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“And a good morning to you too, Grian!”
Doc’s call over his shoulder and into the wind met with the kind of silence that preceded a great rush of air, and the loud thump of boots sinking deep into the snow.
“How do you always know it’s me, Doc?” Grian’s confusion rang in his voice as he bent over, brushing away the snow that threatens to slip inside his boots. “I know there’s the locator bar heads and everything, but you’ve been doing that since way before, and it’s not supposed to work directly behind you, and I know you didn’t turn around. What, that cyber-eye of yours work through the back of your head, too? Or do you just call out like it’s always me and are wrong all the times I’m not here?”
Doc chuckled and turned around, grinning in his usual slightly-evil way. “Oh, I always know when it’s you, Grian. And I always will.” If Grian couldn’t figure out that his wings sounded different from unmodified elytra, Doc wasn’t going to ruin the surprise.
Grian grinned back even as he shook his head. “Ominous as ever. Anyways.” He braced his hands behind himself. “What doin’?”
Doc gestured towards the crack before them, looming and occasionally pulsing with a deep glow. “I’m checking some alternate timings on the new lights I had installed into my landscape. Trying to see if it looks better as being a constant cycle of magic always at work, or rising and falling like the cliff is breathing.”
Another pass of the light, and Grian whistled low. “That is wicked cool. Are the repeaters on separate timers, or is it directly passing the pulse from one line to the next?” Doc raised an eyebrow, and Grian puffed up a bit. “What? I’m learning the redstone terminology thing! All you redstoners are becoming amazing builders, we have to keep up! I made a bartering farm, I know what I’m talking about.”
A nod. “Well, then, if you want to know how it works, look at that little model over there…”
Doc ran down the way the animation works, and all the little tricks he’d picked up from the Brazilian community and testing with the Hivemind. Grian nodded along, actually following and asking questions that indicated he was only a little bit out of his depth. They commiserated on the timings a bit, Grian chiming in his “experience with living buildings”.
Finally, Doc turned to Grian, the focus of discussing his projects shifting to a fond yet knowing smirk. “I presume you’re here to procrastinate something you should be doing by distracting me?”
“No!” Grian scoffed. Paused. “Well, maybe that is a side effect, but it’s not why. There’s plenty of places I could go to goof off, and a lot of them are closer to home. But there’s only one place where you are.”
Doc snorted. “Flatterer.”
“Hey, it can be flattery and still true. Besides. I actually have something for you, besides just some company out here in the cold.”
Rifling in his pockets, Grian pulled out a handful of undyed shulker boxes, laying them out atop the snow behind them one after another. “You could call it a gift of my time, if you like.”
Curious, Doc lifted the lid of one of the shulkers, and stared inside. Closed it again and looked at Grian. “Are they all–”
“All full, all sand,” Grian confirmed, knocking on the lid of the one nearest him. “Zoned out so hard I broke one of my shovels on accident while doing it, had to remake it. I just was out getting some for myself, and then I thought, ‘Hey, this is the thing that Doc hates doing the most, and he’s probably gonna have to do it soon since there’s no glass shop up yet and I know he’s doing some work with glass. While I’m out here, why don’t I get a little extra for him, save him the trip?’ And then, well. A little extra turned into this.”
“That is very thoughtful of you, Grian. Thank you.” Doc’s eyes narrowed, the cybernetic a piercing red line. “And what is the catch to you gifting me ten shulkers of sand out of nowhere? Something you want?”
“No catch to this, Doc. No strings. Just a gift. All of this is straight from the kindness of my heart.”
“I see.” He smirked. “And how much of that kindness comes from a fear of my voodoo machine, hmm?”
“That’s not important,” Grian returned, not denying the charge.
Doc cackled, wrapping his arm around Grian’s shoulder in a tight hug. “Oh, Grian. I am glad to see you respect what I am capable of, but I promise you, I am not mad anymore about you helping hide that Scar was the Ore Snatcher. I have too much to do to be holding grudges from last season now, at least not against you, when you haven’t done anything particularly pesky in a bit.” His grin grew sharper. “Besides, you didn’t fall for the lag test, so I don’t have an arrow of yours to put into the system even if I wanted to…yet.”
“See, it’s the yet that worries me, Doc,” Grian muttered, even as his wings shifted to help settle into the hug. “Good to know I’m using Infinity for the entire season.”