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One
Current Setting: Third Life
It was too late to leap out of the way when Scar finally heard the hissing behind him. Fear instantly filled Scar’s mind as the hissing got louder and louder–
Then suddenly he was at spawn, no creeper to be seen.
There was no one else besides him in the area, which, when he thought about it, made sense because nearly everyone else in the server was at the village. He was also there, before…
Did he lose his first life already?
In a panic, he pulled out his communicator, which confirmed his suspicions. Goodtimeswithscar was blown up by Creeper, it blared, and a numb sort of panic washed over him. He truly expected someone else, anyone else, to be the first one to die. It never crossed his mind that it would be him.
As he began to walk back to the village, he could feel the his green life draining out of him, being replaced by something heavier, something on the precipice of red and not red. He could also feel the phantom pain of the explosion, and when he looked down at his hands, he discovered something that makes him stop in his tracks.
He was now covered in explosion scars.
Knowing that no one was around to hear him, he screamed in terror.
—
Two
Current Setting: Third Life
It had all happened so fast, really. One moment they were frolicking in a lake, trying to disregard the notion that one of them had to kill the other, and the next Grian was punching Scar over and over until he collapsed, a rib piercing his heart.
They had been there for each other since the beginning; it was only fair they see each other through the end.
As Scar laid there on the warm sand, slowly bleeding out, he smiled. Despite his ragged breathing and the blood slowly filling his lungs he just smiled. There was a broken calmness surrounding the two men, and the only things that could be heard were his and Grian’s uneven breathing and the words that were left unsaid and hung in the air between them. Scar coughed weakly as his vision blurred. He let his gaze wander to where Grian sat on the ground, panting with his hands covering his ears as he held back choked sobs. Scar’s blood covered his hands, his wings, his face. That hurt more than the hole in his chest. It broke him to see Grian so… so, well… broken. Scar was barely able to reach out to touch Grian’s wing that lay useless on the ground, limply lying overtop of the avian’s feet.
Grian’s breath hitched as he opens his eyes and slowly lowered his hands, looking at Scar with such utter self-loathing; more than Scar thought humanly possible.
Scar smiled, that soft, gentle smile that makes Grian’s worries disappear. Grian offered a small, somewhat forced smile in return as he watches the light leave Scar’s blood red eyes. They return to a soft blue for a split second before becoming devoid of color entirely.
Eyes the color of the sky.
Eyes the color of the sea.
Eyes the color of death.
—
Three
Current Setting: Last Life
It was cold and dark outside on the first night, but for some reason, Grian and Scar had sought each other out, ending up together in a plain surrounded by vast swaths of forest.
It was mystifying; they always seemed to end up together somehow. Scar seemed to share this sentiment.
“Come on, Grian, what do you mean I can’t take you on the back of a llama into the Red Desert?”
Grian’s voice and face were stone-cold, unreadable. “All alliances have been made null and void, Scar.” The normally bright and cheery builder seemed to have a lot on his mind, and Scar was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Come on, just one trip? For old times sake.” He smirked, creeping ever closer–
Then Grian pushed him away.
“Enough, Scar. Just… forget anything that happened between us in that desert. It doesn’t matter now… we’re enemies again.” He looked nervous, almost afraid. He tried to back away from him slowly, but Scar just steps closer, looking more concerned than ever.
“We were never enemies, G–”
“Well, we are now!” Grian shouted.
(Truth be told he just… he couldn’t form a bond with Scar again, especially not in this game. It would only lead to heartbreak all over again. He couldn't deal with that. Not again.)
“Grian… Even if you have decided that… because of this game– mind you, that you made– we are somehow no longer friends, I will still retain those memories, you will still be my friend– Oh, wait, what’s that?” He looked down at his communicator with surprise.
“A new ‘give life’ system, how does that work?”
Grian saw an opportunity…
And he took it.
“Oh!” Scar could have sworn there was a scheming look on his face as he spoke. “Here, type in the command ‘/givelife Grian’ and it'll give me a life. I'll give it right back, I promise– Oh, would you look at that.” he noted, watching his name turn from the blaring yellow to a soft green. He smiled, knowing that this exact thing was going to happen.
Scar tilted his head, his name still a dark green. “Okay, how many do I have now, because I started with six.”
Grian’s jaw immediately dropped, and he tucked his communicator back in his pocket with a grin. “You what!? Oh, now I’m definitely keeping this!” He grinned at Scar, spun on his heels, and took off running.
Scar began to chase after him then paused in his tracks. “You need it more than I do, Grian,” he whispered with a smile as he watched the other man run.
It’s not until he’s lured into a trap by Etho that he really started to regret not having that spare life.
After the fact, Scar berated himself for not knowing that it was a trap earlier, especially not with how Etho kept looking at him as he was typing in the command to give the man a life. He didn’t even know how it really happened; one moment, a life was being transferred between him and Etho, and the next Etho was pillaring up with a fishing rod in hand.
Scar barely had time to react before his robes were being snagged and he was being flung up into the air, landing firmly on the ground with a yelp. “E-Etho, what are you doing? I thought we were business partners!” He tries desperately to keep his charismatic front up in hopes that it would deter Etho from trying to kill him.
Etho didn’t seem fazed by his attempts to dissuade him. “Sorry, Scar. It’s not personal.”
Then there was an axe through his skull, and everything goes dark.
—
Four
Current Setting: Last Life
A horse was a silly thing to be fighting over, Scar reasoned as he gazed upon the sight the Southlanders had lured him to. His horse hung in the balance between life and death, quite literally being held captive right above a pool of lava. Two figures, Grian and Martyn, stood guard by the horse while Jimmy, Impulse, and Mumbo stood by Scar as the four of them watched the scene unfold.
If Scar was honest, he didn’t care one bit about the horse. It was slow, and most importantly, it was still technically Grian’s. He cared about the principle of the thing. They were friends! Friends don’t steal each others horses and threaten to boil them in lava, and they certainly don’t trap the entrances to their base with TNT as they said they had done. Just a few sessions before, they were fighting reds together, defending each other, and throwing spyglasses around. ‘What changed?’ Scar thought this bitterly as Grian laughed from the wall, his voice echoing eerily around the clearing.
“Don’t you care about this horse? Clearly, you feel some sort of attachment to it, or else you wouldn’t have chased it down… or taken it in the first place.” The avian toyed with his blade as he spoke, seeming disinterested at best.
Scar crossed his arms, scowling. “It’s your repayment for swindling me out of a life, good sir. Of course I want to keep it safe, unlike you did with my life.”
(Mumbo laughed at his remark, and it’s almost ironic, seeing as both he and Grian both were willing to betray their friends’ safety for a life. Scar was tempted to bring this up, but that’s a can of worms he doesn’t wish to open.)
Grian stepped closer to his horse, and Scar’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. “What’s gotten into you, Grian?”
Then suddenly, Grian is cutting the lead it dangled from and it’s falling into the lava and there’s maniacal laughter and for a moment, he’s back in Third Life and Grian is cackling after getting a triple-kill and Scar is watching in horror and awe at the same time and–
He stepped over the boundary of the Southlands base without realizing it.
He went up in flames.
—
Five
Current Setting: Last Life
Dawn broke slowly over the desolate land. Scar watched the sun rise from the top of Magic Mountain with a frown on his face. Today was likely the last time he’d see the golden hues of the sun come over the server. Today was the final day, the day that would decide it all.
And yet all he could think of was Grian.
Somehow, just like last time, both the avian and the human himself had made it to the final fight. The only difference between the present and the past is they were now fighting on opposite sides. It was every person for themselves this time around. He longed to fight alongside his companion like they had inside the walls of Dogwarts.
Unfortunately, fate does not carry over to new worlds, new opportunities, new occasions. Scar desperately wished that it did.
He sighed and swept the thoughts out of his mind, getting off the roof with a sigh. It was time. The red mist of bloodlust could not be held back any longer.
Almost immediately upon arriving at spawn, Scar was thrust into battle.
Scar knew all too well how being red affects a person. He knew that even the sight of a single drop of blood or a whiff of fear would send even the weakest red into a frenzy, knew that they are frustrated, vulnerable, and tense.
The reds of Last Life were both far more and far less than that at the same time.
Yes, they were every bit as blood-thirsty as Scar himself was at the end of Third Life, but they still carried small shreds of loyalty. Scott, for example, betrayed Grian and Joel’s trust and joined another team of reds because that was where his loyalties lie.
Strangely, Scar wished that Grian would have done that for him back in the beginning. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to fight against him.
Suddenly there was a loud explosion that sent him flying, and his mind came back to the battle at hand.
He quickly pulled himself together and constructed a makeshift blockade– not that it gave him much protection. His normally nimble fingers were barely able to find the string of the bow, he was missing every shot, his vision was blurring–
–and without any warning, everything went colourless.
Scar barely registered what the guilty look on Ren’s face as he lowered his bow, the weightlessness of his body, and the world’s lack of color all meant until, in a split second, it clicked.
He was dead. His battle was over, and yet again, Grian lived on. A small smile crept onto his face at this. He’d succeeded; he’d protected Grian for just a little while longer. That was all that truly mattered to him.
To him, his death was ironic in a sick, twisted way: Ren taking his final life in this iteration of the world almost seemed to be retribution for stealing Ren’s own final life in the last battle of Dogwarts. He chuckles at the notion. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him… He’s always been one to hold grudges.’
Scar’s ghost watched numbly as the session ended with more and more carnage, the bodies piling up. He watched as Joel was stabbed, watched Grian finally succumbed to one of Scott’s poison potions right after, watched as the final four all converged on spawn and… talked? It was a particularly unusual thing to watch. How they could suppress their bloodlust for that long and convince everyone gathered there to do the battle in an orderly fashion was beyond him, but he admired the remaining contestants for that ability.
In a way, it seemed almost as if the final battles of Third Life and of Last Life were complete opposites of each other. He thinks on this as the final four fight, when suddenly Grian appears in front of him.
“Scar… I’m sorry for everything.”
Scar slowly approaches him, so as to not startle him. When he wraps his arms around the smaller man, he tenses for a moment before relaxing into the embrace. “You don’t have to be, G. It’s a death game just like Third Life was; you don’t have to worry about hurting me or my feelings. We all did what we had to do. Sure, I have my feelings about what happened, but I would never let that get between us.”
“...I’m so glad you’re okay.” The two of them stand there, holding each other for a long while before the final death message rings out, leaving Scott the victor. Grian pulls away from Scar when his communicator buzzes for the last time, spreading his wings and… glowing? His whole body was engulfed in a radiant purple haze, then suddenly Scott disappeared from the world and joined them as a ghost, immediately getting tackled by Pearl and Cleo.
As Grian shakes himself off, Scar looks at him with confusion evident on his face. “What was that? You… you glowed like a glow squid!”
Grian laughs at his remark. “Watcher powers. I haven’t gotten to use them in a long time; I forgot how exhilarating they are.” He pauses for a moment, regaining that purple glow.
“Now, let’s get everyone home, shall we?”
—
One
Current Setting: Hermitcraft Season 9
As breathtaking as Scar’s tree looked, it was far more dangerous than he liked to admit.
Climbing the stairs surrounding the trunk of his centerpiece of a tree (dodging leaves, branches, and twigs alike the entire way), he overlooked the beautiful landscape he called home. His gaze wandered to the smaller houses nearby his tree; a smile tugged at his lips as he looked at the shoe that was Grian’s house. Hermitcraft had always been filled with man made wonders, but Grian's starter house really exemplified that. Scar propped himself up against what he believed to be a sturdy branch and set his cane down with a sigh, admiring his friend's work.
Breathing in the warm summer air, he made the mistake of shifting his gaze and looking straight down at the mossy floor beneath him. His head blurred with an onslaught of ideas about how hard he would hit the ground below; he blinks a few times in an attempt to clear the atrocities that danced in his mind. It took him a moment to realize his hand had slipped from the branch and he was falling forward. Scar's hand scrambled for the aforementioned branch and it snapped the second he gets a hold on it, causing him to begin plummeting towards the ground. As he fell through the air, he desperately grasped for branches, trying to catch himself. The greenery continued to slip through his fingers.
As he fell, his mind slowed down for a split second. His descent turned from a free-fall into slow motion, and he thought, 'This is how I die again, isn't it? Void, this is going to hurt–'
The wind was knocked out of him as his body slammed into a branch, and he's nearly certain the impact breaks at least two of his bones. He was thrown into branch after branch until he finally hit the ground. His elytra snapped and broke beneath him– he nearly smacked himself for forgetting he had an elytra equipped. He gasped for air as his vision blurred and he desperately tried to type out some sort of message on his communicator. It hurt more than he would’ve imagined to maneuver just his hands and fingers, let alone his body as he tried and failed to sit up as he typed.
Hermitcraft Group Chat
GoodTimesWithScar: help
GoodTimesWithScar: fell otu fo tree
Xisumavoid: Is anyone near Scar right now?
Grian: i am! give me a second gathering first aid supplies
Xisumavoid: Thanks, G. Let me know how he is when you get there
A series of small explosions echoed in the distance, a telltale sign that someone was coming to help him. Scar winced at the noise and let his eyes fall close. Grian tumbled to the ground next to Scar with his arms and inventory full of first aid items, fully out of breath.
“Scar, what happened?” Grian asked hurriedly as he helped Scar prop himself up against the tree. He pulled out a pair of gloves and a surgical sewing kit, getting to work on a rather large gash on the other man’s upper arm.
“...I may or may not have fallen out of my tree… and hit my head. I hit most of my body, actually. Also, I don't know where my cane went,” Scar muttered, inhaling sharply when Grian accidentally stabbed him with the needle.
Grian stopped working for a moment and takes a deep sigh. “...Yep, that sounds about right.” He sighed a bit as he continued to stitch up one of the gashes on Scar’s arm. “You're such an idiot, Scar... I mean what in void's name were you thinking?”
“Believe me, I know…” Scar chuckled weakly, his breath evading him. “You were right. It was a bad idea to get on top of the tree. I… I just thought that I would be alright, that I wouldn’t have any problems. I wanted to see the world from how you see it constantly, what with you flying everywhere. I thought I could take care of myself after all of these years, but apparently I can’t.”
“Scar…” Grian’s voice softened a bit. “It’s okay. I truly don’t mind helping you each time something like this happens… We’ve both been helping each other since I first got here, it’s only fair that tradition continues.”
“It’s true, we’ve been through so much together,” Scar sighed as he watches Grian gently work on his arm, then going to reset his other arm. Scar stifled a scream when the avian popped it back into place. He then looked down at Grian and took a deep breath. He needed to say what he was about to, he needed to get it off his chest.
“I hate that I keep burdening you with my problems.”
Grian paused his work once more to look up at the elf. “You aren't a burden, Scar. You’re never a burden to me.”
Scar shook his head as he felt tears begin to form in his eyes. “…You deserve a better friend. One that can actually amount to something, one that can protect himself and take care of himself, one that isn’t riddled with memories of past failures.” Scar muttered, referring to his own scars.
“Your scars are a testament to your resilience and your kindness, Scar.” Grian said truthfully. “Every wound is proof that you survived, that you proved to others that you’re so incredibly strong and you won’t let them break you down.”
“The only scars that hold that feeling are the ones you gave me,” Scar muttered as Grian wordlessly took his hand, tracing over said scars, scars from his first death in Third Life and from that final death where red rage consumed the blond and he punched a hole through Scar’s heart.
“Those matter to me because you gave them to me. Because you’re still with me. Because you decided to stay.”
There was a reason Scar did not meet Grian’s eyes. He wouldn’t be able to see the avian anyway; his vision was too blurred with his own tears. “You’re one of the very few people who’ve decided to stay, Grian… I would be completely alone if not for you and the others…” he mutters, referring to the other hermits. Scar gave Grian’s hand a gentle squeeze once he pulled away from his scars.
“So thank you…” Scar whispers, “for allowing me to be here with you today.”
The two men sit in a calm silence for a moment as Grian stitches Scar up, the only sounds to be heard are that of the small winces of pain that sneak past Scar’s lips.
“You’re going to be alright, Scar. I’m here now; you don’t have to be alone any longer.”
Scar smiled, and realized that he believed him.