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BLEO
It just doesn’t look quite right.
Cleo harrumphs, twists the leg of an armor stand around. She’d wanted to make something to go in one of the windows, but she can’t seem to work her usual magic today. Which is more frustrating than anything, really—they’re meant to be meeting up with Joe in half an hour, and no part of this statue is behaving as it’s meant.
They’re about to drop the project for the afternoon and just move on to something else (maybe organizing some chests, heaven knows they’ve let neatness get away from them lately) when something touches their leg.
She’d deny it to anyone who asked, but Cleo jumps a good foot in the air, letting out a few choice swear words that would make even Doc blush. They look down, axe already in hand, ready to murder whatever child is attacking them—
Jellie stares up at her, rolled over onto her back, the most innocent expression in the world written all over her face. “ Mrow ?” she asks, either unknowing or uncaring about the panic she just caused. Girlboss, honestly.
Cleo shakes her head, barking out a laugh. “Meow to you too, Jellie,” she tells her, leaning down to scratch at the scruff of her neck. Jellie bats lazily at her hand, then submits to the pets.
With care to support all the necessary places, Cleo scoops the cat up in their arms. Jellie doesn’t protest a bit, happy to be carried when it means she doesn’t have to put in any sort of effort. “Lazy girl,” admonishes Cleo, but they don’t set her back down, scritching around her ears. Jellie basks in the attention, eyes shut happily as she leans into the touch.
Maybe this is just what Cleo needed, really. A momentary distraction, to break the monotony of staring at this armor stand for—she checks her watch—two straight hours. They’re not supposed to be doing that anymore. Joe’s been at her recently about taking frequent breaks, some rule about thirties or something.
“Jellie!” A voice calls from outside. “Where are you? C’mon, you silly cat, come out!”
Scar, and looking for the very cat in Cleo’s arms, no less. Cleo tries to set her down, but Jellie is unmoving, even looking a tad bit put out at her attempts.
Not a moment later, Scar wheels into the building, audibly mumbling, “Gee, I hope no one’s home to see me trespassing. Oh, hi , Cleo!” he adds abruptly as he notices her. “Nice day we’re having!”
Cleo rolls their eyes. “Hello, Scar. Looking for someone?”
For the first time, Scar’s eyes drop down to Jellie, still splayed out in Cleo’s arms.
And for some odd reason, he looks almost nervous.
“Hey, Jellie, come back to Scar!” he coos, and the wariness that had crossed his face is gone, so quickly that Cleo must have imagined it.
“I’m taking her captive, actually,” Cleo announces jokingly, hugging Jellie tight—but Scar doesn’t laugh, or roll his eyes, or wave her off.
Instead, his face goes a bit pale, and the nervous look returns intensified. “Nononono no ,” he says quickly, pushing himself forward a bit. “No need for that. Just—just hand her over, all right? So I can give her all the good belly rubs and all that!”
He sounds like a normal Scar, which is good—if his voice is a bit tight, his hasty smile a bit strained. It’s worrisome, though, so while Cleo would normally continue to tease, she just sets Jellie down on the floor. Jellie glares at her, just the smallest of kitty glares, and lopes over to Scar to hop up into his lap.
Scar’s expression immediately relaxes at her return, but the look he shoots Cleo is almost . . . suspicious? Which is unfair, really, because they haven’t even messed with Boatem in absolutely ages. If anyone deserves suspicion, it’s Ren and Doc and whatever it is they’re doing over in that evil lair of theirs.
She could use an evil lair, come to think of it. A great place to scheme and pretend to be a villain and host girls’ night.
Scar’s gone before she even has the chance to say goodbye, just a whizz of rockets and he’s off.
And if Cleo had been, perhaps, less tired from their ordeal with the armor stand, they might have continued to be concerned about Scar.
Instead, she brushes it off as normal Scar weirdness and returns to her work.
-
LGRIAN
It’s a fairly common sight to see Scar riding his horse—or, his ‘company car’, as Mumbo keeps insisting they all call the donkeys—so he’s a pretty easy target to pick off from a distance.
GoodTimeWithScar was shot by Grian
Grian giggles to himself before taking off, tossing his bow onto the rooftop behind him. He really ought to go gather up Scar’s things—for all he knows, Scar could respawn hours away and then all his stuff would disappear. It’s just common courtesy, really.
He shoves all of Scar’s stuff haphazard in a chest, tossing his big hat on top. He doesn’t happen to have a lead on him, and neither did Scar, so he just sort of hangs on to the donkey and waits for Scar to get back.
Well, it might be a while. Maybe he should just take the donkey back to Scar’s base, lash it to a fencepost somewhere. That way, it should be the first place Scar looks—and if not, Grian can tell him where it is.
Mind made up, Grian leaves the chest with Scar’s hat on top and climbs into the donkey’s saddle, pressing his heels into the beast’s sides to get it going.
Donkeys move terribly slow, though, and it’s barely a minute before Grian’s bored. Maybe he can just tie the donkey up at the G-Train? That’s way closer. Put him in the engine, see if he can’t fit a conductor’s hat over his ears. That would be adorable .
Grian changes course, a tug on the reins redirecting the donkey toward his side of Boatem. Perfect. He got to kill Scar and gained an employee, all in one fell swoop.
Not, of course, that he’s going to keep the donkey. Not at all! He just wants to take some silly pictures, tease Scar a little bit, the lot. And the donkey gets a little field trip. It’s a win-win situation, really.
He’s almost to his base when he’s suddenly interrupted.
“Hey! What are you and Stu doing all the way over here?”
Dang. Scar, somehow, must have respawned at the G-Train, and is now before Grian with his arms crossed, hair flat with sweat and clearly a bit out of breath.
“Oh, nothing much,” Grian replies easily. He can still get away with this. Scar is the most distractible person he knows, he just has to redirect his attention and sneak off. “By the way, I put all your stuff in a chest, but one of the lads from Big Eye was hanging around and had their big eye on your big hat, so . . . I’d hurry, honestly.”
“Oh, shoot! Sure, just give me Stu, he’ll go faster! He’s a retired race car, you know, almost won the Grand Prix in 1938, so just hand him over and we’ll get my hat in no time!”
Scar’s smile doesn’t slip as he holds out a hand, as if he expects Grian to give him the reins. Ridiculous, frankly. Grian has absolutely zero intentions of doing such a thing.
“Surely not faster than your wheelchair,” Grian says, and he really does doubt that the donkey could outrun Scar in a race. Pushing Scar out of his chair is off-limits, so he either has to convince Scar to leave or he has to get a really good head start. The first seems easier, but the second is increasingly likely.
Scar sighs, the smile dropping as soon as he realizes that Grian doesn’t plan on relinquishing his donkey. “Come on, Grian, we don’t want another Baby Yoda situation. You’ve got your own donkey, whatever-its-name-is, so there’s no reason for you to take mine.”
Scar’s right, but Grian’s too far in now to turn back. If he doesn’t commit to this now, Scar will never believe him again.
There’s nothing for it—Grian tightens his grip on the reins and tenses, ready to direct the donkey around Scar as fast as it can go. Right as he moves his heels, though, Scar’s face falls.
Now, don’t get him wrong, Grian loves to push the line. One of his favorite pastimes is to tease his fellow Hermits, see how far he can get them to bend and how many rules he can skirt around before trouble comes. And usually, Scar’s a pretty good sport about it, because Scar loves pushing right back. The two of them can usually craft an entertaining game of lies and bargains between them, which is probably why Scar’s one of his best friends.
This is different, though, and Grian’s not sure why, but it’s no longer a game to Scar. That makes him falter, which makes the donkey do the same, trotting forward a few steps before halting.
“Scar?” he asks, just checking in, and Scar doesn’t respond. That’s worrisome—Grian hops down from the saddle, pulls Stu back to Scar. “Are you all right?”
To his surprise and distress, Scar—Scar’s crying, almost, his nose pink and eyes watery. When he sees Grian, he hurriedly drags his sleeve over his eyes, certainly ruining the expensive fabric.
Grian is at an utter loss—he really doesn’t deal with emotions too frequently, and there’s a reason for it. He hates being in this sort of situation—what is he supposed to do? Does Scar want someone to talk to, or to be left alone? If the former, what is he meant to say? Are hugs expected?
“Um. It’s okay,” he says awkwardly, reaching out to pat Scar’s shoulder and quickly aborting the action. “You can have Stu, I didn’t—I was just teasing. You know I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Scar just rubs at his eyes again, then says, voice wavering, “it’s fine. I don’t—I don’t know why I got so . . . you know.” He clears his throat, gives Grian a wobbly smile—a mere shadow of his normal cheer.
This is truly unsettling—in all their battles on Season Seven, nothing like this had ever happened. In fact, the last time Grian went too far with Scar was back on Season Six, when he first had to learn the boundaries around Scar’s disability and its aids.
But Scar doesn’t elaborate, and Grian can’t think of what to say, so he just lends Scar a hand in getting onto the donkey’s back (Scar’s wheelchair shimmers briefly, then pops into a tiny version of itself that Scar catches and stows in his coat pocket).
Scar rides off in the direction of his stuff, and Grian’s left wondering where exactly it all fell flat.
-
AREN
The world is ending.
Doc had better finish up his part of the portal stat, because Ren doesn’t think Hermitcraft Eight is going to hold up much longer.
He floats up with a rumbling of the earth and his chicken somehow escapes his arms—Ren grabs at it and pulls it back to safety just as they fall back to the ground. Then he continues on his way, and for the first time in a while he realizes just how crazy their day-to-day life has become.
That doesn’t matter, though—he’s got to get this little lady chicken over to Scar’s pet transportation service, and fast! Not that he has any particular attachment to this chicken, but who knows how long they’ll be in transit on their way to Season Nine and it would be nice to have a couple of eggs for breakfast on the journey!
And luckily, judging by the sign that reads ‘OPEN’ on the door, the business is open!
Ren ducks in through the doorway just in time for another earthquake, and he stands there a moment, steadying himself on the doorframe, the entrance bell above ringing repeatedly.
When the earthquake stops, and then a few minutes after that when his wolfish ears stop hearing the ring of the bell, Ren steps into the business proper, plopping his chicken (he’s thinking of the name Edith for her) onto the counter.
Scar rolls in from a back room, hat bobbing in a swindle-some way. “Why hello there, Mr. Ren! Are you looking for safe and secure passage for pets or possessions?”
“Actually, I was hoping for something portable,” Ren says, gesturing to the hen. “I was thinking to take this lady with me, and thought I’d check in and see if you have, like, a little oxygen pack or something, dude!”
Scar grimaces and opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything, a certain cat hops up onto the counter and starts sniffing inquisitively at the chicken (maybe Dora for a name, actually).
“Jellie!” Scar scolds. “Get down from there, that’s not for you!”
“Hey there, Jellie,” Ren coos, offering his fingers for her to sniff instead. When she doesn’t leave the chicken alone, he picks her up, one hand under her hind legs and the other supporting her chest.
For some reason, Scar’s smile grows strained.
“Jellie, you wanna come back to Scar?” he calls, arms outstretched. Jellie considers it, then presses herself closer to Ren, nose to his robes.
“Jellie?” Scar says again, and Ren notices that he sounds more than a little nervous, hat seeming to deflate. “Jellie, girl, c’mere!”
Ren’s not an idiot, and he can see that Scar isn’t happy about Jellie being in his arms. And he’s not the sort of guy to have a problem with that sort of thing—if Scar’s jealous about his cat’s affections, that isn’t Ren’s problem—so he turns back toward the door, intending to bend down and set Jellie on the floor.
There’s a crash behind him, and a frightened squawk—Ren turns back quickly to see that—what?
Scar’s thrown himself across the desk, arms outstretched, sending the chicken fluttering to the floor. Ren stares at him, frozen in place, as Scar stares back.
“Um,” Scar says, uncharacteristically lost for words. His face is red as a tomato, and even as Ren watches, he tries to cover it with his hands.
Ren sets Jellie down on the desk, and she squirms herself around Scar’s neck, settling onto his shoulders as he gets his wheelchair properly back under him. Ren moves around the desk to help, but Scar waves him back, so Ren dutifully returns to his place.
A couple more moments of adjustment, and Scar’s sitting up, smile back in place but utterly unconvincing. Ren picks up his hat from where it had fallen and hands it to him; Scar reinstates its place on his head.
“So—what were you here for?” Scar asks, trying for that suave sound of his. He doesn’t quite hit his mark—something seems seriously wrong, and Ren can’t quite put his finger on what. He’s not Boatem, so he’s not sure if it’s his place to ask after him—but Scar’s his friend.
“Scar, you’re seeming a little less than fabulous, my friend! Is there anything I can do to help?”
Scar’s face closes off completely, and Ren knows instantly that was the wrong move. He and Scar have always been good friends, but he’s nowhere as close with the guy as—say, Grian, or Cub. Maybe this issue isn’t something a good ol’ talk and hug with the Ren Diggety Dog can solve.
“I’m doing just wonderful, Ren,” Scar tells him, voice cool. “Now, I’m afraid we’ll have to wrap this deal up, because I do have other customers.”
Ren checks behind him just to make sure he’s not holding up a line. No one there. A chunk of the earth flies past the window. “Right,” he says.
Scar does happen to have what Ren needs—a tiny spacesuit just right for his chicken, by some odd chance. It’s pricey—Scar charges him half a stack of diamonds, and doesn’t even acknowledge the Derpcoin that Ren tries to pay with, so he forks over the diamonds (his wallet’s looking rather empty) and heads on his way, chicken under one arm and shopping bag under the other.
As soon as he’s out of the building, all the lights of the business go out and the sign on the door flips over to read ‘CLOSED’.
Scar’s behavior is still niggling at him, so he files it somewhere between ‘potatoes’ and ‘world-ending’ under ‘Things to Bring Up With Someone’ in his mind, then promptly forgets that the interaction was strange at all.
After all, he’s got quite a lot on his plate at the moment.
-
RTANGO
It’s a nice day to go strolling around the community area—beautiful weather, not too many folks around (the nice weather had inspired some of them Hermits to go scope out a megabase area), and some mostly-completed starter bases for Tango to ooh and ahh at.
And there are some really nice starter bases, too. Pearl’s whole alien motif is tons of fun, Grian’s Entity is disturbing, and Ren’s pie shop has some quality that makes it feel like home.
The best place in the Season Nine community area, though, is Scar’s tree.
Now, Scar’s known for tree masterpieces—and masterpieces of any kind, really—but this one is just beautiful. Tango has to stop and bask in its presence for a moment, gazing up at the twisting, graceful limbs of this glorious tree, leaves drooping to almost the ground. The smaller branches sway gently with the wind, and Tango realizes that he’s swaying as well, just some slow back-and-forth movements.
This really is the break he was needing. All that planning and prep for Decked Out has really been wearing him out, huh? To get out of the house, just hang out around some of the coolest starter bases he’s ever seen, breathe in the fresh, spring scent of Scar’s incredible creation? Perfect.
The moss sinks a bit under the weight of his feet, then springs back into place as he walks, which must mean that there’s quite a lot of moss here. Far more than Tango’s ever worked with, at least. He doesn’t usually focus too hard on the nature-y side of things, so he doesn’t know what the average amount of moss is. It’s nice to walk on, though.
In fact, it’s the satisfying feeling of the moss beneath him that keeps him walking around Scar’s tree (and the canopy is just so pretty to gaze up at) and leads him to a shop that he hadn’t known existed.
Scar’s started a mattress store.
Which is hilarious, given his current appearance.
Tango’s about to head in, check out the beds for sale, when a familiar snorting sound sends him leaping back, bow drawn and eyes darting around. There’s a ravager somewhere around here, and that could be a danger to the server if he doesn’t lead it out of the spawn town or take it out.
He doesn’t see it, though—he’s afraid it might be hiding behind some part of the tree, or even in the mattress store, which would be bad knowing Scar’s track record with deaths. A dangerous ravager is a ravager you don’t know where is, as Decked Out has taught many hermits. A visible ravager is dangerous too, to be fair, but Tango knows how to handle a ravager.
Still nothing. He scans the area repeatedly, and the closer he edges to the bed shop, the louder the sounds are. Is it really inside?
And then, by chance, he happens to glance up.
Tango can’t help the incredulous laughter that bursts from his mouth.
Scar has somehow managed to trap a ravager and use it as part of his sign. How he went about doing that? Tango has no clue. It’s very impressive, though.
He drops his bow and clambers up the very-climbable side of the shop, just to get a better look at the animal.
“Scar, you have outdone yourself,” Tango laughs, only to jump out of his skin when someone replies.
“Why, thank you! It was quite the hassle getting this big guy to cooperate.”
Tango whirls around, losing his grip on the side of the shop and falling to the ground—luckily only a few feet down, but he lands hard on his butt and the wind is entirely knocked out of him.
Scar giggles above him, then glides down to the ground beside him, shining long hair almost floating around him in a perfect breeze. “Hello there, Tango! How’s it going?”
“Not bad, not bad,” Tango manages after he gets his breath back. He gestures up at the ravager. “See you got a little beastie, yeah? How’d that work out?”
“Oh, isn’t he just beautiful?” Scar gazes up at the ravager, a crooked smile playing across his lips. “It was a lot of work, getting him up there. Cub had to come help out because of all the deaths it caused!”
“Oh, wow,” Tango says, more as something just to say rather than as a reaction to Scar dying multiple times, which is not noteworthy news whatsoever. The ravager even appears mostly unharmed, and the way it’s just sort of sitting there implies that it’s somewhat docile. Probably pretty easy to get it to behave with a lead on, but still eager to attack. A perfect fit for Decked Out, if he’s honest.
He had been having some vague Warden plans, but he’s also been preparing a section for ravagers. It would be nice just to have one, ready to go, even if he decides not to use it.
“You don’t happen to be interested in selling him, do you?” he asks, rubbing his back as he slowly gets up from the ground. Could have been a worse fall, if there hadn’t been so much moss. He should feel lucky he got away with only a bruised tailbone.
“Oh, no, this guy stays right here,” Scar says, unlocking his wheelchair and rolling past Tango, into the doorway of the shop. Wheelchair accessible, Tango notices vaguely. Just like all of Scar’s builds, he’s somehow made this tree entirely accessible. That only adds more magic to it.
“Right, right,” he replies, looking back up at the ravager. It snorts at him. “Oh, but you’re so busy with getting ready for your megabase, huh? Probably aren’t even checking this shop. Wouldn’t even notice if the ravager just wandered off.”
Scar doesn’t answer. That strikes Tango as weird, because no matter the situation, no matter how good it is, Scar always has a comeback. He’s the type of guy to need to have the last word, and it’s fun to see how far they can riff off each other before one of them just flies away, refusing to admit defeat.
But Scar says nothing, and when Tango looks back, he isn’t smiling.
Scar looks—and he’s probably misinterpreting the look, because Scar never really looks like that—Scar looks angry. Seriously angry, with a hint of something else in the glint of his eyes and the twist of his mouth.
Tango actually takes a step back, glances around behind him just to make sure Scar isn’t glaring at something else. He looks back—the anger on Scar’s face has cooled a little bit, but when the elf speaks, his words are clipped and his voice is tight.
“Tango, I would appreciate it if you left now.”
“Um, yeah, sure,” Tango is quick to say. He takes a couple of steps back, glancing behind him quickly to make sure he doesn’t trip on some tree root. “Good talk, buddy. Love the place. Gotta—gotta get back to planning, you know? See ya later, Scar!”
He trips his way out from under the huge leafy canopy of the base, only setting off a rocket once he’s totally clear of any branches.
That was weird, right? That was totally weird. Scar’s never been anything less than civil, and he very rarely gets legitimately mad. In fact, Tango can’t remember the last time he saw Scar mad about something. Sure, the guy gets frustrated sometimes, but he’s always careful to never take it out on anyone, and whenever Scar’s expressed the need to blow off some steam, he goes for a fly or builds a tree or something like that.
Not to mention how suddenly it had happened. He’d gone from joking and laughing to murder in seconds. Scar’s not usually a very intimidating Hermit, but Tango had certainly felt uncomfortable being glared at like that.
As he arrives back at his own starter base, Tango shakes himself. Scar is his friend, and probably just having a rough day. Maybe he had higher pain levels than normal today, or a build had turned out wonky, or something equally as annoying. Tango doesn’t really have any room to talk—he knows he’s hotheaded, it’s not his place to judge another Hermit for lashing out.
So Tango goes about his day, and by the next time he sees Scar, he’s completely forgotten the interaction even occurred.
-
GETHO
Etho takes a look around the little village he’d spent so long defending, then places the last thing he can carry into his donkey’s saddlebags. It’s officially time to head back to spawn and properly start his life here.
He thinks he’s right for setting out alone for a while. The others don’t really get it, but that’s not his problem. They just don’t understand how much he needs this, needs to start a new world the proper way.
He’s all kitted out, with a raid fought and several chests of supplies, which he thinks is pretty okay for how short a time he’s been here. At least, he won’t be completely embarrassed when he rejoins society.
The portal’s waiting for him, so he pushes the donkey in first and hops in afterward.
It’s not the longest walk through Tango’s awesome Nether hub to get to spawn, but long enough that he definitely starts to sweat through his layers. Traveling through the Nether is the only time he ever regrets his mask.
The bridge out to the spawn portal is thin and rickety, but the donkey is happy to follow Etho along such a treacherous path, and doesn't even make a noise of complaint when Etho shoves him through the portal.
Etho only takes a moment—the briefest of moments, really—to rest his forehead against the rough obsidian, always so cool even in the oppressive heat of the Nether. Then he steps through the portal himself, ready to lead the donkey to wherever he decides to set up and then make another trip through the Nether and back again to get what he’d left behind.
Only his plans are waylaid almost instantly, because when he appears in the overworld again, all he can hear is the pained braying of his donkey.
It’s stuck—spawning in hadn’t gone well for the poor beast, and during the transition between worlds it had reformed with the portal splitting it in half.
It doesn't have long to live, that’s clear—Etho, the swirling shapes of the portal still muddying his mind and throwing his balance, tries his best to pry apart solid stone, do something to save his donkey that he’d had for such a short time.
But the poor thing is only hanging on long enough to scream its torment, and Etho knows that there isn't much he can do at this point short of a mercy kill.
Which he does. He whispers an apology to the animal, draws his sword, and slices its head off. Within moments, the body has disappeared, blood vanishing with it. The saddlebag tumbles to the ground outside of the portal, tearing open and spilling its contents all over the place.
Etho sighs. Good thing he hadn't been too attached to the donkey. Now he just has to manage to pick up all of the stuff and carry it to who knows where, despite the fact that he's already loaded up his backpack and the saddlebag is broken.
“Whoever built this portal sucks,” he mutters, looking around for some trademark. It’s pretty or whatever, right beside some giant tree base—Bdubs, maybe? He'd talked about experimenting with trees this year. No, wait, Bdubs has his monolith thing he’d mentioned. Maybe Scar? Scar does love his custom trees.
A branch cracks above him. Etho’s head darts up—that had been too big a sound to be a bird. It had sounded like a person, if Etho knows anything about the average Hermit weight to accordingly measure a tripwire to. Also if he knows anything about tree branches. To be fair, he does know far more about one than the other, so he could be wrong.
Still, he decides to take his chances on this one.
“Hey, whoever’s up there—I could use a hand,” he calls, hands cupped around his mouth. “Or like. Another donkey. If you’re busy.”
Nothing. Etho waits, watching, before eventually turning back to his things. Maybe he can jury-rig the saddlebag and drag it along behind him like a sled?
Another creak above him, but when Etho looks up this time, it’s to the sound of fireworks and elytra taking off.
A shape speeds off into the air, managing to clear the canopy and vanishing into the air—but not before Etho catches a glimpse of a sparkling green robe and long, luscious hair.
Scar had been growing his hair out, hadn’t he?
Etho scoffs, kneels down to start picking up his stuff. Anybody with a shulker box would’ve helped, and surely Scar has a billion of them.
It is weird, though, that he’d just taken off. Even if he hadn’t been intending to help, Scar usually likes to chat with anything that’ll keep still long enough. Weird that he didn’t come down from the tree just to talk. Weird that he didn’t seem to want Etho to know he was there.
Not too weird, though. Scar’s a fairly unpredictable person, unless a capitalistic opportunity arises. And Etho doesn’t exactly have any diamonds to give up, so there’s no business to be had. Maybe Scar just hadn’t wanted to overwhelm him during his return to the server.
Still, it would’ve been nice to have some help, now that his donkey is dead.
-
+ HSCAR
Jellie’s missing.
Jellie’s missing and that’s totally okay, because sometimes she sleeps in weird places and Scar always manages to find her pretty quickly!
Last time she got lost, Cleo found her. She’d hopped off the back of the Swaggon and had run into Cleo’s place. He’d noticed almost instantly, thank goodness—there was no telling what might have happened if he hadn’t.
Now, though, she’s lost, and Scar’s been searching for hours and he can’t find her. He’s checked his terribly tempting bed, his bed shop, his entire tree starter base, the remains of his diamond tower, every single one of his chest monsters, and the beginning phases of his theme park. He’s wandered the areas and shops he frequents, clicking his tongue and calling out Jellie’s name, and yet he hasn’t even glimpsed her tail. It’s been an exhausting search, but he won’t stop.
Jellie’s missing, and it’s been long enough that Scar is starting to suspect foul play.
There was a time when Jellie would disappear and Scar wouldn’t worry too much. Back in Season Seven, particularly, when Jellie would spend hours at a time annoying Joe’s dogs and Scar couldn’t be bothered to lounge around in the area when he had mayoral duties to attend to.
Times are different, though. Now, Jellie stays in the tree—and if she leaves, Scar doesn’t let her out of his sight. He tries to take her on walks frequently, taking her to visit the theme park construction site (he’s given her the cutest little hardhat) and around the shopping district, but whenever he’s building or hanging out with the other Hermits, she stays inside.
Some of the Hermits have asked after her, lamented the fact that they never seem to see her around anymore.
And Scar just. . . .
He’s not afraid of his friends. He’s not afraid of Grian, or Cleo, or Tango. He really isn’t! But in Grian’s fun little Life adventures, there had been parts that were . . . less than fun. Parts that really changed the way Scar sees his fellow Hermits.
Apparently, none of them can be trusted around animals.
Which is fine! Everyone has their flaws and quirks, after all!
Well, it isn’t fine. Not anymore.
Because there’s a good list of people who have taken and killed his pets, and now Jellie’s missing and she’s been missing and they all seem to find great joy in tormenting him and his beloved animals. He doesn’t even know how to narrow down who it might have been. Anyone is suspect, whether they’d been on the Life servers or not, because stories of Pizza and the others might have spread around Hermitcraft and he just—
Scar’s communicator pings. Then again.
BdoubleO100: hey scar
BdoubleO100: meet me at moss shop for special deals!
A culprit. A very clear culprit.
Scar takes off instantly. Bdubs has never been trustworthy, has he? And now that he has that king bit with Ren—and Ren definitely isn’t safe—and he’s so close with Etho and Cleo—
He lands in the shopping district, retractable wheels popping out under him, and sets off for Bdubs’s moss shop. What will he have to pay for Jellie? He always has his shinies on him, but he’d just recently thrown all of his diamonds in the pit and he’s currently pretty broke.
He can imagine dire consequences.
His heart clenches—what will Bdubs do to her if he doesn’t have anything of worth to offer? What had Grian done to Yellow Snow—what had Cleo threatened of Pizza—
He’s sweating by the time he reaches Bdubs’s shop, the mossy man himself waiting outside. He waves to Scar, hopping up and down in some sort of deadly excitement. Scar swallows.
Maybe Scar’s getting a bit desperate. But he has nothing to offer, no way to sneak past Bdubs, and no way to get his Jellie back.
Aside from murder.
His bow is drawn in a matter of moments, string pulled back to his chin. Bdubs freezes, and when Scar hears a couple of gasps, he realizes that they aren’t alone. It’s the shopping district on a weekend, of course they aren’t alone.
A cursory glance shows him Cleo, Xisuma, Joe, Hypno, and Impulse. Likely others within the shops. More than likely—there’s Tango flying over from Pearl’s shop, and Grian walks out of Bdubs’s moss shop to find himself directly in Scar’s sightlines. Cautiously, Grian’s hands go up.
“Scar, what’s up?” Bdubs calls, clearly trying to play cool. Scar doesn’t buy it.
“Hand her over and nobody gets hurt,” Scar calls back. His voice definitely doesn’t quiver. His hands definitely don’t shake.
Bdubs exchanges a look with Grian. “Uh . . . what?”
Scar swallows a couple of times. Everyone in the area is gathering around, hoping for a show of some sort. Or—they’re all in on it.
Of course. Of course .
“Don’t play dumb with me, Bdubs!” Scar says. Bdubs is inching closer, one step at a time. “I know what’s going on here.”
In a sudden move, he swings around, pointing the bow at Xisuma, who hurriedly takes a step back. Cleo beside him takes a step forward, undeterred when Scar aims at her.
“Hey, bud,” she says, and it’s—it’s demeaning, it’s as if she’s trying to calm a wild horse—and he can hear her speaking in the same tone to Pizza as she tries to shove him through the world border—
“No no no, Cleo,” he laughs, a little wildly. “I know your part in this, of course I know it—nice Cleo, luring her away, well—I won’t have it!”
They frown at Joe, who is not-so-subtly pulling them back by the sleeve.
“Hey, Scar, what’s happening?” someone says behind him—Scar spins, slipping a bit in his chair. Cub is there, hands up placatingly.
He can—he can trust Cub, right? Cub would never—
Cub’s a vex, though, he—
“Stay away!” Scar growls, voice cracking. He gestures with his bow, and as indicated, Cub takes a few steps back.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, just checking in. What’s going on here?”
There’s more of them. There’s more of them here, more faces that he knows he can’t trust. Ren, sleeves of his sparkling cloak pushed back, his diamond glasses opaque in the sunlight. Pearl, looking as if she just woke up. Beef, a shulker box under one arm.
Too many people. So many here to see his weaknesses, so many who now know that a sure way to get anything they want from Scar is just to take away his beloved pets.
Sweat trickles down his back. His arms are properly shaking with the tension of holding his bow at full draw, but he can’t bear to let go. He can’t let his guard down.
“I know you have Jellie,” he tells Bdubs—and while he’s been distracted, Bdubs has gotten even closer. He glares at him. “Just give her back, and we can all just go about our days.”
“Scar, I—what? I don’t have Jellie!”
Scar snorts. “Right, yeah. Just hand her over, BdoubleO, right now.”
Bdubs spreads his hands, moss spores drifting off of him. “Honest, Scar. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would I have Jellie?”
Scar’s known Bdubs for a very long time, and he knows when he’s lying. The sudden stealth to his voice, the shifting of those big, beautiful eyes, the extra-waggliness of his eyebrows.
Bdubs’s face is open and honest, eyes wide and trained on Scar as he worries his bottom lip between his teeth. No deception there, unless Bdubs’s tells have changed significantly since Double Life.
“Scar, dude, you’re making a scene,” Cub says lowly, and Scar flexes his grip on the bow. He ought to have brought the compound bow rather than the recurve; a lower draw weight would be so much better on his back for such a sustained amount of time.
He doesn’t listen to Cub. Instead, he points his bow at the gathering crowd again. Xisuma, Tango, and Hypno all take a step back.
“Which one of you took her?” he demands. “Which one of you took Jellie?”
“Scar, no one took Jellie,” Grian insists. He glances around at the others. “Back me up, guys! None of us would do that.”
Everyone murmurs some answer in the affirmative.
Scar laughs, a bitter, tremulous sound. “Oh, right. None of you would do something like that. After all, it’s not like any of you have stolen my pets, ever!”
Blank stares and silence meet him. He points to Grian.
“ You killed Yellow Snow! You —” he points to Cleo— “stole Pizza! You —” to Tango— “and everyone else kept stealing my horse, and killing my pandas, and—I know it was one of you, and I’m sorry I’m just so easy to mess with, but I need Jellie back. Now .”
Without his permission, the string slides loose of his fingers. The arrow flies off with a twang! , between Cleo and Joe and into a tree behind them, who both stumble to the side.
Scar curses under his breath, shaking his hand out where the string had chafed his fingers. He just wants Jellie back. His heart utterly aches, there’s a lump in his throat, he wants her back so badly and no one is cooperating—
“Scar, I am so sorry,” says Grian, taking a step forward. Scar doesn’t look at him, instead wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “I can’t pretend I understand all that’s going on, but I promise if we’d known it was hurting you, we never would have done anything of the sort. Now—you said Jellie’s missing?”
Scar’s torn. He wants to believe Grian, he really wants to—but with Grian the way he is, he could easily be lying and Scar would never know it!
“We can help look for her,” Grian offers. Various hermits nod.
Either they genuinely think that Jellie is missing and not stolen, or all of the hermits are in on this elaborate ruse to keep her from him. Can he trust them? Or will this just end up worse for him?
His bow clatters to the road. Scar buries his face in his hands, trying to think. He needs Jellie. He quite desperately needs her, can’t even imagine life without her in it. And they’re offering to help find her.
“Okay,” he whispers, and all the fight leaves his body in one great exhale. He doesn’t trust them, he really doesn’t. But it’s worth the risk. If there’s the smallest chance that Jellie is actually okay, and just wandering somewhere, and they can find her? It’s worth it. “Okay,” he says again, louder, his voice ringingly dully through the shopping district. “You can help.”
He feels as though he’s given up. He feels as though he’s lost.
The hermits mobilize a search crew efficiently, and after gaining his weary permission, Cub pushes him into the shade of Bdubs’s moss shop, his arms too weak for him to want to push himself.
There he sits, watching lifelessly as hermits scurry to and fro, calling out to each other about how they can’t find her. He should be helping them, shouldn’t he? He just can’t bear to try when he’s already checked everywhere and he knows that one of them took her.
Right?
It’s reached a point where everybody’s involved. Usually, at this point of a prank, whoever the prankster is would confess.
Unless that person isn’t here.
A tear slides slowly down the side of his face. He just wants Jellie back. He’s so tired of this joke.
“Scar!”
Etho’s running towards him, and Scar flinches back—he killed the Jellie pandas, he set them on fire just to get a rise out of Scar—because in his arms—
In his arms is Jellie.
“Jellie!” Scar cries, his arms outstretched, and Etho stops short of his wheelchair, crouching to set Jellie on the ground. She hops up into Scar’s lap, submits to a tight hug without complaining.
Scar buries his face in her fur, wishing it was possible to just suck the tears right back into the tear ducts. She’s purring—she’s purring against him, and he’d just heard the sound last night as he fell asleep, Jellie curled up in bed beside him, but he’d missed it so much—
“Found her in your redstone shop,” Etho says, out of breath. “In the attic place, behind all the chests. Is everything cool?”
Scar can’t answer, just hugs Jellie a little closer. There are people celebrating, calling out to other members of the search party, and it’s all he can do to not flee, Jellie safe where she belongs and nowhere near anyone who might hurt her.
“I think,” says Joe awkwardly, once everyone’s back and congratulating the silent Scar, “that a new boundary needs to be set.”
-
One by one, all of his friends from the Life series came by to apologize to him—and he would have thought that someone made them, if they hadn’t all been so sincere. Ren had been uncommonly sober in personality, holding his shoulder gently and staring him in the eye while assuring him that it would never happen again. Tango and Etho had shown up together, sheepishly apologizing before asking clarifying questions to make sure they understood his new boundary. Cleo had awkwardly shifted from foot to foot, apology stilted and ungraceful, before handing him a half-off statue coupon good for the entire season.
And when has Scar ever been one to turn up free stuff?
Really, he feels better. Xisuma had made sure that the entire server knew that messing with his pets is a no-go, and instead of mocking him for it like Scar expected, everyone politely took it into consideration and moved on. Which is so much better than he could have ever hoped for—quiet acceptance, no big scenes about his embarrassing attachments.
So when Grian comes by last of all, Scar’s in a pretty good mood.
“Hey, G!” he beckons him over to where he’s trying out different tablecloths on Scarland’s Main Street. Grian, who had just landed on the road, jogs over.
“Hey, Scar,” Grian says, taking a seat at one of the tables. Scar instinctively scans the area for Jellie, finding her sleeping in the sun on a chest down the block. Not that he has to worry about that anymore. It’s just . . . old habits and all that.
“Can I talk to you?”
“I mean, you already are, but of course, Grian! What can I do for you on this fine day?”
Grian gestures for him to come closer, and Scar wheels up next to the table, ready to hear another apology. It surprises him, however, when Grian does not start the way he expected.
“I once pranked Tim,” Grian says, a fond smile spreading across his face. “It was a great prank, too—he thought he was finding my treasure room or something, but instead the whole thing was rigged to blow after leading him on a whole treasure hunt. He lost everything, it was hilarious.”
“I can imagine,” Scar supplies. And he can—Jimmy’s always fun to hang out with, and the guy loves playing up the dramatics.
“Yeah. Well, Jimmy was all cool with it, so I didn’t even think to ask about doing other stuff. Long story short, I destroyed their base—his and Martyn’s, that is—and didn’t even realize I’d crossed a line with it until Martyn tracked me down to chew me out.”
That’s—well, that’s out of character for the Grian that Scar knows. Even in the Life series, Grian had been hesitant to destroy bases, and when it occurred accidentally in Hermitcraft, he always did his best to fix his mistake.
Grian’s smile turns wry. “I didn’t think about anything other than having fun, you know? It was great fun for me to blow stuff up. But when Martyn told me about the work he and Timmy had put into their police station, and all of their possessions that had been lost and how hard it had been to get some of those things . . . I felt awful, Scar. I still do, and it was years ago.”
Grian goes quiet. Scar looks around—the sun is getting low, and he stifles a yawn. It’s been three days since the shopping district ordeal, and he still feels like he hasn’t regained his energy yet. Jellie doesn’t have a problem, of course—she sleeps half the day anyway, and Scar spending a bit more time in bed hasn’t exactly bothered her.
“I never wanted to make a mistake like that again,” Grian continues after a long moment. “But I’ve messed up pretty badly here. Scar, I noticed it was getting to you, but I assumed that you were playing it up for the bit. I should have asked if you were comfortable instead of continuing to escalate things. And—do you remember that day in Season Eight, with your company car? I knew something was off. I knew it. But I didn’t do anything about it.”
“Well, I never said anything either,” Scar protests, because there is no way Grian’s going to take all the blame for this. “I’m the one who overreacted, and then didn’t tell anyone about it!”
“It’s not an overreaction,” Grian says firmly. “Boundaries—boundaries aren’t overreactions, Scar, we all have them and we don’t need a reason. But I noticed that something was wrong, and I said nothing. At the very least I should have checked in. So, Scar—” he extends a hand, which Scar shakes, not sure what they’re shaking about— “I will always respect your boundaries going forward, no matter what. If I forget, please remind me. I never, ever want to hurt you. And I’m sorry, for the hurt I’ve caused already.”
Grian releases his hand.
“Y’know, handshakes always make me think of sealing a deal,” Scar mentions, voice almost a conspiratorial whisper. “And sealing deals makes me think of eating ice cream, for some reason! Wanna make it up to me by getting us ice cream?”
It is that easy, after all. Forgiveness is something that’s always come naturally to Scar—in his state of frenzied distress from a few days ago, he never would’ve trusted Grian to be telling the truth, but now all he sees is a reticent best friend who looks like he needs a bit of fun.
“Two ice creams, coming right up,” Grian laughs, before shooting into the air and flying off. Scar watches him go, off in the direction of all those rocks of his.
Others might hold on to the pain for longer. And sure, his throat still tightens if he imagines letting another hermit anywhere near Jellie.
But Scar knows his friends. He’s made plenty of mistakes, and they’ve always been quick to forgive. It isn’t hard to absolve the people he loves of such a simple misunderstanding. It isn’t hard to trust them, when they’ve always trusted him to respect their boundaries after misstepping.
Jellie chooses that moment to weave her way under his chair, meowing plaintively up at him. It’s just about dinnertime, isn’t it? Jellie’s such a smart girl, always knowing when it’s time for food!
But for the moment, Scar just lifts her up into his lap, giving her a little cuddle and kiss on the nose. She’s safe. She’s safe, and that’s never going to change.
And with his Hermits, Scar is safe too.