Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Grian isn't a human.

Most people didn't know that though. He always said he was one and had people backing up his affirmations, but the most observant ones noticed he, simply, wasn't one of them.

The way he sometimes stared into the void out of nowhere; he stayed underwater for just a little too long, just enough to go from "skilled" to "worrying"; or the way he seemed to be more, natural, in the air.

That didn't change how his friends acted around him though, of course.

Scar and Grian still acted like siblings; Mumbo and X continued to act protective around him (even though, the admin probably knew everything already). 

No matter what he was, everyone knew who he was: their friend.

Impulse didn't mean to.

It was on accident.

He needed to ask Grian about the resistance–

Yes, that's no excuse for breaking in uninvited, but…

He didn't expect that .

Elytrans were exterminated long ago, weren't they?

Almost 12 years ago…

The same time he saw Grian for the first time.

It's actually kind of funny. It happened in a similar way: he wanted to ask Mumbo for help, went into his house uninvited, and found the 8 year old going through his stuff.

Yeah, he turned on his heels and walked right out, and never asked any questions. He thought that he imagined the small kid, until a year later when Grian joined. Then, he assumed Mumbo and Grian were somehow related and he was just visiting.

Thinking back at it, he thought he saw wings attached to Grian.

Again, he thought he saw something else. The news about the elytrans being killed had just arrived, so he couldn't have seen one, right?

Well, apparently he was wrong, because one of them was standing right in front of him .

Grian was going to kill him.

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Impulse sighed.

The jungle was big, but it was easy to travel through. With all the mega-bases, you'd have to be really stupid to get lost.

But finding people there was a different story. 

And Grian , out of everyone, was the hardest to find: between the fact that he had a giant Mansion, not even finished and filled with little spaces to hide in. And the fact that he was barely 1.55 meters tall, he was almost impossible to find, unless he didn't want to be found.

« You should really get him checked by a doctor or something. »

« Impulse, what are you talking about? » Mumbo answered, looking at the man confused.

It was the first time Impulse had ever ‘officially’ met Grian and he was quite worried.

« I mean- Not that there's anything wrong with him… But you said he's 19 and he's barely 1.50- He's too small for his age, I'm worried he might be malnourished. » 

Mumbo laughed, much to Impulse's confusion 

« First thing’s first, even if I wanted to get him checked, I can't just order him to go. It's not like I'm his father » 

Ok, father was a stretch. Impulse thought they were brothers, Mumbo being the oldest, but apparently it wasn't like that. 

« Besides, » a different voice chimed in. It wasn’t Mumbo's nor Impulse's « We already went to a doctor and we were told it's normal for me to be this short. » 

Ah, that was Grian. Yeah, probably shouldn't have talked about him right in front of the man (-or teenager?), but he seemed distracted by something else and wasn't really paying attention, so Impulse didn't think about it. Good. He was healthy, no need to be worried. Still… It looked like he was hiding something, though it wasn't Impulse's place to ask.

He said goodbye to the two, then ran off leaving the men by themselves again. He had some work to do.

Impulse landed on the back of the Mansion. Yes, on . There was a giant hole, and Impulse landed on one of the exposed blocks. 

He didn't want to land there actually, he had simply lost control of his elytra because of a sudden gush and needed a place to rest for a moment to then get back on track. Now he was there looking for Grian because he just got a brilliant idea for the Mycelium Resistance and he needed to share it with Grian.

It was a mere coincidence that he landed on the Mansion, but a good one, because it saved him probably hours of looking for the man. 

It was… still unusual for Grian to be in the Mansion. He usually was under the Mansion, where he had his item sorting system and his villager trading hall.

The man was sitting next to a lantern, messing with who-knows-what. 

Impulse thought it'd be a good idea to land behind him and surprise him, maybe even scare him.

He didn't expect that .

Impulse landed behind the man, and noticed he had bandages near him, a medkit sitting open next to him and a few empty bottles that probably used to contain a healing potion. Had he gotten hurt? And if he did, what could've happened to make him have to use all that stuff ?

Impulse stepped closer in an attempt to get a better view of what had happened, as well as to simply make his presence known.

This was impossible.

Elytrans were exterminated long ago, weren't they?

Well, apparently he was wrong, because one of them was standing right in front of him .

Grian was going to kill him.

Impulse took a step backwards, taken aback from what he'd seen.

Which was a mistake. He was trying to go away, and act like he didn't see anything, and tripped on a rock, making his presence known. 

Grian turned around so fastly that Impulse thought he heard a crack.

Yup, I’m dead .

« Impulse. What are you doing here? » the man, the Elytrian said, his wings moving behind him.

Impulse took the time to look at them properly, after all, he'd been caught anyway, so might as well take his time. 

They were beautiful- multicolored, they looked like a parrot's. Erm, they could've been beautiful, but they were covered in bandages, and looked… small. Deformed? Surely not healthy. They were covered in cuts- probably it wasn't healthy to keep them under the elytra.

« Impulse? »

Right, the impending threat of Grian probably about to cut his throat open.

I mean, usually he wouldn't be so worried. After all, Grian is his friend. But his tone? He was gonna die, and for a good reason. If Grian had been keeping his wings a secret, he probably shouldn't have snuck on him.

Grian got up.

« What are you doing here? »

« I was looking for you- I didn't mean to break in and see- Er… Those- I'm sorry! »

Grian laughed. Not his usual laugh, but just enough to not worry Impulse anymore.

« I guess it's fine… let's go out, this is not a nice place to talk. »

Before Impulse could say anything, Grian cleaned up everything that he had left, put his jumper and elytra back on and swiftly flew out, followed by Impulse.

Little did he know, he was never getting an explanation.

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Scar hummed as he moved his stuff.

He was moving out of his starter base into his mega-base and he still had a lot of stuff over there. 

All of a sudden, he heard a crush outside. As he was about to go check out what had happened, he heard knocks on his door, followed by a « Scar! Let me in-! »

It was Grian's voice. He sounded… scared? Nervous? He decided to check it out.

« Hide me! Please-! » Grian said as he entered in a rush. 

« Welcome…? Grian what's going on? » Scar asked the younger man, confused and worried 

« Impulse saw my wings- »

Scar now understood why he was so nervous 

« Impulse saw my wings- This is bad bad bad- » Grian repeated, on the verge of tears. 

« Grian, calm down alright? There’s no need to panic. »

Scar helped him inside and quickly helped him hide. Soon enough, someone else was at Scar’s door. 

« Hey Scar, have you seen Grian? We were talking and he disappeared » Impulse asked as Scar opened the door.

« No, sorry. I haven't seen him… » he said hesitantly. 

« Impulse. I'm kind of in the middle of something, so if that's everything, could you go? I'll help you look for him later, okay? » Scar asked, smiling. 

« Oh- yeah, sorry if I interrupted you! » Impulse greeted him, then flew away, looking for Grian again. 

« You're welcome G- » Scar got interrupted by Grian tackling him 

« Sorry if I bursted in like that- » 

Scar chuckled slightly 

« Don't worry Grian, now, can you tell me what happened? »

« Yes, sorry… » 

Grian smiled, clearly calmer 

« I was fixing up my wings - yes they were hurt now they're better - and Impulse kind of bursted in? » Grian took a deep breath « and he saw me and asked for an explanation. I told him I would but you know… I don't like to talk about it, so I came to you to hide from him » Grian said with a nervous smile. 

« You know you can't ignore him forever, right? You'll have to talk to him. You're literally on the same side of a war. » Scar reminded him. 

«… Right. » 

Grian started breathing faster 

« G, calm down. We'll find something. I'll talk to him? I'll explain you don't want to talk about it » Scar offered. Grian nodded in response, but didn't seem to calm down 

« Yeah- please- » he whispered « Thank you. »

Scar smiled, trying to comfort him, and pulled the man into a hug 

« Don't worry about it. »

It was weird seeing Grian like that, so vulnerable and weak… But it also wasn't the first time and Scar was always ready for his friend. 

« I'm going to talk to him, wait here, alright? » Scar said with a smile and rode out

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TW: mention of/implied sh (even of not meant as such)

Scar put his leg braces on, fixed his elytra, and opened the chat

<GoodTimeWithScar whispers to ImpulseSV: Impulse where are you? >

<ImpulseSV whispers to GoodTimeWithScar: Did you find G? I'm getting worried >

<GoodTimeWithScar whispers to ImpulseSV: Yeah I found him >

<GoodTimeWithScar whispers to ImpulseSV: Where are you? >

<ImpulseSV whispers to GoodTimeWithScar: Town hall, I just went randomly around the server after I couldn't find him >

<GoodTimeWithScar whispers to ImpulseSV: I'll be there in a minute >

And he flew to the shopping district. As he got there, he saw Impulse and ran to him. (Or, well, the closest thing he could do to a run)

« Scar! Hey!… » 

Impulse smiled as he saw his friend get closer, and he did the same to help him walk. 

« Nice to see you but… where's Grian? » he said looking around the place.

« He asked me to talk to you » and he placed a block so he could sit and let his legs rest.

« He was a bit panicked, can you tell me what happened? »

Impulse looked nervously around. 

« I don't know if he'd be comfortable with me telling you about what happened- »

« I know about his wings, don't worry, you can talk. »

He blinked 

« … Yeah, makes sense. Well-… I walked in on him treating his wings - » 

He hesitated for a bit after he said the word, like he couldn't believe it. 

« I tried going away without being noticed… »

« Bad idea, we're talking about Grian here. He can notice a pin drop if he's paying attention to his surroundings. »

« Yeah… So as you could guess, he noticed me. After that he said he would explain but he… He ran away. Or, well, flew away, but you know what I mean. »

Scar nodded « Sounds like him. »

« Can I ask you a question, Scar? »

The man nodded in agreement.

« He's an Elytrian, right? » 

Scar nodded again 

« … But how? Weren't they extinct? » 

« Some survived. He doesn't like to talk about it, so I don't know the details, but even if I did, it's not my place to tell you. »

« Some » Scar thought, as he flew back to his base. An exaggeration.

As far most people know, Grian was the last one.

He often insisted that he knew there were others out there, because if an 8 year old managed to escape, why couldn't others?

But other than that, there was no proof of other Elytrians being alive.

Thinking about that saddened pretty much everyone, especially Grian.

He had been ripped away from his home as a kid, and admitting that he was the only one left meant admitting that he could never go back. It had been 12, almost 13 years, but he couldn't give in. 

Scar realized he had zoned out as he almost hit Grian's Mansion's wall. 

He turned back and landed in front of his house.

« Hey G, how are you feeling? »

He answered with a groan, « My wings are hurting. » 

He turned around and looked at his friend « Could you give me a hand? »

Scar nodded « Let me see how bad they are now and you better have been keeping good care of them, I can't spend half of my life fixing them for you. »

As Grian took off his sweater, Scar took a close look at the bandages and noticed they were frantically done 

" It's probably because he got interrupted by Impulse" he thought. 

 « I'm gonna have to take them off. »

« What- Why? Its gonna hurt- »

« It's gonna hurt more if you don't treat your wings properly » Scar reminded him. 

That seemed to convince him.

Scar slowly removed the bandages, and examined the wounds.

"What" he had to look again , because it couldn't be what he thought it is.

There were multiple cuts, and the wings were bent in weird positions, probably broken. ("I told him to not put the elytra's weight on them…")

But one thing was clear: while most of the cuts were accidental, some not only were done on purpose, those were made by Grian. 

He took a deep breath and started patching up the wings, trying to ignore the thought of his friend cutting his own- …

He couldn't even think about it. No, he probably got that completely wrong.

Even though… It wasn't the first time he saw something like that from Grian…

« Grian! » Scar called out « Where are you? We- »

He stopped in his tracks. 

« Grian…? » he called out again, slowly getting closer.

And he saw it.

His friend's body, lying there completely soaked in blood.

He panicked. 

His wings were completely cut off from his body, but despite all the blood that had already bled out, more kept going out the wounds. 

Scar probably threw up, but he wasn't sure.

By the time he had shook off the initial shock, the body was already cold.

Soon a message in chat: < Grian was slain >

A few messages in chat, from people asking what happened to others laughing at him. 

Scar didn't write anything, he just put back Grian's stuff in a chest, then flew away.

He couldn't remember what he had to talk about, but whatever it was it could wait.

« Scar? Are you listening to me? Scar! »

He gave him a slight push with his wing.

« Yeah- no actually, I zoned out » Scar apologized, going back to bandaging the wings.

« Anyway I was talking about this build I wanted to work on- »

And he kept on rambling.

Scar waited for him to finish, then spoke up: « Grian… did you make those cuts? »

The winged man completely shut down.

« Please answer me… » 

He got pushed away with the wings.

« I'm going. Thank you. » 

He hastily put the sweater back on, not caring if he crushed the wings. 

« Grian-! » And he was gone.

It had been almost a week since that event.

No one had seen Grian.

X assumed that for whatever reason he had gone out of the server, and didn't let on how worried he was.

Sure, sometimes Grian disappeared, but it was never more than a few days, not without a proper warning, but the other hermits didn't need to get worried for no reason, Grian was a smart guy, there was no need to be too worried.

Or so they thought.

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A week.

It took another week for Grian to come back. 

And he didn't just get back, you know, walking in.

A message in chat

< Grian was killed by [unknown] using magic >

That meant that someone outside the server killed him, because names don't show up in different servers in which you aren't in.

Everyone who was free ran to his base, where he had his spawn.

It was Mumbo, Cleo, and X.

Cleo and Mumbo immediately checked if anything was left after the respawn, if he had any lasting effects from the death, as sometimes happened.

Grian… Grian was just staring into the void, occasionally flinching.

Xisuma started asking questions: 

« what happened? Who was it?…» etcetera, etcetera.

Grian sometimes nodded, and eventually finally talked:

« I'm ok. Can I stay alone? »

X was the first one to leave, he was actually in the middle of something, but came over because of the gravity of the situation, it wasn't an everyday thing people from different servers came in conflict with each other, much less kill the other. He reminded Grian that they'd have to talk later, then left.

Cleo took a bit longer to get convinced to leave.

She was scared for her friend who had been missing for almost two weeks and now didn't seem the same as he was before. 

But in the end, Mumbo convinced her to leave, so the two could be alone.

« You look awful MumboJumbo » Grian said, chuckling.

That caught the mustached man off guard.

« I look awful? You just died, Grian! »

That shut the man back down.

« … Sorry G… How are you feeling? »

Grian nodded « I'm ok, I think »

« Your wings? » 

Grian flinched slightly at that 

« Are they hurt? » Mambo continued.

He vigorously shook his head, almost like he was scared.

Mumbo knew that meant the wings were probably in a bad situation. But he also knew that Grian wasn't gonna let him have a look at them so he could help them.

He sighed.

« Alright, that's good! » 

"It isn't- had they found him-?"

He smiled and got up « I think I have to go, I'm sorry. I'll leave a healing potion here in case you need it. See you soon Grian! » 

He gave the younger man one last worried glance, then flew out.

And Grian was alone. 

He sighed and took off his sweater to look at his wings. While most wounds and bruises would go away with respawns, though sometimes they just… didn't. If they were too severe, or they didn't heal correctly beforehand… There were multiple reasons. And sometimes for no reason at all. It was weird, but comforting in a way.

He realized he had been zoning out, so he went back to take a look at his wings.

Only a few bruises, and it hurt to move them, but neither were new things. Some feathers were missing. That was unusual, he took good care of the feathers.

They're hurting again- A lot- why can't I just get rid of them-

He sighed and took the healing potion Mumbo had left him, and analyzed it to see if there was something weird in it. It wasn't that he didn't trust Mumbo, of course he did. It was just that Mumbo had the bad habit of giving him weakness potions to make him sleep when he didn't for a long time. He smiled as he realized there wasn't any in it, and drank it.

It tasted awful, as usual, and it hurt as he felt the bones in his wings slowly going back in the right direction, and fusing back.

"Huh. So they were broken." He thought.

They always hurt, so it was hard to tell whether it was because they were broken or it was the normal pain he had slowly been becoming numb to. He closed them, and put his sweater back on, over the wings.

He opened the chat as he saw a yellow message 

GoodTimeWithScar joined the game

He stared at it for a few seconds, then pulled up the keyboard

<Grian whispers to GoodTimeWithScar: Hey Scar> 

<Grian whispers to GoodTimeWithScar: Where are you? Can we talk?>

<GoodTimeWithScar whispers to Grian: I'll be there in a minute>

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Scar was there before a minute, and he immediately hugged Grian 

« I'm so sorry- » 

Grian got pulled down by Scar (he was taller, sure, but he was also on his wheelchair).

« What are you sorry for? » Grian chuckled, nervously. He picked up a fidget toy of the ones he had all over the mansion, and started fidgeting.

« I shouldn't have asked you if you- you know- if I hadn't, you wouldn't have left and wouldn't have gotten hurt » Scar mumbled, still sniffling.

Grian smiled « Scar, it's not your fault. I decided to leave. I picked a fight with that guy. » he put his hand on his shoulder « none of it is your fault. » he repeated, trying to convince him.

Scar looked down « If you say so… » he didn't sound too sure « but let's worry about you. How are you doing? »

« Much better now that I'm back home! » he answered, cheerfully « I can finally get back on working, I have some ideas for the war that- »

« The war against me? » Scar asked, smiling.

Grian looked back, and stopped for a few seconds, before grinning « Yes, that war. You aren't ready for what I'm about to do! » he put on his backup elytra, and flew out.

Scar sighed. Things seemed to be back to normal, after all. 

He went back to his base. He had to prepare for whatever Grian was about to throw at him.

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Guys! I'm sorry but this fic won't continue with the same timeline! I'll be doing a rewrite of the first chapters and continue from there, you'll be able to see the WIPS in my discord server! Sorry again, and bye! Hope to see you soon in the new fic!

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Guys! the new fic has been posted here! see you there!