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Grian was ready to throw something.
He wasn’t a particularly violent person, but this build was about to make him one. Why did he decide on this for a base? He hated building diagonally. This was hell on Earth. There was a very, very fine line between too regular and too wonky that he had to hit for these builds to look right. He’d step back from a build he was so sure of, only to see that the colors didn’t work, or it was leaned too far to the left, or it was too symmetrical to the one across from it, or whatever.
He was getting real sick of this. He didn’t know how long he’d been working for, but it was probably too long. It was fine. He’d finish this one building and then take a break. Unless he thought he could tackle the next one that is.
(And if he’d been telling himself this for the past 3 builds, who needed to know?)
He stepped back from this building. The shape was… alright. Definitely needed some tweaks. The main issue he noticed, though, was the nether brick detailing. For it to look right it’d have to be lighter- but not red nether bricks, that’d clash horribly with the build next to it- and when it came to slabs and stairs, there weren’t too many options.
Crimson wood, he decided, would look best. Alright, fine then. Did he stock crimson on the train? He didn’t think so, but he walked over to check. He was a bit irritated to discover that he did not. He was a bit irritated in general. He irately took off towards Ren’s log shop.
Flying felt off, it felt bad. He was veering slightly to the side and suddenly he could feel the dirt and dust between his misaligned feathers. He tried to ignore it until he landed, but his second rocket set him unsteady and his options were either to messily land now or probably crash into a building and die. He opted for the former. He landed on one knee and his hands- but unharmed. He brushed himself off on his pants and huffed, wrapping a wing around his torso so he could reach it.
His wings were worse than he thought. They’d need to be groomed properly. Of course this would happen now, when he was right in the middle of something. The wings were messy and dirty and- Grian roughly ran a hand through his feathers and yelped- and tender.
“Grian?” He heard behind himself as he was considering just boating to the log shop. He jumped and spun around. Scar was stood behind him, shulker box in hand.
“Oh. Hey Scar. What’s up?” Grian responded.
“Uh, was just doing some Swaggon business and I saw you land. Are you… you doing alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just need to clean my wings,” Grian brushed him off.
“No kidding,” Scar said, setting his shulker aside and walking up to him. He carefully set one of his feathers in the right place, “Need a hand?”
Scar had helped Grian with his wings fairly often back in the jungle and, thinking on it, that did sound awfully nice- but no, he had to focus.
“No, no,” He said, “I’ll fix them when I finish this build.”
“What, you’re still working on that alley?” Scar asked, “You’ve been at that since yesterday morning.”
“Have I?” Grian asked. Scar gave him an incredulous look.
“Yeah?” He furrowed his brow and took Grian’s arm “C’mon, you have got to take a break.”
“No, I’m- it’s fine,” Grian protested, “I’ve just gotta-”
“Grian,” Scar said. Grian swallowed and looked up at him. Scar was giving him what could pass as a stern look, but he could see how concerned he was. His resolve was crumbling under Scar’s kind gaze.
“...Alright,” Grian said “Fine.”
Scar broke into a smile.
“Awesome,” he said. He went from Grian’s arm to his hand, taking it and leading them towards Grian’s starter base, “Let’s fix up those wings.”
He brought them inside, pushing Grian towards his bed as he fished through Grian’s things for the feather oil. Scar came back to Grian laying on his stomach, watching him. Scar gave him a smile. Grian meekly returned it. Scar sat beside him on the bed and rubbed the oil between his hands. He, very gently, ran his hands through Grian’s wings and worked out most of the dirt. He’d have to pick out the rest by hand. He rubbed his hands dry on his pants and started at it.
“I dunno how they got like this,” Grian said “They weren’t nearly so bad the other day.”
“You were probably tugging at them,” Scar replied. Grian gave him a bit of a confused look, “You do that when you’re stressed. I’ve told you like a million times now.”
“You have?”
“Yeah,” Scar chuckled and ruffled the other’s hair a bit, “Most times you’re like this, though, so it’s not all that surprising you don’t remember.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Scar laughed, returning to the feathers. “Oh, c’mon,” He said, then started sarcatically “Well geez, I dunno, maybe it’s the fact that you only really get this bad when you’re overworking yourself- mixed with your cat-ish tendencies.”
“My what tendencies?”
“You like being preened. Like a cat!”
“Hm,” he said, just a bit cross about that. Scar snickered and mimicked his hum teasingly.
He didn’t even bother to say ‘I told you so’ when he picked out all the dirt and started the tedious task of setting the feathers right, watching Grian visibly relax. He just smiled and kept doing what he was doing.
He was about halfway through one wing when he heard Grian mumble “Thanks, Scar.”
He watched as eventually his wings fell slightly, his breathing evened out, and by the time Scar looked at his face, he’d fallen into a much needed sleep. Scar smiled and kept working through the feathers.
“No problem.”