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He was thrown to Technos' feet on the last endless day of summer.
“The Angel of Death－” They say, and he hears pride in those words, “At your mercy.”
They dug their boot into his back, between two great raven wings, forcing his legs to kneel and his head to the floor.
Silence ruled the throneroom as the Blood God stepped down from his pedestal, thousands of eyes on him and the captured. And Techno watched, observed, furious eyes stained by pain, ropes and chains circling the wrists behind his back, blood that tickled down his face like a rivulet.
Eyes meet his. Raging and emerald. The eyes of an Angel. They looked human. Techno tilted his head.
“General of the opposing army. Murderer. Public enemy. Convict.”
Techno didn’t listen to what his guard was listing. The Angel had broken their eye contact, head low, panting. Techno's eyes wandered over the halo of hair, wings black like the Antarctic winters, to an old slash in his shoulder that tracked down his back, vanishing under ragged clothes.
General? Techno wondered, eyes holding onto the brown fabrics. It’s fall. Where are his furs?
“Unchain him.” He said, not really thinking about the words, just letting them go, a selfless, daring curiosity waiting what would happen. In the silence of the throne room, he had to make eye contact with the hesitating guards for them to move.
Chains clung together as the metal moved and then the Angel was tilting to the side, unstopped as he fell to the quartz tiles. Techno stood.
“Give him sufficient medical care. I want him to be coherent for interrogation.” The emperor said, murmurs and whispers made their way around those watching.
“Gashes on the back. Some down to the bone.” A nurse later informed him. “Most old. Some still weeping.”
Techno knew the wounds for what they were. Yet he couldn’t fathom—none of his soldiers used a weapon so cruel.
“A deal.” He later told the Angel once the man could speak again. “Your advisory for free roam around the castle.”
Philza, as the angel’s name turned out to be, was a person as cautious as curious, and Techno believed his prior placement in war is the reason for the former. It was intriguing to see, almost; the reluctance. The conservative approach to everything and everyone, the contrasting spirit of inquiry in his eyes when he thought Techno wasn’t looking.
He turned his head in the hallways when they walked past something he hadn’t seen before, still keeping pace. He is no bodyguard, that he knows too. Techno isn‘t in need of such a service, and so he can allow himself the inattentive moment, the flash of wonder in his emerald eyes.
“S- sir, with all due respect, I do not believe it to be wise to, uh… host a public enemy. A general of war! The man has killed-“ people would tell him later in the hallways. Nobles. Staff.
You all talk too much, Techno thought but didn’t say, because he was still a person of respect. But he did turn to face the advisor. Tall. Thin. Dressed fancy. Proud. Smart. Snobbish. Insufferable.
“You’re afraid he will do something drastic. Something worthy of the title ‘public enemy’.” Techno addressed the man’s concerns. “I believe less and less that what he did in the enemy’s camps was of his free will. I believe that his trust could be of great benefit to us.”
“He defined death until she made him her champion! This man is dangerous!” The man tried to reason. Techno was once again reminded that the name Angel of Death didn’t come from nowhere. And maybe he was a bit intrigued. Just a bit curious, if the stories held up to what they promised. A soft smile grazed the emperor's lips at the thought. He left the advisor standing in the hall that day.
On the first endless night of winter, he found him at the shrine of death, an altar of withering roses and the stone black like the raven wings. He brushed his fingers against a grey petal.
“Is it true?” He asked then. The Angel looked up. “The stories. The pact.”
“People aren’t born with wings, mate.” The man simply said.
Then, two days later, in the courtyard, when the snow had taken a break from howling; “Death doesn’t have to be cruel. The acts of kindness I did in her name are unfathomable to most.”
Techno watched him speak from the side as their boots crunched through the snow. He lifted his head. He found himself curious. “How does it come, that an Angel of Death, ending up under the forced control of a doomed noble craving for might? A hooded falcon?”
Emerald eyes met his. Cool as the air around them. “I did not kill for him. Not a single man. Would he had control over me, he would not have lost the war.”
“A prisoner then,” Techno was intrigued. “A wolf on a leash.”
“I am not invulnerable, Technoblade.” He answered, devoid of anger. Calm. “The gods living in us may make us immortal. But our blood can still stain the snow.”
Gashes in the back. Deep to bone. Techno remembered. He found it wiser to not continue the conversation.
It would take five moons, then the Angel could lift a sword to train without the guards at his throat. Two more, and Techno lifted his own to compare, to see— intrigued, curious, like the Angel had been in those first weeks—if the stories hold up to their divinity.
A sword one sided like a scythe, an axe gleaming runes drawn by blood. A dance of battle, sparks and clashing of sharpened metal. Around the circling demigods rows of staffers, who watched, scared to come closer, too interested to go away.
And the Blood God grinned through the thrill as his blade cut air. Mirrored by the man before him, a smirk. The Angel fought, and sometimes the Blood god doubted the sword to be in his hands anymore, for it flew through the air like her owner, precisely, calculated, no move without a plan. And so they fought, as a snowstorm picked up and vanished again.
They fought, until a servant informed the dinner to be ready.
They stopped, panting, exhausted, not a single cut on either of them. Then, the Angel laughed. He laughed, bright and loud and catching. He held out a hand and Techno took it without hesitation.
They should do this again; a rematch, Philza said. Techno agreed.
As they walked to the dining hall, they were too caught up in their conversations about the fight to hear the guards whisper.
This to be big, they said behind closed doors. This friendship to be powerful.
Divine, others murmured. A pact between two beings able to fight off armies. An empire led by two demigods.