Chapter Text
Grian's ears were still ringing when he respawned, back at home. He closed his eyes, buried his face in his hands, and groaned.
“I'm so sorry, Scar,” he muttered to himself. He'd decided to go make an apology to the man himself as well, as he would also be waking up right about now. Grian opened his eyes-
And immediately noticed that he was not in his own base.
He sat up and looked around to get his bearings. He was lying in a soft green bed, in an organically-shaped room with walls of living wood and beautiful wood-carved furniture. Jellie was lying in a cat bed a few meters away.
Scar's base. Why on Earth am I in Scar's base? He thought. “Scar?” he called out, then cleared his throat, because his voice sounded incredibly hoarse. There was no response.
He got up to go find Scar, but barely made it two steps away from the bed before collapsing onto the floor. His legs felt like he'd walked a marathon. That was concerning; respawn pain wasn't supposed to be this intense, even after exiting a hardcore world, and he'd barely even hurt his legs when he died. His ears were the part that got hurt-- and they still did. He rubbed his ears, hoping to make the ringing stop. It didn't, but Grian noticed something else: his ears had pointy tips.
“Wait a second...” Grian suddenly had an idea of what might have happened. He hastily dug through his horribly unorganized inventory for something with a mirrored surface. He eventually found a hand mirror with golden decorations, which he'd never seen before, and looked into it. A scarred face with dark green eyes looked back at him.
“Oh no,” Grian said, in Scar's voice.
He was in Scar's body. That must be why his legs hurt so much, he realized. He looked around and quickly saw a cane carved from spruce wood leaning against a nightstand, with a large green crystal worked into the design. Grian grabbed it, and immediately felt the pain lessen; slowly, he stood up again. For a second he tried to rebalance with his wings, but of course they were gone now.
This was a very big problem; seemed like something had gone wrong separating his and Scar's soulbond. He should probably check how his own body was doing; he closed his eyes to Watch elsewhere--
And nothing happened. He just opened his two regular eyes again.
He sighed. “Right. Scar's not a watcher.” he'd have to go check things out the old-fashioned way, but before then, he decided to send a quick message to everyone online. He pulled out his chat; the device was colored cyan and orange.
Grian joined the game
GoodTimeWithScar joined the game
<Cubfan135> heyoo
<Zedaph> Hi there!
<GoodTimeWithScar> guys
<GoodTimeWithScar> there's a big problem
<Cubfan135> need some help, Scar?
<GoodTimeWithScar> not right now
<GoodTimeWithScar> but
<Grian> no im having the time fo my life lol
<GoodTimeWithScar> im not scar
Grian experienced kinetic energy
<GoodTimeWithScar> that is
Well, at least Grian's questions of what had happened to his body and Scar's soul were answered now. He decided to go find Scar, and see if he had any idea what to do now. He left Scar's treehouse, opened his elytra-- mechanical elytra, he'd have to get used to those again-- and took off.
He flew towards Scarland's main street at first, before realizing his mistake; he set his own spawn point at his own base, so that would be where Scar was. Sure enough, when he approached his base he also saw a figure with black-and-white wings circling around the rocks floating high in the sky. It was a surreal sight.
Grian ascended up to where Scar was flying around-- quite clumsily, he should add-- and called out to him: “Scar!” he landed on top of a rock, nearly losing his balance but regaining it by using Scar's cane. Scar, who had been singing to himself, looked in his direction.
“Flying around, so gracefully on the wings of a- WHAT IN THE WORLD!” Scar shouted, the sight of Grian spooking him so much he involuntarily flexed his wings, and he began to fall down.
Grian watched Scar plummet down and try to recover, frantically flapping the wings but not letting them catch any air, before eventually hitting one of the rocks floating lower down and dissolving into white smoke. Grian winced, and began gliding down again, towards his bed this time.
He touched down just in time to see himself rolling out of his own bed, visibly shaken. Scar looked in his direction and startled again, falling back onto the bed.
“That was hard to watch. Hello, Scar,” Grian said to him.
“I don't- who are you and how have you- wait.” Scar stammered, before stopping to think for a second.
“...Grian?” his expression on Grian's face was dumbfounded. I hope I don't look like this much of a loser when I'm myself, Grian thought to himself.
“Yeah. It seems we've done a bit of a switcheroo for some reason. What, did the wings not give that away to you?”
“Yeah, but I thought we'd just merged together for some reason! I didn't think you would be in my body!”
“And that didn't concern you for even a second?”
“No, I was having too much fun for that. Look, dude, I have wings now!” Scar said, and spread his wings out again.
“Yeah, I know, those are my-” Grian didn't finish his sentence, distracted by the sight of Scar jumping up and flapping the wings, not gaining any air at all, and faceplanting into the ground. He groaned.
“You just respawned. You have to give them a few minutes before they work again.”
“That's lame,” Scar said, sitting up. “Anyway, what should we do now?”
“I dunno. Maybe we should go check on some of the other people that've come back, see if they're- what's so funny?” Grian said to Scar, who was giggling.
Scar stifled his laughter, and waved his hand. “Nothing, nothing. Keep talking.” His smile looked very out of place on Grian's face.
“Right. So, check on the other peeps, or maybe we should talk to X and see if- why are you laughing?”
Scar's giggle had evolved into a full-on laugh now. “I'm sorry!” he said between wheezes, “It's just... I sound so stupid with a British accent.”
Then he added, doing a terrible imitation of Grian's accent: “'maybe we should go see X to-' see, I just sound normal now!”
Grian pursed his lips, then whacked Scar on the shoulder with his cane. He half-expected to feel the impact in his own shoulder as well, but fortunately that wasn't in effect anymore.
“Hey, back off!” Scar said in response. “You know, technically you're hitting yourself when you do that. Self-harm is very unhealthy, don't you know?”
“Oh- you're one to talk, mister powdered-snow-baths!” Grian responded. “Anyway, I think I'm going to go check on Tango and Etho now. You wanna come with, or...?”
“Okay!” Scar said, before standing up again. “Let's fly, bird boy! Wait, no I'm the bird boy now. Let's fly, elf boy!” With that, he spread his wings out once again, and successfully took off this time. Grian grabbed a firework rocket and followed suit.
“Remember, Scar, I'm using regular elytra now. So if you fall, I'm not gonna be able to catch you.”
“Oh, you think I'm gonna fall? Of course not, I am an expert at flying with wings now! Did you not see me practicing...” Scar's voice faded into the distance as he moved closer and closer to the ground, too distracted by talking to keep his altitude consistent.
Grian heard his own voice yelp from below, and burst out laughing. Server-moving bugs aside, it was nice to be flying again. It was good to be back.