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Mages never walk alone.
Skeppy hears the whispers, everywhere he goes. It’s unnatural, people say, watching him pass. It’s not right.
He knows it’s not. He feels that wrongness clawing at his insides every second of every day; when he falls asleep, he hears the screams.
Because what none of the gossip tells, what no one but him knows, is that Skeppy wasn’t always alone. He had a coven, a family.
They’re all dead now.
Skeppy should be, too. Mages aren’t meant to survive without coven bonds or a soul tether.
And yet, here he is. Alive. He has no familiar, no coven, no soul-bound. No home; not even a crystal to his name.
Being a lone mage is not simply wrong; it’s painful. Skeppy feels their absence constantly. Humans say a person can grow familiar with anything; Skeppy knows that’s not true. The wound is always fresh, the emptiness always far, far too vivid.
He keeps wandering, driven onwards by some instinct. Nothing is waiting out there for him but pain. Nothing ever will be.
Skeppy’s wanderings take him to a mountain.
No one lives here, he can sense that right away. The tattered remains of his core find nothing but wildmagic reaching back, as cold and sharp as the ice on the mountainside. He can see why no mage has chosen to build here. It would take a very specific kind of magic to turn this place to a mortal’s will.
(he’s never forgotten the feel of his coven’s home; their Nucleus was warm and bright and soft, a hearth-fire, holding all their cores in gentle heat, binding them together.)
Skeppy gathers all his strength, and starts to climb.
This is a place he could finally die. He will climb the mountain, to the heart of the wildmagic laid thickly over it, and offer it his core. He will be rejected, and then he will die. Maybe in whatever may lie beyond, he will finally be reunited with his coven. Maybe he’ll finally be able to rest.
Maybe there will be nothing, and Skeppy will just cease to be.
Maybe that would be better.
He’s tired. He’s so, so tired. It hurts, in a way no one has ever been able to comprehend. In a way no one has tried to understand. Because people don’t see the pain; they see only the lone mage, covenless and friendless and alone, and think they know everything.
Skeppy’s feet sink deep in the snow, cold sinking even deeper into his body. It’s exhausting, but he keeps climbing, because he must.
Shards of ice slice into his skin, blood freezing almost as soon as it bubbles to the surface. He can’t feel his hands or face or feet.
He keeps climbing.
He feels so very empty.
Skeppy thinks about his coven as he climbs, because perhaps it will be easier. When his core is rejected and he dies, if he’s thinking about them, maybe for a moment he’ll be able to feel them again. Maybe as he passes into the life after death, he’ll find them.
Their home was a little village, houses grown from twisted trees, shaped into being by George’s nature magic. Dream had crafted their wards, mixed potions with careful precision, protecting them all in every way he could. Sapnap’s skill laid in cooking, creating delicious meals to warm and nourish them all; Quackity and Skeppy grew their gardens, Karl held them all together with his heart and his magic like fireworks in the night.
Their Nucleus, their fire, their binding light, brought all their magics together. They had been so different when they met, so disparate; the Nucleus bound them, changed them, brought them into pure peace and harmony. It was bliss, perfection.
And then, the attack.
Skeppy had been away, gathering berries in the woods, when he felt the icy pain pierce through their bond, shredding his core into pieces. He’d run back as quickly as he could, but he was too late. Far, far too late.
He found all of them dead, their bodies piled in the smoldering ruins of their home like so much wood. The Nucleus was empty, cold, dead.
There was nothing to be done.
Skeppy still feels so empty, so alone.
He has nothing left. No one.
The wildmagic on the mountaintop is icy, painful. Skeppy collapses in the snow, too numb to feel anything in his physical body.
He closes his eyes, picturing his coven. Karl, Sapnap, Dream, George, Quackity.
And then, Skeppy opens up his magic, offering his core, and waiting to die.
But instead of the icy burn of rejection, heat sears into him. Skeppy nearly screams as the new bond forms, violent and hot and intensely powerful.
The last thing Skeppy sees before he passes out from cold and exhaustion is a purple shimmer, a tall black and red figure crouching in front of him.
~~~
Sometimes, Bad thinks demons get a bad rap.
It’s not their fault that demon’s blood is toxic to Overworlder magic! And it’s not like they go around bleeding on people all the time- it’s mostly bad people who kill demons and take their blood that do the damage.
And it’s not like all usages of demon’s blood are bad- or all people who use it. Heck, Bad visits Technoblade in the Overworld twice a year to give the mage a pint of his blood to use in experiments and research.
Exploration in the Overworld is never safe, but Bad has always liked the thrill of it. Visiting other places, seeing new and exotic sights.
Today, he’s stepping through a portal to a mountaintop, a place saturated with raw, undefined magic. The cold is nearly painful, but it’s an interesting contrast to the constant heat of the Nether.
It’s invigorating, really. Bad grins, tipping his head back and taking a deep breath of the icy air that burns in his lungs. The wildmagic surrounds him, hesitant, and Bad opens up his core to it. He can’t link with it, not Overworld magic, but suffusing himself in it is always refreshing.
And then he feels it.
Magic, weak and ragged- Overworlder by the feel of it. Reaching out, and before Bad can consider what he’s doing, his own reaches back.
The bond forms instantaneously, his magic sinking into the other core. The powerful grief in that other core nearly brings Bad to his knees, but he has to find the mage- oh, heck, he’s just bonded with an Overworld mage-
They’re lying in the snow a few feet away, eyes focusing on him for an instant and falling shut. Their skin is tinged blue- from the cold? Bad doesn’t know what happens to humans in the cold- and they’re not moving. They’re barely breathing.
And Bad doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know how to help, but he’s bonded with this mage so they’re his now. He can’t leave them here to die.
He picks them up carefully, gently cradling them against his chest. They’re so cold.
The only thing Bad can do is step back through the portal into the Nether.
The heat is welcoming, pressing down on him like a blanket. Bad hugs his mage closer, hurrying towards his bastion. His panic is echoed back by his clowder, despite the distance between them.
Ant is at the gates when Bad arrives, baring his teeth as he catches sight of the human. “Bad- Bad, what did you do-”
“It was an accident.” The mage’s skin isn’t blue anymore, but now their hands and feet are swollen, their exposed skin blotchy with color. “I- I bonded with them, they’re dying-”
Velvet meets him halfway down the hall, growling softly and rolling his eyes. “Why. Why? You go to the Overworld every six months to let that mage take your blood, fine, but you bring back this- this human.”
“They’re a mage,” Bad says. “We need- we need to fix them, what can we do-”
“How the hells should I know?”
“Language,” Bad says absently, hurrying around the corner. “They need- warmth, maybe?”
Velvet rolls his eyes again, snapping his fingers to summon a book. He riffles through the pages as they walk, making a triumphant sound.
“What, what is it?” Ant demands, trying to peer over his shoulder.
“Frost-bite,” Velvet says. “They need…” He peers at the page, presumably mentally translating the human words. “Warm water. We need to get their wet clothes off too, put them in warm water. Maybe a potion…?”
“Maybe,” Bad hums. “Ant, a bath?”
It’s difficult to manage water in the Nether, but the walls of their bastion block some of the heat. Bad likes water baths on occasion- one more thing that makes him different from most demons. Of course, nothing can compare to a good soak in lava, but sometimes a change is nice.
Ant runs ahead to the inner chamber, the coolest, where the water won’t evaporate and they’ll be able to keep it at the proper temperature. Bad looks down at the mage in his arms, worrying and worrying. They’re so still- their core is so ragged, so broken.
“I can fix this,” he whispers to them. “I can make it better. I can. I can.”