hold close the truth, and never forget it.
as of my sire, and his sire before him.
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they are all the past.
DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT.
canon typical content warnings apply.inspired by personal headcanons & orphan's path.
although not necessary, the video at the bottom provides ambient sound that persists throughout reading.linked is also a cuneiform translator, often used both in this carrd & account portrayal.proceed with caution.
THE ACCOUNT
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THE TALE.
you are raised a boy
or so the story goes, surrounded by others of all walks of life, by priests and singers in a tribe. There is blue soulfire at your bare hooves as you weave through forests, bells chiming around wrists and ankles. You hear a sister and a mother, childish and chiding, and you hear the singing— louder and louder.
You are raised loved, smaller than others but eager to learn just as much. There rests gold under your hooves and you grind against a stone, hammer clanking against anvils. You hear an old boar command and you hear sounder— true and forever.You are 𐏂𐎤𐎢𐎧𐎭𐎮𐎡𐎫𐎠𐎣𐎤, child of the soulsingers, the sounder-mother and the great, the guider of the lost and the dead.
there used to be rivers
or so the story goes. But be not a fool, they didn’t exist of water and glistening elixir. The rivers were made entirely of groaning and chiming choruses, bustling souls with no purpose.Valleys were made only with rivers, after all.These rivers of immortality never dried and were rather revered, soul-singers taking on it’s burden. And when one died, they would join the chorus and pass onto another of the tribe.And what would occur if the entire tribe was wiped out? The burden would fall onto the last remaining survivor.But alas, sounder was forever and so were they— singers of souls and soul-singer, priests of gods and keepers of decay.
a boy lived in a valley
or so the story goes. Yet he watched as golden so unlike the blue that erupted as blood fell against sand flames surrounded the village, chiming bells cracking beneath hurried feet as they ran— THEY RAN— from crossbows and potions and things of their own— from PEOPLE of their own.For you see, the soul-singers were so-called connoisseurs of witchcraft, dealers of evil that must be culled.
They beg him to run. He does.
you live
or that is what they would like you to believe.
It isn't much of a life— huddled in a corner, muzzle around your mouth as you gaze at others of your age— thin and feeble. You are strongers than other, and you know this.For sounder only raises the strong, and you're STRONG. You have to live, for to die would be to give up.
there lives
or well— resides a boy in a pit. A cat, fragile and delicate, locked in a box. A runt of a pig, locked in a cage.Here is the question: Are they alive, or are they dead?For to be sounderless, so terribly alone, was hell. To be sounderless was to be as good as death, reserved only for the raiders and the thieves, the damned and the outcastsThe runt snarls and bares it’s tusks, cheering of a river whispering at it’s feet.Chains wrap around it’s limbs as it remains hunched in the farthest corner of the cage. Perhaps it’s defective, feeble-minded or perhaps it doesn’t speak from fears of a strike. Either way, it remains trapped, ivory tusks sickeningly dripping with blood.
and then they don't.
He wasn't favoured, when he first appeared. Sword in burnt hand, faced with someone of his own years— watching tears fall down a wailing face, contorted in ways no child shouldn't.And yet that's how it is.It's just him, the child and the crowd that demands a show.A crowd that demands blood.
He glances back.
do you kill or do you flee?
you aren't a child
when you meet him, anger and scorn burnt out of your soul by then. Anger for those in power, scorn for those who let you remain under there.
You killed them all, of course.He finds you half bloodied, baring your tusks as you shakily point your sword at him. It should be an easy win, He looks fragile, with spanning wings that carry him across hot oceans.You proceed to lose to him.You perhaps gain a friend, when he smiles at you, reveals a broken wing and an understanding of the Nether that is comparable to a child's. Despite not speaking the same trills he does, you laugh at him as he struggles to eat. It's the first time you remember laughing in years.
( You sleep with your back against his that hour. )
the angel isn't
as gentle as he looks, and he certainly isn't as graceful as he should be. He isn't fully divine, he explains. Simply a traveler, with nothing but the wings that he carries on his back.You disagree as you watch him make a portal to what seems to be the Overworld— purple and shining.Taloned hands pull you through and then you are living— living through air and humidity, hooves against blades of dew and you're breathing— under sky and stars and— and you fall.
and then he isn't.
Only the players are allowed to leave their land, to stray from their path. And fool the mob-born was, with wishes far too grand for the planes to allow.
Fool he was, to believe he could outrun the laws of the land itself.
Those who ran were always surely punished. Punished by the universe itself. The unkind universe, digging it's claws into flesh and filling it with decay and aching corruption that ossified and decomposed. Terribly dying but not dead.
𐏂𐎤𐎢𐎧𐎭𐎮𐎡𐎫𐎠𐎣𐎤 of the Nether falls onto dewy grass of the unrisen dawn, and he falls into the rot, the last image of his newfound companion's lapis eyes widening with frenzy burned against his mind.
( To die under sinking stars, he doesn't think it's a bad way to die. )
and then he is.
( It was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive)Technoblade wakes with gasping breaths, gaze directly meeting wide lapis blue staring back down at him, the burning brand of player-hood warping into a singular heart on his wrist and the chiming of a shaking bell above him.A chorus sings in his mind for he is their last priest, their soul-singer of the ages forevermore— for blood of the covenant and blood of war, and they won't let him die.They won't let him die even if they have to shatter the rules of the world itself.He is their vassal and he will remain alive until his time comes to an end naturally.A steady breath.(You. You. You, Technoblade. You are alive.)
in antarctica
lays an empire, spires jutting high into icy blue skies. The south pole of the world is no place for pleasure, with harsh weather and hostility that matches, beauty far more becoming of a church than the military base that resides inside. Each carefully manicured installment in the network of Nether portals is like a small temple in its own right, architecture spindling and winding.And yet, and yet, despite the chill, it's called home by the ones sworn allegiance to the flag flown high above.For make no mistakes, the Antarctic Empire is unkind, terribly so, but it's home.
The rulers commanders of the Antarctic are no different either. There are no kings in this land, a land free for all. The nation is militarized beyond belief, yet it's citizens are free. It's the land for the free-borns and the runaways and it's commanders are no different.The Antarctic Empire is run by a painfully mortal contrivance of war and his angel of death, unageing and graceful.
The very server of Earth seems to turn it's eyes onto the Empire when the flag is hoisted up high at the moon portal. Anybody who would dare step close on the icy freezing lands would have the wrath of it's commanders upon them, unfailing and storming upon everything in their path.
the earth
eventually falls with neither a bang or a whimper. That wouldn’t be far as entertaining as what actually happens.The world falls with an innocent invitation and six strong mugs of hot chocolate.
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"So we know about this fun little feature called autofill, correct ?"Originally made for convenience, it worked in accordance with autoclaim, allowing for faction leaders to easily claim land as their own. In theory? it was incredibly useful. In practicality, however? A problem. It allowed for easy overriding, causing people to be locked out of their own bases and more importantly, the portal to the End." Now Phil, let's say, hypothetically, if I were to, " A hand digs out a token from a nearby box, painted with the Antarctic's blue flag.Technoblade places the wooden marker at one corner of the map, pushing it along the edge as he continues, "start claimin' all the chunks around the edge, what do you think would happen ? "
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Fear not, for they were no dictators. Simply a few men with a vendetta against a pantheon of the server, that simply refused to listen.
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"Oh, you smart lil' fuck," Philza exclaims, raising his head. A hand rests on the map, his other dropping to his side. "So, you're wanting to exploit this system, then? Or, moreso, take advantage of the bugginess?"*Phil comments on this, head tilting once more. *"They've told us it doesn't need to be fixed, correct? This would be where we prove that notion wrong - what would they do if one nation conquers the rest? Takes everything?"
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And the world falls.
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and the world fell.
Commanders Technoblade and Philza Watson Minecraft, on behalf of the Antarctic Empire, will be escorted to St. Malos for trial regarding noncompliance for Earth laws and Pantheon legislation. Failure to comply will be met with threat of force. We thank you for your service and your cooperation.
In accordance with the laws of the server system EARTH-1122019, The Antarctic Empire's land claims will be restricted to the continent of Antarctica. Several effects of their prior escapades and removal of their colonies will also take place,
The introduction of three new worldwide laws have been codified.The establishment of the United Nations, a diplomatic faction, intended to serve as an arbiter, facilitating dispute resolution to reach consensus will also begin.
The Antarctic Empire has declared the Post Saint-Malo War against the Transatlantic following Arlus Finch's betrayal to the Antarctic Empire during the trials.
let it be known
that the Nether was not always barren. Let it be known that the Nether was once fruitful, with life that flourished despite the harsh circumstances. Let it be known that the Nether was loved, and let it be known that the Nether didn't fall from it's grace on it's own accord.Let it be known that the Nether wasn't abandoned by it's own gods and let it be known that the Nether fell by the hands of the greedy divine of the overworld.Let it be known that when they came, the Nether fought, and fought valiantly it did.Oh, how dreadful was it — their ravenous insatiable lust for riches fueling intemperate plundering of homes and temples alike, wolfish teeth laughing in delight as sounders fell beneath diamond swords.Slaughtered, by the greed of the Overworld, scrambling over netherite that remained malleable in piglin hands.So let it be known that when the Nether fell under not-quite human hands, they robbed it of it's very soul.They robbed it of it's very soul when the Sky's divine itself descended into the war between the planes, inflicting it's justice upon the land of it's people.
rot
was the truth that was inflicted upon the Nether and all of it's people. Rot, that clung and ate through flesh, rendering joints useless.Rot, that oozed through cavernous wounds and spread like wildfire, burning through generations and the biome itself.That alone wasn't the unkindest part, though.Truly, just disease alone would've been a mercy.No, the Overworld's divinity couldn't let that slide. Disease was curable, especially with the abundance of gold that ran through the Nether.And hence rot turned to atrophy. Dead, yet not dead. Bodies falling apart, rotting from the inside out.The remaining gods melted like slag in body and soul, melting into the very soil that made the Nether.And it fell apart.
Let the last truth remain that the gods fought, and the gods died, falling to the Overworld's greed.The remaining piglins, barely alive, clung to each other with a desperation to survive.For the world is cruel, yes, and it will not love you, but the sounder forever will, and there is no fire or ruin or divine damnation that will ever unwind it.But the world is cruel, and survival has never been easy.Their bastions fell and villages burnt, barely held together by fearful whispers of the rot that occurs to those who run. Their bastions fell, and sounders turned to convenience, hostile against those not of those.
and the soulsingers,
Oh those poor soulsingers.Already kicked down by raiders, they were the easiest target for the Nether's scornful simmering anger, boiling away as tensions arose between the various tribes now grappling for the few resources that lay scattered across the plains.The very soulsingers that lived in the valleys where gods now lay dead, their fallen flesh sunken deep into the sand, volatile in it's very nature.And it burns. The very Nether burns as blood spills upon sand, blue soulfire erupting with every crimson drop that splatters.
you are technoblade
And you kneel in the ancient grave of your past, surrounded by the skulls of priests and singers of a tribe long gone.The blue flicker of soulfire casts along the shadow of a broken bastion, and it whispers welcome home.Charred soulfire ash clings to your hooves. You hear a sister and a mother, childish and chiding, and you hear nothing.
There is only you, Covenant.
There is only you, in that ancient village burnt to the ground far after your time, and there is only you that remembers what came before it.
In that moment, you are entirely alone. There is only you, for every known definition of it.For let it be known, sounder is everything, and you, Covenant, are so terribly alone.
For hell is not a place or a person or a thing. From all things can come both suffering and joy, hell is not a physicality that can be fought or feared.Hell is beyond even death. Hell is the sounderless. Hell is the nothing, and hell is alone.
You, sounderless, are not so out of place in the ruins of forgotten legacy.You have been dead for a long, long time.And you remember.
when the nether
makes a god out of Technoblade, it's not a blinding affair ; It's quiet and unassuming, much like the biome itself.When the Nether chooses to make a god out of Technoblade, it's not for his battle prowess or the sanguinary nature of his path, well-oiled machine of war slaughtering everything in his path.No, when the Nether chose to make a god out of Technoblade, it was because he was, irrevocably and unchangingly, theirs.He is a general and then he’s a conqueror of worlds. He is the blood sodden grounds with bodies striking the earth and he is the sting of swords falling into synchronized violence.He is Death's Angel's sword, and he is a lost, lost priest.“Mud is milk, 𐏂𐎤𐎢𐎧𐎭𐎮𐎡𐎫𐎠𐎣𐎤, and you are made of milk and love, like all others,” whispers the Nether, it's broken, beautifully defiant hold dancing all around him.He is flesh, bone and flame and he is the Nether's rage, made from it's very dirt.He is their rage and he is the world's walker, the bell's prayer chiming against all odds.The Nether makes a god out of Technooblade because despite it all, 𐏂𐎤𐎢𐎧𐎭𐎮𐎡𐎫𐎠𐎣𐎤 loves the Nether back.He remembers their songs and he remembers their bastions — the whispers of their very covenant.He becomes Technoblade, Undying —— the Blood of the Covenant and War, golden and defiant.
you are the covenant
and there were gods when you were young.
They were all eaten, and they were all forgotten — but not anymore.
his first gift
to the Nether was vengeance.For the Blood of the Covenant was soulsinger, born out of the reverence of the lost and long forgotten.He heard the Nether's anger against the skies and he made it his own, with his gilded mane and the blade of his fury that will never die.The Covenant's palatable rage was enough for the Angel to descend down once more, perched upon eternally shining armor.They came as wolves among sheep. They came as crows upon carrion.Patient, persistent hunters in the unstoppable pursuit of their prey. Their quarry was precious few, but let this Truth be known- justice finds the guilty, and even the gods may die.And they did, those treacherous fools content with sitting upon their throne of skulls and blood taken from a land of not their own.Blood and Death descended upon them all, merciless in their path.The Blood of the Covenant, godslayer, took the breathing vow of the Angel of Death and raised his blade against all the elder gods that took part in that sinful war.And his justice rang true.
when the gods died
under the Covenant's wrath, flowers bloomed in their wake.It was only when the last head rolled under his feet did the Covenant look back, endless bloodthirst quelled by the gentle petals that swayed behind him — the first flowers the Nether lived to see in eons.The Nether breathed and the Nether lived.
Though the Covenant's quest was done, there was still much to be done.With an eternity to live with the completion of the justice he had wrought, he brought to the sounders a second gift. For with the blessings of his divinity, he had walked through every world that the peoples of this Nether could not. And with his undying eternity he brought knowledge.
He gave to them the written truth of the of the farmers and the beasts of the earth, the builder and the craftsmen.He gave them the songs and the clothes of the past and he gave them back the ways of their sounders,For this world is cruel, he said, but why must life be the same?( Why must we die in the bitterness of our circumstance, languishing in our hardship with nothing to show for it? )For the Nether couldn't change the suffering of their past, but they could change the futures that resided in their very palms.( The futures of their sounders, and the future of their children. )
the covenant
and his Angel soon separate ways, and it's not against will. Perhaps if they were younger, clinging onto security with harsh grips and shaking breaths, they would've remained glued, but not anymore.The promise of an emerald star hanging on their ears is enough, a promise— a vow. A vow that despite it all, they will find each other once more. They are an Angel and a Covenant. They are Blood and Death, and they have been together for longer than the gods can remember.Where Blood went, Death would eventually follow, an endless skirting song and dance of war.
the angel
does send letters, a bird's scrawl on handmade parchment, ink blooming and occasionally spilling drops. He mentions a hardcore world, of gods and monsters and islands and monuments. It's a change of pace, the Covenant thinks, from the war-filled life of their empire.Perhaps, one day, he could find such solace too.
He's reading a letter in the newly established capital of their empire named Port-aux-Francais, when gentle footsteps and familiar shuffling of wings catch attention, and the Covenant looks up, words dying on his tongue.The silver-golden shine of hair, icy blue of eyes shaped into crescent moons from an endlessly fond smile, watching him so carefully.( Waiting for him to greet him first. )
And there, smiling, his friend proudly holds a bundle of cloth, patchwork and old knitting and so terribly familiar of the Angel's tendency to hoard. It's haphazard and barely held together, yet a creation of love and patience: hours of blood spilt by a needle with threads of dawn and dusk.And as he holds up the bundle for him to see, a little face peers up with round eyes, rosy cheeks and naivety only held by children and those who didn’t see the world.
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And the Covenant freezes.
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“I’ve been busy. S'rry for disappearing, mate.“ Phil trills softly, his voice barely above a whisper.“It’s alright.“ Techno replies. He holds no grudges. “Your kin?““My son.““Your son. ” He parrots back. The bundle— kid is handed to him and Philza looks almost smug, arms crossed and wings beating in the windless air.
The Covenant holds a child, untouched by the world and he trembles, the weight of the world suddenly on his shoulders. While the Angel was ruthlessly, divinely untouched by the world and all it's beings, the Covenant threw himself into war and insurrection, bearing bonds and blood alike. And war? That was no place for a child.Technoblade holds a newfound part of his sounder in his man-slaying hands and freezes.
"Phil. Philza. Why is he so.. small?"That earns Techno a bubbling laugh, loud chirping and perhaps the loudest thing the echoing halls of the empire have heard in months."He— He's a fuckin' baby, Techno. They're kind of known to be little!" Philza responds through hiccupping laughs."How was I supposed to know that—?!" Techno argues back. "Weak. Piglin kids grow up in weeks."
and eyas,
sweet little eyas, untouched by the world only coos in his arms; unafraid and laughing with rosy hands clutching at a fiery mane. He is the Angel's son, and he is the Angel's sun with the way the Angel peers at him.
memento mori
is a lesson Eyas learns early, the Covenant recounts.Wilbur is as fragile as he is curious: a spitfire of a boy that doesn't take a simple no for an answer.He is fragile, they learn, when Techno wraps calloused fingers around a thin wrist and and feels a singular murmuring life-mark under his tips; whispering and ghostly, speaking of an ill fate and glass-like life.
But the Angel and his Covenant were no newcomers to destiny and they weren't so weak to cower before something as fragile as destiny herself. They were defiers, and defy they would— for the sake of a fragile boy and for the sake of the Angel's fragile heart, so reliant on his son.
memento vivere
is the lesson the Covenant bestows upon his first student. Remember you will die, so remember that you must live. To live is to learn, and to learn is to experience.Wilbur isn't treated like something fragile, not by the Covenant. He is similar to his glass canon of a father, and the Covenant is no fool to underestimate. Wilbur Craft is born the heir to a militaristic empire, and he is treated like one.Small footsteps echoing and childlike warbling become commonplace in the land of ice, whispers spreading of a boy with a gaze as sharp as a bird of prey, held in the Emperor and his Angel's arms.
and life itself.
Sooner than later, all things come to an end eventually.The empire's sun, a forever reigning flag, sets eventually. It sets with a singular spark of flint and steel, sparked by it's very own creators.Blood and Death are no strangers to empires and it is with their very own hands that their empire falls.