How to train your hoglin

Gone

His friend had been Onyx?
Nonono. He couldn't lose Techno. He'd lost Wilbur and Tommy, he'd lost his love, he'd lost everything. Not Techno too.

Technoblade vanished into smoke, leaving a pile of items. His inventory. He was gone.
Phil buried his head in his hands. It was supposed to be him. Kilaki said he was the one meant to die.
His wings reached out, trying to cradle a figure who no longer existed.

Phil sobbed. Death's Angel, who had lived through wars and famines and pain, broke down.
Snow drifted through the air as his crows landed around him. Voices from long ago. They didn't like the nether. Philza couldn't blame them.
Some landed on his wings, preening his feathers. Others nuzzled against his face.
Gone. Dead. They whispered.

No. Kilaki had said the Dreamon King could do anything, right? He could fix this.
Phil shuffled through his inventory till he found the bag the nether witch had given him.
He scooped Techno's inventory into the bag and forced himself to his feet. The crows flew into the sky, startled by his sudden movement.

"I'm going to bring him back. If the Dreamon King can't do it, The Totem might be able to, and if he can't, I'll travel to Death's realm and ask her.
That will require a trade.
"I know! But if it's my only option, so be it."
The Dreamon King is dangerous. Don't trust him.
Philza rolled his eyes.
He pulled an Eye of Ender from his own inventory and threw it into the sky. It drifted to the side, where it fell to the earth. Philza walked over and picked it up.
Still unable to fly, he walked in the direction it had pointed him in. He was going to bring his friend back.

He needed to make sure no one could come through the portal. He had some crying obsidian from the piglins, so he blocked the portal.
Then, he looked over the tundra. He could cross this snowy land in minutes with his wings. But without, it would take days.

The cold wind barely touched Philza. A little cold was nothing to an immortal. The only thing he really wished for was a travel companion. Someone to talk to.
His crows followed him, of course, but they didn't count. They jabbered about nonsense, and they were refused to stop 'reminding' Phil that the Dreamon King couldn't be trusted.
Phil sighed as yet another crow landed on his shoulder.
Don't trust him, Mr.Minecraft. He's dangerous. And untrustworthy
"Untrustworthy how? You haven't given me a real reason."
..........find the Ender Prince.
The Ender Prince? The one the wither knights couldn't find?
"How do I find him?"
His particles will tell him to find you. Just wait at the edge of the snow.
Phil rolled his eyes, but he was curious. He didn't remember the Ender Prince. Not well anyway. And he would be a fool to approach the Dreamon King without some knowledge.
"Fine. But if he doesn't show up within a few days, I'm leaving."
The crows cawed and flew up in a flurry of feathers.
That night, Phil made a fire in a small cave. A bear slept within, but Phil was used to bears. He offered it part of the fish he'd caught, and it licked up the food, then rolled over and went back to sleep.
Philza sharpened his sword, watching the light dance across the wall.
The crows were piled up against the wall, some sleeping, some struggling to escape the mass of black feathers, some just pushing others around in an effort to get comfortable.
He didn't need much sleep. Techno didn't either, but occasionally he'd hibernate, sometimes for months at a time.
Occasionally Phil had to poke him with a stick to check if he was still breathing.
He shook his head. Techno. His old friend. They'd gone through everything together.

A blur of violence and death. Moving from one war to another. Philza had fought for revolutionaries, tyrants, whoever. And whichever side he fought on won.
They'd called him the Angel of Death. His name was whispered around tables late at night. They said even the Dreamons feared him.
Then he heard of another. The Blood God, with a reputation nearly equal to his own.
He slaughtered entire armies. He rides a ravager into battle. He shows no mercy. He kills everything in his path.
Phil had begun to imagine a monster, a beast with an wretched grin eternally on his face.
But when they met, the pink haired man had laughed at Phil's utterance of his alias, and returned the skeptical address.
"The Angel of Death? I expected someone taller."
Phil had talked with him over a game of chess for hours. And he'd lost. Technoblade had beaten him in chess. Of course, Philza won the next game, and the game after that, but he'd considered chess one of his skills.
Could Techno beat him in battle as well?
But Techno never wanted to fight. He wanted to build a home in the Antarctic. A home became an empire, and the two of them ruled together. They became friends, and trusted each other with everything. Almost everything.
He still remembered the first time he'd seen Techno fight. Suddenly, his calm, measured friend was deranged and laughing as arrows sliced through his flesh.
He'd slaughtered everything, and Phil worried he was next. But just as quickly as it began, the rampage stopped.
Techno had raised his sword over his head, about to kill Phil, when he stopped. He offered the winged man a hand, and pulled him to his feet.
And so they left the empire. It collapsed without them.
And what came next Phil would never forget. Traveling by boat, through the ice.
"Phil?"
"Yea mate?"
"I hear voices. Countless voices in my head. Sometimes they're happy, sometimes they're sad, sometimes they mock me, but mostly they tell me to kill. They want blood, Phil. I just want to, to kill something."
Phil just froze. He didn't know what to say.
"But I won't. I'm holding back. I'm being a good person."
"Why? Why hold back? People attack us, they always have, they always will."
"Because you said violence isn't the answer, not when you can reason with them." Techno said.
Their first meeting. That's what Phil had said. He'd remembered.

Months later, Techno tore apart his house. Phil came in and Techno shouted at him to run. Phil had flown into the air, but didn't leave.
Techno had screamed at him to leave, to run. To go.
"They want you dead, Phil..... RUN!"
"I'm not leaving you." Phil had shouted back.
Techno had collapsed. Phil had flown down, and hugged his pink haired friend.
"I'm not leaving you. I'd follow you to the gates of hell."
Techno had sobbed, and had never tried to hurt Phil ever again.

His dearest friend. Gone.

Well there's some backstory for you guys.
How do you think meeting the Dreamon King is going to go? Can Phil trust him? Does he have the power to bring people back?