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The sun seems to rise earlier in the desert.
Logically thinking, it probably has something to do with the colour of the sand, muted cream almost to the point of being white, and how easily it reflects the light. Grian has always risen with the sun, waking just as the first rays spill over the horizon, not moving but tracking her ascent with his eyes. Scar sleeps soundly for the few hours it takes the darkness to fade into oranges and pinks, and then further to the azure blue of the near-constant clear sky of the desert. Once Grian can take his eyes off the journey of the sun, he finds himself watching the rise and fall of Scar’s chest, an unknown emotion broiling deep in his gut.
There is a point at which the sun filters through their barred windows and casts her beam directly onto Scar’s face, and it is then he will stir, rolling over and mumbling under his breath. His hand will search for Grian amongst the blankets they share, and Grian will lean closer and chuckle at him–teasingly calling him clingy or lightly flicking his forehead despite how he leans into Scar’s touch. By the time Scar has opened his now red eyes and disentangled their legs to sit on the edge of their bed, blearily rubbing at his face and reaching for his cane, Grian has taken the emotion swirling in his gut and let it fade into something that lingers in the back of his mind instead of weighing him down, unable to move. Scar will turn around and poke at Grian’s wings, careful to avoid the harsh edges where his primary flight feathers have been clipped by the rules of the server, and make an idle comment on what they should eat.
There is an irony in their domesticity. For the first few hours of the day, surrounded by nothing but sand and cacti for miles, they feel far from danger. It is easy to forget the blood on their hands and the looming threat hanging over their heads, instead focusing on meal prep and household chores. Scar is mostly banned from the kitchen after a close call involving an unplanned late-night snack and knives, though he can busy himself with other things–on this particular morning he is harvesting some wheat to feed Pizza. They can pretend the bunker they made about a mile to the east, surrounded by bubbling lava and built to protect and kill, doesn’t exist, and that the sandy banks that surround the area are not rigged to explode. That the red of Scar’s eyes doesn’t spell certain doom. For now, Grian needs to focus on stirring the gruel to make sure it doesn’t stick to the sides of the pot.
Scott and Jimmy come to them when the sun has set. The moon casts a ghastly light over the treeline, soaking the entire desert in pale light. There is a thick tension in the air, but even now none of them can truly acknowledge their fate. They briefly go over a plan, and Grian warns them of the TNT that sits under the very sand they stand on, but it doesn’t take long for someone to suggest grabbing a snack. They spend most of the night sitting around a fire, acting like the world will not end in the morning. None of them sleep, simply chatting like old friends for hours.
-
The morning brings reality crashing down on them. It’s Martyn they see first, standing just beyond the treeline atop a hill. Etho and Ren are flanking him, moving fast and all three are sharing an expression of grim determination. Grian ignores the panic in his chest and turns before he can see more breach the treeline, calling out to Scar and pretending his voice doesn’t catch in his throat.
“Scar, get in the bunker!” he yells, motioning with shaky hands, “Get in the bunker now!” Scar, of course, moves immediately to throw himself inside and stand over the doomsday button, as planned. Grian watches him go and feels a part of him relax, knowing that at least Scar will be safe, locked away behind layers of defences. The relief doesn’t calm him much, hands still sweaty and shaking where he grips his sword, but Scar’s eyes peering through the small gap made for shooting out of, expression focused, do soothe him somewhat. He can imagine the rest of Scar’s face easily–his nose is probably scrunched up as he stares at the approaching forces, and he’s most likely sticking his tongue out in his concentration. The familiarity centres Grian, and he is able to turn back and face Ren’s forces–now a lot closer, charging across the sand–with his teeth bared and wings arching high behind him. A shrill noise rattles in his throat and he aches to take off, to throw himself high into the sky where he has the advantage, but instead, he shakes his dark chestnut feathers in an imitation of a wild animal and pulls out his bow.
They are still too far for truly accurate shooting, and it’s not like either he or Scott are the best archers out there, but he cannot bring himself to simply stand and wait for the arrival of Dogwarts. He watches them with one eye closed, bowstring pulled taught and pressed against the skin of his jaw just under his ear. A moment passes and he exhales, releasing the arrow as the breath leaves his lungs. It soars high, arching in the sky, and Grian watches as it descends and strikes Martyn’s arm. It’s his non-dominant side, and with their distance by the time they are fighting melee he will surely have eaten and mostly healed the wound–but Grian lets himself feel victorious for only a second before raising his bow once more.
Their fight remains long-distance for a while, both sides feeling out their opponents from afar while trying to do as much damage as possible with their bows. Grian can tell the members of Dogwarts are wary of traps hidden in the sand with how they stay spread out, moving quickly but not getting closer until Ren signals for their final approach. Scott tenses next to him and glances back at the bunker, where Scar and Jimmy wait with bated breath. Ren’s voice pierces the normally quiet desert, loud and calling for his people to attack, and Grian quickly tucks his bow away and brings his sword forward from his inventory, just in time to deflect a harsh head-on attack from Ren with a grunt. Ren is yelling, his words laced with a low growl deep in his throat and he strikes again, this time catching Grian’s upper arm with a quick slash. The enchantments on the blade are powerful–Grian feels his skin burn and sizzle at the point of contact, a tell-tale sign of fire aspect, and throws himself away with a twist of his wings just as Ren also falls back somewhat, seemingly not having meant to have come so far from his group.
Grian’s skin is still painfully hot when he turns his head slightly, meaning to make some kind of motion to Scar and instead watching as Scott stumbles over his feet slightly, an arrow having landed with a thud in the back of his calf. His face twists in agony and then another arrow sinks into the flesh of his back with enough power to poke through the other side. Blood erupts from his mouth and his eyes are wide with pain and fear, and he tries to speak but there’s too much blood in his mouth so all that escapes is a haunting gargle that cannot be heard over the yells of Dogwarts and then–
Scott keels over with a pained groan, and the moment he comes into contact with the floor explodes into nothingness. Grian’s communicator buzzes in his pockets but he ignores it, staring at the bloodied sand and littered belongings and letting his voice carry over the cheerful celebrations of their enemies. Dogwarts have grown closer, cocky with the kill under their belt and completely unaware of the danger lingering under the sand. Grian’s words don’t seem to register to any of them, all too deep in the joy of a kill, congratulating Etho for his aim, so they don’t hear him shout to pull the lever.
They don’t even hear the hiss of the TNT.
With a deafening roar, the desert is ablaze. All of Dogwarts scream in surprise as the force of the explosion pushes them forward and rains debris down on them–Grian too is sent careening back, wings instinctually flaring to help him keep his balance. The sand has been blown away, large ugly craters carved deep into the desert dunes, and Grian scans their enemies’ injuries with scrutinizing eyes. Skizzleman seems to be the worst off, having been closest to the explosions, but even then the resulting wounds are disappointing: blood drips down his face from a wound hidden by his hair, and his arms are littered with the beginnings of some nasty-looking burns and bruises, but he’s standing, and clearly still able to fight–Grian can’t help but feel despair creeping at his chest at the realisation. Their trap, the stacks upon stacks of TNT under the sand, somehow didn’t kill a single person. It barely did more than inflict surface-level damage, a minor concussion from flying pieces of debris probably being the only injury inflicted that would take longer than an hour to heal.
Grian himself is low on health, blood sluggishly oozing from a wound on his upper arm. He won’t be able to move it much without healing up a little, but he ignores the flare of pain in his shoulder and lunges at Ren, who was sent careening toward Grian by the explosion. He’s able to land a few good hits on the dazed leader before Martyn screeches and all but throws himself between the two, pulling a bucket from his inventory and throwing the contents over Grian–mostly water but also a greatly agitated pufferfish, which Grian fails to avoid as he shoves food in his mouth in a weak attempt at healing. The fish’s spikes only graze his skin before he leaps away but it’s enough for the poison to work its way into his blood and he trips, Martyn still hot on his tail.
He catches himself before he sprawls on the ground but only just, health regenerating and depleting simultaneously as his full hunger combats the poison’s effects. He’s somehow behind the bunker now; he dodges a swing of Martyn’s sword with a brisk sidestep and promptly feels the sand beneath his feet shift. Martyn quickly jumps away at the movement but Grian is still disorientated from the poison in his system, and cannot react fast enough. For a second he’s weightless, wings arched in a pitiful attempt at stopping his descent and then–burning. He falls the short distance into the lava hidden away beneath the sand and cries out, the molten liquid only coming up to his knees yet leaving his mind reeling as the feeling of his skin sizzling and the fabric of his clothes melting into flesh courses through him. The water from Martyn’s pufferfish attack has leaked into the moat slightly and created a small cobbled corner where it met the lava, and Grian forces his legs to move him toward it with a pained cry.
It only takes a second to reach the corner and he drags himself up, heaving and resisting the urge to vomit. Somehow his legs seem still able to hold his weight, and for his injuries, he doesn’t feel all too much pain, but just the sight of his legs has bile rising in his throat. They don’t look real, the skin almost leathery, all clothing below his knees gone. Blisters have already formed higher up his legs, where his trousers are singed but still intact.
A call from Scar has his eyes snapping up, suddenly more aware of his surroundings. Martyn is still close by, complaining about not getting the kill with the pufferfish like a petulant child, and upon seeing Grian emerge from the lava pulls out his bow. In the time it takes Grian to stand up straight, trying to drag himself out of the moat with desperate clawing hands, Martyn has taken out an arrow and pulled the string of the bow back. Scar says his name, voice laced with panic, and then Martyn lets the arrow fly.
Grian jolts up in a bed underground, cold and far away. There is a stabbing pain in his head where the arrow hit. His ears are ringing and he groans, grabbing blindly for the spare communicator he had left here. The chat flashes at him tauntingly.
Grian was shot by InTheLittleWood.