A Myriad of Miscommunications

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at [Link]

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Fandoms: Minecraft (Video Game), Dream SMP
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson | Philza,
Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo &
Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo &
Technoblade, Technoblade & Phil Watson | Philza, Wilbur Soot &
Technoblade
Characters: Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson | Philza, TommyInnit
(Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot, Toby Smith | Tubbo, Ranboo
(Video Blogging RPF)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Space, Alien TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF),
Alien Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Alien Toby Smith | Tubbo,
Alien Wilbur Soot, Alien Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Human
Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade-centric (Video
Blogging RPF), Language Barrier, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Aliens,
Humans are space orcs, Dehumanization, Miscommunication
Language: English
Series: Part 1 of Miscommunications AU
Collections: Techno central, DreamSMPFics, my aetwt addiction, Fics to save,
Fictopia, finished fics i've read, Cutie Patooties, I liked these fics and I
finished them
Stats: Published: 2024-01-18 Completed: 2024-03-19 Words: 32,825 Chapters:
15/15
 A Myriad of Miscommunications
by TheHappySpider

Summary

Technoblade is a human, abducted against his will and kept in a black market.
Phil, Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo are looking for something to protect them from
pirates.

Or: Humans are Space Orcs and Wilbur thinks one would make a good guard dog.
Lots of miscommunication and a mix of perspectives.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
 Chapter 1

Phil frowned at the notification blinking at him from his comm. It was the sixth notification
he had received about pirate attacks in the last fortnight. The news was of particular concern
to him, as the valuable nature of the cargo they transported made them a potential target for
such attacks, and the nature of their crew made them doubly vulnerable.

Phil was the best fighter they had, and while the muscles usually used for flight gave him a
strength advantage in many fights, his hollow bones were brittle and his large black wings
could be a hinderance in small spaces. Wilbur, the next most senior crewmate, had some
sharp claws, but his skin was delicate and his aversion to physical work didn’t lend itself to
building muscle. The rest of the crew were children and wouldn’t be much help in a fight.

He sighed as he messaged the rest of the crew for a meeting.

A few minutes later they were all sat around the dining table. Ranboo, ever polite, was
paying perfect attention to Phil as he explained the situation, a sharp contrast to Tubbo and
Tommy, who were playing a barely-concealed game consisting of jabbing each other under
the table while pretending to listen.

"So what do you suggest?” Wilbur asked once Phil had explained the situation.

“A security guard? I know it’s not ideal-”

“What! We can’t get one of those boring security guys!” Tommy interrupted.

“It’d probably be expensive too,” Wilbur added with a grimace. “You know how mercenary
types like their gold.”

“What else can we do? We can’t defend ourselves very well like this,” Phil reasoned.

“What if we found something to increase security without hiring someone new?” Ranboo
swished his tail, clearly nervous at the thought of adding more people to their crew.

“Like bombs!” Tubbo all but shouted, jumping up.

“Not bombs!” Phil and Wilbur quickly responded in unison. Tubbo sat back down, grumbling
under his breath.

Wilbur hummed thoughtfully. “What about a human?”

“What?!” Ranboo screeched, “The death worlders? They’re notoriously hard to contain! Not
to mention they tend to slaughter their keepers when they get out!”

Tommy puffed up his wings excitedly. “It would be so cool though!”

“Bombs are cooler.” Tubbo muttered, still sulking.

Philza shushed Tubbo and Tommy before their bickering could devolve into all-out fighting
about whether bombs or humans were cooler. He levelled a look at Wilbur.

“Hear me out.” Wilbur prefaced before Phil could get started on why it was a bad idea.
“Humans are very strong; one would certainly be enough to protect us from pirates. And,
though there is little data on them, recent research seems to suggest that they are intelligent
enough to train. It may be possible to train one not to attack us.”

“How do you train a human?” Phil asked, skeptical.

“We could try rewarding them with food or nice things like soft blankets. I’d like to avoid
control collars or stun sticks. They aren’t always effective and could build resentment – there
seems to be a link between harsher crews and the speed at which the human escapes and
retaliates. The best report I found was with a research group trying to investigate their social
hierarchy. They didn’t use a collar on it and it became almost docile!”

“So… you’re suggesting we get a human but not use any enhanced restraints on it and just…
hope it doesn’t hurt us?”

“It could work! We could give it a nice room so it doesn’t try to fight us for more space, and
if we build up a good relationship with it, it should be easy to train it not to hurt us! They
aren’t pack animals like Elytrians or Apistians, but they seem to be able to function like
Enderians in densely populated areas!” Wilbur spouted enthusiastically.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely!”

Turning to the rest, Phil asked, “What do you guys think? We’re not doing it unless we can
all agree.”

Tubbo and Tommy were quick to agree, albeit with some bitterness from Tubbo that they
weren’t getting more bombs, and even Ranboo hesitantly accepted that it sounded a better
idea than haggling with mercenaries for protection.

“Great! I’ll start looking for one.” Wilbur said excitedly.

Techno is tired. It seems like a lifetime ago he was first dragged into this suffocating white
room. At first, he spent his days pummelling the smooth walls and breaking his fingernails
trying to pry open panels on the walls (to no avail), but now, weeks or months later, he
struggles to muster the energy to stand. He can feel his mental health slipping, voices filling
the silence, and he knows without looking that he has lost a lot of weight since his abduction
between the inactivity and the sparse feeding.

The only variation in this monotonous prison is the window on the side of his cell. Every now
and then, it will turn from a white indistinguishable from the rest of the walls to transparent,
revealing a different set of aliens each time. One of them, a squat, squarish alien with a
purple exoskeleton covering some beige squishy-looking skin, is fairly constant, but its
companions are rarely the same. The first few times it opened, Techno took great pleasure in
lunging and snarling at the window and watching the purple plates shift to cover its neck as it
and whatever companions it had with it jump back from the wall.

He didn’t have much energy for that now. He spent most of his time asleep or staring at a
wall, listening to the voices in his head.

So, when he felt the familiar tingle of eyes on him, he took his time turning his head to the
window. He barely registered the purple alien now, eyes darting to the tall scaly alien next to
him before they caught on the bird-like one. He hadn’t seen an alien like it before, and while
it definitely wasn’t human, there was a familiarity in its blue eyes and blond hair that Techno
lingered on for a moment.

He ignored how it stiffened as he locked eyes with it, but drew his gaze away when he saw its
blue friend turn to the purple alien. Whispers invading his mind again, he turned away from
the window and let himself drift back into a familiar daze.

Philza’s heart was racing. The shulk they had gone to for a human – a black-market
connection that had taken them weeks and several favours to track down – had opened an
innocuous viewing panel to reveal what they had come for. The sight of such a legendary
predator had filled him with the urge to fly away, an urge he suppressed, reminding himself
of the assurances of the shopkeeper that it hadn’t managed to break out even after
considerable effort. Just as he had calmed his thoughts enough to properly take in the sight in
front of him, it had turned to look directly at them. He watched its eyes slide over the shulk,
lingering slightly on Wilbur and taking in Phil’s large wings behind him. Then, it turned its
eyes to lock with his.

Phil watched, frozen, as the human’s pupils dilated – filling his mind with thoughts of
danger-predator-flee – and its mouth parted slightly. Its body language was foreign to him,
but he saw the obvious challenge: eyes locked with his, wider to see the threat in as much
detail as possible, and mouth slightly open, presumably in preparation for tearing out his
throat and crushing his fragile bones with its large molars.

He had half a thought to tuck his wings closer to his body in an attempt to appear
nonthreatening, but before he had a chance to act on it or tear his eyes away from the staring
competition, he felt Wilbur next to him turn to the shulk and heard him distantly discuss
payment and delivery. For some reason, this seemed to snap the human out of it, as it blinked
and glanced back at the other two before turning away altogether.

It took him a minute to return fully to the conversation next to him, by which point Wilbur
had already negotiated an acceptable price and arranged for them to pick up the human the
next day. They said their farewells to the shulk and hurried back to the ship to pass on the
news to the rest of their crew and make the final preparations for the new arrival.

All the way back, Wilbur was buzzing with excitement. Phil found it difficult to return the
enthusiasm as Wilbur nattered about plans for the human – diet and training and even
enrichment. He blocked out the other’s chatter as his mind returned to the encounter. The
human’s eyes had been shockingly familiar, black pupils surrounded by a ring of grey-blue
that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an elytrian chick. The comparison made it difficult
for Phil to concentrate, torn between danger-run away and chick-protect.

He shook his head in an attempt to settle his mind as they reached the ship and stepped
inside.

Wilbur was having a great day. It hadn’t taken as long to find a human as he had expected:
they were rarely taken off-planet, and even then only occasionally survive longer than a week
in captivity. He was also surprised at how reasonable the price was! He’d expected twice the
price the shulk had asked for, and was able to negotiate it down even further.

Now he turned his good mood to his plans for what to do now they had one.

Obviously, they would need to train it. Until they were sure it wouldn’t attack the crew and
they could control it, they could keep it in a containment unit they had set up with plenty of
space and equipment to keep it busy. Wilbur had only recently thought of adding more mental
stimulation, gathering various children’s toys and puzzles ready to give to it. These additions
consisted of a mix of jigsaws and puzzle boxes, some of which incorporated space for an in-
built reward in the form of treats. He was looking forward to watching the human’s
interactions with them.

Wilbur had thought carefully about how he could research the human without damaging any
efforts to prevent it from wanting to hurt the crew and had drawn a line at purposefully
putting the human under stress. As much as he wanted to see the human’s natural adrenaline
kick in and find out how they delt with injury and infection, it was more important that the
human felt safe with the crew and he didn’t want it retaliating by hurting one of them.
Clearly, they would need to do some medical tests to establish a baseline and make sure they
could help the human if it got sick, but other than that Wilbur planned to stick to behavioural
and cognitive tests. It wasn’t as if this was particularly limiting; while humans were known to
be aggressive and territorial under stress, next to nothing was known about how they behaved
when they were relaxed or how they interacted with people when they were non-threatening.

Wilbur smiled. He couldn’t wait to get the human.

 Chapter 2
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Techno woke up in an unfamiliar room.

He could tell without opening his eyes. The surface beneath him wasn’t the cold, hard floor
he fell asleep on. Instead, it was soft. He could feel at least two blankets – both several times
thicker and fluffier than the thin rag he was used to – as well as a dozen mismatched cushions
and pillows under him.

He sat up, opening his eyes and looking around the room. The first thing he saw was the
muted grey walls, a stark contrast to the sharp white of his previous cell and a very welcome
change. The mound of cushions and blankets was bigger and more colourful than he had
expected, nearly spilling over the edge of the raised section of floor he was on, even though it
was dipped in the middle to keep them in.

Stretching up the wall to his left was a huge climbing wall: trails of knobbly handholds ran to
the full height of the room – at least four times Techno’s own height – and platforms jutted
out at random, connected to each other by ropes and ladders. He could even see a hammock
strung between two of them. On the far side of the wall, several platforms were stacked like a
cat tree, with ramps and poles connecting the layers. In the other corner was a stack of boxes,
some board game sized, others big enough to sit in. Along the wall from that was a spout that
trickled water into a bowl built into the floor below it and a door-shaped indent.

He walked around the room slightly dazed. He still couldn’t quite believe that this was real,
that he was no longer in the horrible cage that the purple alien had kept him in. After a few
moments, he circled back to the climbing wall and jumped up onto one of the lower
platforms.

As Techno sat on his ledge, he contemplated what this new cell could mean. His brain was
still foggy, possibly from whatever sedative he had been given to move him here, but also
possibly as a side effect of being stuck in a white room with nothing to do for so long. He
tried to remember what the latest batch of aliens had looked like. Had they bought him? But
what for?

The voices at the edge of his hearing swelled as his mind filled with images of what they
might want. Experiments? Aliens did those, right? That’s what all the supposed abductees on
the news seemed to think. He pushed away visions of being slowly picked apart, trying not to
let himself spiral. He tried to think back to what had happened before he fell asleep.

Just as he remembered what the latest batch of aliens had looked like, a panel opened to
reveal them: the scaly blue and bird-like aliens.

Phil and Wilbur stood nervously outside the door to the human’s containment cell. The video
feed on Phil’s com showed the human exploring their new room. It seemed to be settling in
nicely, walking around the space with confidence.

They had both jumped when it had jumped three-quarters of its height to sit on one of the
lower platforms and survey the room.

Phil took a steadying breath. This was the best time to introduce themselves to the human: it
was relaxed (as much as a human could be relaxed), seemed comfortable with its new cell
and it had been several hours – if not a full cycle – since it had last been fed, so it was almost
certainly hungry enough to cooperate in return for food.

“So… we’re doing this?”

Philza glanced at Wilbur, who had his hand hovered over the control panel to the room.
“Looks like it.”

The door to the cell turned transparent, revealing the scene from Phil’s comm, though the
human was now staring directly at them.

Phil chirped a greeting, though he knew the human couldn’t understand it. He tried to keep
his wings as small as possible, not wanting a repeat of their last encounter, but he could feel
his feathers puffing up under the scrutiny of the human’s gaze. A glance at Wilbur showed he
was doing no better, though the sail on his back wasn’t as visible to the human and the
movement of his head-fins to cover the vulnerable part of his neck where his gills were was a
much less universal sign of aggression.

When he looked back at the human, he jumped to see it had pushed itself off its platform and
was several steps closer to them than he would’ve guessed. The human also jerked back a
little at Phil’s sudden movement and the split second of eye contact was enough that Phil had
to remind himself that this was a dangerous predator and not an elytrian chick. He still let out
an encouraging coo before he could catch himself.

Wilbur had put a lot of time into creating the human’s room. Researching what sort of
environment humans prefer, he had found disappointingly little on the subject. In the end, he
gave up and just tried to make the room diverse. The climbing wall would give it a chance to
climb and to see the world from above, and the boxes in the corner would let it build a den
closer to the ground.

All in all, it had taken weeks to put together. He was glad to see that the human was enjoying
it.

At Phil’s prompt, he turned the door transparent. The human noticed them immediately. He
turned back to the control panel for the door, turning on the custom setting Tubbo and
Tommy had added to let them slide a tray into the room without giving the human a chance to
get out.

The food, too, had been carefully researched. It was cubes of raw meat, which was the typical
food given to humans in captivity and reommended by the shulk they had bought the human
from.
He pushed the tray with the food on through the slot, using more force than necessary so that
it would slide away from the door and be more accessible for the human. It stopped a step or
two in front of where the human had paused.

It looked down at the food and its face wrinkled. Before either of them could think of what
this could mean, the human growled quietly and they both took a hasty step backwards.
Surprisingly, it didn’t lunge at them or start destroying things; it used one hand to rub its
lower torso (one of its more vulnerable spots, Wilbur remembered), and crouched, reaching
with its other hand to poke at the meat.

It must have recognised it as food, as it grasped a cube and popped it in its mouth. Its face
wrinkled even further, but ate another couple of cubes. Phil took a step back as it straightened
up quickly and hurried to the water bowl. Wilbur watched, fascinated, as it cupped its hands
under the tap and brought the water to its lips instead of bending over to drink from the bowl.

When it moved back to the tray, it pushed it with its foot back towards the door. Phil looked it
at in confusion and turned to him. “Why isn’t he eating it?”

Wilbur was staring at the meat with the same confusion. “Maybe… I don’t know. Should we
try a different type of meat?” He looked back at the human before reaching down to pull the
tray through the slot. Just before he touched it, the human let out another quiet growl and he
froze. To his surprise, the human didn’t take the food back or try and attack him. Instead, it
pushed the tray again, making it hit his hand, and turned to walk away.

Only when it was halfway across its room did Wilbur carefully pull the tray the rest of the
way through the door.

“So,” he started nervously, “You stay to keep an eye on it, and I’ll take this-” he gestured to
the mostly untouched tray “-to the kitchen. Any ideas what we should try next?”

“We could try cooked meat?” Phil suggested.

He nodded, leaving down the corridor that led to the rest of the ship. Phil turned back to the
human.

Techno looked at the bird-like alien from where the pile of blankets and cushions he had
woken up on.

He hadn’t really looked at it when it had appeared in the window with the purple alien, but
now it seemed he would see it much more frequently he thought he might as well pay some
attention to it. Its legs, which hadn’t been visible through the window, were entirely bird-like:
scaly and backwards-bending, with sharp claws spread on the floor for balance. It had a fan
of black feathers as a tail – much like the feathers covering the rest of its body, with the
exception of the tuft of yellowish feathers that he had mistaken for blond hair.

It was very different from the blue alien that had just left. That alien looked aquatic, with gills
and webbed fingers and fins on the sides of its head.
 As far as he could tell, these aliens had taken him from the purple alien and had probably
moved him to their own ship. How the transaction had happened was of little consequence to
Techno, though he shuddered at the thought of how they managed to move him in here
without him noticing.

Considering how much better they were treating him than the purple alien (so far, at least) he
decided to come up with something to call them. He managed to think of with a couple of
options, but settled on ‘Blue’ for the alien who had just left and ‘Bird’ for the alien shuffling
nervously outside his door. (He was aware of how childish they sounded, but there was a
limit to how long he could tolerate the voices arguing over dozens of different options. At
least now they were quieter, mumbling resentfully instead of squabbling and giving him a
headache.)

He turned his focus to what the aliens could be planning for him. What reason would they
have to buy (or steal, or borrow, or however else they had taken him) from the purple alien?
The voices picked up on this change in topic, posing numerous suggestions, some laughably
optimistic, others scarily pessimistic. One that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand
up was the idea that they wanted to experiment on him. Images of being strapped down and
cut open flashed through his mind, and he could feel his breathing pick up. Why would they
give a test subject such a nice room? he reasoned, trying to push the panic away.

In the end, he had to close his eyes and force himself to take some deep breaths before he was
able to think clearly again. He decided not to dwell on what could happen, and try to figure
out what his situation is currently.

And that started with the door, and the alien behind it.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you so much for all of the support! I'm really enjoying writing this and chapter
updates should be coming fairly frequently.
 Chapter 3

Phil stood outside the human’s door, waiting for Wilbur to come back.

The human was still sat on its platform opposite the door, eyes unfocused. It stayed there,
stock still, for long enough that Phil started to worry before, suddenly, it looked up and
started walking back to the door.

He didn’t notice the cushion in its hand until it was flying towards him.

He jerked back, surprised at the aggression. What had provoked it to attack him like that? His
wings came up behind him, puffing up to make him look bigger, as his arms lifted to shield
his head from the human’s next attack.

Nothing happened.

Phil cautiously opened his eyes. Lowering his hands, he looked up at the human. It had taken
several steps back and was staring at his wings.

He slowly lowered them. The human’s eyes tracked their movement until they were fully
tucked against his back, then moved to settle on Phil. Its head was tilted, reminding Phil of
how Ranboo and Wilbur would instinctually bare their necks if they had done something
wrong.

That meant that the human was… apologising?

The idea of an apex predator – a human, a being with such ferocity that it scared even the
strongest gladiator, a creature that lived and breathed destruction – being so easily dissuaded
from violence was almost laughable. Yet here it was, baring its neck and backing away.

He chirped curiously at it. Had it really just surrendered? A spark of hope ignited in Phil’s
chest. Had it been deterred by his wings? It had looked at them oddly when they first met.
And it had been looking at his wings when he opened them up.

After a moment, the human turned, walking towards the wall perpendicular to the door. It
twisted, contorting its legs and sinking to sit with them folded painfully under it. Despite its
position, it seemed almost… relaxed?

He decided to mirror its position (as much as possible – his legs didn’t bend like that), hoping
to reassure it that he wasn’t going to hurt it. He cooed at it softly. It huffed back.

Phil nearly laughed. What happened to the terrifying apex predator? This was going to be
much easier than he thought!

Techno’s experiment had been useful. The cushion confirmed that there was a forcefield
separating the aliens from him. (He hoped that it worked both ways, that it would keep the
aliens out just as it kept him in.)

It had also spooked Bird, who had spread its wings in surprise. The feathers on their
underside were iridescent, a beautiful dark green. He had been briefly captivated by the way
the colour sparkled under the light.

Watching it try and sit down was quite funny, and he couldn’t help but snort and the way it
wrapped its wings arounds its legs, looking remarkably like a cat loafing.

The bird noises gave him an idea. He licked his lips and whistled a short note. It came out
hoarse and shaky, but it must have pleased Bird, since it got all excited and repeated the note
back, longer and more stable than Techno’s attempt. He tried again, copying the alien, and
this time it came out much better.

They went back-and-forth for a minute, Bird giving him different notes and Techno whistling
them back the best he could. He had never been particularly musical, and didn’t have the
same range that Bird did; he struggled to copy the very low- or very high-pitched notes, and
often took a couple of attempts to get the same tone.

Even so, Bird got more and more excited about how he was copying them, spewing bird
noises (too fast and complicated for Techno to copy) every time he got the right note.
Eventually, they even flapped their wings – the feathers all puffed up and looking so soft –
which made Techno laugh. Unfortunately, this seemed to scare the alien, as they froze,
tucking their wings into their sides. Techno deflated at their reaction.

Phil’s heart thudded erratically. So there was the terrifying apex predator.

He must have pushed it too far with the wings. He had almost forgotten what was sat across
from him with the game they were playing, that it wasn’t a newly-hatched elytrian chick still
learning to chirp.

At least the human still seemed hesitant to attack, though the bark of warning he got for
flapping his wings – one that was loud and deep, and exposed the human’s teeth – was threat
enough for Phil to freeze.

Cautiously, he pulled his wings into his body. The human relaxed. He breathed a sigh of
relief. He was right; it was the wings that freaked the human out.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Wilbur coming back down the corridor with a fresh batch
of food for the human.

Blue was back, and Techno was pleased to see that they had brought more food: there was
some stuff that looked similar to the disgusting meat he had had earlier, but there was also
some purple fruit that looked juicy enough to make his mouth water. How long had it been
since he last had a fresh piece of fruit?
Blue stooped to push the tray along the floor again, and he leant across to drag it closer to
where he was sat, not bothering to stand. He inspected its contents: there was more meat,
though there were different colours and textures than the last tray, along with some purple
fruit, some of which had been cut into slices. He took a slice of fruit first, savouring its sweet
taste. It was even juicier than it looked, and left his tongue feeling slightly tingly. He nearly
laughed at the sensation.

When he opened his eyes, though, he recoiled, any laughter forgotten. Blue was writing on
some sort of tablet, glancing up before writing some more. He stared at it for a second,
disbelieving. Was this guy seriously studying him?

The images of being experimented on floated to the front of his mind. He quickly decided to
establish some boundaries. Egged on by the voices calling for blood, he rose and strode
toward the door, maintaining eye contact with Blue as he approached. He stopped when he
was inches from the forcefield, glowering at the alien.

This seemed to have the desired effect, as Blue nearly dropped its tablet as it scrambled back
from the door. Bird had spread its wings, feathers puffing up as far as they would go, but
Techno didn’t so much as glance in its direction.

Blue looked at Bird and let out a series of clicks and hisses, and received a response of clicks
and whistles. Blue looked back at Techno before backing down the corridor, disappearing
from his line of sight.

Satisfied, Techno returned to his food. There was, thankfully, some cooked meat on the tray,
which was surprisingly tasty (considering how vile the raw meat was) and the rest of the
purple fruit was as delicious as the first bite had been.

Once he had finished most of the plate, feeling more full than he had since his abduction, he
pushed the tray back towards the slit in the bottom of the forcefield. While Bird was picking
it up, Techno stood, scooping up the cushion he had been sitting on – the same one he had
thrown to test the door – and returning to the platform in the far corner.

Phil returned to the common room. Wilbur was curious to hear about how it behaved while
he was away, and Phil was happy to fill him in on how they had whistled at each other and
how it reacted to his wings.

The younger alien was particularly hung up on the latter. “So you’re saying it tried to attack
you, but… gave up? Just like that?” Wilbur pestered.

“It must have been my wings! I puffed them up and it backed up and exposed its neck! Do
you know if there are any predators on Earth that might make humans scared of wings?” Phil
asked.

“Maybe. But then why didn’t it back off when it was threatening me? You opened your wings
but it just ignored you.”

Phil frowned. “I’m not sure, mate.”

Wilbur scribbled something on his comm. “We’ll have to see if we can figure it out. I’d also
like to know why it chased me off like that. What was it like afterwards?”

“It was fine as soon as you left. It even gave the tray back.” More notes. “We need to figure
out what set it off though; we can’t afford to have it react like that when we don’t have the
door between us.”

“Maybe it just doesn’t like me? Like- maybe it’s had bad experiences with phantoms before,
and sees me as a threat?” Wilbur suggested. “Humans are supposed to be able to recognise
different species, and they seem to be capable of holding a grudge. I might be able to
convince it that I won’t hurt it by spending more time around it and generally being nice to it,
but I don’t know how long that would take.”

“That’s a good idea. Though it might be that it was trying to defend its territory? Or trying to
establish itself in a hierarchy? You said humans were similar to enderians socially; they
probably have a very strict pecking order. It would make sense: it stopped being aggressive to
me after I scared it because it decided it wouldn’t win in a fight against me, so had accepted
me as above it in its hierarchy. Then it challenged you to see where you fell.”

“That makes sense. So how do we stop it from attacking me in the future?”

“The way I see it, we have two options: you could try getting it to submit to you-” They both
knew how difficult that might be. “-or we could see what it does now. Theoretically, if you
don’t challenge it, it shouldn’t have much reason to attack you.”

Wilbur sighed dejectedly. “That should also work if it has had bad experiences with
phantoms before.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Phil wrapped a wing around Wilbur. “The good news is that now we
know what we can feed it.” Wilbur turned to look at him as he continued. “It ate the cooked
meat, but it doesn’t like the raw meat. And it really liked the chorus fruit! We could probably
use it to train it!”

The reminder of the human’s training cheered Wilbur up, and the two of them spent the rest
of the afternoon discussing it.
 Chapter 4
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Techno was feeling much better, physically and mentally.

He had only been on the ship for a couple of days, but already the nicer conditions were
having an effect. The aliens were feeding him regularly and he was happy to have meals that
didn’t leave him wanting to throw up. The larger portions they were giving him helped as he
tried to gain back some of the weight he had lost and build up his strength a little. He hadn’t
done much – it wasn’t that long ago that he was half starving to death – but he had made an
effort to keep himself more active than he had been in his last cell.

He had also washed his hair, which had got really greasy in the time since he was abducted. It
had been awkward – the water spout was too low down to stand or sit under, and even
ducking his head underneath it was a challenge – and it took a while to clean without any
shampoo, but it made a world of difference. He had started braiding it again, which helped
keep it out of his face, though he didn’t have anything to tie it up properly so it kept coming
loose.

He had rearranged most of the things in his room. The blankets and cushions had been moved
to the highest platform on the climbing wall, a basket-like structure that hung from the ceiling
instead of connecting to the wall. (He didn’t think the aliens were going to try anything while
he was asleep, but it was better not to take any chances.) He spent some time doing some of
the jigsaw puzzles that he had found in the collection of boxes while making a fort.

Altogether, it was making a huge difference to how he felt. His head wasn’t as cloudy, and he
was building his concentration back up after spending so long trying not to focus on
anything. The voices hadn’t disappeared – nor had they given any indication that they ever
would – but he was learning to live with them.

He had fallen into a routine with the aliens. The ship had an artificial day-night cycle (which
was a large part of why he was fairly certain this was a ship and not a building on an alien
planet), and the lights dimmed to indicate ‘night’ and brightened during the ‘day’. Every
morning and evening, one or both of Blue and Bird would bring him a tray heaped with
cooked meat and purple fruit. They would wait until he handed back the tray, then leave.

That was why, when they turned up in the middle of the day with a smaller plate of purple
fruit, he was on edge. They didn’t slide the plate through, either, just lingered by the door
watching him. The voices were split; some of them seemed to like the aliens, but many more
were wary of them, and were now voicing their suspicions.

He relaxed a bit when he noticed that the forcefield was still on, the telltale blue sheen
hanging in the air between them. It was familiar enough for him to push some of his concern
aside and approach the door.
As he came closer, Blue fiddled with something on the control panel and made the
transparent door turn into more solid-looking bars. Techno slowly reached his hand towards
the bars, eyes widening as his hand moved through the gap. Frowning, he moved it to the
side, testing the bars. They seemed solid enough, and didn’t waver when he slammed the side
of his fist against one of them. No chance of escaping then, or of the aliens coming in.

Satisfied, if somewhat disappointed, he turned his attention back to the aliens, who were both
now several steps back from the bars. Bird – whose wings were quite puffed, even if they
hadn’t lifted them up very far – let out a quiet coo, which Techno copied. This seemed to
reassure it, as its feathers smoothed down.

They looked back at Blue, who was holding the plate of fruit slices, before reaching out to
offer Techno a small cube. Gingerly, he accepted it (avoiding direct contact with Bird’s
talons). Blue chattered a little at this and came a little closer, though they were still out of his
reach.

Techno turned the cube over in his hands, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do
with it. Shaking it next to his ear didn’t reveal anything inside. He looked back up at Bird,
who was looking at him expectantly.

They reached towards the cube, holding a slice of fruit in their other hand and chirping a
short set of whistles and clicks at him. Techno held the cube out for him to take. Bird took the
cube, swapping it for the fruit. This seemed to excite Blue, as they started clicking and
humming at Bird. While he watched them talk back and forth, Techno ate the fruit Bird had
given him. It tasted normal, which soothed a part of his nerves, but he still hadn’t figured out
what the aliens wanted.

Bird gave him back the cube, giving him less time to hold it before using the same set of
whistles and clicks to ask for it back. So… a word? Why would they…

It hit him. They were trying to train him.

He scowled at Bird and Blue. Was this how they thought of him? As a dog to be trained and
controlled as they liked? The thought made him feel nauseous.

Some of the voices – the ones that weren’t freaking out at the aliens – reasoned that this was
better than being experimented on. It didn’t make Techno feel better. He didn’t owe these
aliens anything for not being terrible people.

On the other hand, he knew that his best option to keep himself off a dissecting table was to
play along, at least for now. He tried to think positively. They weren’t asking him to do much
– just hand over a cube he had no interest in – and at least he was learning a little of their
language.

Sighing, he handed the cube over again, accepting the fruit in return. Bird chirped,
presumably praising him for doing as they had asked, before starting the process over again.
After a couple more repetitions, he could recognise the command word in a sentence, which
he translated as ‘give’.
Both aliens jumped as he repeated the word (faltering over the different clicks), but Bird was
nice enough to help him, repeating the word and letting Techno try to copy it until he had the
hang of it. They even gave him a slice of fruit when he got it right.

He held off on eating it, pointing at the cube in Bird’s hand and asking for it using his first
word in alien. Bird handed it over hesitantly, looking surprised when Techno handed them the
fruit in return. Both of the aliens stared at the fruit for a minute before talking to each other
(at least, he assumes the noises they’re making counts as talking, though Bird doesn’t seem to
be able to make some of the sounds Blue can make, and Blue’s whistles aren’t as varied as
Bird’s).

Eventually Blue turns back to him, repeating ‘give’ and offering up the slice of fruit he’d
given to Bird. Techno hands the cube over, swapping it for the fruit. Blue stared at him,
making eye contact for the first time since they had first given Techno some food on his first
day here. Techno grinned.

Wilbur quickly averted his gaze. Void. He had forgotten about not challenging the human.

He tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck in what he hoped would come across as
appeasing. From the corner of his eye, he saw Phil frozen in place.

He was hyper-aware of the fact that he was in arm’s reach of the human, particularly with the
door set to the bars it was in at the moment. He struggled to control his breathing.

The human hummed. Wilbur heard it move, but it didn’t seem to be coming closer.

“Mate, I think it’s ok,” Phil whispered hesitantly.

Wilbur looked up a bit to see that the human had taken a few steps back from the door, and
was looking between him and Phil. Wilbur couldn’t read its expression, but its body language
didn’t seem aggressive.

Wilbur straightened up. The human didn’t react.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He jumped a bit when he felt something touch his shoulder, but
relaxed again when he realised that it was Phil. He looked back at the human.

It was moving closer now. Wilbur nearly stepped away again, until it reached its hand
towards the bars, holding the fruit out for Wilbur to take. Hesitantly, he reached through the
bars, moving slowly so that the human didn’t get upset. It didn’t stop him as he picked up the
fruit, just dropped its hand back to its side.

“I think that’s enough for today, mate,” Phil suggested softly.

Wilbur followed him along the corridor, mind still racing at what the fruit could mean.

Wilbur and Phil were sat in the large nest in the common area when Ranboo came in. They
had been talking about what their latest interaction with the human might have meant –
 particularly the slice of fruit it had given Wilbur before they left.

“Are you guys talking about the human?” Ranboo asked when he saw them.

“Yeah, mate. Just trying to figure out what the best way to interact with it is.” Phil explained
tiredly.

Ranboo came closer. “We really need to give it a medical exam so that we have a baseline for
if it gets sick.”

“I don’t know how long it’ll take to get it up to the medbay. The training’s going well, but it’s
being a bit unpredictable at the moment. We might have to let it get settled properly before
we are able to bring it upstairs.” Phil sighed. “Ideally, it would be able to follow commands
like ‘stop’ and ‘come’ before we run any tests.”

Ranboo’s tail curled and uncurled around their leg. “That will take time.”

“We might not have to wait that long,” Wilbur interjected, “We just need to know that it
won’t get violent. Once we’ve figured out why it was getting aggressive, we will know what
to avoid to stop it attacking anyone.”

Phil agreed, “That sounds like a plan.”

Chapter End Notes

Help I keep making this longer

The fruit Techno gave Wilbur didn't actually have much meaning behind it, Techno just
felt bad that he had scared Wilbur (even if he didn't understand why).
Also, for some context: the aliens in this universe have translators - each translator
translates its user's native language (or whatever other language they are using) into
common, which can then be translated into another person's native language by their
own translator. That's why Phil and Wilbur sound like they're talking different
languages.
Thank you so much for the continued support! The next update should be coming soon.
 Chapter 5
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Techno didn’t know how to feel about these aliens.

On one hand, they were nicer to him than the purple alien had been: his room was much
bigger; he had more to do than stare at a blank wall and dissociate; they gave him plenty of
food at regular intervals and he had access to water whenever he needed; they had given him
a large pile of blankets and cushions that made his makeshift bed much more comfortable…

But. That didn’t mean they were good.

His room was still a cell, however fancy. They still treated him more like a dog than a person.
They didn’t seem interested in teaching him their language, beyond recognising a few simple
commands. The food was edible, but it was monotonous.

It probably wasn’t giving him enough vitamins and minerals either: he had noticed that his
night vision was deteriorating, leaving him seeing less and less each time the lights dimmed.
He often woke up to numb fingers, and they tingled when he was inactive for some time. The
bruises he had got from slipping on the climbing wall or misjudging where a platform was
were bigger than he would’ve expected and lingered for longer.

The way things were going, he was going to die. Not soon, or quickly – he didn’t have that
sort of luck. The aliens were killing him slowly, whether they meant to or not.

On the bright side (if it could be considered as such), change was inevitable. The aliens
would get bored, or enact whatever they had planned for him, or Techno would die of
malnutrition. Something would change.

They might lose interest, leaving Techno to starve and rot in this isolated corner of the ship.
Or perhaps they would pass him on to another unfamiliar alien, just like the purple alien had
passed him on to them. Where he ended up if that were to happen was a gamble, though. He
really didn’t want to swap this nice room for another like the one he’d been in with the purple
alien.

Maybe the aliens were preparing him for something? It would explain the training, but the
commands they were teaching him were so basic that they could be for anything. A pet? A
gladiator? Even becoming their guinea pig wasn’t off the table from the looks Blue had been
giving him.

None of the options were particularly appealing.

The voices weren’t much help either: many of them inexplicably liked the aliens, but just as
many resented them for keeping him trapped. The conflicting shouts weren’t helping his
growing headache, or the anxiety pooling in his gut.
Wilbur was excited to test out the puzzle boxes he had collected on the human.

He was going to start with a simple hidden-compartment box. It was very easy to solve – all
it required was to locate the right section to pull on – and should be durable enough that the
human would struggle to open it by force, so it seemed like the best place to start.

As he walked down to the human’s room, he stuffed the compartment with a mix of sweet
berries and chunks of chorus fruit. The chorus fruit had proved to be the human’s favourite,
and very successful for training it; the berries he had added for sentimentality. The puzzle
boxes were a common children’s toy for young phantoms and, when Tommy had first joined
the crew, he had made one for him. The young avian hadn’t had much of an attention span,
so, to encourage him, Wilbur had added the berries – Tommy’s favourite snack. It had
worked well, so he had used them every time he got one of the boxes out. It felt wrong not to
include them now.

The box captured the human’s interest right away. As soon as Wilbur had handed the box
over, it was inspecting it, twisting it in its hands to look at it from every angle. Its fingers –
Wilbur winced at the sight of its painfully short claws – traced the seams of the box carefully,
attempting to pry it open.

Wilbur had glanced down for a few clicks – just long enough to scribble out a note on the
human’s technique on his comm – but when he looked up, it was to the human enjoying its
prize, box open on its lap.

“What- How?!” Wilbur all but shrieked, staring at the box. There was no way the human had
figured it out that quickly!

Was Techno not supposed to open the box?

Blue did just hand him a box of fruit – which included some sweet red berries that he hadn’t
seen before but was definitely enjoying – but when the alien saw him open it, they shrieked.
They were still staring at his hands as he slid it open and shut a few more times.

Suddenly, Blue turned and walked down the corridor. They didn’t close the door. They didn’t
take the box back.

Techno watched him go, munching on the berries.

Wilbur was thrilled! The human caught on much faster than he had expected, so now he was
coming back with another, more difficult box to test on it. He had filled it so hastily that juice
was smeared all over it, but he didn’t think the human would mind.

He thrust the first box at the human as soon as he was able to, practically buzzing with
excitement. The human huffed, but took the box from him easily and started examining it.
This one was harder: the design of the box hid the seams of the hidden compartments, and the
second compartment – the one he had filled with berries – could only be accessed after the
first one had been opened. Wilbur worried that this might be a bit too much more difficult
than the first box, but he was curious to see what the human would do.

He was fascinated by the methodical way it looked at the box. It was quick to find the seam
of the second compartment – which it appeared to have identified by sight alone – and started
tugging on it. When the panel moved a little but didn’t open fully, the human gave up. In fact,
it turned the box upside down so that the face with the second compartment was out of sight.
It was so childish that it amused Wilbur.

However, this was also happened to be the right side to find the opening to the first
compartment. Again, the human figured out where the opening was almost straight away. The
first compartment slid out smoothly. Unsurprisingly, they seemed disappointed by the lack of
fruit, turning it over in their hands as if to look for some, even checking the hole in the box
left by the compartment.

Wilbur chuckled a little to himself. It was good that the human was so food motivated – it
would certainly make it easier to train.

The next step – figuring out that the first compartment had allowed the second to be opened –
was typically where most intelligent species struggled. After all, the definition of insanity
was to try the same thing again and again and expect a different outcome, so most people
would discount the loose panel once they had failed to open it.

This apparently didn’t apply to humans though, because the very first thing the human did
was turn the box around and slide the second compartment open.

The second box was probably supposed to be harder to open.

It was easy enough to figure out: once Techno found the side that was clearly loose but
wouldn’t open, he knew he would need to do something else first to release it. The other side
was the obvious place to check, and, sure enough, the first box he pulled out was empty and
looked to have a short stick at the back that would stop the second part from sliding out.

If he had to guess, he would say that it was probably something to protect valuables. The box
was fairly sturdy, didn’t look like much at first glance, and took a minute to open. The first
chamber could hold decoy goods, so that a hasty thief wouldn’t check the smaller second
chamber, which could then protect some of the treasure.

Though that didn’t explain why Blue was rewarding him for opening them. He had a couple
of ideas – theft and piracy being top of the list – but without any context, he couldn’t be sure
of anything. For all he knew this could just be a common children’s toy.

Wilbur found Phil in the navigation room, going over the next few stops on their flight path.

“Hi mate,” he said, not looking up from the map, “How was the human?”
 “It figured out all of the puzzle boxes!” Wilbur gushed, “It was so methodical, and it found
all of the berries I put in for it almost immediately!”

Phil trilled happily at Wilbur’s enthusiasm. “I take it you didn’t have any problems with it?”

“None at all! I think it was too focused on trying to open the boxes to do any posturing. It
seems very food motivated too – it practically turned the first empty compartment inside out
looking for some fruit!”

“That’s good.”

Phil straightened from the map, gesturing for Wilbur to take a look. Wilbur’s tail stopped its
gently swaying as he peered at the route Phil had plotted. “I thought we were headed to Las
Nevadas for our next shipment?”

Las Nevadas was a desert planet notorious for its black market. While Phil normally kept
away from the more illegal businesses, standard shipments paid better there than anywhere
else. Money seemed to work differently there; jobs earnt more, but everything was much
more expensive too, and it was easy to get pulled into the big casinos and lose rotations’
worth of credits in a single evening.

“We are going there, but I’d rather not spent so much on a resupply – you know what their
prices are like – and with the human on board it would be better to resupply before we get
there. Kinoko only adds a day to our journey, and should have everything we need,” Phil
reasoned.

“They should have one of their seasonal marketplaces on at the moment too,” Wilbur added.
“I doubt any of the others would complain about spending a day there.” Spending so long
floating through space could get boring, so the whole crew enjoyed days when they could
spend some time on a planet. “We should try to get the human’s medical exam done before
we arrive, then. That way, we can grab anything we need for it while we restock the rest of
the ship.”

Phil’s feathers smoothed. “I’m also avoiding the worst of the pirated areas, which will take
some time. We have plenty to spare though before we’re due in Las Nevadas, and, once the
human is properly trained, we could shave even more time off our journey.”

Of course, they still wanted to avoid the worst of the pirated areas between Kinoko and Las
Nevadas, so the two of them spent some time plotting the most recent incidents and charting
a course.

Chapter End Notes

They won't make it to Kinoko by the end of this - this is a bit of setup for the next work
in the series. Speaking of, I don't know what to call this series yet, so ideas are welcome!
 Chapter 6
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Bird had just arrived with Techno’s evening meal. He still had the fruit from Blue’s visit
earlier that day, but he came up to the door to meet the alien all the same; after going so long
without, he wasn’t about to turn down more food.

Bird seemed nervous; they were shifting their wings behind them like they were about to fly
away. Instead of sliding the tray in, the alien tapped something on the control panel then held
out the tray for Techno to take. Straight out in the air.

He hesitated. They hadn’t ever fully opened the door. There had always been something,
between him and the aliens. There was no way they would open the door completely.

Some sort of semi-solid barrier then? Or some sort of technology that would let the aliens in,
but wouldn’t let him out? (That seemed the worst option: a door that contained him and
didn’t protect him from the aliens.)

But the distinctive flicker around the edges of the doorframe wasn’t just dimmed; it wasn’t
there. He could even feel a slight breeze coming from the corridor.

He accepted the tray cautiously, taking a step back into the room and inspecting its contents.
It was the same as always: cubes of cooked meat and some chorus fruit. Nothing looked
amiss. He glanced back at Bird, still stood blocking the exit.

He was itching to test the limits of this new barrier…

Setting the tray down on the floor, he strode towards the door. This must not have been what
he was expected to do, since Bird squawked and jumped back. He didn’t think much of it,
until he realised that this brought the alien closer to the control panel. They were already
reaching for it – likely to close the door and prevent Techno from getting out – but they
paused when Techno stopped.

He backpedalled. This won’t work. Bird was clearly prepared to stop Techno from having the
opportunity to break through this new setting. He groaned internally.

He still need to find out what Bird was planning here. They couldn't expect to get into the
room without him noticing, unless...

He glanced back at the food.

Techno thought for a moment – what were you supposed to do to calm a wild animal? –
before he slowly lifted his hands placatingly. He hunched a little, bending his legs to reduce
the height difference between them, and spoke in a quiet, calm tone. His voice was scratchy
from disuse, and he had to fight the urge to cough. “I’m not going to hurt you… it’s okay…”
His plan was simple: invite Bird in and get them to eat some of the food they were offering
him. That way, if the food had been tampered with, Techno could avoid whatever scheme the
aliens were plotting. If it went well, there was a chance that he could even reach the door and
escape. Either way, he could prevent them from doing whatever it was they came to do.

But first, he had to get Bird into the room.

***

The human was acting weird.

Phil was trying to test how it might respond to them when there wasn’t a barrier between
them. It had been decided that it was best for him to test this alone for one main reason: his
wings. The human seemed to be scared of them and, as a result, to have accepted him as
above it in its hierarchy, which he was hoping meant that it would be hesitant to attack him.

It was working to some extent. He guessed that it had noticed that the door wasn’t in the way,
but it hadn’t been aggressive. It hadn’t been particularly relaxed either – it hadn’t taken a
single bite of food yet and kept glancing up at him – but when he thought it was about to
charge him, it hunched over and averted its eyes, a clear sign of submission.

It was odd; Phil would’ve thought that such a legendary predator would be quick to jump on
whatever weakness it could, but instead it was acting like he was about to attack it. Belatedly,
he realised that his wings had puffed up in alarm.

It had its hands raised defensively, close to its body but turned outwards ready to fend off an
attack. It was also grunting quietly, interspersed with short hisses. The noise was probably
meant as a half-apology half-threat; something to reassure Phil that it hadn’t meant to
challenge him but also a warning not to seek retribution. Something that said ‘don’t hurt me’.

To see the human like this, so reactive to his slightest movement, was almost heart-breaking.
For a second, it sounded almost young, scared of being punished for something it hadn’t
meant to do.

A coo escaped him before he had a chance to really consider what he was doing.

Bird seemed to have calmed down a little. Their wings weren’t shifting so restlessly, and they
had even taken a half-step forward.

He turned briefly down to the tray of food, picking up a piece of fruit and – moving slowly –
offered it to Bird. He tilted his head. “Come on, now, just a couple of steps… It’s okay… You
can do it…”

He stopped paying attention to what exactly he was saying – it wasn’t like the alien could
actually understand him – but it seemed to be working. Bird walked slowly towards him,
reaching out to accept the fruit once they were close enough.

Time to see whether they would eat it or not.

The human was so sweet, offering him food in apology!

He accepted the chorus fruit from it (remembering that the fruit was its favourite part of its
meals). It watched him out of the corner of its eye, unblinking, but still hunched over.

Was he supposed to eat it? Give it back to the human? Phil could only guess what the correct
way to accept a human apology was, but returning an apology gift would certainly upset an
elytrian, so he slowly raised the fruit to his mouth and ate it.

The human almost… deflated. He would have been concerned, except that it moved its
shoulders away from its neck and lowered its arms. Clearly it had accepted that he had
forgiven it.

Phil’s instincts were still going, certain that this was a chick who needed consolation that it
wasn’t in trouble. A large part of him wanted to take it upstairs, to his nest, but the other,
more rational, part of him pointed out that that was a very bad idea.

Even so, it didn’t feel right to leave it now.

He trailed a few steps behind the human as it walked back towards the tray of food, pausing
when it started climbing up the wall.

The human fetched two cushions (from its nest!) and placed them down either side of the
tray, which was still on the floor. It sat down on one and then looked up at him (such a
vulnerable position! Looking up at him like that!).

He moved to sit on the other cushion. The human waited until he had sat down, then pushed
the tray towards him. It didn’t take a bite until he had eaten.

Techno wasn’t taking any chances.

He didn’t touch the meat until Bird had had two cubes of it. He kept an eye on them out of
the corner of his eye to make sure the alien wasn’t about to faint or vomit or exhibit any other
symptoms of poisoning. He ate slowly, stretching the meal out so he would have a chance to
stop as soon as he felt funny.

In the end, he split the meal fairly evenly with Bird. (He was sure that the alien had other
sources of food, but he still had the berries from Blue that morning so he had no reason not to
share.) He didn’t feel strange at the end of it, nor had Bird exhibited anything that couldn’t be
excused as just something aliens did.

Phil came running into the common room just as Wilbur collapsed in the seating area.

“How did it go?”

Phil chirped proudly. “Really well! It even shared its food with me!”
That made Wilbur sit up. “What!?”

“Yep! It spooked me, and apologised by giving me some chorus fruit and sharing its meal
with me!”

Wilbur brought up the footage of the human’s room, rewinding to Phil’s visit. He gawked at
the sight of the human submitting to Phil.

Phil looked smug at Wilbur’s speechlessness. “I think it might be ready to bring upstairs.”

Phil, Wilbur and Ranboo sat in the common room of the ship.

“Explain this to me again,” Ranboo asked.

“I went to give the human its food,” Phil started, “and Wilbur and I had discussed testing how
it would react without the door there-”

Wilbur cut in. “We decided that Phil was the best person to test it with since it’s scared of his
wings, and if I was there it might try something.”

Ranboo nodded. “And how did the human react?”

“I think it realised that the door was open. It left the tray on the floor and started towards the
door,” Phil continued, “It surprised me, and I raised my wings a bit. I don’t think it meant it
aggressively, since it seemed really apologetic… it hunched down and averted its gaze. Then
it started hissing and grunting, like it couldn’t decide whether it was being threatening or
submissive. It offered me some chorus fruit from its plate, so I went up to get it-”

“Hold on,” Ranboo interrupted. “You went into its room? Without any backup? When it was
hissing at you?”

Phil paused. He hadn’t thought of what would happen if it had gone wrong. “I guess… I
forgot? That the human was dangerous?” He ducked his head at the expressions on Ranboo
and Wilbur’s faces. “You should have seen it!” he protested, “It looked so scared! And it was
only hissing quietly, like it didn’t want to make me angry but was trying to warn me against
hurting it. Its shoulders were up by its neck and it had raised its hands defensively, like it was
expecting me to attack it. I couldn’t not accept its apology!”

Wilbur looked fascinated. “Humans must be very defensive of their positions in their
hierarchy.”

“Do you think it’ll be a problem when we do the medical exam?” Ranboo asked, tail flicking
nervously.

Phil remembered that Ranboo was yet to meet the human. Their first interaction would
probably decide how well they got on, so he could understand the enderian’s nerves. He
cooed reassuringly. “I’m sure it will be fine. I’ll be able to step in if it gets aggressive.”

“So what happened next?”

 “It brought down two cushions from its nest.”

“It dismantled its nest?” Wilbur’s head-fins raised. “That doesn’t sound healthy.”

“It didn’t even put them back properly when we were done – it just threw them back onto the
platform,” Phil recounted, shuddering at the thought of treating his own nest with such
disrespect.

Ranboo jotted down something on his comm. “And then?”

“It waited for me to sit down opposite it, with the tray between us. I didn’t take anything
from the tray at first, but it pushed it towards me and waited until I took something. It ate
much slower than usual, and it didn’t try to divide the food up at all. In the end, I must have
eaten just as much as it did.”

Ranboo turned back to Wilbur. “Is this something we should be celebrating?”

Wilbur looked unsure. “I can’t find anything on humans accepting aliens into their group. Its
treatment of its nest suggests that it isn’t feeling settled, either because of illness or because
of an environmental factor.” He pulled up his notes on his comm. “But it should have
everything it needs – regular feedings, a constant supply of water, plenty of space, places that
are easily defendable…”

“Have we considered whether humans even use nests or not?” Ranboo asked. “Elytrians are
known to be very nest-orientated. What if humans just don’t prioritise that sort of thing? It
would make sense; on a death world, you don’t want sentimentality holding you back.”

“Well, there’s no research into human nesting behaviours, so we can’t be sure about any of
this,” Wilbur pointed out.

Phil agreed. “We’ll have to wait for the results of its check-up before we jump to any
conclusions.”

“When do you think we should do it?” Ranboo asked.

“I think it’s just about ready now. We could try tomorrow?”

Chapter End Notes

Sorry this took a little longer to get out. Real life has caught up with me a little and the
next few chapters need a bit more work than I expected.
 Chapter 7
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Something felt… off.

Techno couldn’t tell what it was exactly. Blue and Bird both coming to feed him wasn’t
unusual. The food on his plate looked and tasted normal. The way the aliens chatted while he
ate was fairly typical.

(Part of him picked up on the aliens’ nervous energy. The way Bird shifted their wings and
Blue’s tail hung completely motionless. How they spoke worriedly, hushed in places even
though Techno couldn’t understand them. The way they both looked at him.)

It wasn’t until he handed back the tray (the usual way – Bird hadn’t left the whole door fully
open again like they had the day before) and the aliens didn’t leave that he realised they were
planning something.

Suspicious, Techno backed away from the door a little, keeping his eyes on Bird and Blue.
Bird clicked a button on the control panel but instead of becoming opaque like normal, the
blue sheen disappeared. The door was open.

Were they trying to come in? Both aliens stayed at the door, but that didn’t necessarily
answer his question. Curiosity gnawed at him.

Almost without his permission, his feet started to shuffle toward the door. He moved slowly,
but his mind was racing. What could they be planning? The voices offered only gruesome
images: him being prodded with electric cattle prods, the electricity making his muscles
spasm; him being forced into a tiny cage, metal bars digging into his skin. Him chained to a
table as they cut him open.

He hesitated as Bird gave him an encouraging coo.

It was his paranoia talking. These aliens weren’t like that – they had been kind to him so far
and had given him no reason to think that they weren’t going to continue doing so.

When he was close enough, Techno reached out a hand to test the forcefield separating him
from the aliens. Part of him expected to hit… something. It seemed inconceivable that he
would ever leave this room. He couldn’t remember the last time he walked through a door.

His hand found nothing but air. He took another step, reaching further. Still nothing. No
barrier, no door, not even an electric shock. He jerked back a little as he realised there really
was nothing there, looking up at the aliens worriedly.

Were they actually just going to let him out? No restraints, no drugs, no electric prods to keep
him in line?
It was only now, looking down at the aliens with nothing between them, that he realised quite
how delicate they looked.

Sure, Bird had some sharp claws, but they were half Techno’s height. The wings on their
back would reduce their manoeuvrability and created a massive blind spot. Not to mention
that if they were able to fly, their bones must be very brittle.

Blue was nearly as bad – their arms were thin and they had flimsy fins on their head and all
along their back. They also had claws, but their scales looked delicate, like they would tear at
any moment.

Bird chirped another encouragement and stepped back into the corridor a little.

“You want me to… come out?” Techno took a step back at the thought. On one hand, this
would be a great opportunity to escape. On the other hand, he had no idea what these aliens
wanted or were capable of. As much as he disliked being kept captive, he was anxious about
what it could mean for him to step out of his cell.

In the end, his curiosity – combined with the allure of something different – won out. He
stepped out into the corridor.

The air felt fresher, somehow. The space felt more open, even though, physically, the ceiling
was lower and the walls were closer. Even the voices were quiet. He blinked. Is this what
freedom feels like?

He absentmindedly accepted a piece of purple fruit from Blue as Bird urged him gently
forward, overtaking and leading the way further into the ship.

At the end of the corridor was a massive storage room piled high with crates. The ceiling here
was the same height as in Techno’s room and the crates were all arranged into neat rows and
carefully labelled, though the words were (unsurprisingly) alien to him.

Blue caught his attention with a soft click, and Techno sped up to follow Bird up a set of
steps. The stairs led up to another room, wider than his own but with a lower ceiling. It
looked like a kitchen-dining-living room, with a kitchen in one corner, a large pile of
cushions in front of a screen to one side and a circular table opposite. There were three
corridors branching off the room, as well as the stairs they had come up.

The table caught his attention, particularly the seats around it. There were a couple that
seemed fairly normal, the sorts that had no armrests and a gap between the backrest and the
seat, but all of the others looked almost custom-made. They probably corresponded to
specific crew members, then. He was surprised he hadn’t met more of them; it looked like
there was a lot more than just Bird and Blue. Was that why they brought him upstairs?

There was startling diversity in the shape of each chair: one had wide armrests that were
slanted backwards; another had a groove in the seat and a long vertical slice missing from the
backrest; a third had a high seat and no backrest at all…
He was so focused that he didn’t notice Blue clicking at him. Bird’s sharp whistle caught his
attention for a second, but he quickly got back to looking at the chairs.

He continued to circle the table, noting each interesting seat, but was forced to stop when he
nearly collided with Bird.

Their wings were puffed up and they were staring directly at him. They didn’t look happy.
Blue was stood behind them, next to one of the corridors. As he watched, Bird stepped back
and gestured to the corridor, clicking and whistling.

He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Fine! I’m coming, I’m coming.”

They didn’t go far down the corridor before Bird walked through one of the doors. Before he
could think about it too much, Techno was following.

When he got inside, though, he froze.

This was a medical room.

Immediately, the voices rose from a whisper to a cacophony. They roared for blood so loudly
that Techno reflexively took a step back and lifted his hands to his ears. His vision blurred
and his legs buckled.

He growled at the voices to be quiet, which seemed to help, but his breathing was still too
fast. There was a rushing noise in his ears and everything blurred. He staggered, reaching out
for a wall to steady himself and sinking to a crouch.

Phil didn’t know what happened.

One click the human was fine, stepping through the door to the medbay, the next it was
stumbling across the corridor with its arms protecting its head.

It had growled, the first time it had done so in a while. And this wasn’t like it had done when
they were first feeding it: this was a proper growl, deep and loud. It made all three of the
crew – Ranboo having been waiting for them in the medbay – jump back.

Phil and Wilbur stood frozen as the human crouched on the floor, one hand against the wall,
the other rubbing its head, eyes screwed shut. Ranboo was the first to approach it.

He came out of the medbay and knelt just out of arm’s reach of the human. As he vwooped a
standard enderian question noise, the human’s head snapped up to look at him.

Ranboo trembled a little under the human’s undivided attention, but managed to remain calm.
He reached out, tilting his head like they had discussed to try and reassure the human that he
wasn’t trying to hurt them.

There was a new alien in the corridor. This one was half-black and half-white – split neatly
down the middle – with small ears and mismatched red and green eyes. They were also
 covered in short fur, with longer fur on their head and a tuft on the end of the tail that was
swishing behind it. Long elegant horns poked out of the hair on its head.

Their head was tilted in silent question and they slowly reached out a hand. The concern was
endearing and he found the gesture so sweet that he named them Oreo.

He took a deep breath – breathing was coming easier now that he had something to focus on,
even if the voices were still shouting about betrayal and blood – and reached out to accept
their help.

They seemed startled by this (maybe they hadn’t meant the action like that?) and their jerk
backwards made Techno flinch, quickly retracting his hand. At least Oreo appeared
apologetic, reaching back and… purring?

The oddly familiar sound surprised Techno, who stared at Oreo in shock. Aliens could purr?
It must’ve surprised the voices too, because they all went silent.

To his dismay, Oreo’s purr stuttered out. The alien looked like they regretted making it, but
Techno was near-desperate for any semblance of something familiar, something comforting
instead of the blank walls and the blank faces of the aliens. He scooted towards Oreo.

Unfortunately, as Oreo scrambled backwards, Bird stepped in between them, wings spread
wide.

Chapter End Notes

Techno has met his third alien! Him and Ranboo are going to have fun :D
 Chapter 8
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

This wasn’t good.

Phil spread his wings further, disappointed (and concerned) when the human didn’t shrink
away from them. At least it didn’t try to push past him.

But that didn’t solve their new problem: the human being aggressive towards Ranboo. It was
a simple misunderstanding – enderians make a growling sound as a way to comfort
themselves and each other, but, to every other species in the universe, growling was a threat.
It was confusing enough for the rest of the crew. For the human…

This would make their job much harder.

Phil could hear Wilbur helping Ranboo up behind him, but he kept his gaze on the human. It
was still focused on the others, staring unblinkingly at where they were stood as though it
could see them through his wing.

“Should we take it back?” Wilbur asked quietly.

Phil hesitated. As much as he despised putting any of his crew in any danger (the main reason
why Tommy and Tubbo had been banned from visiting the human, and had been told to stay
out of the way while they brought it upstairs), they couldn’t put off this for much longer. The
part of him that still saw the human as a chick was already fretting over its health; if it
actually got sick and they weren’t able to help it – or worse, didn’t even realise it was sick –
because they hadn’t done these tests, he would never forgive himself.

“No. We need to do this, and it might not be so easy to get it upstairs next time. We’ll just
have to be careful.”

The aliens were trying to get him back into the medical room. Blue was using a mix of
chorus fruit and sweet berries to try and lure him in, while Bird was making coaxing noises.
He had seen Oreo walk into the room, but they had moved out of sight.

The voices were still going, quieter since Oreo’s purring, but still calling for an excessive
amount of violence, mostly towards Bird.

He had a decision to make. If he went in, he might be able to find Oreo again (he wasn’t sure
what he would do then, but so far they seemed the nicest of the aliens he had met). On the
other hand, the aliens might want to do terrible experiments on him. He was confident that, if
it came down to it, he could take on one of them – two at a stretch – but he wasn’t sure that
he’d be able to fight off all three at once. The last thing he wanted was to be trapped in some
sort of science lab with three aliens cornering him.
He wasn’t sure how to communicate that to the aliens though.

Blue seemed happy when Techno reached for the fruit they were offering, but the expression
turned quickly into what looked like fear when he gently wrapped his hand around the alien’s
wrist instead. They leaned away and tried to wrench their arm out of his grip, but with no
success.

Bird tried to step in, but Techno just ignored their squawks. “Quiet down,” he grunted as Blue
practically threw themselves to the floor. He gave Blue a moment to calm down (they didn’t)
before he started tugging them along the corridor, back to the sitting-dining-kitchen room,
mindful not to hold onto their wrist too tight.

Blue gave up on trying to pull free and changed tactics, scratching at Techno’s arm with their
free hand. He ignored it for as long as he could, but once he felt his blood start to bead on his
skin, he decided that he had had enough.

Wilbur froze as the human turned around. It looked like it had finally had enough of him
scratching up its arm.

He shrunk away from it, as much as he could when it still had his wrist in its grip, and waited
for it to get its revenge. Its gaze bore into him.

Nothing happened.

The human turned back and kept walking down the corridor. He didn’t try anything, letting
himself get pulled along the corridor as he struggled to process the fact that he hadn’t been
killed.

Once he stopped trying to get away, he realised that the human was being remarkably gentle.
As much as its grip was like iron, it was loose enough that there was no pressure on his wrist.
It walked relatively slowly so that he didn’t struggle to keep up at all.

He winced as he saw a drop of the human’s blood start to roll down its arm. He had reacted
like some sort of feral animal, and the human hadn’t given him so much as a bruise.

He could hear Phil just behind him. He was flapping his wings in distress, but didn’t try to
stop the human. Neither of them knew how long its patience would last.

They reached the end of the corridor, and the human tugged Wilbur towards the sitting area.
It seemed hesitant to get too close, but it released him and nudged him towards it.

Techno tried not to get too close to the nest-like structure in the corner. It could just be an
alien sitting room thing, but he didn’t want to take any chances when Bird was still so
anxious behind him.

Fortunately, Blue had stopped struggling and got into the pile of blankets with only a nudge.
Now he just needed them to stay there.
He turned around, acting like he was going back to the corridor, but then turned halfway
across the room. Sure enough, Blue had climbed out of the nest. Techno walked back and
nudged him back in.

After repeating this dance a couple of times, Blue and Bird seemed to get the message. They
exchanged a few words, then Bird followed him down the corridor.

Ranboo was really nervous.

He supposed that that was natural reaction to such a legendary predator, but it was more than
that. This had to go well, for everyone’s sake, and there were so many ways for it to go
wrong.

If the human got worked up, the stress could mess up some of the readings, which could
prevent them from properly treating them if they got sick or injured. Not to mention that if
they got too stressed, they would probably lash out, which – at best – would cut the check-up
short. They might not be able to stop the human, so all of their lives were at risk, including
Tubbo’s and Tommy’s – he doubted that the human would stop at just the three of them
present.

So naturally he had to make it that much harder by purring at them. After everything he had
done to prepare himself, going through all of the various ways to appear nonthreatening, he
had messed it all up.

It was at times like this that he almost wished he couldn’t purr. It didn’t work on any of the
crew, and kept getting him in trouble. When he had first joined the ship as a medical officer,
his instincts had him purring whenever someone came to the medbay for something, which
only ever made the situation worse. After a while the crew got used to it (at least, they said
they had. He could still feel them tense whenever he did it), but it didn’t help them like it
helped him. Not that it was helping him at the moment.

He had heard the commotion outside, but Phil had told him to stay out of the human’s way, so
he hadn’t tried to help. It felt like a full cycle before Phil returned with the human.

This time, when they reached the doorway, they only hesitated slightly before coming in,
rather than panicking. Instead it was Ranboo who panicked when he noticed the long
scratches on the human’s arm that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago, along with the
missing crewmember.

Forgetting Phil’s warning, he rushed forward. “Where’s Wilbur?”

Phil looked slightly dazed. “In the common room.” At the look of worry on Ranboo’s face,
he added, “He’s fine. Even when he did that-” he gestured to the human’s arm “-it didn’t hurt
him.”

Ranboo breathed a sigh of relief before glancing back to the human, careful not to make eye
contact. He really needed to assess their injuries, but he was also wary after the human’s
reaction to him earlier. They weren’t doing anything yet, but he could feel their gaze on him.
 “How should we do this?” He asked.

“I’m not sure, mate,” Phil admitted, “It doesn’t seem too aggressive at the moment… but I
don’t know that I would be able to stop it if it changed its mind.” He seemed rattled after
whatever happened with Wilbur.

Ranboo tried to sound braver than he felt. “Let’s do as much as we can now. If they start
getting aggressive, we can take them back downstairs and finish another time.”

With a deep breath, he turned to gather up some supplies.

Chapter End Notes

The aliens are finally figuring out that Techno isn't as violent as they thought!
(Sorry for the delay - I was redrafting the next chapter and wanted to make sure that it
was all still consistent. I've also got some exams coming up so I don't know how quickly
I'll be able to get the next chapter out.)
 Chapter 9
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Ranboo turned to grab some stuff to clean the scratches with, adding it to the trolley of
equipment he had prepared earlier before rolling it over to where Phil had guided the human
to sit on one of the medical beds. They had opted not to try and tie the human down, for two
reasons: one, with the human’s strength there was no way to guarantee that they couldn’t just
break out; two, once the human did escape, they would probably – understandably – be upset
at being tied down. (The wrath of an angry human was not something that Ranboo wanted to
see.)

Fortunately, the human was fairly docile, sitting still and allowing him to clean the scratches
on their arm. They hissed quietly, which made him pause (a large part of him was still
terrified because this was a human in front of him), but they didn’t try to stop him, so he
continued as gently as possible.

Techno was busy trying to figure out what was happening. The voices weren’t much help,
providing their usual senseless chatter, but at least they were holding back on the gruesome
imagery and had stopped chanting about blood.

Looking around, he was fairly certain he was in some sort of hospital ward. There were three
beds along one wall, a couple machines around the room, various medicine-looking bottles
and boxes on some of the shelves, and he could see Oreo pulling out a roll of bandages and
some scissors from a drawer. He couldn’t see any metal tables with big leather restraints
anywhere. In fact, now that he was in the room, it was much easier to dismiss the idea that
the aliens wanted to experiment on him.

He was able to relax a little as he watched Oreo gather some equipment and roll a small cart
over to the bed Bird had encouraged him onto. They were difficult to read – obviously since
these were aliens – but their tail was curling and uncurling around their legs, so it felt like a
fair assumption that they were nervous. It was calming, in a way, to see a more human side to
them.

They dabbed some disinfectant – which smelled awful – on the scratches Blue gave him.
Oreo was gentle, but the disinfectant still stung, and he was grateful that it was over quickly.
They wrapped it in bandages, tying it off with practised care.

Next, he was nudged to lie down on the bed. This made him more nervous – it would be a big
hindrance to any escape attempt – but he couldn’t see any restraints, so he did as instructed.
He was still wondering what they were planning when Bird pulled up a glass cover from the
side of the bed. It curved over him, creating a half-cylinder space uncomfortably reminiscent
of a coffin.
Techno wasn’t scared of small spaces per se, but there was something about being locked in a
confined space with no promise of escape that make his breathing speed up. He tried to stay
calm by concentrating on the aliens – Oreo tapping something on their tablet and Bird stood
running their fingers through the feathers on their wings – but his sight started blurring as he
ran out of air. Was he wrong about them not wanting to experiment on him? Did they take the
oxygen out of the air? Was that why he felt so short of breath?

Realistically, he knew it was probably just claustrophobia making his throat close up, but that
didn’t ease his breathing. He shut his eyes, trying his best to take deep breaths.

A deep rumbling sound cut through his spiralling thoughts. It reverberated in his chest and
the pressure in his throat disappeared. With his eyes closed, it was all too easy to just lie there
and pretend he was still on Earth, lying in bed with a purring cat curled next to him. He
unconsciously relaxed the tension in his muscles.

When the human started having breathing difficulties again – taking breaths that were far too
short and too fast, much like they had when they had first come into the room – Ranboo had
started purring again instinctually. It took him a moment to realise what he was doing, but,
seeing how much the human had relaxed, he continued to purr until they finished the scan.

They had relaxed a lot: they went from hyperventilating to looking like they were asleep.
After so long surrounded by species who saw purring as something aggressive, it felt odd to
find someone who had a positive reaction to it.

It certainly made it more difficult to be afraid of them. He found it difficult to picture a

human purring, but they must be able to if they could recognise the sound. This human had
growled a fair amount, including when they had first come into the medbay, but that hadn’t
sounded like a purr at all.

Though, now that he thought about it, they could’ve been purring (or whatever passed for a
human purr); they had been in distress, so they might have been trying to comfort
themselves, like Ranboo did when he was scared. Was that why humans are thought to be so
aggressive? (It was a heartbreaking thought.)

He pushed his thoughts to the side, pulling on his gloves for the next part of the checkup. The
human watched him, though he couldn’t tell if their expression was curious or unhappy. They
seemed fairly calm, which gave him some confidence, but he was still anxious about the
more invasive parts of the check-up.

Normally, he would just check for early warning signs – like the health of their claws, or the
colour of their hair (which, being as colourful as it was, would probably be a major indicator
of health) – but they were trying to do this as quickly as possible, and they really needed to
do a blood test before the human went back to their room.

Ranboo pulled a tray out from the cart, setting in on the bed next to the human and pulling off
the cover; inside, the sterile needle, collection tube, and some numbing potion were all laid
out neatly. Seeing the familiar tools exactly where he put them was comforting, and it helped
to soothe some of his nerves.
The feeling clearly wasn’t mutual, as the human flinched away from the tray as soon as they
saw what was inside. Their breathing sped up again, and he could see them curl their hands
into balls. He couldn’t tell why; it seemed an odd response to stress to hide their claws. Then
they moved their head jerkily to the side, away from the tray. Exposing their neck.

Oh.

The sight of the needle caught Techno off guard.

He didn’t like them at the best of times, and his unease was further fuelled by a sudden
outburst from the voices at the vague mention of blood. Given the context, the stark white
walls and medical equipment surrounding him, he had plenty of reason to recoil.

The panic from the glass box came back, squeezing his chest and forcing his breaths to
become shallower.

He turned away, squeezing his eyes shut and trying – with mounting desperation – to slow his
breathing. If ever he needed a clear head, now would be the time. He had to try and stay in
control of his position.

He jumped at the feeling of something sitting on the bed.

Fear forced a whine past his lips, and he choked on a sob as he realised that the aliens could
do anything and he wouldn’t be able to stop them. All they had to do was show him a needle
and he was in tatters. His hope of retaining some agency in his situation came crashing down.
After all, what could he do? He was thoroughly outnumbered and had nothing to give him
any advantage over them.

Maybe he could steal he needle and use it to stab these two, incapacitate them somehow. (He
didn’t want to hurt them, not Oreo, with their gentle hands and shy demeanour, not Bird, with
their too-human eyes.) He would still have to deal with the rest of the crew – the half-dozen
others on this part of the ship, the ones who had special seats at the table, and who knows
how many more. Even if, by some miracle, he managed to kill every single alien on this ship
before they could kill him, he would be alone, drifting in space. He would still die.

They could force him to do whatever they wanted.

The alien on the bed moved – closer – and he flinched as something was draped over his
shoulders. He held his breath, waiting for it to grip him, to squeeze him to death, or hold him
down while the aliens cut him open…

It didn’t move.

Whatever it was, it was soft and warm. He couldn’t help but relax into it a little.

He looked up – when had his eyes started watering? – to see Bird sat next to him with their
wing around him. Their eyes – so human­– carried such clear concern that he couldn’t hold
back another sob. They reached up to wipe away a tear as it fell down his cheek.
Something in him snapped.

It had been so long since he had last been held with such care. Even before his abduction (a
time that felt so distant that some days he wondered if it had ever really happened) his
parents had always been busy. He didn’t have any siblings, and the few friends he made were
never big on hugs.

He leaned in, burying his face in Bird’s shoulder. They responded with a coo, pulling him
closer with their wing and reaching up to brush their talons through his hair. They held him
and let him cry into their shoulder, and he clung to them.

It didn’t take long for his tears to stop. Sat like this, Techno couldn’t find it in himself to keep
being scared. He relaxed into Bird’s hold, breaths evening out with only a couple of hiccups.

Seeing the human so scared by the needle – it had fully frozen at the sight of it, curling its
hands to hide its claws and exposing its neck and tensing every muscle it had – had Phil’s
instincts clamouring to comfort it. He tried to be careful about it, moving slowly as he came
to sit next to it on the bed (the memory of it dragging Wilbur down the corridor as he wailed
was still seared into his brain), but his restraint had broken the moment he met its baby-blue
eyes.

He pulled it closer, wrapping it fully in his wings. It fit perfectly. It sounded like it was
having trouble breathing, but it clung to him and buried itself in his shoulder, so he didn’t
loosen his hold. He could see Ranboo checking its vitals out of the corner of his vision,
which gave him some confidence that whatever was happening wasn’t life-threatening. (Not
that it helped his bird-brain; having a chick inconsolable even when he had it safely wrapped
up was distressing, regardless of how serious the issue might really be.)

The human didn’t fight as he pulled them both closer to the head of the bed, manoeuvring
them so that he could lean back against the wall while keeping the human craddled against
his chest.

His mind raced as he ran his talons through the human’s hair (humans didn’t have feathers or
wings to preen, so its long hair was the next best option). What had it reacted like that?
Needles couldn’t possibly resemble any sort of predator on the human’s home world. How
else could it have associated needles with such immobilising fear and pain? He tightened his
hold on the human. Was it the shulk? Whoever had owned the human before that?

They had to have done something bad to make a human – the deadliest, scariest, predator in
the universe – react like this.

He tried to calm himself. He couldn’t do anything about it now; that would have to wait until
after he made sure the chick in his arms was alright. (The more logical, rational side of him
argued that this wasn’t a chick, but it was easily overshadowed by his instincts.)

After a couple of minutes, the human’s breaths evened out. It had relaxed, and having it limp
in his arms was starting to make Phil feel tired too.
 He was interrupted when Ranboo vwooped quietly to get his attention. “Are we still going
to…?”

Phil considered it for a second. “Yeah, mate. Let’s do this.”

Chapter End Notes

This one is a bit longer! I hope you enjoy <3

 Chapter 10
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Ranboo quickly checked the scan to find the best point for the needle to go while he prepped
the equipment. It suggested a point on the human’s arm – a point where there was a vein
close enough to the skin to have easy access and not major enough to pose any risk of
bleeding out (with some help from a healing potion).

He approached them carefully and the human turned to look at him. They didn’t have any of
the panic from earlier in their eyes, blinking slowly as Phil continued to thread his talons
through their hair.

The familiar action had him blinking back and purring before he knew what he was doing.

With a jolt, he realised his mistake and ducked his head. (What had happened earlier didn’t
mean that humans liked purring. It could’ve been a coincidence. The image of them lunging
at him when he had purred at them in the corridor was a reminder not to tempt fate.)

He could hear Phil coo reassuringly but he didn’t lift his head, unsure of whether Phil was
trying to reassure him or the human.

An odd sound cut through the tense silence. It was a strange, garbled growl, and it made
Ranboo look up in surprise. The human was making the noise, but was cut off as it suddenly
started forcefully expelling air from their lungs. It made their whole body shake. It looked
unnatural.

A panicked look at his comm showed an increase in their blood pressure and heart rate, but
didn’t give any indication as to what had caused it.

Phil chirped worriedly as the human continued, his instincts seemingly not having a response
to the very un-elytrian behaviour. Fortunately, it didn’t last too long (though that didn’t calm
Ranboo too much; the sudden onset and almost violent nature was disturbing, and he still
wasn’t sure what had caused it.)

Once the human’s breathing had returned to normal, they tried again to make the strange
growling noise. The sound was similar, though slightly smoother and less stumbling than
before, but again was cut off by more breathing difficulties. This time, when they got their
breathing back under control, they didn’t try again. Ranboo watched it for a minute, but it
didn’t have any more trouble breathing.

It kept looking at him. Did it want something from him? Were the sounds supposed to be a
request of some sort? (The thought that humans had a complex language crossed him mind,
but he pushed it away. This didn’t look like any sort of language he had ever seen before.) He
thought about the sounds, turning it over in his head. They almost sounded like…
He purred experimentally. The effect was immediate: the human sat up and looked at him
with wide eyes. Was this what they were asking for?

Had the human been trying to purr? It hadn’t had any trouble making its growling sounds
earlier, so why was it causing them so much trouble now? If he was right, and growling was
the human version of a purr, why would they have so much difficulty replicating it?

Regardless, the human had relaxed into Phil’s arms, so he kept purring and came closer. They
had turned their face back towards Phil, but they watched him (disconcertingly) out of the
corner of their eye as he pulled one of their arms – which remained limp – out from under
Phil’s wing.

Here, he encountered a problem: the human was wearing some thick cloth that covered their
arms down to the wrist. He needed to put the needle in halfway up its arm. He tried, briefly,
to shift the fabric, but quickly realised that it wouldn’t work.

The human seemed to realise what he was trying to do, since they took their arm back and
pulled out of Phil’s arms. They shrugged off the cloth, pulling it over their head and folding it
before settling back against Phil. They were wearing more cloth underneath it, but this didn’t
cover all of their arms, so he was able to reach the right place.

(Later, he would wonder where the cloth had come from; it was well-made, and nothing like
the skins one might’ve expected of a non-sentient species. The thought would be forgotten,
glossed over, like the thought that humans might have a structured language, but he still
thought it.)

He tried to be gentle, and generous with the numbing potion, but the human still tensed and
turned their face away as he put the needle in. Phil comforted them, cooing softly and
wrapping his wings further around them.

Once he had secured the needle in place with a piece of tape, he turned away to sort some of
the equipment. He was stopped by fingers curling around his wrist.

He turned back, surprised, to see the human’s arm – the one with the needle still in it –
holding his wrist. As he watched, their hand slid down to hold his. They didn’t turn their head
towards him at any point.

The grip was soft – barely there – and he knew without trying that he could easily slip out of
it. The message was clear; they didn’t want him to go. (And weren’t forcing him to stay. That
fact picked at a part of his brain, whispering something here isn’t right, but he pushed the
thought aside. He was too busy melting at the sweet gesture.)

They stayed like that for a couple of minutes. The human was really relaxed now; their eyes
were closed and their breathing was much slower than it had been at any other point in the
checkup.

It was surprising, considering that they were in unfamiliar territory and given their earlier
responses to both the needle and the medbay as a whole. He checked their vitals, but their
blood pressure seemed normal, and their heart rate was down, not elevated as he would
expect if they had lost too much blood. That wasn’t what was keeping them so quiet.

Seeing the human behave like this really made him doubt all the stories of bloodthirsty
humans tearing ships apart; he couldn’t imagine that something that could be so docile could
also be as violent as people seemed to believe.

He gently removed the needle from the human’s arm, dabbing the area with some healing
potion and bandaging it. This seemed to wake them up a bit; they lifted their head and
blinked at the room.

“I think it might be time to take them back now,” Ranboo said quietly, not wanting to disturb
the human.

He worried for a brief moment how they were going to get the human to let Phil off the bed,
but it wasn’t a problem. Phil shifted a little, probably testing how far he could move, and that
was enough to prompt the human to sit up, allowing Phil to climb off he bed and stand. They
rubbed their eyes with one hand before grabbing the cloth it had removed earlier and
following Phil out of the room.

Ranboo stayed where he had been stood long after the footsteps had retreated down the
corridor.

Techno barely remembered walking back to his room. The feeling of Bird running their
fingers through his hair and the sound of Oreo purring had just been really relaxing.
Tiredness made his eyes droop and his legs heavy and before he knew it, he was in his pile of
blankets, drifting off to sleep.

He dreamt of head scratches and hugs.

After putting the human back in their room, Phil met up with Ranboo and Wilbur in the
common room.

He was still reeling from the emotional whiplash of the human’s adventure upstairs. First, it
had lunged at Ranboo, which was understandable, but still unexpected. Then, it had dragged
Wilbur kicking and screaming down the hall, paying no mind to his pleas or his attempts to
get free (Wilbur said that it hadn’t hurt him, but it had still been harrowing watching the
scene play out, knowing that there was nothing he could do to protect one of his crew, his
flock).

And then it had been so calm and gentle during the checkup. It had panicked – both at the
scanner and at the sight of the needle – but it hadn’t attacked them. In fact, it had nearly
fallen asleep in his wings while they were collecting some of its blood.

The human really was an enigma. One second, a heartless, mindless beast. The next, a soft,
scared chick. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to keep up. It didn’t help his worries
that he had no idea what had triggered such a switch in behaviour.
He pushed aside his concerns as he approached the others. He was captain; he couldn’t let his
judgement be clouded by worry.

“What did we find?”

“We’ve only got the results from the preliminary tests,” Ranboo started, “so we don’t have
anything conclusive, but… there are some signs of deficiency.”

Wilbur continued, "I’ve compared the scan to other studies of humans: it seems underweight
and its bones aren’t as dense as they should be. Its heart rate is irregular – more so than can
be explained by the stress, though that might’ve been a factor – and their blood isn’t clotting
as fast as it should.”

“It’s hard to tell what they’re missing, but the range of effects on their system suggests that
it’s something big, or maybe several things. We will probably have to pick up some
supplements for them when we stop to resupply.”

Phil let out a sad coo. “How soon can we find out what it’s missing?”

“I’ll need to run some tests,” Wilbur responded, “it shouldn’t take longer than a cycle to find
the big ones, maybe a couple to figure out the smaller ones. As soon as I get some results, we
can try to adjust its diet or I can make some supplements for it.”

Ranboo found Phil later the next cycle with the results.

They weren’t good; the human was missing several vital vitamins and minerals from its diet.
What worried Ranboo more, though, was that these deficiencies pointed to a bigger problem.

“I don’t think humans are carnivorous.”

Phil looked at Ranboo like he’d just dunked water over himself.

For good reason; it had never been questioned that humans were carnivores. Every human in
captivity was fed exclusively meat. It didn’t make sense that they would be so bloodthirsty
otherwise. Humans were known for tearing people apart, not munching happily on leaves.

(Besides, only a few sentient creatures were fully carnivorous; most of them were omnivores.
If Ranboo had to guess, the desire to alienate humans in whatever way possible was as much
the cause of the misconception as any behaviour they exhibited.)

But it made no sense for their human to be anything other than an omnivore. A lot of what
they were missing is synthesised naturally in carnivores, but omnivores or herbivores don’t
need to synthesise them because they absorb them from plants.

Phil looked up at Ranboo indulgently as he explained his theory.

“We need to change its diet. The easiest way to get those minerals are with plants.” At the
unimpressed look on Phil’s face, he added, a little desperately, “It can’t hurt to try.”
He didn’t understand why Phil wouldn’t take him seriously. It felt like he didn’t think Ranboo
was the fully trained medical professional that he was, like Phil just saw him as the nervous
child he’d been when he first found him.

Phil sighed. “I can’t hurt,” he agreed. “Do you think that’s why it was so… docile?”

The idea that some sort of deficiency was behind the human’s odd behaviour was comforting,
in a way. It made sense – the human alternated between panic and calm, almost as if it didn’t
have the energy to keep being scared – and, more importantly, it also meant that it was
fixable. They could improve the human’s diet and its odd behaviour would just go away.

It might stop being cuddly, his brain helpfully supplied. He ignored the thought (as much as
he could), heart already aching at the idea of his chick – dangerous predator, not a chick –
refusing to sit with him in his nest.

There were some things that still bothered him. It refusing to go into the room with Wilbur
there, mixed with its behaviour towards him in the past and its terror at the sight of a needle,
gave credit to Wilbur’s theory that it had had a bad experience with phantoms before. It had
to have learnt those fears somewhere, and it was looking more and more likely that one of its
previous owners – at least one of whom was a phantom – had experimented on it.

It also begged the question: what other species was it scared of? It seemed unlikely that it had
only had bad experiences with a phantom. It was understandable that it might not have met an
elytrian or an enderian before – they were some of the rarer species in space – which would
explain why it hadn’t reacted like that to Phil or Ranboo. Had it met an apistian before? An
avian? He really hoped that it wouldn’t freak out when it met Tubbo and Tommy.

“It’s possible,” Ranboo admitted.

He didn’t want to think that the only reason the human had been so gentle was because it was
too weak to do otherwise. There had been something there, some sort of understanding. They
hadn’t fought back at all, and it hadn’t felt like they were just playing along because they
were too weak to do otherwise. Maybe he was just being naïve, but he truly didn’t think that
the human – who hadn’t stopped him when he was disinfecting their cuts or drawing their
blood, who had cuddled Phil and held onto his hand so gently, who had looked so scared –
would just go berserk like they’d been led to believe.

Part of him didn’t believe that the human was capable of any sort of violence. They hadn’t
hurt Wilbur, not even in self-defence. The idea of such a gentle creature hurting anything was
just inconceivable.

“I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”

Since he had met Oreo, Techno had been enjoying a startling new variety in his meals.
 Alongside his normal bland diet of meat cubes and purple fruit, he had received, at various
points, some twisty carrot-looking things, a selection of leafy green vegetables, some small
green berries (which had tasted like fish?) and some soft orange bread, which tore easily and
basically melted in his mouth.

He had started to look forward to mealtimes, never sure exactly what he would be getting. It
added a new excitement to every day, and he was sure the aliens were picking up on it. Blue
would flick their tail or Bird would chirp amusedly every time he came running to the door at
the sound of their footsteps.

His enthusiasm was bolstered by the fact that the vegetables seemed to be helping; his night
vision was improving and he no longer got numb fingers. He had more energy too, which he
was mostly putting towards building his strength up.

Though they hadn’t opened the door properly again, and he hadn’t seen Oreo since he went
upstairs, the other aliens had been visiting regularly. They kept up his training, teaching him
new words and testing him on ones he had already learnt. They were leaving his door to ‘bar’
mode most of the time now, and Blue would often come down to sit in the corridor with their
comm. Techno assumed that they were doing work, and they would often bring him a puzzle
box to go with it, always stuffed full of sweet red berries, so he wasn’t complaining.

As much as he disliked the idea of being treated like a dog, he couldn’t bring himself to
dislike the aliens’ visits.

Chapter End Notes

Here's the next chapter!

Phil and Ranboo are going ahead with the blood sample because they both have
experience with people fighting having their blood drawn, even when they know that
they need to have it done (like Tommy). Part of this is habit. The other part is that they
both know that they need to get a sample of the human's blood as soon as possible to
give them all the available tools to help them if they get sick. (They do care about him I
promise)
 Chapter 11
Chapter Notes

This is the chapter where things get a bit more violent. tw for blood and related gore

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Techno blinked awake.

He wasn’t sure what had woken him: the lights were still dimmed, so it wasn’t morning yet;
he wasn’t too hot, nor too cold; the air was quiet. He frowned. Too quiet. He couldn’t think of
what sound he should be hearing, but its absence still gnawed at the edges of his mind.

It wasn’t the voices; he could hear the few that seemed awake whispering quietly to each
other. The murmur was comforting, and, combined with the call of the soft, warm blankets
around him, it nearly lulled him back to sleep.

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Try as he might, he couldn’t
get his mind to settle. After a minute, he sat up, frowning.

As he climbed down from his platform, he waited for the voices to chime in, telling him that
it was just paranoia or just making their usual mundane comments. Most of them were awake
now, he could tell, but they remained uncharacteristically quiet.

He reached the floor, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, though he didn’t have to fight back a
yawn; he was already too on-edge. Looking around, he could see a faint light coming through
the door. He nearly sighed in relief – clearly the aliens were just messing around with
something in the big storage room and it woke him – but a second later a realisation hit him
that made him freeze.

He could see through the door.

The aliens never left his door transparent overnight. He certainly didn’t remember them
doing so the night before. His blood froze, and the sensation was only worsened as some
sixth sense whispered that the door wasn’t just transparent – it was open.

He tried to rationalise it. Maybe the aliens wanted to check up on him, and had turned the
door transparent to make sure he was okay. Maybe the aliens had made a mistake, and he
would find them down the corridor and they’d all laugh it off and he could go back to bed.

Maybe the aliens were planning to sell him again, pass him on like the purple alien had.

The thought made his stomach churn, but, unpleasant as it was, it fit the situation well,
especially if the door was really open. Why else would they come while he was asleep?
It was a strange feeling, to hope so desperately for the door to be closed, for him to still be
trapped here, and yet he found himself dreading the thought of freedom being so close. He
liked these aliens. The way Bird would chirp and coo encouragingly, and Blue would bring
him treats of fruit, sometimes even without the excuse of one of their puzzle boxes. The way
they’d both come to sit outside his room and keep him company, despite how uncomfortable
the floor must be. The care and concern in Oreo’s expression, even when they’d only just
met.

The door had only been opened twice before: once, when Bird came and shared some food
with him, and then again when they took him upstairs to the medical room. At the time, he’d
appreciated the change, enjoying the company, but with hindsight he could see an alarming
trajectory forming. The first time was a test run for the second time (he wasn’t blind – he
knew that aliens saw him as a threat), which, in turn, was either a test run for a third time –
more invasive and painful tests, experiments – or preparation for the next step. He’d seen the
massive storage room, the neat, organised rows of unopened crates; he knew that these aliens
were almost certainly traders of some sort or another. It made sense that the next step would
be to sell him on.

He pushed it aside. He needed to keep a level head, and the tears threatening to blur his
vision weren’t useful to him right now. Besides, he had no way of knowing what the aliens
actually wanted with him – this was all speculation and paranoia, not anything he should be
worrying over.

Steeling himself, he strode towards the door, pausing just before he reached it. He was more
hesitant as he lifted an arm, reaching forwards.

There was no barrier. The door was open.

He took a deep breath. There’s no reason to panic, he told himself. He briefly considered
turning back and trying to get some more sleep, but he knew that his curiosity would keep
him up, se stepped out into the corridor, crouching slightly and walking quietly. From the
corridor, he could see that the overhead lights were on in the storage room, and he could hear
voices (not the ones in his head – they were still quiet), though he couldn’t see anything
happening.

Had the power failed in his corridor? That would explain why the lights were off and the door
was open, and even why the lights were on in the storage room. It even gave him a reason for
waking up – his natural circadian rhythm knew that it should be morning.

No. That wasn’t it. Something was wrong; he could feel it.

As he snuck further down the corridor, he thanked his worn-down trainers; each step was
silent. The voices from the storage room were getting louder, and he started to wonder
whether there might be several aliens talking. There had been multiple chairs around the table
that (presumably) belonged to crew members he was yet to meet – were they the ones
moving things around?

He hoped that he could find a familiar face – Bird or Blue or Oreo – so they could help him;
his social skills had never been particularly good, and they had certainly not improved during
his time in captivity. Part of him wanted to turn back at the mere thought of having to meet
new people, but, again, curiosity kept him moving forwards.

A pause at the door to the storage room gave him a chance to carefully peek in. It was easy to
spot the source of the noise: a group of aliens were gathered in the far corner, crowding
around a spot on the wall opposite the stairs. Curious, he snuck a bit closer, using the crates
to shield himself from view. He searched the crowd for something familiar – Bird’s large
black wings, or Blue’s bright scales, or even Oreo’s black-and-white horns. They weren’t
there. He could recognise several short purple aliens like the shopkeeper, along with four bee-
like aliens and another alien that looked like it was made of fire. It probably spoke volumes
about his state of mind that it took barely a second for him to accept that an alien could be
made of fire.

The group shifted, giving Techno a glimpse of what they were all so interested in. There were
two small aliens tied up against the wall: one bee-like alien and another that looked a lot like
Bird, but with smaller white wings. They were spitting what could only be insults at their
captors, who were growing more and more agitated.

The aliens moved again, blocking his view. Frowning, Techno moved along a row, sneaking
closer and getting a better view of the aliens tied up. The ropes were messy, the knots clearly
done in a rush. They dug into the bird-like one’s wings, holding them at an awkward angle.
He was momentarily mesmerised by the feathers – they looked soft, and much fluffier and
less sleek than Bird’s. In fact, they looked almost downy…

Realisation hit him. A sick feeling rose in his stomach. These aliens had tied up a child.

He nearly stepped out from his hiding place right then, but was held back by the second
realisation that he didn’t know any of these aliens. What if he helped Fluffy and Bee (yes, he
had already named them) only to find out that Bird and Blue and Oreo were with the aliens
that tied them up?

He really didn’t want to make things complicated, especially not while he was still unsure
about what the aliens wanted from him (however much the voices complained that he should
just jump in and get blood on his hands). It might be better to try and find someone familiar
before he tried to step in. After all, he didn’t know anything about what was happening here;
maybe there was a reasonable explanation. Reluctantly, he turned away.

He was about to sneak up the stairs when he heard a pained chirp. He turned in time to see
one of the purple aliens drawing back to aim another kick at Fluffy’s ribs. The voices
screamed for blood, and for once Techno agreed with them. To hurt a child like that, and
when they were tied up, no less!

He saw red.

The next thing he knew, he was breathing heavily. The floor was bathed in blood, and the
green and brown splatters extended across most of his clothes. The pool was littered with
body parts and a few semi-intact corpses. The voices were quiet.
Dull aches told him that he had been injured, but the adrenaline still coursing through him
seemed to be keeping most of the pain at bay. For now.

A small chirp pulled him out of his haze and he turned to face its source, reminded of why he
had been fighting in the first place. The two small aliens – they both had to be children, and
fairly young ones at that – were pressed up against the wall. They cowered as he stepped
closer.

He had a decision to make. They couldn’t stay here; there might be other aliens on the ship
like the ones he’d just killed (Slaughtered, more like. The comprehension of what he’d just
done was another thing delayed by the adrenaline.) who would probably hurt Bee and Fluffy
if they found them. He also really needed to find a familiar face. The mild panic stirring in
his gut needed reassurance and he had to make sure that they weren’t also being attacked by
hostile aliens.

He couldn’t risk taking Fluffy and Bee with him while he searched the rest of the ship. He
still didn’t know if Blue and Bird and Oreo were involved with the aliens who’d hurt them,
and if there were any other hostile aliens they might get in the way.

He couldn’t take them with him, and he couldn’t leave them out in the open here. They would
have to wait in his room until he had figured out what was happening.

That just left the problem of actually moving them there.

First, he dropped to a crouch. He approached them slowly, keeping his hands relaxed and in
view. Fluffy let out more hisses and panicked chirps, flapping one of their wings as much as
they could in the ropes. Almost more concerning was Bee’s near silence, and the way they
moved sluggishly.

The ropes would pose a problem. They were messy – clearly a rush job – but were still
successful enough to prevent either alien from walking. He reached forward, ignoring the
flinch it elicited from Fluffy as he tugged gently on the rope tied around their feet. It was too
thick to tear and would take a minute to untangle. There was nothing for it; he’d have to carry
them.

He moved closer, leaning over the alien. Fluffy was clearly against the idea, panicking all the
more and letting out some heart-wrenching chirps. Bee struggled against their own bindings,
buzzing desperately to Fluffy. They called to each other, clearly scared, as Techno carefully
cradled Fluffy against his chest and started to carry them towards his room.

Fluffy quietened once they were about halfway back to his room, and went silent altogether
when they went in. He could feel them trembling. Techno moved quickly up the back wall,
but slowed down to carefully place Fluffy into the pile of blankets and cushions, making sure
not to trap their wings under them. He briefly adjusted the bedding around them, trying to
make sure they were comfortable, before jumping back down and returning to get Bee.

Bee was easier; they didn’t seem to have the energy to put up much of a fight, a fact that
made him walk faster down the corridor. Fluffy hadn’t moved from where he’d left them and
started chirping as soon as they caught sight of Bee in his arms. He settled Bee next to Fluffy.
 His hands adjusted the blankets around him as his mind raced. They tugged briefly on the
ropes around Fluffy’s wrists, but the rope was too thick and he didn’t have the patience to try
and coax the knots loose. He left, forgoing the climbing wall in favour of dropping straight
from the edge of the platform and heading back to the storage room.

He took a moment to quickly search the bodies (or what was left of them) for any sort of
weapon, and was rewarded with a short sword. It was smaller than he would have liked,
clearly designed for the smaller bee-aliens, but it would serve his purpose just as well.

Now armed, he snuck up the stairs, wincing every time the metal creaked under his weight.
Pausing just before he reached the top, he peeked over the last step.

The common room was empty, but the way various pieces of furniture were strewn across the
floor told of a struggle. The sound of fighting filtered across to him, coming from the corridor
direct opposite.

He darted silently across the room, pausing again just before he went into the corridor. From
this new vantage point, he could see another hoard of bee-like and purple aliens (no more
fiery ones, fortunately), and a glimpse of large black wings told him that Bird was on the
other side of them.

He leapt into the fray, working his way closer to the end of the corridor as he took out alien
after alien, dispatching them quickly with his sword. Eventually, chest heaving, there was
only Bird and him left standing. They were clearly injured; blood dripped from a particularly
deep gash on his chest and his wings were a mess, stray feathers littering the floor.

“Where are the others?” Techno panted.

Bird chittered a response – not that Techno could understand – and turned around, opening
the door behind him. He heard a quiet chirp from inside before Blue was rushing forward,
followed by Oreo. Both of them hovered around Bird, clearly worried about his injuries.
Techno relaxed at the sight, glad that the rest of the crew were safe.

Chapter End Notes

(Sorry if there are any typos)

I'm back! There isn't much more left after this (and I'm considering combining the last
two chapters), but the next update might not be for a few days as I catch up on some
work.
(The silence that disturbed Techno at the start is the lack of engines)
 Chapter 12
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Techno took a moment to slow his breathing.

The crew were safe. (At least, the ones he knew about. He tried not to think about the dozen
aliens he’d killed earlier, the ones that could have been friends with Oreo, Bird and Blue,
maybe even had a custom chair around their table.) But he couldn’t relax yet. There could
still be hostile aliens on board.

He needed somewhere to keep the crew while he searched the rest of the ship. After a
moment’s thought, he settled on the medical room he’d visited the last time he was upstairs;
it was one of the few rooms that he was familiar with, and less open than the central common
room. It would also give the crew the opportunity to treat any wounds they’d received; Blue
and Oreo seemed basically unharmed, but Bird had several cuts and was very definitely
favouring one leg.

He watched for a moment as they all fussed over each other, giving them some time to
compose themselves before he started to guide them back down the corridor. This startled
them a bit, but they quickly understood and went without too much prodding.

Phil watched nervously as the human nudged the group through the common area. For a
moment, he worried that it was taking the opportunity to be territorial, but it quickly became
clear that it was trying to get them all to move.

A protective instinct? It would make sense that it would want to leave the area that it had just
experienced some level of danger in, but it was interesting that it wanted to bring them with
it. A good sign, he hoped, though he knew that the human was probably experiencing the
effects of adrenaline (produced naturally in humans, and yet another thing that made them all
the more terrifying) and would be easily provoked into being aggressive.

The pirates had left him with some injuries, and a particularly bad one on his leg was making
it hard to walk. Every step aggravated the wound and he was struggling to keep up. He didn’t
dare slow down, though, too scared of what the human might do if he falls behind.

His haste was his undoing; in his panic to keep up with the group and appease whatever
instinct was making the human herd them around, he stumbled and fell. He braced himself to
hit the floor.

Instead of hard metal, he felt a warm arm wrap around his front.

His initial confusion quickly gave way to panic when he realised that it was the human’s arm.
He started flapping his wings desperately, scrambling to escape the human’s hold. This was
exactly what he had been trying to avoid!
The arm around his middle was squeezing him – punishment for lagging behind, no doubt –
and he struggled for breath. Of course a deathworlder wouldn’t accept anything that would
slow them down. He sobbed. It was ironic, really, that it wasn’t the pirates that would kill
him, but their own security system. He prayed that it would spare Ranboo and Wilbur.

Suddenly the arm around him was gone, and he was able to scrabble across the floor. He
didn’t make it far, the wounds on his leg and wings roaring their displeasure at the
movement, but he couldn’t feel the heat of the human’s presence at his back, so it was far
enough. Ranboo and Wilbur knelt on either side of him as he fought to catch his breath,
murmuring their reassurances.

It took several minutes for him to stop panting. When he was more clear-headed, he looked
up. The human was several steps away – out of arm’s reach thrice over – and was sat on the
floor. It didn’t look relaxed, but it wasn’t making any move to come closer.

What had made it react like that?

It was watching him intently, head tilted slightly to the side. The eye contact was off-putting,
but the head tilt made him relax a bit. An apology. Distantly, he remembered the human’s
aversion to his wings, and how he’d flapped them right in its face. The reminder brought
some comfort. Still, he didn’t want to stay here too much longer.

Wilbur helped him stand – his leg really wasn’t doing well – but they both froze as the human
hissed.

“Leave me here,” Phil croaked, throat sore from his panicked screeching, “I’ll catch up
later-”

He was interrupted as the human came closer (walking slowly, each step measured and
predictable) and gently nudged Wilbur away.

There was no chance that Techno was going to let Bird keep pushing themselves like that.

He made sure not to make any sudden movements as he stooped and looped an arm under
Bird’s. They tensed, but didn’t panic again, which he took as a good sign. Carefully, he took
as much of their weight as he could – regretful that he wasn’t in a position to fully carry them
– and led them slowly to the medical ward.

Once they were inside, Oreo was quick to get Bird settled on one of the beds, grabbing some
materials and starting to treat their injuries. Blue hovered, occasionally getting something for
Oreo. Techno watched them for a moment until he was satisfied that they would be all right
here.

Now that he knew where the crew were, he just needed to make sure that there weren’t any
more aliens on the ship that might pose a threat. He hesitated as he turned to leave,
remembering the table – the other crew members he hadn’t met yet. He wouldn’t be able to
recognise them, and he didn’t want to accidentally hurt the wrong people. (He ignored the
very real possibility that he’d already hurt them, that their bodies were currently spread over
the floor of the storage room.)

He walked up to the bed, tapping Blue on the shoulder to get their attention. It made them
jump, but they calmed down significantly when they saw that it was just him. They tried to
lead him to a second bed, but he brushed them off and grasped their wrist, gently tugging
them towards the door. They seemed confused, but after a quick discussion with Oreo and
Bird, they followed him back into the corridor.

Techno ended up following Blue as they worked their way methodically through the rooms,
since they were far more familiar with the layout of the ship. As they walked, Blue called the
same few words over and over (The most common two both started with a click and sounded
a bit like ‘K’bo’ and ‘K’mmi’. He didn’t know what they could mean, though he translated
them as roughly ‘Hello’ or ‘Anyone there?’ given that they were looking for other aliens.)

The ship was bigger than he’d thought, with a whole wing of bedrooms, a big chemistry lab
and a greenhouse. They didn’t linger in any of them, so he only caught glimpses of what was
inside, and there were several rooms he didn’t get to see over Blue’s shoulder. Part of him
was excited by the prospect of getting to explore them properly some other time.

Once they’d cleared the whole level, coming back to the central living area, Techno hesitated.
He knew, logically, where they would go next. Dread crept up his throat as he imagined how
Blue might react to what they’d find there. They’d relaxed around him as they’d searched the
ship together, getting comfortable enough that they didn’t flinch when he touched them.
They’d even started nudging him when they needed him to step aside, and tugging his wrist
to lead him places. What laid at the bottom of the stairs threatened to put an end to all of that.

Still, he followed as Blue tugged him towards the stairs, feeling his hands start to shake as
they descended.

The room was the same as he’d left it, but now that he was thinking a bit more clearly, the
scene seemed even more gruesome. Blood was splattered halfway up the walls, and covered
most of the floor. It was drying now, turning thick and sticky. The bodies had been mutilated
in a way that went beyond self-defence; the aliens would’ve been incapacitated, if not dead,
long before he’d finished tearing them apart. It made him sick to think about.

Blue seemed to agree, freezing as soon as they saw it and letting out a small cry. They
flinched as he came to stand next to them, and Techno felt his heart break, just a little, at the
movement.

He watched as they walked shakily towards it. They searched through the bodies, calling the
same words as they’d done earlier (which, now that he thought about it, might be a name…).
It didn’t take long for them to break down, sobbing.

He’d been unsure about whether these aliens had been Blue’s friends or not, but the way Blue
was reacting to the bodies seemed to answer his question. He was glad he’d moved Bee and
Fluffy out of the way before Blue could find them.
It was weird to see them like this; it was the most human he’d seen any alien since he’d
arrived in space. It didn’t make him any more comfortable. He’d never been the best at
comforting people, and the knowledge that he’d caused this pain didn’t make it any easier.

He briefly considered fetching someone – Oreo or Bird – so that they could console Blue, but
that would mean leaving Blue down here alone while he went to get them and he didn’t want
to risk them wandering down the corridor and finding Fluffy and Bee.

He waited for a moment to let them grieve before he started trying to encourage them
upstairs. They flinched again when he came close, but didn’t fight as he led them back to the
medical room.

Once they got there, Blue rushed to Bird’s bedside and spoke to the other two in hushed
tones. From the way they reacted, how they glanced at Techno, eyes lingering on the blood
splatters, Blue was clearly relaying what had happened downstairs.

The news clearly hit hard; Oreo responded with quick words that grew more and more high-
pitched, while Bird sat for a minute staring at nothing before letting out the most heart-
wrenching caw he’d ever heard. After that, Oreo went quiet.

He made the decision to leave them to their grief, returning downstairs to check on Fluffy and
Bee.

The adrenaline keeping him upright was fading quickly now, but it didn’t take long to get
back to his room.

“Fluffy? Bee?” he called quietly. He wasn’t sure how much soundproofing there was between
him and the aliens directly above, but he didn’t want to scare the aliens in his room by
sneaking up on them. He let out a sigh of relief at the sight of their heads poking over the
edge of the platform.

Fluffy hissed as he climbed up to them, shuffling closer to Bee. Bee didn’t look so good.
They were slumped and seemed dazed, and would probably need medical attention soon.

He shuddered as he realised that he’d have to take these two upstairs while the other three
were busy grieving the same aliens that had hurt Fluffy and Bee.

First things first, though: he needed to remove the ropes.

Tommy was scared.

He would never tell anyone, but, right now, tied up in a human’s nest – a human that he had
just watched kill a dozen pirates, tearing shulk armour straight off their bodies and treating
apistian stings like they were nothing – he could admit to himself that he was terrified.

The situation wasn’t looking good. The pirates had caught them off-guard, and in the initial
struggle he and Tubbo had been separated from the rest of their crew. They had both earned a
fair number of injuries from it too – Tommy’s wing was definitely broken, and Tubbo was
struggling to sit upright. The ropes the pirates had used to tie them up were rough and bit into
his delicate skin.

Not to mention the human sat right in front of them.

He had hissed at it when it climbed up, but it didn’t seem fazed. If anything, it moved closer.
It paused for a second, considering him and Tubbo, which made him move closer to his
friend. Suddenly, it reached forwards, sending him scrambling back.

He couldn’t get far enough away; he was too close to the edge of the platform and his legs
wouldn’t move fast enough and his wings hurt so much and the human was right there and…

He felt the platform fall away underneath him – his panic and desperation to get away
making him forget that he couldn’t glide on a broken wing – and saw the human lunge at
him.

He tensed. A dozen deaths flashed before his eyes, each more gruesome than the last.

Hands wrapped around him, pulling him back onto the platform. It sent jolts through his
broken wing, and his vision blacked out as the pain ran through him. He continued moving
forwards, quickly hitting a soft, warm surface. The blankets? The hands moved, adjusting
their grip to wrap around him, holding him in place, though thankfully not jostling his wing
any further. His vision slowly returned and the pain faded. He opened his eyes.

He bit back a scream as he realised where he was. The human had him in its lap.

This was bad. Tommy would rather deal with the pirates all over again than be here. Flashes
from the human’s fight flooded his mind, though fight probably wasn’t the right word.

The human had come from nowhere, attacking the nearest alien immediately and without
hesitation. Weaponless, it had used brute strength to tear the limbs from each alien it got hold
of, often continuing to dismember them long after they had stopped begging. It moved
quickly through the group despite the attention it seemed to give to making each and every
pirate suffer.

One pirate had tried to run – it had made it halfway to the stairs before the human had caught
them and dragged them back. It had broken their legs and tossed them to the side, leaving
them screaming while it finished off the rest of the group. The image of their face, contorted
in pain and within arm’s reach of where Tommy and Tubbo were curled against the wall, was
seared into his memory.

He was almost grateful for the head injury Tubbo had sustained: at least his best friend
probably wouldn’t remember the details of the fight.

He struggled on instinct, more and more desperately, but the human’s arms caged him in. Its
grip was firm and steadfast, barely budging as he pushed against it. He froze as it started to
hiss quietly as him, moving one of its hands to the back of his head. He let himself go slack,
letting out a sob as its arms tightened around him.
It started threading its fingers through he feathers on his head, murmuring softly. He could
feel the vibrations through its chest, alongside the steadily slowing thump of its heart. It was
warm, and the way it wrapped itself around him reminded him of Phil’s wings. He sobbed
again. Somehow the familiarity and comfort of its hold made the situation a hundred times
worse.

Still, his instincts were strong and he felt himself relaxing despite himself. He tried to remind
himself that this was a human, and that he would die painfully – like the pirates just did – in
its claws, but he couldn’t bring himself to try to escape. The human’s hold, dangerous as it
may be, was a welcome comfort after the stress of the pirate’s attack. Deciding that an
instinct haze might at least alleviate some of the pain, he let the last of his rational thought
dissolve.

He was safe in his protector’s arms, in their nest. He burrowed further into them and they
wrapped themselves around him obligingly, shielding him. (He pushed away the reminder of
the dangers outside of the nest, brain foggy and memories hard to reach. It didn’t matter
anyway – his protector was here, and they would keep him safe.)

He chirped happily as their claws preened his feathers, and felt a deep rumble go through
their chest. Then the fingers were gone and hands were moving him, pulling him away from
his protector. He panicked briefly, chirping his distress, but his protector responded with a
comforting coo, so he let himself be turned and pulled so that his back was against his
protector’s chest. He shuffled backwards, happy to be back in their hold.

Instead of returning to his feathers, his protector started fiddling with something that was
wrapped around his wrists. It was wrapped around all of him, actually. Now that he was
aware of it, it was quite uncomfortable.

Whatever it was, it must’ve been tied really tight because it took a while for his protector to
undo it. He was surprised to see them being so gentle with it (though he wasn’t quite sure
why – wasn’t his protector always gentle with him?). Eventually, the abrasive material had
been removed and he was able to stretch the wing that had been trapped (the other one still
wouldn’t move when he wanted it to). He trilled, happy that his protector had fixed the
problem, but the call turned questioning when they shifted him again, this time leaving them
to move to a different part of the nest.

Why did they leave him? A series of weak buzzes answered his question: his nestmate! His
protector was just making sure that his nestmate was alright. He shuffled closer, watching as
his protector started to untie his nestmate from the same horrible material as had been around
him. His nestmate wasn’t sitting still, though, which was making it hard for his protector to
work the knots loose. They wiggled around, looking almost scared. That wasn’t right – they
were in their nest! Nests are safe!

He moved to sit next to them, chirping and clicking at them to show them that everything was
fine. It worked – they calmed down, buzzing a question. This time it was his protector that
answered, cooing and humming softly. (That made Tommy pause for a second – those sounds
 didn’t go together. Not from the same person. But he his instincts didn’t worry about it, so the
thought was quickly lost in the haze.)

His nestmate buzzed back, and his protector started humming a tune. It was short, but at his
and his nestmate’s encouragement, they continued. The tune wasn’t one he’d heard before,
but it was pleasing, repeating and changing at just the right points that it stayed interesting
without becoming erratic. Some of the notes sounded off, but he didn’t let it bother him.

Once he got a hang of the tune, he started to whistle along with some of it. His nestmate
followed, and soon the three of them were all humming and whistling and buzzing together.
It was nice, and Tommy felt himself slip deeper into his instincts.

Chapter End Notes

I hope you enjoyed! Sorry it took so long to get out

Some clarification: when Techno comes up to Wilbur in the medbay, he doesn't relax
because he realises it's Techno - he is worried initially that Techno's doing a Human
Thing and relaxes when he realises that Techno isn't acting aggressive.
Also, Tommy can't feel his broken wing while he's that deep in his instincts, partly
because his senses just aren't working the same as normal and partly because his
subconcious has clocked the injury and is purposefully hiding it. There will be a Techno
pov on the instincts bit in the next chapter.
 Chapter 13
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

As Fluffy fell backwards off the platform, Techno moved without thinking.

He grabbed them – a little roughly, but not on purpose – and didn’t stop pulling until they hit
his chest, holding them there. Fluffy started wriggling, trying to escape and clearly panicking,
but the image of them falling was too fresh and he couldn’t let go.

Gradually, his pulse slowed, even as his heart broke at the terrified sounds Fluffy was
making. He tried to reassure them, stroking the feathers on their head. They slumped against
him, but it didn’t make him feel any better; they were giving up, not relaxing. He fought back
his own tears as they sobbed.

Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to loosen his hold. He kept trying to comfort them, finding
himself murmuring reassurances even though he knew that they couldn’t understand him.

Suddenly, Fluffy went boneless. He froze, panic rising quickly, but then they started chirping
again and he relaxed. The noises were odd – nothing like the panicked chirps from earlier. He
nearly pulled away to get a better look at them, but they burrowed into his chest and his brain
short-circuited. He melted as they snuggled against him, humming contently.

For a short moment, nothing else mattered. The pain of his injuries faded; his exhaustion
lifted.

He continued brushing through their feathers, huffing when Fluffy trilled happily and pushed
into his hands. He moved his hand to work through the feathers on their back and (non-
broken) wing, smiling at the way they reacted. Then his fingers brushed against the rope and
reality came crashing back.

Gently, he tried to turn Fluffy around without jostling their broken wing so that he could start
untying them. They panicked briefly as he moved them away, and he mimicked the coo Bird
had made, which seemed to reassure them more than his previous efforts. Fortunately, they
relaxed again once they were leaning back against him, and held still as he carefully coaxed
the knots free.

The knots were fiddly and had been pulled tight by Fluffy’s own efforts to free themselves, so
it took a few minutes to loosen them. The rope was rough against his fingers, and they were
red by the time he finished. He knew that the feeling would be worse once he did Bee’s too,
but it had to be done.

That just left the problem of what to do with Fluffy. They didn’t look like they were about to
jump again, but it still took an unfair amount of willpower to pull away from them, and he
watched them carefully as he shuffled over to Bee, relaxing when they followed him.
Bee panicked as he came closer, but they could barely sit up straight, so all they could do was
wiggle slowly away and buzz threateningly at him. Still, he paused. He didn’t want to get
another sting – those things really hurt – and trying to wrestle them down wasn’t conducive
to building trust, but he also needed to get the ropes undone so that he could take them
upstairs.

Fluffy chirped something at them, to which they responded with more urgent buzzing.
Techno tried another coo and hummed a bit, hoping that a (slightly) more familiar sound
might help them calm down. Miraculously, it seemed to work, and he was able to reach
forwards and start working on their ropes.

Absentmindedly, he started humming a short tune. It was an earworm – the chorus of a song
he couldn’t remember the words to – but when Bee buzzed back, he did his best to hum some
of the verses too. It didn’t take long for Bee and Fluffy to join in, whistling and buzzing along
with him.

It was a welcome distraction from the mounting anxiety in his gut at the impending visit to
the medical room.

Wilbur didn’t know what to do.

He had known that the human was dangerous, but somehow seeing the carnage – the bodies
strewn across the cargo bay, unidentifiable with how they’d been torn apart – made it
suddenly very real. The scene in the cargo hold had been worse (so much worse) than the
corridor to the control room. The scientist in him was fascinated that the human had done
more damage while unarmed; the rest of him felt very, very sick.

Until he had seen it, part of him still believed that Tubbo and Tommy might still be alive. He
had tried to find their bodies in the hope that they might get a separate funeral to the
criminals that had attacked them, but the human was every bit as vicious as the stories said,
and there was no way to tell the corpses apart. Even Tommy’s wings, which should have
immediately identified him, were reduced to a scattered pile of bloodstained feathers.

And it was all his fault.

He had suggested they get the human in the first place. He had pushed the rest of the crew to
bring it onto the ship. He had been naïve enough to think that he could be the first to tame a
human.

When he broke the news to the others, Ranboo had tried to deny it. He said that there was no
way they’d died, that they must have escaped somehow. Phil’s sobbing seemed to snap him
out of it.

Now the three of them were sat together on one of the beds.

“What do we do now?” Ranboo croaked, throat sore from wailing.

“I don’t know.” Even to him, Wilbur’s voice sounded hollow.

“Where’s the human?” The look in his eyes must’ve told Ranboo what he though of it, since
the enderian continued: “It wasn’t their fault.” (Wilbur knew that – it was his fault, the only
person to blame here was him.) “They were probably scared by the pirates and just…
reacted.”

“It’s probably downstairs. With the bodies.” All three of them shuddered at the thought of
what the human might be doing with the corpses of their dead crewmembers.

Now that he had untied Fluffy and Bee, Techno wasn’t sure what to do.

The adrenaline had been wearing off as he worked and the pain of his injuries was getting
worse. He was covered in cuts and bruises, his fingertips were rubbed raw from pulling at the
rope, he had a couple of bad stings from the bee-like aliens that were getting quite swollen,
and his ribs were at least bruised, possibly broken. A debilitating fatigue weighed him down,
and he could feel his remaining energy waning.

Fluffy and Bee probably weren’t much better. They all needed to get some sort of medical
attention, but he knew that the other three were still up there and didn’t know how they’d
respond to these two.

On the other hand, he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to stay awake now that the
adrenaline was fading. It would be better for the two groups to meet while he was conscious
enough to break up a fight if one broke out, but Fluffy and Bee needed medical attention
quickly, so they didn’t have time for him to take a nap.

Having made his decision, he moved to climb down from the platform. Too tired to try and
mime out something, he just carried them down to the door. Bee didn’t fight him, despite the
wary looks they were giving him, and while Fluffy complained loudly at being left alone for
any period of time, they didn’t try to squirm out of his arms. Even so, he was lucky that they
were both so light otherwise he wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to carry them at all.

Getting them upstairs was slightly harder. Bee was struggling to stand without help, so he had
to carry them (ignoring how it made the sting on his shoulder burn) while Fluffy followed. It
took a while, their collective injuries slowing them down, but eventually they made it
upstairs.

Philza was stunned.

He didn’t know how the human had escaped. Tubbo probably could’ve run diagnostics and
figured it out, but…

The silence pressed in on his ears, reminding him how quiet the ship would be now that the
two loudest crewmembers were gone. Grief wound itself through his feathers as he
remembered how they used to run through the ship, shouting and laughing. He could almost
hear their footsteps coming down the corridor.
He only realised that there were footsteps coming down the corridor when Wilbur and
Ranboo looked over at the door. He turned to see what they were looking at.

The human was stood in the doorway. Phil nearly turned away, not wanting to be reminded of
its violent nature, when his eyes caught on the figures stood just behind it.

“Tommy? Tubbo?” His wings fluffed up instantly and he leapt forward to hug them, only to
stop dead on his tracks as the human stepped in front of him. And growled.

The noise didn’t sound anything like the growls it had given him before, or even the ones it
had given to the pirates as it cut through them, and he was struck with the realisation that it
had been going easy on them. This was the predator they had been warned about; this was the
human when it wanted to be intimidating.

His instincts were torn – on one hand, the very dangerous predator made him want to take
flight, but on the other, the very dangerous predator was standing over his chicks. He hissed a
warning and fluffed up further, raising his wings and even puffing out the ruff of feathers
around his neck.

The human didn’t back down. It held eye contact, still growling lowly in its throat.

It took a step forwards threateningly and Phil flinched. His instincts knew that he couldn’t
take on the human and win, and he found himself deflating: he lowered his eyes and twisted
his head, baring the side of his neck; his feathers smoothed and his wings lowered.

This seemed to satisfy the human, as it stopped growling. It turned away briefly – towards his
chicks – and picked up Tubbo, using its other hand to pull Tommy along with it as it came
into the room. (He wasn’t surprised to see Tommy’s dilated pupils; whatever had happened to
them was probably fairly traumatic, so it made sense that his subconscious had stepped in.
Unsurprising, but still distressing.)

It walked to the far bed, placing Tubbo on it – unexpectedly gently, Phil noted distantly – and
Tommy jumped up to sit next to him. The human must’ve really messed up his instincts,
because Tommy trilled happily as it ran its hand over his head. The action had Phil stepping
forwards, still wanting to protect his chicks, but the human’s growl sent him stumbling back
again.

It walked around the bed to put itself between him, Wilbur and Ranboo, and Tommy and
Tubbo, but didn’t stop there. Phil backed up as it came closer, but it changed course and
walked up to Ranboo, gripping his wrist before they could get away.

Phil let out a desperate chirp at the sight of the human taking another one of his chicks, but a
look from the human reminded him that he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Ranboo let out a worried warble as the human led him by the wrist to where Tommy and
Tubbo were. He didn’t fight for two reasons: one, they were a human, and two, they were
bringing him closer to his friends. With some luck (by which he means a minor miracle) they
might let him help them.
They let go when they were stood next to the bed, moving so that they could keep him and
Wilbur and Phil in their line of sight at the same time. Cautiously, he turned to Tubbo,
reaching forwards to hold his hand when the human didn’t do anything to stop him.

“R’nboo,” Tubbo slurred.

“I’m here,” he responded.

Tommy shuffled closer, chirping. He was surprised to see him looking so happy, given how
the human had been treating them. A thought occurred to him.

He glanced back at the human. They were leaning against the wall, eyes alert and looking
between Ranboo and Wilbur and Phil. Almost like they were expecting them to attack them
or something. But that was ridiculous – they had just fought off dozens of armed pirates, they
had to know that the crew wouldn’t be able to hurt them. Unless…

Unless they weren’t trying to protect themselves. It was trying to protect Tubbo and Tommy.

Suddenly their behaviour made much more sense: they had never introduced the human to
Tubbo and Tommy, so they didn’t know that they were all friends; they couldn’t know that he
and Phil and Wilbur wouldn’t hurt the others, but they had to bring them here anyway
because they were injured. Admittedly, there were several holes in this theory – he couldn’t
explain why the human would protect Tubbo and Tommy, particularly since it had had no
trouble killing the apistians on the pirates’ side, or how they had known to bring them to the
medical room.

That meant that they had picked him to help. The thought made him relax a bit; it was nice
that, in the short time he’d spent with the human – less than an afternoon, altogether – he’d
managed to convince them that he was someone safe. It made him all the more determined to
help.

Filled with new confidence, he turned to Tommy, ushering him off the bed. Tommy moved
easily to stand next to the human (who pulled him into their side and started brushing their
fingers through his feathers, even as they kept watching Ranboo), leaving him free to pull up
the bed’s scanner. As it started diagnosing problems, he turned to Wilbur, listing some
supplies that he needed, then turned to encourage Tommy into the other free bed, pulling up
its scanner too.

It was grounding; Ranboo was in his element, letting the pressure of appeasing the human
slip away and taking the complication that Wilbur, his usual assistant in medical matters,
couldn’t get close to Tubbo or Tommy in stride. The results of the scans came back, and he
had Wilbur prepare a cast for Tommy’s broken wing while he administered the treatment for
Tubbo’s head injury. Distantly, he saw the human slide down the wall, coming to sit on the
floor between the beds, but he didn’t pay too much attention.

Once Tommy’s wing was set, he let him go and sit with Phil. Tubbo needed more rest, but
was quickly improving. (He was already flirting with Ranboo, so he would probably be fine
to spend the night in his own room.)
Only once he’d done everything he could for Tubbo and Tommy did he turn back to the
human. They were slumped against the wall, probably tired from all the fighting. Like this, it
was hard to see them as intimidating.

The floor couldn’t be that comfortable, so he warbled and poked at them until they woke up
enough for him to help them onto one of the beds. As it collapsed, he caught sight of a long
burn mark on its arm, along with some smaller cuts. Frowning, he pulled up the scanner to
make sure that there wasn’t anything else he had missed.

Techno was shattered.

Seeing Oreo taking care of Fluffy and Bee had reassured him that he didn’t need to worry
about protecting them, and with that realisation, the rest of his energy had left him. His knees
gave in, leaving him to slide down the wall. He let his mind drift, exhaustion pulling his eyes
closed.

Something was poking him.

He heard a warble and lifted his head to look at a blurry black and white face. Oreo. He
vaguely remembered coming to the medical room with Fluffy and Bee. Had he fallen asleep?

Oreo nudged him again, encouraging him to stand. He heaved himself (mostly) upright, using
the wall for leverage, and let Oreo help him onto one of the beds, which he happily collapsed
onto. Everything ached, but the bed was soft beneath him. Something moved over him (he
couldn’t muster the energy to open his eyes and see what it was) and muffled the chatter of
the aliens.

He let himself drift off again.

Ranboo pulled up the scanner on the human’s bed and let it work while he tidied up some of
his equipment. A minute later, he pulled up the results on his comm.

He froze.

He ran the scan again, this time checking the results on the built-in display. They came back
the same. The shallow cuts across their arms were the least of his worries.

The patches of discolouration, which he had taken to be some form of warning or defence
mechanism, were internal bleeding, and weren’t as sparse as he’d thought – there was more
around the human’s torso, where the cloth they wore covered their skin. There wasn’t quite
enough to kill most species, but it was close.

They had also been stung by the apistians in the pirates’ ranks. Apistian stings were painful,
enough that most people passed out from a single sting. Even those that didn’t faint were left
dazed, often unable to move from the pain. The human had four.
As if that wasn’t enough, the scanner also picked up two broken bones in the skeletal system
surrounding their vital organs. These were probably its most dangerous injuries: the bones
could easily pierce an organ, a cast wouldn’t be able to protect them, and the human probably
wouldn’t sit still for the months it could take for the bones to heal.

He was surprised that they were still responsive. He couldn’t imagine how much pain they
must be in.

This discovery also cast their actions in a new light.

The human had probably picked up most of these injuries in its first fight, the one where they
had protected Tommy and Tubbo.

That meant that, while injured, the human had chosen to fight more pirates to save Phil, then
– despite clearly understanding that the medbay was for treating injuries – decided to search
the ship for even more pirates to fight instead of letting any of them know that they were hurt.
Then, instead of telling them when they brought Wilbur back, they had gone to help Tommy
and Tubbo. They had then brought them both upstairs, where they felt the need to guard
them, just so that they could get medical treatment, all the while ignoring their own injuries.

And they hadn’t hurt any of them: they had been nothing but gentle when they led him over,
or when they had laid Tubbo on the bed, or when they had been giving Tommy head
scratches. They had had the patience to give Phil space when he had had a panic attack, and
had only growled a warning when Phil lunged at the people they were trying to protect.

The whole thing made him a bit dizzy to think about.

“-anboo? Ranboo, are you okay?”

Wilbur’s voice filtered through the static in his mind. He looked up to see him walking closer,
and wordlessly handed him his comm, which was still displaying the long list of injuries the
human had collected.

Wilbur let out a string of curses. “But- how? It was fine a moment ago!”

“I don’t think they were.”

“Right. Umm, what- how do we-”

Ranboo took a deep breath. “We need some antivenom for the stings, and some cream to help
the internal bleeding and the burn. And some painkillers – the strongest we have. We’ll go
from there.”

While Wilbur went to gather the supplies, Ranboo opened the scanner. Fortunately, the
human wasn’t wearing the thick outer cloth they’d had on the last time they were in the
medbay, but the thinner cloth was still covering most of their injuries, so had to be removed.
He helped the human sit up and they lifted one arm (the other had a sting on the shoulder, so
was probably too painful to move) to allow him to remove it.
 Ranboo and Wilbur worked methodically through their injuries. The human didn’t try to stop
them, even when it hissed or whined in pain as they applied cream and bandages and
antivenom. Eventually, they had done as much as they could. They put a cold pack on its ribs
and left it to sleep.

But, as the ship’s medical officer, he had one last duty to perform before he could call his job
finished. He pulled Phil to the side, away from where he had been sitting with Tommy.

He filled him in: “The scan says that the human has two broken ribs, quite a lot of internal
bleeding, and four apistian stings. The healing process might take months, if it can heal at all.
It’s probably in unbelievable amounts of pain, and we don’t have painkillers strong enough to
work on a human. So,” He hesitated. His voice, mechanical as he had delivered the results of
the scan, faltered. “It might be… kinder… if…” He couldn’t finish.

Wilbur looked solemn. “You’re suggesting we euthanise it.”

“We can’t!” Phil responded, upset. “It got injured protecting us! What sort of repayment
would it be to just kill it?”

Ranboo looked away. He replied, quietly, “They’re in pain, Phil. More than we can help them
with. The broken ribs might never heal, and would be a constant source of pain as well as a
danger to their health.” He glanced up and, at the pained look on Phil’s face, he continued, “I
don’t want to. I’d rather try to help them get better, even if it’s impossible.” He sighed. “But
that’s not necessarily fair to them.”

“Humans are known for bouncing back from incredible injuries,” Wilbur suggested. “They’re
supposed to heal much faster than normal; it’s possible that it could recover from this.”

Phil looked at Ranboo. “We have to try.”

Ranboo nodded, relieved.

Chapter End Notes

It's finally finished!

Btw the crew were worried about Techno eating the bodies/taking 'trophies'.
Sorry that I haven't been responding to many comments - I do read all of them but I suck
at talking to people (which, ironically, was why I wrote this in the first place). Thank
you all so much for the support - it means the world to me and has been a huge source of
enthusiasm for me to keep writing this.
 Chapter 14
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

After a quick discussion, it was decided that Ranboo would stay in the medbay overnight to
keep an eye on the human. Tubbo, Tommy and Phil weren’t injured enough to warrant an
overnight stay, so they went to sleep in their own rooms, while Wilbur headed to the control
room to reorganise the ship. Phantoms and enderians didn’t need that much sleep, and they
were the only two crew members entirely unscathed, so it was an easy choice.

He took a quick blood sample – a small one, just a few drops – before placing a blanket over
them and leaving them to sleep. The lights dimmed as he gave the sample to a machine to
analyse, and his glowing eyes let him see the results as they came through.

For the second time that day, he did a double take. Adrenaline, in significant amounts. He
glanced back at where they lay unmoving. How were they able to sleep with that much in
their system?

Adrenaline was a very illegal drug. Theoretically, it allowed its user to fight better by letting
making muscles work harder and for longer, and reducing the user’s sensitivity to pain. In
practice, it made the user hyper-aggressive and clouded logical thinking. It was also very
easy to overdose on, and most users – the ones whose hearts didn’t give in, at least – required
hospitalisation afterwards from the ‘adrenaline crash’.

Did humans produce adrenaline naturally?

It would explain a few things: how humans had got their reputation as fearless and
aggressive; why their human had collapsed so suddenly after the fight; why they had been so
keen to look for more enemies; how they had ignored their injuries for so long. Actually, the
more he thought about it, the more realistic the whole theory became. The only thing it didn’t
explain was how they had been so gentle and patient with the crew.

It was weird to see the human looking so peaceful after everything. The idea that they could
be so unaffected by the violence was almost more disturbing than the fact that they had been
so violent in the first place.

He started searching through as many papers on human physiology as possible. The normal
channels for scientific discoveries were disappointingly empty, and after an hour spent
fruitlessly combing through various sources, he gave up and messaged Wilbur, since the
phantom seemed to know a fair amount on the subject.

Wilbur responded quickly with reports and papers from his own collection, as well as
directions to sites that had more information. Almost all of the papers were written by
dreamons, which surprised him at first.
They were an odd race – as the only species with a (supposedly) true hive-mind, they were
given some licence by the galactic council to act as an independent body.

Not much was known about them, not even their language, as they refused to speak anything
other than Galactic Common in front of any outsiders. They were very technologically
advanced, and perfectly capable of getting through the council’s blockade around the
humans’ home world, which made them the primary suppliers of humans on the black
market, and their natural curiosity and disregard for individual safety made them the only
ones able to properly experiment on them.

Surprisingly, they didn’t seem particularly averse to sharing their hard-earned knowledge;
there was a huge quantity of their research available – if you knew where to look – all
translated into common.

He spent hours reading it, and what he read only made him more amazed. Humans were
incredible forces of nature: a human could survive broken bones, amputations, losing 20% of
its blood, not eating for days, having most of their skin burnt off, a big enough electric shock
to stop its heart, and so much more.

Terrifyingly, every single paper ended with a note about how the human had escaped and
killed the scientists, along with anyone else who had been caring for it. Naturally, their
rampage never ended there, and in most cases the rest of the crew was also hunted down.

There was the occasional picture, too, though they were quite blurry. Some were pictures of
the humans before they went feral, pictures of organs and experiments, but most of them
were taken from the security footage showing the humans slaughtering their keepers.

He blinked as the lights came back on. Morning, already? He had been so engrossed in his
reading that he’d barely noticed the passage of time.

Reluctantly, he put away the research, getting up to check on the human again before
grabbing some breakfast for them both from the kitchen.

Techno woke up slowly.

It felt like floating – that calm, happy, slightly disconnected feeling that normally filled the
space between sleep and awake. He basked in it for as long as he could.

Gradually, he became more aware of his body. He was laid on his back. His t-shirt was
missing, though he could feel a blanket draped over him. There was something cold on his
ribs, and when he shifted he could feel squares of cloth sticking to his skin all across his arms
and torso. Through his eyelids, he could see that the lights were on.

He ached, but it was distant enough that he could largely ignore it. He tried curling his fingers
and toes, and didn’t find any missing, which was good enough for him.

Until the voices started up.

He groaned and turned over (forgetting his ribs) to bury his head into the pillow. The voices
had left him alone since he’d killed those pirates to save Fluffy and Bee, and he had hoped –
briefly, naively – that they might be gone for good. No such luck. (Ungrateful, one of them
huffed.)

A warble caught his attention, and he lifted his head slightly to look at Oreo out of one eye.
They looked concerned, which was sweet. Through the fog still lingering in his mind, he tried
to think of a way to comfort them, but came up empty. Even the slight effort it took was
enough to make him yawn.

Ranboo warbled with worry as the human moved and made a low, pained whine.

He tried to approach them, wanting to help in any way he could, but jumped back as it
stretched its jaw wide, showing off its impressive array of teeth. (Able to crush bones, a
helpful part of his brain supplied.)

He jumped back quickly, giving it some space. He didn’t think it would hurt him, but it was
clearly in some pain, and was probably feeling defensive. It didn’t help that his mind kept
flashing back to the reports, the notes at the end, the pictures…

He tried to push the thought away. The human was probably just defensive because it was
hurt. There was nothing sinister about it. It trusted him – its behaviour last night had proved
that. (Humans always have been unpredictable, his brain pointed out, you can’t trust anything
they do.)

He picked up a plate of food, approaching it more slowly this time. It opened its eyes but
didn’t move as he came closer (a good sign, he hoped). As he went to place the plate next to
it, it made the same motion as before, only it turned its head away from him and didn’t
stretch its jaw by as much. Then it closed its eyes again, not reacting as he set the plate down.

The fact that it had turned away gave him some confidence that it had recognised him enough
to not want to hurt him. Sure, it had still done the threat display, but it was probably still in a
fair amount of pain, so he could forgive some defensiveness. More concerning was the fact
that it made no move to touch or even look at the food he had given it, even after he had
backed off.

Was its condition that bad? He itched to check on its injuries, or even take another blood
sample or do a scan, but in this state he doubted that it would allow it.

He was interrupted by the whoosh of the medbay door.

“Good morning!” Tubbo buzzed enthusiastically. Though still a little battered, he looked
better; a good night’s sleep seemed to have done him a lot of good.

“Morning, Tubbo!” Ranboo’s tail flicked with anxiety, even as he tried to match Tubbo’s
energy.
Tubbo glanced over at the human – who was watching them both out of one eye, not having
moved its head at all – and looked between it and the untouched plate of food next to it. “…Is
it okay?” He spoke carefully, apprehension lacing his words and bleeding into his posture.
Unfortunately, his fear was not unfounded; Tubbo had been there when the human had been
at its most violent. He probably knew better than Ranboo what the human was capable of.

Ranboo warbled sadly. “I don’t think so.”

The two of them kept a safe distance from the human as they talked, Ranboo not wanting to
risk provoking it and Tubbo following his lead. Apparently, Tubbo didn’t remember much of
the previous day’s events – understandably, considering the head injury he had sustained – so
Ranboo filled him in on what he knew. Then Tubbo pulled up a report from the ship’s AI, and
they discussed some of the repairs that would need to happen.

The human had fallen asleep at some point during their conversation, only opening its eyes
again when Tommy came in some half-hour later.

“Hi guys,” Tommy said, half-heartedly. It was unusual for him to be so low-energy, normally
buzzing more than Tubbo, but Ranboo doubted that he had had much sleep, and he was
probably feeling down from his broken wing. Avians didn’t normally fare well without their
wings, even if they could only glide with them.

Before either of them could respond, Tommy had walked up to the human, who huffed at
him.

“Um, Tommy-”

He grabbed the plate of food, moving it to the next bed over. The human had turned to look at
him with both eyes.

“Tommy!”

The human shifted, moving back on the bed and rolling over slightly, lifting the edge of the
blanket. Tommy seemed to take it as invitation, climbing next to it and rolling under its
outstretched arm. It wrapped the blanket around them both, and he trilled happily. It hummed
in response, curling around him and closing its eyes again.

Realisation hit Ranboo: one, that Tommy was probably still partially in his instincts – he had
been quite deep into them yesterday, and had to spend the night with Phil to get him to settle;
and two, that said instincts had been messed with by the human at some point between the
pirates and the medbay. Tommy probably didn’t even know how much danger he was in.

Tommy shuffled around – ignoring how it made the human grumble – and turned until he
could face the others. “So, what were you guys talking about?” he asked, as if he wasn’t
currently lying next to a human.

“Tommy,” Ranboo started carefully, unsure about how to broach the subject, “That’s a
human.” When that got no response, he continued, a little more emphatically, “A human? The
dangerous predator that just killed a whole ship of pirates? Why are you so calm about this?!”
Tommy frowned. “They aren’t going to hurt us, though.” He said it as though it were
obvious, as though Ranboo was the one being illogical.

“Are you still in your instincts, because-”

Tommy cut Ranboo off. “It’s not instincts, Ranboob. They protected us. We were in their
nest.” That seemed to catch Tubbo off-guard, and Tommy continued, “They could’ve ripped
those ropes off us, but they didn’t – they took the time to be gentle and undo them carefully. I
trust them to be gentle like that again.”

Ranboo countered, “It’s injured – it was being defensive not that long ago. There are
countless examples of them turning suddenly, attacking the people looking after them. What
makes you think you can trust it?”

Tommy frowned again. “They’re not an it.” (That stopped Ranboo short. When had he
stopped thinking of it- them- as a they?) “And you weren’t there.” He turned his head to look
at Tubbo, who had been unusually quiet throughout the conversation. “Bring up the security
cameras from yesterday.”

Tubbo did, pulling up the feed on the larger holographic display on Ranboo’s desk. He
scrolled through the footage, stopping on a frame of the human using pieces of shulk armour
to kill a blaze. It was a terrifying image (one that was far too similar to the pictures on
Ranboo’s comm) and seemed to illustrate Ranboo’s point perfectly.

He turned to speak, but was cut off by Tommy. “Go back to when they first come into the
room.” He was surprised that Tommy could sound so bossy when all that was visible of him
was his head. Tubbo did as he asked, playing the video from when the human emerged from
their corridor.

They watched as the human snuck in, using the crates as cover. Ranboo shuddered as he
realised that none of the pirates had any idea that the human was behind them. (That quiet
part of his brain whispered, how long before it’s behind you?) When it stopped, Ranboo
almost thought that the footage had been paused – it stood perfectly still, only occasionally
minutely moving its head to get a different view. It was a stark contrast to the blur of fury
from just a minute ago, yet managed to portray its predatory nature just as effectively, if not
more so.

Then, it turned to leave. That came as a surprise: it had been watching them so intently that it
was hard to believe that it hadn’t meant to attack them, not to mention that he had already
seen the human decimate the pirates without hesitation only minutes after this.

Suddenly, their head whipped around. They froze for a moment, and then came the human
from the stories: it leapt over the lines of crates, sprinting towards the unsuspecting pirates.
The ones closest to it didn’t even get a chance to turn around before it was upon them. There
was no sound on the video, but he could almost imagine the screams.

“Stop it.” Tommy voice cut through Ranboo’s thoughts. Tubbo paused the video, leaving
them with the still image of it beheading one of the apistians.
 Ranboo tore his gaze away, struggling to articulate his disbelief. “Why- The pirates- They
didn’t provoke it. They didn’t even notice it was there until it attacked them. Why did it turn
around?” The human’s eyes were on the screen, disturbingly focused and all too reminiscent
of how they had been watching the pirates.

Tommy ruffled his feathers irritably. “Go back and see.” Tubbo rewound the footage to when
the human turned around. “Look at the pirates – what are they doing?”

Ranboo looked through the crowd, but still couldn’t find a viable source for the human’s
aggression. “Are you sure-”

Tubbo interrupted, having caught on before him. Realisation mixed with awe in his voice.
“They kicked you.”

Tommy clicked in agreement. “They must’ve heard me react to it – in a very manly way, of
course – and that was why they came back. If you look carefully, they even go for the one
who did it first.”

Tubbo played the next bit of video, and, sure enough, the human’s war path pointed directly
to the one next to Tommy.

They all stood in slightly shocked silence.

Chapter End Notes

This was meant to be like 200 words to wrap up the story and it turned into 2 more
chapters.
Ranboo was getting too close to figuring it out, so I had to fix that :) (also yes, humans
can lose up to 40% of their blood, but these ones were already malnourished)
Tubbo isn't scared of the human when he first comes into the medbay, that's just Ranboo
projecting. They both look at each other like 'they have a reason to be scared, they know
the human better than I do, I should trust their judgement'.
Hope you enjoyed and thank you all for the wonderful comments!
 Chapter 15
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes

Techno frowned at the weird transparent screen.

The screen itself was mildly perturbing, but worse was what it was showing: CCTV footage
from the previous day. His stomach churned as he watched himself tear through the aliens;
his fencing partners had always called him ruthless, but this was something else.

Was he really capable of such violence? (And if he was, what did that make him?)

Hunching into himself a little, he shifted uncomfortably. Fluffy must’ve noticed, as they said
something else to Oreo and Bee, who then turned the video off. He stared at the blank screen
for a moment longer, the guilt lingering.

He felt sick.

He was pulled back into the present for a moment as Fluffy wiggled in his arms. He
immediately loosened his hold, but they didn’t get up, instead rolling over to face him. Their
gaze made him wince – he didn’t want them to see him as some monster. A bit late for that
now, one of the voices whispered insidiously, and he couldn’t help but mourn what could
have been.

He waited for them to shove him, or turn away in disgust. What he wasn’t prepared for was
the gentle hand on his chest and a small body snuggling against his chest.

They pressed against his ribs inadvertently, and, caught off guard, he inhaled sharply. The
sound made them flinch and pull back, and he fought against the part of him that longed to
chase them and the warmth they sparked in his bones. They deserved their space; he didn’t
deserve their kindness.

One hand went to cradle his ribs, and he tried to keep his breaths slow and shallow to avoid
making the pain worse. That would take some getting used to.

Fluffy chirped, pulling his attention back to them.

Frozen, he watched them slowly shuffle closer. They paused, looking up at him as if to ask
permission, and he carefully wrapped his arms around them. They went boneless, and he
pulled them closer. The movement made his ribs twinge, but the discomfort was worth it,
particularly when they chirped happily. He huffed, bringing one hand up to pet the feathers
on their head.

Tommy jumped as the human hissed.

Had he been wrong? He quickly pulled away, not wanting to anger them further (if they were
indeed angry). They didn’t try to hurt him, just moved their hand to their side, breathing
weirdly. A memory resurfaced, something about the human’s injuries.

Relief and realisation and guilt washed over him. They weren’t angry; they were hurt. They
didn’t seem angry about it, either.

Cautiously, he moved closer, much more slowly this time. He didn’t want to hurt them again,
so he paused awkwardly just before he was actually touching them. Fortunately, they seemed
to understand, as they wrapped their arms around him and pulled him closer. He melted
against them as they started preening the feathers at the back of his head.

His instincts rose again – happy that his protector was holding him close – but it wasn’t
overwhelming like it had been the day before, just enough to make him fully relax. The
human was warm, and surprisingly soft. For a ‘dangerous predator’, they were very good at
this.

It was almost surprising that his instincts had accepted the human so readily, but it made
sense, in a way: they had protected him in a dangerous situation, taken him to a nest, helped
him as much as they could, and then reunited him with the rest of his flock. What was more
unbelievable, In Tommy’s opinion, was how fast the human had accepted him. Weren’t
humans supposed to be solitary?

Watching the security footage that morning had made him realise that the human really had
been protecting him. It wasn’t chance or coincidence; they hadn’t left him and Tubbo alone
because they weren’t a threat. They had purposefully, deliberately intervened because
Tommy had been hurt.

That realisation had removed whatever fear he felt towards the human.

By this point, he had all but adopted them into his flock. Sure, he knew that they were
dangerous, that they were fully capable of tearing him limb from limb, but he also knew that
they wouldn’t. He trusted them. And wasn’t that what family was all about?

Tubbo couldn’t decide how to feel about Tommy cuddling the human.

It had been merciless with the pirates, and the knowledge that even his sting wouldn’t phase
it made his ruff fluff up defensively. Humans were supposed to be destructive and
unpredictable, and this one had certainly lived up to the expectations, from the scattered
corpses still in the cargo hold.

And yet, according to Tommy, they had stepped in because the pirates were hurting him and
Tommy. The idea that there was a cause-and-effect pattern was a soothing notion for his more
mechanically-orientated brain, and the footage from the day before certainly supported the
theory, but it still didn’t make any sense. Why would a human protect two random aliens
they’d never met before?
He was torn. Ranboo was clearly scared of them, and he had more experience with the human
than Tommy, but Tommy was lying next to them – while they were clearly experiencing the
effects of their injuries – and they not only tolerated it, but seemed to be enjoying it.

Techno’s morning was looking up.

Fluffy and Bee were both okay, a weight off his shoulders, even if he had seen Oreo treat
them the day before. Fluffy was hugging him, and the voices were being mostly quiet, for
once. (Aside from the occasional murmur of ‘Softnoblade’, which he was doing his best to
ignore.)

Sighing, he pulled away from Fluffy and sat up, ignoring their questioning chirp. He couldn’t
lounge in here all day, no matter how comfortable it might be. Fluffy followed, tucking
themselves into his side, while Bee grabbed the plate of food Oreo had offered him earlier.

His appetite was non-existent, but Fluffy pushed the plate onto his lap, so he took a hesitant
bite. It tasted the same as ever, but he found his enthusiasm increasing as he kept eating. The
plate was empty faster than he expected, and Bee took it and moved it out of the way.

Next, he took stock of his injuries. He hadn’t really taken them in, too tired or too busy, but
he needed to know what he was dealing with.

Two things struck him as he looked himself over: he had a lot of bruises, and a lot of
bandages.

He worked through the bandages, first, and nearly laughed at how many of them were
covering tiny scratches. None of the cuts looked infected and most of them had already
scabbed over, so he was quick to dismiss them.

The worst injury hiding under the patches was a long burn running across his bicep. It was
hot to the touch and quite tender, and the skin was starting to blister in areas. It didn’t look
too deep, but he put the bandage back over it all the same. Better safe than sorry.

He remembered getting stung by the bee-aliens – they had been painful and had swollen
considerably – but he couldn’t find them now. The closest thing to a sting was a slightly
puffed up pin-prick, but it looked much closer to a small mosquito bite than anything else.
Maybe they weren’t all that serious? It would make sense for a defence mechanism to focus
on immediate pain rather than long-term danger.

The bruises had had time to form, leaving patches of deep blue-black across his skin. Most of
them were quite small, though there was a large patch covering his broken ribs, and he
doubted that it would take more than a week for them to fade.

All in all, he had come out of the fight quite well. Now that he had slept off the adrenaline
crash, he was feeling much better. He turned to look at the aliens.

All of them had such a strange mix of horror, fascination and concern in their eyes that he
nearly laughed. The bruises probably didn’t look great, but none of his injuries were that
serious. Fluffy chirped, clearly upset.

“I’m fine – I’m not going to die. It’s alright,” he tried to reassure them, unsuccessfully.
Rolling his eyes, he pulled Fluffy’s hand to feel his pulse. “See? I’m still here. I’m not going
anywhere anytime soon.”

Tommy tried not to pull away as the human gently grasped his wrist.

It pulled his hand closer, poking at his fingers until he had two claws extended from a loose
fist, then drew the claws towards its neck. He held his breath.

Was this a test? A display of loyalty?

It pressed his claws against one part of its neck. The skin was so soft – he knew that if he
hooked them, he could draw blood. It pulsed under his fingers. It was a steady rhythm, and
oddly familiar…

It hit him. The human’s heartbeat: he had heard it in their nest. That meant that right under
his fingers wasn’t just soft flesh, it was a major blood vessel.

He nearly stopped breathing. Sure, he trusted them, and he guessed that they trusted him to an
extent, but this?

It would be so easy for him to hurt it. His claws were sharp – sharper than the human’s weird
blunt ones – so it wouldn’t take much force to pierce the skin and whatever vein ran beneath
it. He didn’t dare move. After a moment, they released his hand.

They didn’t pull him away. There was no concern in their eyes as they watched him.

A vibration ran through their neck, and he pulled his hand back onto his lap, still slightly in
awe at the trust in their expression.

It was official. They were family now.

Wilbur looks up from the maps he was studying at the sound of the door opening.

“Hiya, mate,” Phil greets him. “How’s it looking?”

He sighed. “Not great. Whatever the pirates did knocked out most of our systems. I don’t
know how long it’ll take Tubbo and Tommy to get them back online, and we’ve been
knocked off course.”

“How far off course?”

“That’s half the problem – without our navigation system, I can’t get an accurate read on
where we are. I’ve been looking at star charts and working based on our last location before
we were boarded, but it’s hard work. The good news is that we’re not going very fast, so
hopefully we should only lose a week at most, depending on how fast the others work.”
 Phil whistled. “I’ll get them on it as soon as possible. Do you know where they are?”

“Probably in the medbay, with Ranboo.” He frowned. “And the human.”

Phil noticed his mood. “Guess we need to talk about what happens next.” When Wilbur only
flicked his tail, he continued, “We’re keeping it. It protected us, and the ch- Tommy and
Tubbo.”

Wilbur held back his laughter. “Yeah. Seems my crazy plan actually worked.”

“What do you think about letting it out of its room?” At his slightly surprised silence, Phil
hastily continued, “Not all the time, obviously. Just sometimes.”

Wilbur considered it for a moment. “Supervised.”

Phil chirped his agreement, and they both headed to the medbay to discuss it with the rest of
the crew.

“So,” Wilbur started, “I’m guessing it’s too late to tell you not to adopt the human?”

Phil laughed. “Far too late, mate.”

Chapter End Notes

This is the last chapter!

I am planning on writing three more parts for this au. I haven't started writing anything
yet, so it will most likely be a while before I publish anything, but it is coming!
I hope you enjoyed and thank you so much for all the support! <3
End Notes

Hi! This is my first fanfic, so let me know what you think!

Please drop by the Archive and comment to let the creator know if you enjoyed their work!