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Mumbo’s life is mildly upheaved at a regular court meeting.
Cleo holds these every three suns. Mumbo, against what is recommended for sanity and safety, attends all of them.
And– he promises he does his job at court. Really! He does! He takes dutiful notes on everything important, even! But sometimes, when the conversation starts veering more and more into things Mumbo doesn’t have any business in, he’s been known to let his mind drift. And when there’s paper in front of him and ideas to be written down, he’s hardly at fault for any lack of attention paid to Cleo. Honestly, if you think about it, this is basically just Mumbo doing his job in a different way! Coming up with ideas in a slightly different place than his usual workshop.
All that to say that Mumbo doesn’t quite put the pieces together until they are very much unignorable.
It’s like this: Mumbo is doodling some ideas for an engine that could potentially solve some of the South’s irrigation problems. Except every change he makes to the existing design only seems to make things more complicated and messy and difficult to reproduce. He isn’t quite sure how he’s even managed to bungle this as much as he has? This would probably take three days to make, which is the exact opposite of what he set out to do!
Mumbo is about to give up, start over, and create an entirely new engine model, when the usual drone of Court is broken by the very loud sound of doors slamming open. Mumbo jolts in his seat, hands spasming, and his pen clatters to the floor– something which is thankfully not all that loud due to the agitated murmuring that has filled the room.
He cranes his neck towards the entrance of the hall, and sees… King Ren? King Ren, of Winter. That’s weird. Royalty doesn’t usually travel outside of their court, much less the Winter King, who is infamous for making other courts come see him.
King Ren is standing in the massive doorway of the court, the late light of Autumn spilling past his cloaked shoulders. In his hand is a very large sword, its tip dragging along the rug that Mumbo knows Cleo just had installed. It isn’t even bunching the rug up, just cutting clean through it as he takes two heavy steps forward.
“CLEO!” King Ren shouts. Oh boy. Mumbo gets the distinct feeling that he does not want to be here for whatever this is. Why didn’t he skip this meeting??
“Ren,” Cleo replies, voice cool as the air is outside. She isn’t shouting, but her voice is just as loud as his was, carrying over the chamber that has fallen into an eerie hush.
King Ren levels his sword at Cleo, the temperature in the room dropping to frigid levels. “I challenge you,” he spits, the room’s air crackling over Mumbo’s skin, “to a duel.”
Mumbo snaps his head to Cleo. Her legs are uncrossed, eyes steeled, face set. Her court dress spills around her, fabric pooling at her feet. She’s the picture of High Fae royalty, not a single part of her appearance out of place. Mumbo knows her well enough to see the lines in her posture that read as confused. She doesn’t know why he’s here either. Taking a brief glance around the room, it seems like nobody knows why King Ren is here.
The breath in Mumbo’s chest feels stalled, like even the slightest movement will break the moment in half. He imagines all the fae around him feel the same– this is High Fae business. God-touched business.
Cleo purses her lips. “Court dismissed.”
Mumbo takes the out for what it is. He snatches his papers up, double checks his seat to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything, and rushes to one of the side doors.
There’s a swarm of fae near the exit, but everyone is in such a rush to leave that it doesn’t actually take much time for Mumbo to make his way into the hall. From there, getting to his office or his workshop should be smooth sailing.
Should be.
Mumbo, against all odds, manages to break away from the throng of fae crowded around the exit to the court chamber. From there, he breaks into a side hall, then another. The room he finds himself in is one of Autumn’s many galleries, this one filled with live paintings of revels of equinoxes past. They’re beautiful paintings, Mumbo knows, but he’s here to find something a little different.
Just below the third painting on the right wall is a button cleverly inlaid in the wall with the help of some handy illusion magic. Mumbo updated this door design some years ago to make it less obvious, and it serves its purpose extremely well. It takes a moment of blind guessing before his fingers hit a groove in the wall, guiding him to the small button, which he presses.
He doesn’t even look in the room before rushing in, the door closing behind him with a soft click.
The room is dim and mildly dusty, but it’s blessedly quiet. Mumbo falls back against one of the walls, bending over to put his hands on his knees as he lets out a sigh of relief.
It is then that Mumbo feels a tap on his shoulder.
“Wha–” he jumps, voice cracking halfway through in a way that is quite undignified for a fae of his standing. He whips his head around, hands raised in an almost-surrender to see–
“Grian?!” He shouts, incredulous. Of all the faces he expected to see– which, admittedly, there were very few names on that list, because very few people know about this place in the first place, but of them, his best friend was perhaps the least likely to be it.
Grian bursts into giggles, but he manages to remain composed enough to talk. “Mumbo!”
Mumbo can feel his lips twitch into a confused smile, “Grian!”
It’s been a while since Mumbo last saw Grian. He’s one of Summer’s delegates, so he spends the time between the Winter Solstice and the Summer Solstice in Spring, and the opposite in Autumn.
And, now that Mumbo’s had a moment to process, he’s realizing that, hm, actually, this is kind of weird. “..Actually, Grian? Quick question.”
Grian takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down and looks up at Mumbo, “Yeah, what’s up?”
“What–” he takes a moment to gather his thoughts “ What are you doing here, mate? You’re never back this early! Did you get wrapped up in something with that Spring fae you’re always talking about again?”
Grian’s face twists. “First of all, Joel starts it. Second of all… any chance I can get out of that question?”
Mumbo might let this go any other time, but something about the way Grian is holding himself sets Mumbo on edge. Last time he was like this… they were involved in some things that Mumbo and Grian probably would not have gotten away with, had they been any other fae any less liked by their superiors. No, Mumbo needs to know now, if at the very least so he can mentally prepare himself for his involvement in this.
He arches an eyebrow, but otherwise says nothing.
It only takes a few moments for Grian to grimace, muttering “Yeah, alright.”
He holds his hand up next to his face, conjuring a small ball of light in it to illuminate the corridor.
“Mumbo,” Grian says, his tone airy, “where were you planning on heading if I hadn’t surprised you?”
Mumbo squints, “My workshop, I guess? You knew that already though?”
“Yeah.” Grian worries at his lips, spinning on his heel to pace the hallway. “Then I guess it’s good I caught you. Really, before I tell you this, I should ask,” he turns to face Mumbo, “How mad would you be if, say, I had a mortal in your workshop right now. Hypothetically.”
…A what.
“Grian!!” Mumbo exclaims.
“Hypothetically!!” Grian emphasizes.
Mumbo closes his eyes. Old Ones grant him patience. Old Ones grant him patience. Old Ones grant him patience. He takes a big deep breath, opens his eyes, realizes the Old Ones did not grant him patience, closes his eyes, and takes another deep breath.
“Ok. Ok!” Mumbo is aware that his voice is high and reedy and probably very discordant to hear, but he’s kind of freaking out, and he thinks he should be allowed to sound a little freaked out because he is a little freaked out. “Hypothetically, I would be a little bit panicked about that, and, hypothetically, I would probably have to really hope that that mortal has nothing to do with the very extremely angry King of the Red Winters in Queen Cleo’s court right now! You know, hypothetically.”
Grian grins, thin and panicked. They’re working each other into a frenzy now, but Mumbo has a terrible sinking feeling that a frenzy is probably a light reaction to the situation he’s been dragged into. If his suspicions are right, but, you know, you can always be wrong about these sorts of things! Surely Mumbo is just drawing conclusions– a mortal, a Spring court in mayhem, a team of Summer ambassadors pulled to see the situation first. Mumbo has been told that he jumps to put together pieces that might not necessarily fit before. This is probably just that.
Then, Grian opens his mouth, and the expression on his face (guilty, very guilty, and more than a little manic) tells him everything he needs to know. “Well, hypothetically, let's just say that this mortal was very convincing, and maybe hypothetically I didn’t know it would go this far?”
Mumbo suddenly feels very faint.
“Grian, I’m going to need you to explain this to me in great detail, because I think if you don’t I am not going to take this very well.”
Grian’s eyes flick to the end of the corridor, then to the door they’re right next to, then back to the door at the end of the corridor. “How about this. I take you to your workshop, you can meet the mortal, and then I’ll explain everything.”
Mumbo would love to make Grian explain this to him right now, but more than that he would love to be away from the High Fae duel happening two doors down, so Mumbo tentatively agrees. “Seriously though, mate, you better have a good explanation.”
“Oh!” Grian laughs, “You know me!”
“That is not a particularly comforting thing to hear”
“Don’t even worry about it, Mumbo!” And, before Mumbo can reply to that, “Come on, let’s go!”
So go they do.
–
It’s not a very eventful walk back to Mumbo’s workshop. He’s fairly isolated, and even if every fae in the castle weren’t tucked away in some corner right now, they still might’ve only seen a few fae on the entire passage.
When they arrive at Mumbo’s door, Grian sets his shoulders and raises his fist.
Knock, knock, knock.
…No reply.
Once a few seconds have passed, and Mumbo has started to worry that Grian’s mortal decided it would be a great idea to roam in a fae court, Grian smiles and pushes open the door.
Mumbo’s only ever seen a mortal once or twice, and only ever in his youth when he was first taken into the castle. Nobody survives the trip between worlds well, and in recent years, mortal servants have fallen out of fashion a bit among the fae of Autumn, so they’re fairly rare.
This mortal has brown hair, a little bit golden where it's backlit by Mumbo’s fireplace. His features are notably round, and he looks soft in a way that isn’t familiar to Mumbo. He’s draped in some definitely-fae finery, probably something Grian got him while he was transporting him to Autumn. The mortal is also covered in scars. Every piece of visible skin on him is covered in fine white lines from slashes, or patches of shiny, pulled tight scar tissue from nasty scrapes, or gnarled puncture wounds. Over his nose is a particularly prominent gash, still pink from healing. He’s draped over one of Mumbo’s sofa chairs, head tipped over one arm and legs propped up on another.
“Hey Scar!” Grian waves, a pleasant smile on his face. Completely gone are the traces of panic from earlier.
“Why hello there!” The mortal, Scar, swings his legs in front of him, spinning so he’s sitting in the chair normally. “And who might you be?” He asks, turning to face Mumbo. He has an incredibly disarming grin plastered over his face, his (very, very, almost fae-rich) emerald eyes twinkling in the low light.
“...You can call me Mumbo,” Mumbo says, “And if I may have yours?”
“You’re a little late to that one, I regret to say, but you may call me Scar. Scar Goodtimes. I hear this is your workshop?”
Mumbo looks around, and for the first time in months actually takes in what a mess this place is. His habit of starting new projects halfway through old ones is very apparent right now. Grian, unfortunately, might have made the right choice putting Scar here– hiding a fae-sized glowing magical artifact would be easy in here at this point.
“..It is.” He admits, face heating. Then, because he sees the glint in Grian’s eyes that tells him he’s about to get teased to the Spring Court and back, “But that’s not important! Grian,” Mumbo grits his teeth “I need you to tell me what, exactly, is going on.”
Scar and Grian turn to look at eachother, their faces flitting through a series of expressions that are far beyond Mumbo, before facing back towards him.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Grian starts. “But, uh, how do I put this…”
“I got kidnapped by the Spring Queen!” Scar says, a pleasant smile on his face, “And she wanted me for something, I don’t know, but I wanted something from her and we went this way and that way and kind of all over the place but in the end she ended up kidnapping me!” He sniffs dramatically, “I barely even did anything!”
“He scammed her.” Grian deadpans.
Scar gasps, “I did no such thing! I made an equal-footed deal and I stuck to my end! It’s not my fault that she decided she didn’t like it!”
“...Is that where you come in, Grian?”
“Kind of.” Grian looks up at the ceiling, “I don’t know the details of the deal and this guy,” Grian jabs a thumb at Scar, who winks at Mumbo, “can’t tell, but what I do know is that she wanted him out of her court.”
Scar nods, “And she decided that she was going to give me away to someone else! Which, really, quite rude if you ask me, I mean, I summoned her and not anyone else for a reason!” He crosses his arms, looking quite hurt at the prospect of a fae Queen not wanting you around. Honestly, Mumbo can’t really empathize– unless the royalty is Cleo, he’d like as few high Fae eyes as on him as possible literally always.
While Mumbo is trying to get over the idea that this random mortal decided to, and, more importantly, succeeded in, summoning the ruler of Spring, Grian continues, “Well, while he was in the dungeons, I happened across him–” Mumbo knows enough about his best friend to not question him being in the dungeons as a foreign dignitary, “--and we got to talking, and one thing led to another, and so I decided to take him on a little adventure and now we’re here!”
“Wh– One thing led to another??” Mumbo splutters, “You stole the Spring Queen’s mortal??”
“I’m no one’s mortal!” Scar interjects.
“Well, it wasn’t stealing, it was rescuing, and really it was from the Winter King, not her! So, really, I rescued the Winter King’s present! And maybe he was a present for peace treaties and maybe the Winter King is a little mad about that but, also, Scar didn’t deserve it.” Grian replies, not even looking at Scar.
Mumbo swears he can see a tear at the corner of Scar’s eye sparkling in the firelight as he commiserates, “I didn’t deserve it!”
Mumbo puts to voice the immense bubbling feeling of frustration in his chest in a wordless shout, before near-yelling “Grian! None of that explains” He makes a gesture with his hands, a sharp, quick thing that encompasses Grian, Scar, and all of Autumn, “why you’re here!”
“Oh, that.” Grian says, “Well, it was the best choice considering how we need to smuggle him out of the feywild.”
Mumbo can feel his eye twitching involuntarily. He can. Actually, looking over at the mortal, he thinks he’d really like to take Grian aside and ask him some very sharp, very aggressive questions.
For the second time in the last hour, he begs the Old Ones for patience. For the second time in an hour, he feels them laughing at him from beyond the veil of reality.
Ok! Guess he has to deal with this himself.
“Pardon us,” Mumbo says, affecting an overly polite tone as he nods to Scar.
“Oh, don’t worry about me, do whatever you need!” the mortal says jovially.
That’s all the permission Mumbo needs to grab Grian’s arm and yank him into Mumbo’s storage closet. Grian, blessedly, makes a ball of light for them to see by so Mumbo can close and lock the door. He isn’t sure how good mortal hearing is, but at least the door between them provides a semblance of privacy.
“Grian! I could lose my job! You could lose your job!”
“Mate, I think we have a lot more to worry about than our jobs right about now!”
“Well I was trying not to say it but if you’re going to–!”
“Listen, Mumbo.” The other fae tilts his chin up so he can make full eye contact with him. “I don’t know how else to say this. We need your help.”
“I– Grian–”
“No– let me finish. We need your help.” Grian sucks in a deep breath, “And I don’t think we can turn to anyone else at this point. Scar doesn’t deserve what happened to him, and I can’t share all of the details but I would if I could, but I need you to know that he needs help. I need help. I’ll owe it to you to help us, that I swear on my Name.”
Those words ping something in the back of Mumbo’s head, an oath sworn to him that can never be taken back. “Grian, you don’t need to–”
“All I need you to do, Mumbo, is get us some supplies and not tell anyone what happened here. I need to get him across the border, but he’s… he’s good at hiding it, but he’s in a bad way right now, Mumbo, and I don’t think he’s going to make it across with just what I can give him. Please.”
Mumbo doesn’t have a need for whatever favor Grian could give him. Mumbo doesn’t know this mortal. Mumbo has no incentive to really help either of them– but... Looking at Grian now, at the raw helplessness in his eyes, Mumbo thinks he might not be able to say no even if he really wanted to. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Grian this stripped-back. He doesn’t know if the other fae will ever tell him exactly what happened to get Grian this emotionally compromised, but whatever it was cut deep.
And, beyond that. Crossing into the mortal realm is notoriously discombobulating. Fae can do it without negative side effects, but only if they don’t leave their ring. He can't even imagine what it would be like for someone like a mortal. More than that, though... getting summoned is something Mumbo didn’t even realize was still possible, much less the ability to be summoned by a mortal. He thought summoning was from a time when almost all fae were high Fae, when the Gods still walked among them. And, if the Spring Queen is aware of that– which she is, and, no doubt, she is also shrewd enough to understand the consequences of that bit of information coming out– then it's probably only the details of whatever deal she made with Scar that are keeping her from killing him in whatever way is fastest. It's no wonder she wanted to give him to the court known for its violence, to the king known for fiercely prosecuting anyone he sees as a threat to his subjects. Mumbo doesn’t know if his help will be what pushes the scales over, but he does know that, in all likelihood, Scar (and now Grian too, goodness), won’t survive this without some help.
Hell, Mumbo’s screwed just for harboring the mortal, he bets. Might as well go all-in.
He purses his lips. Old ones, he is going to regret this, isn’t he.
“I’ll help.”