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Scar watched as Grian circled around, landing much more gracefully than he had next to the Boatem Hole. He was always impressed by how graceful Grian seemed to be in the air. There were several experienced flyers on the server but only Grian truly managed to make the clumsy, unnatural movements of his elytra look elegant and fluid.
“Did you get the resources you needed?” he asked.
“I sure hope so,” Grian replied. He sounded exhausted.
“I bet, you were out there for ages.”
“Well, for some reason, I decided to use large amounts of concrete in my alley, and I couldn’t find any sand in my base, so it needed to be done.” He paused and stretched. “I’m really sorry Scar, I’d love to stay and talk, but my back is killing me.”
“Of course, go take care of yourself. A hot bath or something might help …” he tried to suggest, but Grian had already flown away. Now that he thought about it, this wasn’t the first time Grian had mentioned his back hurting. He had been building and resource-gathering a lot recently, but that amount of pain seemed a bit excessive.
you whisper to Grian: hey grian, you might want to take a rest for a few days, give your back a bit of a break
Grian whispers to you: what?
you whisper to Grian: youve mentioned your back hurting a lot recently, you might want to give it a break
Grian whispers to you: ok, ill try. thanks scar!
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Grian sighed in relief as he stepped into his base, finally releasing the glamor that made his wings look more like a standard elytra. He stretched them out and shook the feathers aggressively. He hated gathering sand. It was always too hot, it took ages to get enough, and the sand always got into every corner of his wings. He couldn’t even fully pull them away from the sand while he was gathering it, too afraid that another hermit would come to the same desert and see him.
It wasn’t like he thought that the other hermits would be mad if they knew he had wings, if they knew that he had once been a Watcher. He had just kept it as a secret for so long that it felt silly to stop now. When he first joined the server, he had just escaped from the Watchers, and he didn’t want the constant reminder of the changes that they made to him. So, he had hidden his wings, first bound tight beneath large sweaters, and then disguised as elytra wings later on in the season when those became more common. Now, it would be too difficult to explain the wings without also explaining the Watchers, and while the hermits were fairly accepting, he thought it would be a bit much to learn that their servermate was also a Watcher, one of the most powerful, and most feared, entities to exist.
So, he struggled to preen his wings himself, twisting over his shoulder to try to get out as much of the sand as he could. If only he was good at redstone, he thought. Maybe he could have built a machine that would have helped. Or, he could ask Mumbo to help him. But you can’t ask him, Grian reminded himself. Mumbo doesn’t know. Because if he did know, he would probably do something ridiculous, like offer to help preen Grian’s wings himself. Grian ignored how his wings fluttered at the thought of someone else helping him preen. No one knew about the wings and he wasn’t going to tell anyone so it wasn’t going to happen.
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Everything was going well. Grian had been able to avoid Scar for the past few weeks, and while his back had been hurting, no one had seemed to notice. He had been working with Xisuma to plan and code Double Life, and he was excited to see some of his friends that weren’t on Hermitcraft. He pushed away the lingering fear that always accompanied the games. They were just that, games. The Watchers wouldn’t dare push them much further. As long as he had a good partner, he was confident that everything would go very well.
Unfortunately, things did not go to plan. Whether it was purposeful or not, the Watchers had partnered him with Scar, the one person who he had really hoped to avoid. While Jimmy might be known for dying soon, he would not be paying as much attention to any of Grian’s various wing-related pains as Scar would.
Fortunately, that didn’t seem like it would be a problem. He spent the first week following Scar around as he chased after Allays and Jellie Pandas, trying to create a base before the server got too dangerous. He watched as Scar instead worked on a sanctuary for the pandas, not even acknowledging that they were soulbound. That affected him more than he expected. Especially when heightened by his avian instincts, he found that the soulbond was more than just the sharing of his partner’s pain or injuries. It made him want to stay close to Scar, to take care of him and protect him. It made him wish for the same from Scar. But the other man either didn’t notice or didn’t care about those instincts.
While his soulbound was both better and worse than he had expected, his wings were still a problem. No elytras were available in the Life Games as they never had a portal within the borders of the world, so Grian didn’t have that option for disguising his wings. Instead, he had to resort to his previous methods of tying them closely and hiding them under his clothes. It was incredibly uncomfortable and slightly painful, but it worked well enough. The only time it would be a problem was if someone attacked him from the back and seriously damaged his wings, but so far he had been able to avoid that issue, although respawning without any kind of preening did seem to irritate his wings anyway. There was also the possibility that Scar would feel the pain, but again, he didn’t even seem to recognize the soulbound so that likely wouldn’t be a problem. Grian just hoped that things didn’t change too much for the rest of the game.
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Scar knew that Grian was hiding something. Even on Hermitcraft, he had never been as closed off as he was now, and Scar couldn’t figure out why. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that it had taken him the entirety of the first week to figure out that Grian was his soulmate. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t noticed, especially with how much time they had spent together. But, there wasn’t anything he could do about it now, and he was trying to be a good soulbound. It was hard though, when Grian kept pushing him away.
It seemed like Grian was upset by more than just Scar’s obliviousness during the first week. While it wasn’t his best trait, it was one that his friends were well aware of, and they had always been understanding. This felt like more than just simple annoyance. Grian was more on edge than Scar was used to, even after partnering with him in Third Life. Scar had hoped that building the Jellie Sanctuary would give him a place to relax among the usual chaos of the server. Instead, it just seemed to make him more annoyed.
It hurt that Grian thought Scar would hold him back, that Scar wasn’t capable of holding his own during these games. He realized that the Jellie Sanctuary wasn’t the most realistic of things to build during a death game, but all he had wanted to do was to create something peaceful for his partner, his soulbound. Scar didn’t understand how Grian couldn’t see that.
So, he pushed a little harder than he normally would. Grian had just finished building their base, a large structure that reminded Scar of a cake, just a little more deadly. He could tell that Grian’s back was killing him, and it was making it hard for Scar to work as well. It seemed that Grian had not taken his advice to get some rest back on Hermitcraft and they were both paying the price for it now.
“Grian, you know I can feel how much your back hurts, right?” He said as they ate a simple dinner together.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Grian immediately closed off, his peaceful, happy expression turning stony.
“Grian, please. Don’t lie to me, not when I can feel it.” He already felt like he was being rejected by his soulbound, having him lie to his face as well was almost unbearable.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” At least he admitted that there was something.
“Grian, this is hurting me too. Please at least tell me there’s something I could do to help?”
“No, Scar. I already said I don’t want to talk about it. Just leave me alone.” Grian stood sharply, setting his plate down in the kitchen and walking out the door. Scar watched him leave, sitting alone at the table. He missed Mumbo.
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When he thought about it later, Grian wasn’t sure exactly why he had started the whole “secret soulmate” thing with BigB. Maybe it was jealousy, that Scar still didn’t seem to care about their bond, maybe it was retaliation for the times Scar tried to push too far into personal matters like his back (his wings).
It was nice though, to have a soulmate that didn’t question him about his health, that actually seemed to want to be with him. It didn’t last long though. BigB and Ren turned Red, and all alliances with them were broken. Also, it seemed that Scar had found out about the arrangement. That conversation had been almost worse than the one about his back. He hated betraying Scar like that. He hated that they couldn’t just be happy together, like Impulse and Bdubs or Tango and Jimmy. Even Cleo and Scott seemed happy together, even though their respective soulbounds were not.
“Grian, please.” Scar asked him again. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Just leave it be Scar! Go play with your pandas or something.” Grian hated the look that came over Scar’s face when he said that. It was pain, anger, something like despair.
“Fine, Grian. If that’s what you really want.”
He had gone too far, much too far, but it was for the best. If he pushed Scar far enough away he would stop asking questions. Even if Grian wanted to tell Scar about his wings, his past, the Life Games were the worst possible place to do that. How could he explain to Scar that he had been taken and changed by the beings that created these games, that they had wanted to make him one of them.
He would always be tied to the Watchers, the beings that were killing all of his friends and setting them against each other in an inescapable loop of death and destruction. There was no way that he could tell Scar about that.
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Scar considered leaving for good. He really did, going to visit Pearl again and even giving in to her suggestion to use the powdered snow. But he couldn’t do it. He would always come back to Grian, he couldn’t help it at this point.
It still hurt that Grian didn’t trust him. He kept refusing to tell Scar what was going on, even though both of them could feel the slow increase of pain on his back. He still didn’t trust Scar to not die either, even after Scar managed to save himself when jumping down to save the Jellie pandas. They were the last greens left on the server, and Grian still didn’t seem to trust him to stay alive.
Then, they were on the run from the reds, chased all around the server, and Scar eventually died in a pit of zombies. They died again shortly after, and it truly was Scar’s mistake this time. He had been too distracted to pay attention to the obvious trap, and was blown up.
He and Grian had been pushed together by the chaos, but Scar still couldn’t figure out what was going on with him. It was obvious that the deaths took a toll on him, but he didn’t know why. Usually, respawning would help with any aches or pains from other injuries, but the pain in his back just seemed to get worse.
It was only when he visited the ruins of their base that he got a clue as to why. Among the burned wood and fallen dripstone that was all that was left of their home, there were a few parrot colored feathers. No one he knew on the server had wings of that color, or would have dropped a feather there. It explained the back pain quite well, especially if Grian had been hiding the wings this whole time.
Unfortunately, when Scar tried to confront Grian about it in the Ancient City, they were distracted by the wardens coming closer, and then Grian went off with a plan to bring the wardens up to the surface again. Then, before he knew it, both of them were dead, Grian hit by a blast from a Warden.
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God, that hurt. Respawning back in Hermitcraft was always bad, but the warden’s blast to his back had caused an as of yet undetermined amount of damage to his wings, and of course that was the one thing that respawning never healed. He wanted to stretch them out, they probably needed a preen, but he needed to at least check in with Scar before he came to find him.
Scar was fairly easy to find, sitting just outside the entrance to his Swaggon.
“Grian!” Scar looked happier to see him than Grian would have expected.
“I’m sorry, Scar.”
“For what, Grian?” Scar looked surprised.
“For killing us! It was my fault we died. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, right. It’s okay, I’m not mad.” Scar smiled at him, and Grian was surprised by how relieved he was. Even when they weren’t bonded by game mechanics, Grian cared for Scar more than he wanted to admit. “Oh, Grian! I had something I wanted to ask you, but we didn’t have time before the game ended. Is this yours?”
Scar was holding out a feather. One of his feathers. Grian couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
“Grian?” Scar looked like he already knew. Scar already knew.
“Nope, sorry, not mine.” Grian faked a laugh, trying to hide his panic. “Sorry Scar, have to go.” He flew off quickly, forgetting to use a rocket in his panic. What was the point, if Scar already knew. Shit. Scar knew.
He barely remembered flying back to his alley, finding a hidden spot on top of one of the roofs. No one would be able to find him here.
How had Scar found the feather? He must already know it was Grian’s, he wouldn’t have asked otherwise. How long had he known? Grian didn’t realize he was hyperventilating until his vision started going fuzzy. He tried to calm it down, if he died then his friends would know something was wrong, they might try to come find him. What would he do? He couldn’t hide from Scar forever. He couldn’t breathe. What was he going to do? He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think besides the panic, couldn’t do anything.
Grian suffocated
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That didn’t go as well as Scar wanted. He already knew the feather was Grian’s, but the way he reacted confirmed it. He didn’t think that Grian would panic so much though.
you whisper to Grian: Grian? Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out.
you whisper to Grian: You alright?
you whisper to Grian: Grian?
you whisper to Grian: Grian, please respond, im getting worried
you whisper to Grian: I’m going to get mumbo
“Mumboo,” Scar yelled, almost crashing into Mumbo’s base.
“Hey Scar, how are you? I didn’t realize you were back from Double Life already, I must have missed the notification.”
“Mumbo, have you seen Grian?”
“What?”
“Have you seen Grian”
“No, I don’t think I have, why?”
“Dang it. I think I freaked him out asking him something, and now he’s disappeared and isn’t responding to any of my messages. Can you come help me find him?”
Mambo seemed confused, but he also seemed to recognize Scar’s urgency. “Okay. We should probably start at his alley, there’s more places for him to hide in there, or he might have just gotten distracted.”
Scar appreciated Mumbo’s attempts to calm him down, but he couldn’t help feeling like something was seriously wrong. Just that moment, both his and Mumbo’s communicators pinged.
Grian suffocated
“Oh no,” Mumbo said softly.
Scar left without a word, Mumbo following close behind him. Grian would be in the alley now, but they would have to be careful not to scare him further.
When they arrived in the alley, they didn’t see him at first, but then Mumbo spotted him, curled up on the ground beside his bed. He was definitely still freaking out, shallow breaths coming quickly, and his whole body was shaking.
“Hey, Grian,” Scar whispered softly, crouching down beside him. Grian didn’t respond, still curled up tightly. “I haven’t been with him while he’s having a panic attack before, do you know if it’s okay to touch him?” he asked, looking back up at Mumbo.
“No, that just usually freaks him out more, unless he says it’s okay.”
“Hey, Grian,” Scar repeated, a little louder but still keeping his voice soft. “It’s Scar and Mumbo. It’s okay, no one is going to hurt you. You’re safe. It’s okay.”
Scar kept repeating the phrases, pausing every so often to ask if Grian could respond. He sat close to him, near enough that he could comfort Grian if he needed it but not so close that he would feel trapped. Mumbo sat down nearby as well.
Finally, Grian’s breaths started to slow down. “Scar?” he whispered, voice shaking.
“I’m here Grian, you’re okay. Can you try to take some more breaths for me now?”
“I can’t”
“Hey, it’s alright. You’re okay.” Scar looked to Mumbo for help, grateful when he stepped in.
“Grian? I want you to try to copy me” Mumbo took a slow, exaggerated breath. He held out his arm to Grian as well. “Here, feel my pulse and try to match yours with mine.”
Grian uncurled a little, reaching out to grab Mumbo’s wrist. His breaths slowed noticeably as he focused on the heartbeats.
“That’s it Grian, you’re doing great.” Scar felt a little helpless, just sitting there and watching, but it seemed like his words at least weren’t making anything worse.
“I’m okay now,” Grian said after a few minutes. “Thank you guys, you can leave now.”
“What?” Scar asked. “We’re not just going to leave you here alone.”
“I think Scar has a better idea of what is going on than I do, but I definitely agree. You haven’t had a panic attack that bad in years, I don’t think that being by yourself is a good idea right now.” Mumbo stayed where he was, sitting across from Grian on the bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
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Scar already knew, Grian thought. What would it matter if Mumbo knew as well.
“Scar, do you want to tell him?” He asked. It would be easier if Scar could explain at least some of it.
“I don’t really know that much.” Scar looked hesitant. Grian just looked at him expectantly. “Alright, well. Where do I start?”
Scar searched around in the pockets of his suit, pulling out the feather and fiddling with it between his fingers.
“I had been worried about Grian for a while, when he kept seeming really tired and complaining that his back hurt. Then, we were partnered together in Double Life, and I could feel his pain.”
“You could feel his pain?” Mumbo interrupted.
Right. Grian had forgotten that they still hadn’t explained what happened in Double Life to Mumbo. “It was part of the mechanics of the game.”
“Oh,” Mumbo said eloquently.
“We can explain it to you later,” Scar said. “The only thing that you need to know now is that in Double Life, we were all tied to another person. We could feel their pain, and if they died, we would die, and vice versa. So, I could feel how much Grian’s back was hurting, but he wouldn’t explain to me why.” Grian could tell that Scar was still hurt by that, but he pushed past it impressively well.
“Then, our base was burned down near the end, and I found this in the remains.” Scar held up the feather. “It couldn’t belong to anyone else on the server, and it was a good explanation for why Grian’s back hurt so much.”
Oh. That was how Scar had found out. He had wondered where Scar had gotten the feather. He had been so careful on the rest of the server, but he had given himself a little more safety to stretch his wings occasionally in the relative safety of their base.
Mumbo just looked surprised. “You mean that Grian has feathers?”
“Not just that, Mumbo.” Grian laughed a little. “I have wings.” There. He had said it.
“Wait, what?” Mumbo spluttered a little, but Scar leaned forward curiously.
“How are you hiding them, Grian? Can we see them?”
Grian ignored the second part of Scar’s question. “I can use glamour to make them look like an elytra.”
“Okay, but how did you hide them on the life servers?” Mumbo seemed to finally have gotten over his surprise enough to start asking questions as well. Great.
“They were tied up under my clothes.” He really hoped that his friends wouldn’t freak out about that. He didn’t know how much they actually knew about avians.
“What!”
“Grian, please tell us that you have not actually been tying up your wings for the last few months.”
Shoot. “I took them out a few times, when it was safe,” he tried.
“A few times! Of course your back hurt so much. Grian, you shouldn’t do that!”
“It’s not like I could just leave them out during a death game, Scar. I had to hide them somehow, and that’s the best way. I can handle the pain.”
While Grian argued with Scar, Mumbo was looking at him intently. “There’s more, isn’t there.”
This is exactly why he didn’t want to tell them. Scar had stopped scolding him and was now waiting expectantly alongside Mumbo.
He sighed. “No, that’s not all.”
“What is it then?” Scar looked like he had wanted to wait, but was too curious to stop his question.
“You know how I said I can change how my wings look? That’s not a normal avian thing.” He paused, trying to gauge his friends’ reactions. Mumbo looked like he was putting together some of the pieces from what Grian had told him about his past.
“It was the Watchers, wasn’t it. You didn’t have wings before.”
Scar just looked confused, but Grian nodded softly. “They changed me, tried to make me one of them. In some ways, they succeeded.”
“Oh, Grian.” Mumbo pulled him close and Grian went willingly, curling into his side.
“You’re a Watcher?” Scar asked carefully.
“No!” Grian stiffened in Mumbo’s arms. “Never.”
“But you have wings because of them.”
Grian nodded.
“Ok.” He stopped asking questions then, much to Grian’s relief. He was so tired, from the games and the panic attack and the conversation. Mumbo’s hand in his hair was comforting and before he knew it, Grian was asleep.
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While he slept, Scar and Mumbo continued to talk softly. Mumbo explained the Watchers to Scar, who had only heard of them in brief mentions or stories. Scar explained the events of Double Life, both the mechanics and what happened during the game.
When Grian woke, he seemed much better. The dark circles that had lived under his eyes during the game had lightened and some of the tension that he always seemed to carry had fallen away. Scar really didn’t want to disturb the peace that had settled between the three of them, but he was really curious (and slightly worried.)
“Grian, could we see your wings?”
“Oh, right.” Grian seemed hesitant.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to, I was just wondering.”
“No, it’s alright. I’ve already told you guys all about them, it won’t hurt if you see them as well.” Grian pulled off the sweater he was wearing, leaving him in his undershirt. When he turned around, Scar could see the straps pulling Grian’s wings close to his back. Even tied up, the wings were big. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed them earlier.
Then, Grian tugged at the straps, releasing his wings and stretching them out. They looked terrible. Scar hated that that was his first thought, but they really did look rough. The feathers were every which way and they looked almost caked in dirt and sand and god knows what else.
“Oh, Grian,” Mumbo said. “How long has it been since someone preened your wings?”
Grian froze at that, and Scar had a terrible thought. “Grian, please tell me that you had someone preen your wings? Even if you hadn’t told us?”
Grian’s silence told him everything he needed to know.
“Will you let us help you?” Mumbo asked softly.
“Do you know how?”
“I think we can figure it out, right Mumbo?”
Grian hesitated. “Okay,” he said eventually. “Just be careful. Also, we should probably go somewhere else. I have a better space in my starter house.”
“Alright, let’s go then.”
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Grian took them to a room he had hidden in his house when they started the season. He didn’t have to use it much, it wasn’t often that his wings needed a full preening and otherwise he could just do it in his bathroom. This room however was set up with plenty of space and had all the supplies he needed to fully clean his wings, as well as a small bathroom if they needed to be rinsed.
When they got there he pulled out a towel and sat on it in the middle of the room, spreading his wings out behind him. He tried to ignore the shiver he got when he thought about the fact that finally, finally, he would have someone, multiple people even, helping him with his wings.
Mumbo and Scar started to come around to sit in front of him, but he gestured for them to sit behind him instead. “You can’t help me from there.”
“Oh, right,” Mumbo laughed nervously.
“Don’t worry, it’s pretty easy,” he told them. “I would just start by brushing the dirt and stuff off, and then just make sure all of the feathers are straight and pull out any that are really loose.”
“Pull them out?” Scar asked. “Won’t that hurt you?”
“No, if they are really loose then they're just going to fall out anyway, it’s easier if you just get them now.” His wings fluttered a little bit, betraying his impatience. He had gone so long without ever having someone preen his wings, he couldn’t be blamed for being a little excited now.
Scar and Mumbo each took a side, slowly and gently starting to clean off his wings. Grian wanted to tell them that they didn’t need to treat him like glass, but it felt so nice, almost like someone gently playing with his hair. With every piece of dirt that came off, his wings felt so much lighter.
Even with how nice it felt, Grian was surprised when he let out a small chirp. The hands in his wings stopped moving.
“Did you just chirp?”
“I thought you weren’t actually an avian?”
Scar and Mumbo asked at the same time.
“I … don’t know? Don’t stop though, it feels nice.”
Scar and Mumbo continued, still being gentle but it was obvious that they were becoming more confident as time went on. Grian tried to hold back the small noises he was making, but it was difficult and eventually Scar and Mumbo told him to stop trying.
“We don’t mind Grian,” Scar said gently. “It just tells us that you’re happy.”
Eventually the cleaning turned more to petting, and even though Grian had fallen asleep earlier, he was still tired. The hands in his feathers were very soothing, and it made some buried part of his brain feel so much safer and relaxed. He fought to stay awake, but it was a losing battle, and he eventually slumped forward onto Scar, who had moved to sit closer to him.
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“Did he fall asleep again?” Mumbo whispered.
“I think so,” Scar whispered back, just as soft.
“Should we get him to bed? I imagine he’ll still be pretty tired. It’s only been a little bit since you guys got back from the game.”
“Yeah, sure.” Scar moved to help pick Grian up. Together, they carried Grian to his bedroom, Scar curling up beside him once they had gotten him settled. Mumbo still stood hesitantly beside the bed.
“Come on Mumbo, the bed is large enough, I don’t think it would be good to leave him here to wake up alone.” Mumbo sighed, but crawled under the covers as well.
They both still had questions, and Grian would still be anxious in the morning, and they would have to figure out how to tell the other hermits, but for now, the three of them were content just to sleep together. They could deal with all of that in the morning.