↚The Pig's Shadow | Dream x Reader | Slowburn ↛

Chapter 45: Oh No! Our Voices! They're FUCKING MULTIPLYING-

Bruh, y'all out here talking about how 'late' y'all are is the funniest shit ever-

You, Dream, and Techno rode back towards Manburg just as the sun was beginning to sink towards the horizon. Your father had to go turn back at the edge of the forest, still not technically allowed to enter Manburg. He waved you goodbye, the evening sun catching on his crown and reflecting like a thousand suns, a beacon of bright shining light, before he turned his horse around and disappeared into the trees, rose-colored hair vanishing into the darker tones of the late-autumn forest. You watched him as long as you could, straining your eyes in a futile attempt to pick out his red cloak from the trees. When you could see him no longer, you turned your own horse around, sighing, and galloped the rest of the way to the city, Dream following you closely. 

As you rode H/N into the makeshift stable behind the White House, dismounting quickly and grabbing the bristle brush to groom the tired beast, Dream hopped down from his own horse, tying its halter to the gate and vanishing out the empty door without another word. You assumed he was most likely going to talk to Schlatt and then remove the horse from its temporary stable to head back to the SMP, and it was true he was only gone for half an hour, but when he returned, he didn't leave immediately. Instead, as you finished brushing H/N down, you noticed he was turned toward you, head tilted slightly.

"What?" you snapped, tossing the brush back into the barrel in the corner. 

"I'm so confused," he chuckled, untying his horse. "I was talking with Schlatt, and he offhandedly mentioned that you two fought a war together, and that he really trusts you, and then I come out here and you just came back from planning a revolution against him and currently look like you're plotting murder. So," Dream said, leaning against one of the stable pillars, "I'm wondering how the hell you've managed to blindfold two extremely powerful groups to what you're going- and who's side you're really on."

You shifted uncomfortably, hand twitching towards your sword self-consciously. "I'm good at it. I learned from the best, after all. People believe what they want to believe, you bitch- you should know, gaslighting and manipulating your own friends. As for the whole dramatic 'who's side are you really on', I don't care who wins, Dream. I just want to get out of here, whether I am given my freedom or I make it myself by burning the fucking place to the ground. I'm on my side, I guess- so fuck off."

He nonchalantly examined the bridle, which was wrapped around his fingers. "Do... you consider your father to be a part of your side?"

You felt a small chill, followed by a prickling of anger, run up your back. "What?"

"Oh- it's obvious. The pink ends, the sword, the way you fight- I should certainly know, judging from the history your father and I have had. Not to mention that stupid crown- what ever happened to it, anyways?" He asked, gesturing to your hood, which was noticeably bare, a few telltale black threads barely noticeable on the top.

Sighing, you shrugged. "Took it off. Too shiny, too big- and far too fucking heavy. I ripped out the seams and chucked the thing away. No idea where it is now."

"...Techno doesn't mind?"

"Technoblade doesn't give a fuck, Dream." You were irritated, now, just wanting to end this conversation. "He is my father, but I make the decisions about my life. He... He has more important things to worry about." Like making sure the voices don't take over his head, or making sure Manburg is destroyed, or that we survive this. He... he has more pressing matters than me. "Just... leave it alone."

There was silence for several heartbeats, then the faint noise of leather shifting as Dream hauled himself up into the saddle. There was a very small pause, almost as though he was hesitating, and then he dug his heels into the horse's sides, shooting away into the bright light outside. Slowly, you leaned your head back against the wooden walls of the stable. 

Gods, he's such an intrusive prick.

->->->->O<-<-<-<-

Technoblade PoV (Hmmmm)

He sat at the edge of the cliff, his pink hair blowing, unbraided, in the gentle wind. His crown lies on the rocks besides him, glimmering in the golden light. Before him, the forest stretches out, nearly thirty or forty feet down, and the setting sun sit perfectly on the horizon, but where he is sitting, the trees thin out into a small clearing, right on the brink of the drop, strewn with rocks. He comes here often, when the voices get too loud- or when Tommy gets too loud. He comes here to think, to release all his worries and emotions, and to simply be. 

But today, he sits here because there is one problem which will not let go of his brain. He sits here because he needs the space to think, to really, truly think, away from the voices which demand death and cry out in bloodlust.

Today, his problem is his only child.

Today, his problem is Y/N.

She's changed. She's no longer the hopeful, optimistic, laughing child she used to be. Now, she is cold, and seems so rigidly perfect on the outside and all burnt and melted together on the inside. She is worried, and burdened with worries, and she thinks only of how to twist a situation to her own advantage. He worries for her. She no longer looks at him like he is her father- she looks at him as though he's just another pawn in a game of chess she's playing agains the universe.

And then there's the voices.

With what she told him the other day, when she arrived at Pogtopia desperately sleep-deprived and emotionally broken, he'd held out the hope that it really was just her imagination mixing with her lack of sleep. But now... now he's seeing the signs. The way she clutches her head as though there's a constant headache forming. The way her pupils paled when she got mad at Dream's presence. He knows that soon it will get more serious. He knows that soon, they'll be in her head fully, demanding and taking and twisting her into something else. 

He had known that the voices were hereditary by blood, so he'd never worried about it, but ever since the war, when she needed that blood transfusion-

He knows it's just a matter of time before she's no longer Y/N at all, but a malevolent shadow controlled by the screaming souls of the dead. 

And he knows that they will crush his child until she is nothing more than a ghost in the wind.

A single tear slips down his cheek.

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1189 words

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Got milk, came back, and wrote a chapter.

Ye ye this is why mothers are better than dads- we actually get the milk, and then we either aggressively make you hot chocolate or throw milk at people.

Hydrate, you lovely fuckers <3