as those in the know took shelter immediately and those not looked around in panic as the world around them started going up in flames. People drew their swords, and there was fighting. The people of L’Manburg versus the government of Manburg and their allies. It was bloody, but it was over quickly.
“Tommy, your wings!” Tubbo had cried happily after the battle, looking over his friend’s wings, which were just beginning to shine and look healthy after years of mistreatment.
“I know, they’re great, right,” Tommy replied with just as much enthusiasm, wings puffing up happily at the attention. Dream had yelled at them, of course, blah blah blah flying is banned for a reason blah blah blah unfair advantage, but Techno had cut that off with a swift sword to the gut.
The people of L’Manburg started to rebuild, building nice public parks where the Manburg government had been, remaking their proper flag, and at the center of it all was Wilbur, using his flying to assist in the rebuilding efforts, shinning brighter than Tehcno had ever seen him. The people flocked to him, they trusted him as a leader, and in turn, he trusted them to have his back. Phil and Techno had settled on making a small cabin on the edge of town where they could watch the rebuilding from a distance and lend a couple of hands when they had the time, Techno could tell that Phil enjoyed being around so many bright young people after years of isolation in his hardcore world.
“Hey Techno! Can you come help us with the lanterns?” Wilbur called as he saw Techno walking down the path, Wilbur was in the middle of hanging up brightly colored lanterns all throughout the town center of L’Manburg, Niki was sat nearby making them, and when she was done she handed them over for Wil to hang.
“Sure, do you need help hanging or making?”
“Making, please,” Niki answered, showing him through the motions of pulling the brightly colored wool covers over the lanterns and attaching the hanger. The entire town square was slowly covered in lanterns in all of the colors of the L’Manburg flag. As the sun set and the lanterns lit the sky citizens of L’Manburg all gathered looking in awe at the shining sky. Wilbur sat on a stool in the middle of the crowd, strumming his guitar.
“Well I heard there was a special place…” He started, and more voices joined in with his, until the entire town square was filled with a chorus of the L’Manburg national anthem, even Techno found himself joining in with his twin. Slowly Techno found himself being pushed towards the center by the crowd, seeing the same happen to Tommy and Phil until it was the four winged saviors of L’Manburg at the center in front of Wilbur as he finished the last verse.
“...And on the backs of the winged four, from the ashes rose a New L’Manburg…”