#(in return he’s gonna draw me grian)

[delusionedt]

First tumblr post and it’s Martyn In the freaking

Little Wood 😨 (this is for @morii-moth )

[frozenjokes]

A Meeting Of Three Future Pirates (i enjoyed this little scene and wanted to draw a little thing)

in which Scar refuses to tell Mumbo his name, and Grian is determined to get an answer

Ao3 Link for the fic!

***

Luckily, the day passed without incident. That is, until Mumbo turned around and Grian was gone.

Gone and already halfway across the docks towards Pirate- for goodness sakes, what did Mumbo expect! Why had he described him so accurately? Not that it was difficult to pick Pirate out in a crowd, he stood out just as much as Mumbo did- augh! And now, here Mumbo was with an armful of cleaning supplies, bumbling while Grian was making a beeline towards a bad decision.

“Hello there, sir! Might I have a moment of your time?” Grian spoke before Mumbo could, and Pirate, quick as ever, wasted no time before turning around.

“Well hello there! What might a mysterious cloaked figure such as yourself be looking for?” The salesman lilt was in full display, Pirate facing Grian with open arms. Grian turned briefly back to Mumbo with a quick wink. Oh god. Mumbo dropped what he was carrying and hurried forward, but stopped in a strangled breath as he opened his mouth. He couldn’t call either of their names; he didn’t even know Pirate’s, but Grian’s was just as bad to yell on a crowded dock. Mumbo didn’t get to make a decision before Grian continued.

“A name, if you have one,” Grian smirked, and Mumbo couldn’t see his face, but he knew Grian was smirking, “See, I’m here on behalf of Mumbo Jumbo, we’re acquaintances-“

“His last name is Jumbo?”

“Yes, it’s very silly-”

“I don’t think so! Well, I do think so a little bit, but in a good way! It’s kind of whimsical, yeah? You guys are friends? Ah, that makes sense. He gets so worked up about the name thing it’s- oh! There he is behind you! Hello Mum-”

“Shut it!” Grian pointed hard at Pirate’s face, so aggressively, his hood nearly came off, but other than a quiet ‘oh, okay,’ Pirate didn’t look discouraged at all. Quite the contrary actually, which could only be an awful sign- “I’m here for your name, and if you don’t tell me, I’m gonna tell you what he’s called you.”

“Gri- G- Please don’t do that!” Mumbo tried, but only Pirate paid him any mind, smiling and waving in a fashion that made his heart beat a little faster.

Pirate laughed, clearly irritating Grian, though he didn’t give any indication that he noticed, only looking back at him brightly, “Funny coincidence! I was actually wondering about that! I’ve tried asking, I’ve even offered to guess, but Mumbo doesn’t have the same appreciation for games that I do. Just between you and I though, secretly, I think he likes guessing-”

Mumbo bristled, unable to help himself, “I do not like guessing!” but even Pirate ignored him this time, Grian holding all of his attention.

“I wouldn’t be so sure you want to know.”

“Oh believe me, I do! Not much phases me, I’ll tell you that much. Go ahead and hit me!” Pirate was clearly not prepared for Grian to take that literally, but Mumbo winced as he said it, knowing full well Grian could never help himself, and sure enough, his fist landed squarely in Pirate’s gut before Mumbo could even say a word of warning. Pirate gasped, folding over, but Grian jumped back like he’d been stung, eyes wide under his cloak.

“PIRATE!! PIRATE!! HELP!!”

If Grian had any talent at all, it was pointing and screaming. The dock erupted, sailors and fishermen and everyone else having returned from their trips for the evening, all spurred into action by the shrill (and if Mumbo was being honest, quite feminine sounding) scream. Mumbo, only a close distance away by now, ran forward in an attempt to help, but despite being stronger than most people tended to assume, he was no match against the beefy, adrenaline filled sailors with everything to lose.

[candyradium]

gonna fucking cry over grian and mumbo at the end of grians most recent episode dude

[atherix]

YOU KNOW WHAT IN ORDER TO COPE WITH THE, FRANKLY, INSANE AMOUNT OF MEDIA CONSUMPTION I HAVE DONE TODAY, HERE I AM IN ALL MY GLORY – MAJOR MIDNIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD.

Having now read both chapters I am going to draw some strings because the PARALLELS BETWEEN GRIAN AT THE START OF CH 8, WHEN HE’S WAKING UP FROM HAVING FALLEN BELOW THE ALLEY, TO GRIAN DYING AND SEEING THE WATCHER-GOD ATTACHED TO HIS SOUL IM GOING TO GO INSANE??????????/ AM I GOING INSANE???????? I MIGHT ALREADY BE THERE. JOURNEY’S END BABY, IM REALLY PASSIONATE ABOUT LITERARY ANALYSIS NOW. But the fact that the Watcher is telling him it isn’t time for him to Awaken yet, and then to see him Awaken in the next chapter, and the fact that Grian has been back and back and back to that place but he’s never Awakened yet AUGH. I wonder if Scar Knows how close Grian came to potentially awakening when they first fell bc. I am going insane thinking about it. The fact that he Awakened through dying – was he actually almost dead and the Watcher-God put him back because it wasn’t his time and he doesn’t even realize because being put back returned some semblance of ‘not being dead’ to his personhood im.

And then the whole thing with Scott and Jimmy??? Okay listen. Listen. I have not a fucking CLUE how to tie them in yet unless Jimmy is a sign that the pantheon has had time to move on and then he became a watcher or something im. W H A T is going on with Scot though I have no fucking clue. No ideas. Surely they aren’t the god Grian just absorbed bc I take it they couldn’t live independently but w h a t.

AND THEN THE FUCKING PARALLELS BETWEEN HOW SCAR IS AND HOW MUMBO IS OH MY GOD. They’re both kneeling over him, they both think he’s fucking gone [Which. I think he was both times, tbh.] Clearly he wasn’t as Dead as he was later on because Scar isn’t nearly as torn up as Mumbo was and Scar strikes me as a man who would fucking Tear The Fuck Up. So. He was a Little Less Dead. 70% dead, is my guess. How Scar and Mumbo have both lost people, they both know the grief of losing someone, they both know the grief of seeing someone die in horrible ways, they they both thought they lost Grian in the same way I am chewing on my hair. THE PARALLELS. THE WAY REDSCAPE IS A REFLECTION OF EACH OTHER HOW AM I MEANT TO BE NORMAL ABOUT THEM IM.

Scar’s staff nooooooooooooooo I love his staff how could you do this to me. Augh.

Also the entire lore with the Watchers bringing the Avians underground to escape enslavement is FASCINATING especially given how Scar keeping pointing out that they went up from the tunnels not down, especially with how that mixes in with the fact that the Ancient City Icaria is Down im. Feeling normal. Feeling incredibly normal. The fact that its so bed even Grian knows not to go Down as shown with his conversation with Mumbo and Tubbo [which uh. You know. Frankly. Its probably a good thing they did hear down, tbh] and if our theory about Grian being Old are true then something happened likely right after the Watchers brought the Avians underground. UNLESS! UNLESS THAT ENTIRE STORY IS A LIE!

Stay with me chat bc I know Atherix isn’t gonna fucking answer this but – hear me out, what if the Avians are the Ancients from the Ancient City of Icaria and the Watchers drew them out in an attempt to stop the apocalypse by trapping the warden because Grian ALSO knows they shouldn’t bring the Sculk up which is seen in the next chapter. I am. Hmmm. Rotating.

Scar’s core continues to drive me nuts oh god this man really thought he was going to die the entire time and was okay with it as long as he got his family to safety even before they reached the ancient city I am feeling things I am going insane. HES COLD???? HES COLD AND HE DOESN’T HAVE HIS STAFF AND IM GOING INSANE

God and the fact that Grian is so sorry for getting them into this mess even though he deserves answers that he still didn’t really get and the fact that Scar and Mumbo reassure him throughout the entire fucking ordeal that there’s no way he could have known only for him to Know about the sculk, to Know they shouldn’t go down, and I wonder how much of what Grian didn’t know was simply repressed by his flight out of the Midnight alley.

I love the description of Mimic magic btw.

And then the whole Magic construct talk??? The wood giving way like glass??? Excuse me what is going on in the Alley my fucking brain is COMPLETELY blank on ideas holy shit.

AND THEN!!! THEN!!! THE SCULKY WATER??? THE WAY IT HURTS SCAR AND MAKES HIM REACT???????/ AND THE FACT THAT IT JUST CAUSES THEM TO BLINDLY FLY INTO THE ANCIENT CITY AND TRIGGER THE WARDEN I AM!!!!!!!!!!!!! AH!!!! EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT WAS ONE GIANT SCARIAN DISASTER!!!!

And then the WARDEN! The way this parallel’s Double Life makes me want to chew on my bones. The fact that Grian is the one that triggers the Warden. The fact that Scar cant do anything because its magic is counteracting with his own. The fact that the warden kills Grian to awaken his godhood. I am. ROTATING AT LIGHT SPEED, ATHERIX.

AND THEN THE NEXT CHAPTER. THE OPENING FIGHT WITH THE WARDEN. ‘They try to fight the warden’ YEAH. YEAH. TRY. MY GOD. MY GOD. You know its bad when you’re giving them multiple curse words a chapter tbh.

ALSO GRIAN MCCRAFT ‘They’re not supposed to be real’ THE WAY HIS KNOWLEDGE MIXES WITH MYTHOS I AM GIVING MORE AND MORE CREDENCE TO THE GRIAN IS OLD THEORY I AM. ROTATING. SPEED OF SOUND.

And the way he does the enchanted book is SO cool. Scar running off on his own to lure the warden ISNT but my god the way you made the enchantment work logically for him while all this is going on. The worldbuilding here is incredible.

WHAT IS GOING ON W THE TIME STUFF HERE. GRIAN THINKS ITS BEEN 5 YEARS. GRIAN KNOWS THE ENCHANTING BOOK IS THIRTY THOUSAND YEARS OLD. SCAR CLEARLY KNOWS SOMETHING FUNKY IS GOING ON TIME WISE. WHAT IS GOING ON

God I love Scar. He’s got his own brand of Chaos gremlin and by god he’s gonna use it [ignore the fact that he absolutely figured he was going to die anyway so he fucking decided to use it as his one shot to keep Grian safe only for Grian to die HORRIFICALLY in front of all of them my god.]

The way Grian can’t hear Scar as he uses his god powers for the first time but clearly has no fucking clue what hes doing and running on instinct and not properly awakened anyway my GOD could you imagine being Scar, standing there, Grian suddenly between you and a harbinger of the apocalypse, shooting it to protect you when you were sacrificing yourself to save him and then he fucking dies in front of you trying to protect you and you watch as he skull cracks open and dgdnklxhdgsf HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL????????

‘What a sad way to die’ not to get existential but I hope I still have thought after I die because. Idk. The scariest thing about death to me is the ceasing of my entire being. AND GOD THE WAY GRIAN HAS TIME TO JUST. RUMINATE. ON HIS OWN DEATH. ABOUT HIS FAMILY. ABOUT HOW THEY’RE GOING TO DIE AND HE CAN DO NOTHING TO STOP IT. AUGH. And and and the WAY this parallels the scene from the last chapter where he was sort of dead but not really im. IM!!! In that ‘death’, grian was silent. Grian couldn’t feel. There was nothing. And here he can cry out, he can feel his soul and the way he can burn.

And then the Watcher and the fact that Grian cant really take it in and you have to wonder right if it feels anything about Grian killing it – WHICH FOR THE RECORD I don’t think that’s how grian got a watcher soul, I think he’s been a watcher secretly the entire time – or how it feels ABOUT grian being attached to it. If it sees him as a vessel or something more. As the other side of it’s own coin of existence. ‘every shadow and light needs its sun’ and the parallels here with the fae realm’s two suns and moons and scar and mumbo’s magic and his own existence in the midnight alley and then outside and THE LULLABY!!!! AHHHH. AND THE AGONY OF THE TRANSFORMATION BECAUSE ALL TRANSFORMATION IS A PAINFUL THING BUT SOMETIMES WE’RE READY FOR IT AND SOMETIMES WE ARENT AND GRIAN IS FINALLY READY FOR HIS AND asdkfslhfgf as you can see I am feeling normal on this evening.

AND THEN HE FINDS HIS BODY AND HIS FAMILY AND HE SEES MUMBO JUMBO, A VAMPIRE CRADLING HIS SECOND DEAD LOVER’S BLOODIED BODY IM SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS??????? Mumbo sitting there begging and begging and begging for grian to wake up, knowing he never will, the fight in him only not gone because Scar and Tubbo are still in danger. Scar, who’s only will to keep living is that mumbo and tubbo are in danger, no longer carrying about how reckless he’s being, facing down this harbinger of death and destruction who just took his soulmate and ripped him from his arms.

THE FACT THAT THERES A SECOND FUCKING WARDEN BECAUSE THEY’VE MADE SO MUCH NOISE

Mumbo who has lost all self preservation instinct because he cant bury another lover and yet he has to and he cant even get Grian’s body out of the ancient city because theres a warden and they’re all going to die and suddenly Grian is LOOKING at him and gasping and breathing and alive and covered in blood and he kisses Mumbo just to confirm that yes, YES, what you’re seeing is real he’s really alive and then he makes Mumbo LET GO OF HIM because his transformation is still ongoing, still painful, and he cant bear to hurt Mumbo with Holy Power he knows is going to rip out of his body at any second and hes holding it back because itll hurt mumbo and then Mumbo leaves and Grian is just in AGONY ALONE AFTER COMING BACK TO LIFE I AM LIVID HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!!!!!

Dear readers, for the record, ATHERIX DROPPED THIS AND DIDN’T EVEN TELL ME IT WAS LIVE. SHE WAITED FOR MY FUCKING AO3 EMAIL TO CATCH UP LIKE 15/30 MINUTES LATER????????????? EXCUSE ME

Also the fact that they kissed while there was blood on grians lips and mumbo is a vampire is not lost on me and if this wasn’t such a serious scene I would be making wink wonk jokes

GOD THE WAY YOU DESCRIBE THE TRANSFORMATION IS BEAUTIFUL. HOW GRIANS BODY REFORMS ITSELF TO ENCAPSULATE THIS NEW SOUL THAT HAS CORRECTED ITSELF AND MADE HIM WHO HE IS NOW, BROUGHT HIM BACK  TO PROTECT HIS MATES I AM FEELING SO FUCKING NORMAL RIGHT NOW. DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL NORMAL ITS SO DARK INSIDE THIS ROOM

He told them to go and of course they don’t, but they send tubbo away and just. DKFASDF THE FACT THAT THEY STAYS EVEN THOUGH THE WARDENS ARE THERE AND WAITING, BECAUSE THEY KNEW IF THEY DIDN’T GRIAN WOULD TRY TO KILL THE WARDENS FOR HURTING THEM AND LIKELY DIE AGAIN OR SOME SHIT IM SO.

Im so happy they stuck around to pull grian back but also imagine being mumbo and scar and your boyfriend just Ascended to Godhood and you’re having to talk him down from fighting TWO harbingers of the Apocalypse after he just woke up from BEING DEAD when all of them are a fucking W R E C K im. God they such a MESSY polycule god bless em, the braincell is triangulating.

Also imagine being mumbo and shadowwalking a god to safety the fucking EGO BOOST????????/ I WOULD NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT TO BE HONEST

“oh thank the gods” tubbo you have no idea.

And then all the stuff where Grian clearly both Knows and Does Not Know things simultaneously I am staring. I am vibrating in my seat.

They way you describe his wings as liquefying back to normal is SO cool I really love that description this is incredible.

W H A T IS GOING ON W MR GOODTIMES ‘I don’t think they found that place grian’’that’s just what time does’ SIR I AM SHAKING YOU. AND HIS DEAD TIRED BANTER W MUMBO.

THE CUDDLE PILE IS WELL DESERVED AND FRANKLY I AM BURYING MYSELF IN MY STUFFED ANIMALS TONIGHT HOW DO YOU DO THIS SO CONSISTENTLY OH MY GOD I AM GNAWS ON MY CAGE BARS. Lol this is 2.2k

WELCOME WELCOME GLORY BE I LOVE TO SEE IT <3

Long post and SPOILERS everyone <3 (There will also be some Depictions of Injury in here so)

I love parallels. I also love bookends and rhyming history <3 Even in the cruelest of ways hehe I LOVE WHEN YOU ANALYSE MY LITERATURE HEHEHE sometimes you get something very right and all I can do is :) It's wonderful hehe- Mmmm all about the context innit. The context? I mean well. You know. All the reasons Why™ <3 Hehe all things I cannot answer on a public platform <3 Hmhmhmmm seems a bit like a Cycle™ perhaps...... you know. :) Time and time again....

These are things that I cannot reveal at all! Because they'll be revealed next chapter :D But look, Jimmy and Scott are my beloveds and I am holding them very gently, especially Jimmy. But you know- Scar told Grian early on that Boatem attracts a lot of magic types... :)

YEAH I'LL GO FERAL OVER IT I love parallels. Twice now Grian has woken up to one of his lovers crying over him because they thought he was dead. [Which at least one of those times I can say with finality he absolutely was :) ] Scar was crying when he thought Grian was dead but lemme tell ya, there is a difference between finding your boyfriend bruised up from a fall and finding your boyfriend with his head cracked open against the stone. Both absolutely terrible mind you but Scar can at least convince himself that Grian was just unconscious, Mumbo (who I will take this time to remind people studied medicine in one of his lives and was a doctor during the Mycelia War) 1000% KNEW Grian was dead even while begging him to wake up hehehehehjfhjhjgfdhjgfdk YOU CANNOT BE NORMAL ABOUT THEM I LOVE THEM SO MUCH I AM. SO. NOT NORMAL I WILL NOT EVEN CLAIM TO BE NORMAL HHJFSDJH

I'm sure Scar losing his staff won't have absolutely terrible ramifications in the future. You know, with his staff being charged with a hell of a lot of his excess magic and all. :)

Hehehehe. I have been WAITING for someone to point how the direction of the tunnels. A bit suspicious, isn't it... that the tunnels Grian's ancestors used to come to the Alley... lead directly to Icaria. Also strange, isn't it... that these "secret tunnels" his ancestors escaped to the Alley through... are connected to giant-ass bridges supported by Ancient Pillars... doesn't feel very "secret" to me, hm, I mean if you were trying to escape your oppressors I don't think you'd mark your tunnels with giant bridges and make them super accessible huh.... huh... Mmmm well who knows :) It could all be a lie. Everything could all be a lie. Hmmmmm-

Yep, you're right, I'm not answering any of that :)

Oh yeah, the moment Scar realizes his Core is short-circuiting he thinks he's absolutely dead lmaoo all that mattered to him was his family is safe I am so. SOFT for him I am-

... Grian will get answers in the next chapter. Just not the answers he was looking for :) Hehehe God, Scar and Mumbo reassuring him that he deserves these answers and no one could have known about this- I am so SOFT for them I just. I love them so much. But Grian definitely knows more than he realizes. I just. He is going to need so many hugs, lemme tell ya.

I created them and Mimics fascinate me. I wish to study them in a jar, and then I remember- I created them. They are already in a jar for me.

:) Hehe. You know, there's a lot of things 'like glass' in this story. Interesting. Wonder what they all have in common huh.

The fact that there is Sculk in the water and it forces Scar's magic to react and waste a lot of his magic, BUT ALSO KNOWING that if he hadn't landed in the water he just would'a fuckin died- mmm double edged swords are so fun haha <3 Also I absolutely think Sculk should be able to taint water just saying. So I have made it happen here. AND YEAH BLINDLY RUNNING INTO THE CITY. So a scary thought for you- the Warden could have easily emerged into the tunnel they were walking through, Grian could even hear it moving around them (bc I like to think the Warden waits beneath the surface and moves through the earth drawn to the shriekers hehe). If there had been a shrieker in the tunnel with enough Sculk around it, they could have ended up in a narrow tunnel with a Warden. BUT INSTEAD THEY CLIMB UP A TUNNEL-SHAFT INTO A WIDE OPEN CAVERN WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING WHAT MIGHT BE IN THE CAVERN. Mind you they would have still gone in because the cavern was notably Warden-free when they first climbed on in BUT THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT. Let me tell you this polycule has one braincell between them and their son has taken possession of it. Like a kid sneaking a quarter outta their parent's wallet hjfdsjkfd

ONCE MORE I LOVE A GOOD PARALLEL AND/OR REFERENCE. How could I resist the tragedy, the drama. Also the guilt later on. Also yes Scar felt SO HELPLESS this chapter- he's spent his entire life relying on magic, and here he is without it- and everything that can go wrong? Does. Like, "this mythological harbinger of death that was in my childhood lullaby that I sang to my own son is real AND IS ABOUT TO KILL US" wrong. AND YEAH. YEAH. I mean, how else does one safely become a god? When you die you remove the soul from the body... so during the merge, there's no body to risk tearing apart too soon :) And now, Scar- now you know why people die when they become gods. It's basically a requirement HJFSJKFSK

TRY being the major keyword there haha <3 AND YEAH. I don't care who you are- I don't give a damn who you are or how much you avoid cursing- faced down with the literal harbinger of the apocalypse that is believed to have felled TWO OF YOUR ANCESTRAL SOCIETIES, who have ENDED THE WORLD and forced generations of survivors to rebuild ONLY TO END IT AGAIN- yeah you're saying "fuck."

:) :) :)

YESSS I have always wondered how, realistically, an enchanted book would work. Lowkey weird you use an anvil for it, you'd think it'd be something a little more fantasy like the table itself is, but that's fine. I'm glad to see people enjoy how I have the enchanted books work hehehe <3 AND THANKS FOR THE WORLDBUILDING COMPLIMENT AAAAA I LOVE WORLD BUILDING <3 Scar running off to face a Warden. Not his brightest move but, honestly, if it gives Grian time to find a way to protect Mumbo and Tubbo.... yeah <3

Thirty thousand years huh :) Scar was a little taken aback by that number :) Hehehe WE WILL FIND OUT NEXT CHAPTER. FINALLY. <3

Scar is a chaos gremlin. We love him for it. He causes problems on purpose. In this case though- uh, yeah. LMAO. Grian and Scar desperately trying to protect and save each other. On the bright side- Scar (and Mumbo and Tubbo) didn't actually see Grian die? :) Though I'm sure they heard it when his body slammed to the ground and his skull cracked but ya know-

Oh gods yeah Grian was running on instinct adrenaline and anger, he would not have come out of this very well if Mumbo and Scar hadn't stayed to wait for him. (I say this as if Grian didn't LITERALLY FUCKING DIE but. Ya know. he got better so) YOU CANNOT BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS. Add to the fact that not only was Scar basically sacrificing himself to give Grian a chance to get away, SCAR ALREADY THINKS HE'S DEAD ANYWAY. Like Scar feels his magic sputtering and wasting itself because he can't regulate what it responds to right now and it's not regenerating, this man thinks he's gonna die any second now. He thinks Grian died trying to save a man who's basically already dead HJFJKSJKS-

My biggest fear about death is everyone around me and the space I'll leave behind which I have projected onto Scar ofc. So <3 I understand hjfdjkkfjd YEAH. YEAHHH GOD just wallow in his guilt. HIS FEAR- his family in danger, dying because of him... just jfhjdkjf. AND YESSS the parallel, I love parallel. I wonder what it means huh, that the first time he couldn't feel while the second time all he could do was cry-

I can comment nothing on the Watcher-soul or what it's thinking or feeling or if it even really feels anything at all :) Look. I was very delighted when I wrote that "Every shadow and every light needs its sun" I am a poetic bitch and also day and night, sun and moon, light and shadow are heavy themes that I have peppered throughout the story so. So yes. Also the irony of "grian" meaning sun, so uh yeah- YEAAHHHHH I didn't want to get too gruesome with the transformation but lemme tell ya it was the worst pain Grian has EVER felt <3 He literally felt his entire being rearrange to make space for everything his awakened soul brings <3 His skin turned to molten glass, even if just for a moment- look I am. FASCINATED by glasswork and how malleable molten glass is when I wanted the Watcher to have a shifting form I thought "oh like molten glass" and I was sold immediately, but god how fucking painful must that be??? hjfdsjkfdsjk IF YOU'RE NOT READY FOR IT YOU CAN'T ENDURE IT but Grian had a reason to endure, he had a purpose, he was gonna ENDURE-

NOPE YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL ABOUT IT BECAUSE I ABSOLUTELY DID THAT ON PURPOSE. Mumbo has lost too many people this way hjkgfdjkk I am so. Him just begging because he can't see himself without Grian anymore, I am. He is. So. HJFSJKFJS <3<3<3 AND YEAH my gods the ONLY reason Scar didn't just give up right then is because Tubbo and Mumbo are there, they're ALIVE and Mumbo is with Grian and Scar has to try and fight to protect Mumbo, even if it costs his own life (he may have. Forgotten for a moment that, you know- Mumbo losing BOTH his mates would have. Absolutely destroyed any will he has to live, but. Ya know.) AND he needs to make sure Tubbo gets to safety, make sure Tubbo gets HOME and gets to LIVE and just HJFSKJFS god I can't even imagine being them. The absolute devastation and grief and rage they feel jkfdkkjfd-

THE FACT THAT MORE THAN ONE WARDEN CAN BE SUMMONED IS HORRIFYING IN GAME BUT DELIGHTFUL IN FIC. Honestly if the second one had come any sooner they'd have been even MORE fucked than they were.

GOD YEAH the absolute. The absolute ROLLERCOASTER this man has been through. He's in SHOCK afterwards, he doesn't even know how to comprehend what the fuck has happened today. This man needs therapy now. I mean he already did but especially now. (Also an aside but this moment just highlights how well he WON'T take Scar dying so) AND YES. The reassuring affectionate touches, just to let him know that he's alive and here- and the kiss absolutely had an ulterior purpose but when you awake from the dead in your lover's arms how do you NOT kiss them huh??? AND GOD YEAH, MUMBO who was just holding his lover's BODY in his arms, having to let him go and not even sure if he'll be okay once you leave- AND HEARING HIM START SCREAMING BUT KNOWING YOU CAN'T GO BACK BECAUSE YOU'VE REALIZED WHAT'S HAPPENING I-

I have a delightful habit of updating Midnight and then not telling Stitch, and then ~20 minutes later I get a message like "ATHERIX WHAT THE FUCK" it is absolutely hilarious sorry Stitch <3

Oh yes that was definitely purposeful. Funny that after the kiss Mumbo was able to use his shadows even with the Warden's shadows all around them huh :)

I LOVE ETHEREAL IMAGERY I'M JUST SAYING <3 I also love writing in opposites, I feel like it really captures the confusion of what is going on <3 HHEHEHEE

Of course they wouldn't just go <3 They send their child to safety but they gotta stay, they gotta make sure Grian gets out too!! They know he won't back down on his own, they remember what happened with Blondie. YEAH NEWLY AWAKENED WITH NO IDEA HOW TO USE HIS MAGIC, UP AGAINST CREATURES THAT HAVE ENDED THE WORLD MULTIPLE TIMES? THAT HAVE MILLENNIA UPON MILLENNIA OF EARTH AND SCULK BUILT UP UNDER THE GROUND WITH WHO-KNOWS-HOW-MANY WARDENS JUST WAITING TO BE SUMMONED TO THE SURFACE?? YEAH NO HE WOULDN'T STAND A CHANCE.

They are absolute disasters but they love each other and if they weren't all so Exhausted and Mentally and Emotionally Drained and In Serious Need of Cuddles and Sleep, they would not have hesitated to scold and lecture this newly-awakened god jkfdksjgjkf But also Scar's little "I'm tired. Can't we stop fighting?" Just. LIKE. MIDNIGHT!SCAR DOESN'T ASK FOR THINGS, NOT THINGS HE REALLY WANTS OR NEEDS. He doesn't offer up weakness or vulnerability, yet "I'm tired." He's tired. He doesn't want to fight anymore. He just wants to go home. I'm so hfdjkjkfgd

JKFHSKFSHJK LMAOOO HE PROBABLY DOESN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. Not until later anyway when the whole "Grian's a god now" thing sinks in JKFKSLS

If it hadn't been such a serious moment Grian 100% would have said "You're welcome" LMAO

:) Hehehe

I am a SUCKER for liquid imagery. ESPECIALLY if it's viscous or thick liquid, like magma or molten glass. Water is cool too but like. Mmm glass.

HE WILL GIVE US THE ANSWERS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER HEHE. But let's just say Scar, with an outside perspective and knowledge about magic and history, has Put Things Together that Grian has been too close to think about. Oh... it also doesn't help that Grian learned Standard within the last five years :)

ABSOLUTELY THEY DESERVE THE CUDDLE PILE AND FRANKLY SO DO WE. I am so happy I can consistently get you threatening me <3 It's glorious I love it <3 Thank you Stitch~~ Hehehe <3

Your analysis is longer than some of my chapters LMAO

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

//last life spoilers: a Lizzie + Ren alliance where Ren protects Lizzie? *chefs kiss* if you’re taking requests, could you write something regarding that alliance? Only if you want to

i still love Renchanting duo and i always will but damn if Lizzie/Ren isn’t a great duo

…

Despite now having a bodyguard, Lizzie has not been able to relax while outside her base. She glances sideways at Ren, who is circling her, keeping an eye out for any potential threats. This comforts her somewhat; she doesn’t know exactly how handy Ren is in a fight but having someone to watch her back can only lead to good things.

“Fear not, my lady!” Ren yells out of the blue. “I will protect you from the evil that lurks in the darkness!”

Lizzie spins round to find Ren attacking something with his axe just inside the treeline. She clears her throat as he returns to her. “Um… Ren?”

Ren beams at her. “Yes?”

“That was a chicken.”

“It was, yes.”

Lizzie pauses. “Last time I checked, chickens weren’t evil.”

“Well…” Ren glances down at the raw chicken in his hand. “Well, now we have a bit more food. So it wasn’t a totally useless endeavour.”

“Very true,” admits Lizzie.

When they get to the mountain with the dirt house atop it, Lizzie glances sideways at Ren, who is still staring suspiciously around them. “Ren, why don’t you go scout out the area and make sure there aren’t any traps nea-.”

“Okay!”

He takes off even before she finishes her sentence.

Chuckling to herself, Lizzie makes her way across the one-wide bridge towards the opening of the cave.

“Hello, Lizzie.”

Lizzie spins round to find Joel standing on the other end of the bridge, where she had just come from. “Uh, h-hi, Joel.” She gives a nervous laugh, wondering if Joel has found out that she bet on him to be the first to turn red. “What’s… What’s going on? Why’d you ask me over?”

Joel’s face holds a grim look as he slowly walks towards her, drawing his sword. “I’m sorry.”

Lizzie’s eyes widen as she realises what’s happening. “No...! Why me...?!”

“Because you were the only one who would come when I asked,” Joel replies. “I really am sorry, Lizzie. I didn’t want it to be you, but I need to get rid of this curse.”

“No!” Lizzie hurriedly backs away, painfully aware that she won’t be able to outrun him. “Joel, please! Please!”

Joel lunges.

“Get away from her!”

Lizzie almost falls over backwards as a figure appears out of nowhere and jumps in front of her, taking the stab to the gut that was aimed at her.

“REN!”

As Joel freezes, Lizzie reacts and shoves him off the bridge. She doesn’t even need to look at chat to confirm what she already knows.

SmallishBeans fell from a high place

She rushes to Ren’s side and steadies him, ensuring he won’t follow Joel over the side. “Ren!” she gasps, her voice cracking in panic. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?!”

Ren’s face is twisted in his pain as his shaky hand tries to staunch the bleeding. “I-I don’t think I’m gonna make it…”

“No, you HAVE to! Come on!”

Lizzie pulls Ren to his feet and slings his arm over her shoulder. She guides Ren through the woods, forcing herself to ignore every wince and muted cry coming from her ally. Thankfully, the two make it back to Lizzie’s tree fort safely, where Lizzie carefully lays Ren down on a soft patch of grass and flowers, hidden away from the entrance to the fort.

“Hold on, Ren!” Lizzie pleads, dashing to her house. “Hold on!”

She hurriedly rifles through her chests, looking for the items that will save Ren’s life. The netherwart is easy to find but she realises quickly that she doesn’t have any blaze rods.

As she’s searching through her final chest, her communicator buzzes.

Renthedog was slain by SmallishBeans

“No!” she gasps, abandoning the things in her arms and rushing back towards where she had left Ren.

Only his items remain in the spot.

Blinking back tears, she gathers up his stuff and puts it in a chest for him. When he finally emerges back in the tree fort about five minutes later, she tackles him in a hug.

“You’re yellow again,” she murmurs.

Instead of responding directly, Ren simply asks, “Are you okay?”

“I will be.”

She steps back and concentrates, whispering the spell that Grian taught them all at the start of this world.

Ren gasps as the green particles surround him, and the heart tattoo on his neck changes from yellow back to light green.

“Y-You gave me a life…?!” Ren stares at her in shock. “Wh- Why? You’re yellow now!”

“Because you saved my life. It wasn’t fair that you lost yours in the process.”

“Well I-I’m not implying I’m not grateful. I just…” He hesitates. “I was willing to die for you. And our alliance wouldn’t have ended if I’d died.”

“I figured as much, I just…” Lizzie forces a laugh. “I didn’t want to give Joel the satisfaction.”

Ren chuckles.

“And maybe�� maybe I didn’t want you to die,” she adds. “I’ve never had a relative stranger put their life on the line for me before.”

“We’re not strangers anymore, right?”

“Oh heck no, you took a sword to the gut for me,” responds Lizzie. “You’re my friend. Thank you for saving me, Ren.”

Ren smiles back and gently touches her shoulder. “You’re welcome, Lizzie.”

[votederpycausemufins]

Alright, I’ve been sitting on this idea for a while and I finally wrote it. Bird brain Grian hours time! Gonna do a few more short writing pieces, but then I got an idea for a multi chapter fic.

Grian groggily woke up. For whatever reason, he couldn’t get to sleep the night before. He wanted to just curl up and go back to sleep, but there was something keeping him from doing that. Or rather, someone. Professor Beak was chirping loudly and keeping Grian up. The avian tried to muffle the noises with a pillow, but he had little luck.

“Okay! Fine!” Grian finally got out of bed after more chirping. “What do you want?” The parrot flew over to the door of Grian’s bedroom, it currently shut. Grian groaned, but opened the door and let the parrot fly out. Not thinking he could get back to sleep, Grian followed behind letting his wings drag on the floor.

As he made himself a simple breakfast of toast, Grian watched as Professor Beaks flew out of the mansion, and then eventually return with another parrot. Being an avian, it was easy enough for Grian to tell the parrot wasn’t tamed, but he wasn’t really looking for a new pet, so he wasn’t going to tame it.

When Grian finished his breakfast, he grumbled at the situation past him had put him in, now needing to preen his feathers after dragging his wings on the floor. He went outside to not leave feathers everywhere in his kitchen, then started working. It didn’t take too long, so before the sun had risen much, Grian was out flying to the shopping district. His first stop was the barge, making sure to restock and put away his earnings. At least most of it. After the barge, Grian headed over to Aqua Town to buy from some of the shops there.

When he went into the Moo-Pop cafe, Grian was a little surprised to see Scar was currently there. Glad to see another hermit, the avian made a beeline over to the mayor. “Hi Scar!”

Scar looked up from his communicator. “Oh hey Grian! How are you doing.”

Grian shrugged, his wings opening a bit. “To be honest, a little tired. I didn’t really sleep well last night. I was hoping visiting the shopping district would help wake me up.”

“And did it work?”

“I’m not feeling completely awake, but it did help.”

Scar smiled. “Well that’s good to hear.”

Grian nodded, then moved so he could look over Scar’s shoulder. “So, who are you messaging?”

“Hmm? Oh, Bdubs was going to meet me. I’m setting up something so we can sell more land for Aque Town.”

Grian ignored the urge he had to frown. “That sounds nice!”

“Yeah. I’ve already built something for it. It’s- Grian, could you close your wings?”

Grian was confused for a second before looking behind himself and found his wings fully spread. He quickly closed them, giving an apology. “Sorry Scar. Didn’t realize I had done that. Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.”

“Don’t worry, it’s fine.” And then Scar pointed out the giant statues of him and Bdubs, explaining his idea of the Land Games.

Grian listened intently, giving Scar his full attention. He would have listened longer, but the sudden addition of a new voice made Grian jump. Bdubs had arrived.

The avian moved out of the way to let Scar join Bdubs, watching as the two walked outside. Grian stood in place for a bit before walking outside and getting into the air, shopping trip completely forgotten. While flying, he realized his hands were currently clenched into fists. He relaxed then and found his nails had dug into his palms, breaking the skin a bit.

Grian shook his head. Obviously he was still out of it. Flying hadn’t worked and obviously he wasn’t paying attention to pain. The next option was to splash water in his face, but the ocean was all salt water. But then he saw the large turquoise building in the middle of the ocean, and the mini water park on top.

With a flap of his wings, Grian managed to make it over to the top of Pacific and dive into the water. He knew he would probably be stuck up there for a bit now that his wings were wet, but the sudden cold water seemed to finally wake him up.

Grian just floated on his back, spreading his wings to help him keep afloat. He stared up at the sky, watching the clouds go by. The chlorine made the new cuts on his hands sting just a little bit, but since he hadn’t cut them deep enough to draw blood, it wasn’t too bad.

The avian wasn’t sure how long he was floating there, but a voice suddenly made him look up. “Grian? What are you doing here?”

Mumbo was looking down at Grian, standing on the edge of the pool. “Oh, hi Mumbo!” Grian said, smiling and glad to see a friend. “Didn’t sleep well and thought the water would wake me up. It did but now I don’t want to get out and have to deal with my wings.”

“Well, just so you know Iskall and I are supposed to have a meeting today. I doubt we’ll be up here, but you should probably have a heads up.”

Grian frowned, but he couldn’t tell why. Was it because he didn’t want to have to leave? That was probably it, that’s all. “Alright, well if you need me to move, just say the word.”

It turned out they didn’t need to use the roof, so it was perfectly okay for Grian to stay. And he would have, but hearing the conversation from the floor below him got on his nerves, for the avian got out of the pool and shook his wings out. He couldn’t fly with them in their current state, but he was at the very least able to glide. There weren’t many places in gliding distance, so Grian ended up back at the shopping district.

The avian ended up wandering back into Aque Town, mainly since there were so many plots of land nearby. Free open spaces, right in the sun, perfect for if you needed to dry something. Technically he could also go in the nether, but that was only really for emergency situations since the dimension was so dangerous.

Grian flopped down in an empty plot of land and spread his wings out, taking in the warmth of the sun. He just sat there, basking in the sunlight, wondering if maybe he could catch up on sleep right there, when he heard voices getting closer. Opening a single eye, he watched as Scar and Bdubs were coming closer to where he was resting. Another look showed him a trough of water that probably wasn’t there before, so that was likely involved with whatever they were doing.

Even though the two of them were being a bit loud, Grian just didn’t feel like moving yet again. Fortunately, it seemed that the two of them were more focused on whatever they were doing that they didn’t really notice Grian. The avian curiously watched them build up with scaffolding up past where Grian could see without craning his neck up. 

Grian almost just closed his eyes again, but then he heard Bdubs shouting. “I don’t even see it- Oh I see it! I see it!” And then there was a crunch as Bdubs crashed into the ground. Bdubs of course respawned nearby, a bed having been set up, so he was fine, so Grian didn’t feel bad at all for laughing at what happened.

The laughter caught Bdubs and Scar’s attention, making them finally notice Grian. “Oh hey, what are you doing around here?”

Grian flapped his wings slightly. “Needed to dry these out. This was close, sunny, and open ground, so it was perfect for that. I’m guessing this is part of those land games you mentioned?”

“Yeah, right now we’re sort of competing to see who gets to sell what plot. We’re actually fighting on the one you’re in right now.”

Grian smirked before asking a question. “Does the winner get me as a prize too?”

“You know what? If you’re offering, sure!” Scar joked along. From there, Grian watched as the mayor proceeded to climb up and also splat himself on the ground.

Next Bdubs went again, And Grian found himself wanting him to miss the pool of water, which he did. Following that Scar first managed to fall off the scaffolding, but then also fail the jump, making Grian frown. The competing pair wondered if it was a bit too hard and made the trough bigger, but still Bdubs failed his next jump.

As Scar climbed the scaffolding once more, Grian watched, actually watching him get to the very top. He could just barely hear the mayor counting down before he jumped and then finally landed in the water. He cheered a bit and the plot of land was marked with some orange wool, Grian getting up and finding his wings only slightly damp at this point.

The avian watched as a platform was set up out of stone. The next competition was just going to be a fist fight, so Grian sat to the side closer to Scar. Since he was a third party, Grian was asked to start the match for them. “Alright, the feat of slapping strength! Go to your sides. Ready? Three, two, one, go!”

Grian watched as the two started slapping each other. Scar was calm during the match while Bdubs seemed much more nervous. As it got to the end of the battle, Bdubs started panicking, worried he would lose, but instead, Scar lost all his hearts first, respawning in the nearby bed. Scar looked away in shame while Bdubs bragged, neither of them watching as Grian got up from where he was sitting. The avian’s vision had blacked out, his body going on autopilot.

The next thing the avian knew, he was looking down at Bdubs, who was now unconscious on the ground, and his hands felt sore, the fingers currently curled into fists. He looked around, confused and trying to figure out what just happened. Scar was to the side, looking scared of Grian, which didn’t make the avian feel any better. He went to look back at Bdubs, but for a moment, he saw someone else.

“Oh my god! Grian what did you do?!”

“H-He was getting too close. He might have hurt you! You’re the mayor after all!”

“I’m only mayor because I was the only candidate left.”

“Yes, and obviously he’s upset about that and he-”

“Grian stop. You’re… you’re acting like he did…”

Grian looked at his hands. He had done this to Bdubs. He had hurt his friend. The avian jumped slightly as Scar started to say something, but immediately Grian panicked and flew into the air, heading towards his mansion. He messed up again, and the only thing that worked last time was staying away, so he would have to do that again.

.

.

.

It had only been a day since anyone saw Grian last. Normally that wouldn’t be too concerning, but news of what had happened in Aque Town had spread from Scar trying and failing to message Grian and ask what had happened. Because of that, everyone was a bit concerned for him.

Grian wasn’t answering any messages that got sent his way, having turned his communicator off completely. The only company he had was Professor Beak and his new friend. They were fun to watch, but also made Grian feel worse about having to stay away from everyone. But it would only be for a few days until he felt better, that was all.

But then Grian heard voices. “He’s not in this room either. Are we sure he’s even staying here at this point?”

“Xisuma said this was where his communicator was last active. Even if he’s not here, we should still be looking for that.”

Grian recognised Iskall and Mumbo’s voices. Half of him was glad to hear his friends, but at the same time, he was silently freaking out. What if one of them came in and he hurt them? He didn’t even want that to happen to Bdubs, so a second person was definitely not something he was after.

The only thing Grian had going for him staying hidden was the fact he had made a secret room to stay in. There weren’t any doors for them to look in, and the only window was there for the parrots to go in and out of. There was no way they would find-

“Is that Professor Beak? Where’s he going?” Iskall asked.

“He might be going to Grian, so we should probably follow behind.” Mumbo replied, and then Grian could hear as they started getting closer. The avian quickly looked around to see if he had any blocks to quickly plug up the hole, make it so the parrot couldn’t get in.

Grian carefully opened some chests, doing his best to stay quiet while also in a rush. Finally, he managed to find some left over from when he made the place and then flew up to the hole. He was glad to get there before Beak, closing the window, and then gliding back down to his bed. Now all he could do was wait.

Grian covered his mouth to make sure he didn’t make any noises as Mumbo and Iskall’s footsteps came from the other side of the wall. There was a bit of squawking from the other side of the wall as well as some scratching. At the very least it sounded like Professor Beak was at the wrong part of the wall, so if they broke in, they wouldn’t find him.

Still listening, it sounded like they thought Beak was just being an odd bird and weren’t going to follow him. Grian wanted to sigh in relief, though he still needed to stay quiet. Mumbo said something which made it seem he and Iskall were going to leave, but then Grian realized his mistake. The parrot Professor Beak had been with was still in the hidden room, and when it realized its friend was missing, it started squawking loudly.

Grian flew up to grab the parrot and force it to shut up, but it just flew away, making the avian struggle to grab it. He was panting by the time he finally grabbed the bird, but that alone seemed to work, until suddenly Beak was flying around him angrily. Grian swatted at him to try and get the parrot to leave him alone, but then stopped when someone spoke.

“Grian? Is this where you’ve been?” Grian looked over to where Iskall and Mumbo had broken through the wall, having heard the other parrot enough to find the source, Grian’s attempts at trying to catch it just helped, as he wasn’t that quiet. 

Grian let go of the other parrot, and they flew away with Professor Beak, Grian considering flying off after them. “Y-Yes. Now go away.”

“No, are you okay? We heard about what happened with-” Iskall started to say before they were cut off.

“That’s exactly why you should leave!” Grian shouted at them. “So get out!”

Mumbo and Iskall looked at each other before leaving the room, Grian just watching the newly made entrance and trying to unpuff his wings. There was some whispering from the pair, which didn’t help calm Grian down. And It really didn’t help when they walked back in. “Okay Grian, Xisuma told us we should take you to Doc.”

“I don’t need to go anywhere! What I need is to stay right here!” Grian argued. He wanted to say more, but while he was focused on yelling at Iskall, Mumbo snuck up behind him and suddenly wrapped him in a blanket. Grian struggled a bit, but Iskall quickly came over and before long, Grian was wrapped up in the blanket like a burrito, finding it surprisingly calming. Since he still hadn’t slept well, it wasn’t long before the avian fell asleep in the blanket as he was carried away.

He was next aware of things as something nudged his side a few times, making him wake up with a slight trill, trying to move his wings, but he was still wrapped up and couldn’t move them. “You with us Grian?” Grian half nodded, feeling sort of like there was cotton stuffed in his head, making the voice a bit muffled, but he still recognized it as Doc. “Alright, open your mouth.”

Grian opened his mouth, and then something was put in and under his tongue. “Close your mouth.” Grian complied and then just sat there before there was some beeping from whatever had been put there. “Alright, temperature seems maybe a little high. That could just be from the blanket though, but we should still keep an eye on it.”

Grian felt himself being moved and then he was freed from the blanket. “So can you tell what’s wrong?” That sounded like Mumbo.

“Not yet. Theoretically there’s nothing that seems like it could be causing the problem since he was violent before locking himself away. What exactly happened with Bdubs?”

“That’s something you should ask Scar or Bdubs himself.” Iskall answered. “We weren’t there.”

“You weren’t?” Doc sounded confused. “Then can one of you see if Scar could come here. He might have a better idea of what’s going on.”

“Right, I’ll do that.” Mumbo spoke, and Grian made a sad noise before Doc patted his head.

“Don’t worry, he’s not leaving.” The creeper hybrid reassured Grian. “Looks like this year’s hitting you hard, huh?”

The question just left Grian confused, but before he could ask anything Mumbo spoke up. “Scar’s on his way over here. It shouldn’t be too long.”

“Right. By the way, where was Grian set up?”

“Er, well he had a room in his mansion.” Mumbo answered.

“Alright, so that’s probably not it either.”

“What does that tell you?” Iskall asked. “I mean, I thought it would be the obvious answer.”

Doc shrugged. “I mean, it would be, but that’s why I needed to ask. If he were somewhere else, that location might have been unfavorable and helped cause this.”

Grian half paid attention from there, half letting instinct take over because it felt easier. At the same time, his head still felt stuffed, so when he tried walking when everyone was looking away for a few moments, he ended up on the ground. He was given a glass of water after that, which helped his head a bit, and around a minute later, Scar finally arrived.

“Alright, so what exactly did you need me for?” Scar asked, Doc giving an answer. “Oh, Bdubs and I were in Aque town dividing up land to sell. Grian was there and watched us. We did a slapping battle for one section of land which I lost and then Grian suddenly started attacking Bdubs.”

“Right, I’m guessing that’s the big problem. Mumbo, Iskall, do either of you want to explain it?”

The pair just looked at each other confused. “Explain what exactly?” Iskall asked, having no clue.

“About Grian.” Doc supplemented, but there was still confusion.

“Doc, we came here because we don’t know what’s up with him.”

The hybrid sighed. “Okay, we don’t know exactly about the violent part, but I was talking more about the partner part.”

There was silence for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

“Wh- I’m sorry did you think this only happened once?”

“Once?” Mumbo asked, sounding even more confused.

Doc rubbed his forehead. “Alright, a year ago today, what were you guys doing?”

“I was working on my base. I think also doing my villager district around that time?” Mumbo answered first.

“I was also working on my base.” Iskall answered, and then they looked over at Scar.

“I killed Cub.” Everyone sort of stared at Scar. “What? It was the head games and I managed to hit him while flying and then kill him. His head was worth a lot of points and I didn’t think I could get a pvp kill so I really remember it.”

“Ah! I’m glad you brought that up. Alright, so likely he’s dealing with the fact that all of you were busy this time.”

“Doc” Mumbo spoke up. “You seem to think we have some clue of what’s going on, but all of us are completely confused. Can you explain it like we know nothing at all?”

Doc sighed. “Alright fine, maybe that will make you remember.” He gestured to Grian. “Grian is an avian, specifically a parrot hybrid.” He paused to make sure they were all following along. “Hybrids often show traits from the animal they are a hybrid of, me being a good example.” The other hermits nodded. “While they’re usually adapted because of hybrids being more human than mob, traits will line up. Currently, it’s around the time of year where parrots are looking for someone to be their… partner in a sense and-”

Iskall cut Doc off. “And Grian’s doing that?!”

“Uh, yes. I thought you would be aware from season six but-”

“Hold on, I’m still a bit lost.” Mumbo spoke up, also cutting Doc off.

“Scar, please tell me you know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t have the slightest clue.” Scar replied, making Doc groan.

“Alright, I think we found the problem.” Doc said, sounding frustrated. “It’s that you three are all idiots. Long story short, when the bird species an avian belongs to have their mating season, the avians will be clingy and need companionship. I’m not sure how none of you noticed last year or the year before, but obviously, you somehow missed it and helped him at the same time.”

Before any of the trio of other hermits could ask any more questions, Grian was the one to speak up. “What are you talking about?”

Doc was quiet for a few moments before making some hissing noises that everyone was pretty sure were curses. “Grian, how do you not know that? What did you think was going on last year?”

“Last… year?” Grian tried thinking back, but he didn’t remember anything. “This didn’t happen last year. It hasn’t happened since Evo.”

“Ah, that would make this even more of a problem. You’re repressing mob traits. To be completely honest, this explains a lot.” Doc pulled Mumbo a bit closer to him and Grian’s wings puffed up. “Yeah. Your instincts are more pronounced which is making you a bit more violent.” Then he pulled Mumbo closer to himself, Grian’s wings puffing up in response. “He’s gotten to the point where the more feral side of him is trying to take control and further repression is making him violent. For now, I suggest taking him back to his mansion, give him plenty of blankets, stay nearby, and keep hermits he gets upset at or they could end up in a similar situation to Bdubs.”

“Anything else we should know?” Mumbo asked, feeling a little concerned for his friend.

“Oh definitely, but I’d like Grian to be more lucid for it, so I’m just giving the necessary information and you can come back here in a few days for the whole thing.”

“Wait, did you say a few days?” Scar asked, sounding a little concerned.

“Up to five depending on how bad Grian’s mob side is, but probably it’ll only be two or three days. Think of it like… a long slumber party where you’re hostages to a parrot.”

“That doesn’t make it better.” Iskall spoke up, but then Doc started pushing them out the door along with Scar, Grian and Mumbo. 

They weren’t able to get far though, since Doc ignored his own advice and just made Grian upset. He pulled away after a few moments, but even then, that didn’t seem to work. That confused Doc a bit since obviously Grian had been protective of Scar with Bdubs and Mumbo with him. Though Iskall… Doc pulled Iskall away which seemed to help Grian. “Huh, guess I was wrong about that.”

“About what?”

“I thought since you three were so close last season, Grian would want Iskall around, but I guess that’s not the case.” Doc explained.

“Well I guess that means at least one of us can work on Pacific.” Iskall shrugged.

“Message me if you need anything about it.” Mumbo said before looking to Scar. “Well, I guess you and I are going to be hanging out for a bit, now aren’t we?”

“I guess so. Let’s get Grian back to his place.”

.

.

.

When they first got back to the mansion, Grian still seemed nervous about the whole thing, trying to lock himself away. Mumbo and Scar did their best to reassure him, and listening to Doc’s advice, they found some blankets. 

The way Grian reacted had Scar laughing as he compared it to when Jellie saw a toy to go after. Grian had almost immediately pounced on the blankets and started forming them into some sort of nest before dragging Mumbo and Scar into it against their will. Since neither of them had wings, Grian instead groomed them by keeping their hair and clothes tidy. Mumbo did his best to reciprocate by helping to preen Grian’s wings, also showing Scar how it was done since he had little clue on what to do.

Because it was really just the three of them, Grian didn’t have many problems other than him worrying about himself. The worst was after a day into their hanging out that Jellie came looking for Scar and was not expecting what was essentially a five foot tall bird attacking her. The only injuries were a few scratches that the cat gave Grian, but some bandages quickly patched him up and he seemed to like the care that he was given from it.

It also seemed the scuffle helped Grian out, making him more lucid, instincts calming down a bit. He still felt a bit protective of Mumbo and Scar, but for the most part it was just him complaining as they stepped away to grab something to eat or just needed to stretch. And if Scar kept getting out, that was just because his bones get stiff easily, not at all because he liked watching how dramatic Grian got at him being two blocks away. Not at all.

“Grian, you’re fine. Scar is right there.”

“Nooo! He’s abandoned me! I’m unloved! I have no friends!” Grian complained, flopped on top of the blankets.

Mumbo patted Grian’s head. “That’s not true. I’m here too, aren’t I?”

“But you’re almost always around. This is different.” Grian pouted. “Besides, I have two hands! I can hold yours but also someone else’s. Like Scar’s.”

That left Mumbo a little flustered, especially as Grian took his hand and also grabbed towards Scar. Scar reluctantly moved close enough for Grian to grab him, surprised as he was suddenly yanked down and landed face first into a pile of blankets. Grian gave a chirpy laugh before trapping Mumbo and Scar in blankets before squeezing himself in there and wrapping the pair in his wings before settling down to nap. The pair tried to escape, but had little luck, and ended up stuck in the blankets and wings. 

They weren’t as tired as Grian seemed, since he still hadn’t quite caught up with his missed sleep, so the two of them chatted for a bit, sharing plans and ideas. Still, in such a position with not much to do, already buried in blankets, it wasn’t long before they also nodded off. 

Because he went to sleep first, Grian was the first to wake back up. He was finally feeling well rested and back to his normal self. He especially felt back to his normal self when he saw Scar lying there, making a smirk creep onto his face. Grian carefully pulled himself away, not wanting to wake the other two hermits. Then he crept over to a window and looked out, finding there were still chests sitting on the hill behind his mansion near the cows Zedaph left behind. Everything was in place, all except for Scar.

Grian moved back over to the pile of blankets and did a few stretches to make sure he didn’t hurt himself. He was pretty strong from always carrying building supplies and climbing all over the place to actually build, but just being an avian made him somewhat weaker than a normal human, his bones more like a birds to make it easier for him to fly. But despite all that, he was pretty strong, which is why he was easily able to lift Scar above his head and hold him there.

Scar woke up suddenly from being moved. “Hey! What’s going on?!”

“You still have to do the back of the mansion Scar! And you’re here right now so I’m putting you to work!”

“Nooo! Grian why?! I was just here to help you!”

“And now you can help out more. There’s already supplies down there, so just go until they’re all used up.” Grian said as he took Scar to the supplies, the mayor jokingly complaining the whole way there. Mumbo, who had been woken up by the scuffle, followed the pair outside with a yawn to see what exactly was going on. When Scar saw the redstoner, he pleaded for Mumbo to help, but he just watched as Scar worked on terraforming with some help from Grian.

Mumbo didn’t do much for a bit, letting Scar build for a bit before going down to stop them. “Alright, while I’m sure neither of you want to stop right now-” Mumbo paused from Grian snickering. “-Doc did want us to meet up with him again when Grian was feeling better, so we should probably do that. I’ve already messaged him and he says he’ll be at his base when we arrive.”

“Can’t we stay a little longer?” Grian pleaded, though Scar was ready to go.

“Nope, I’m sure this is really important. Much more important than the mansion.” Grian pouted a little, but then followed Mumbo and Scar to Doc’s base to visit the scientist.

.

.

.

“Yeah, it looks like Grian’s doing fine now.” Doc said as he finished giving the avian a check up. “It looks like the whole problem was mob trait repression, I had just never seen it that severe. Though that could also be the only case I’ve seen is from myself. I could barely deal with a few months, I’m surprised Grian was able to go years.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Grian asked. “I mean, I’m obviously bad enough on my own and I’m just an avian, I can’t imagine trying to deal with being a creeper hybrid.”

“See, that’s part of the issue. You’re not supposed to be acting violent like that unless you’re repressing traits. Think of it like trying to cage an animal. When they don’t want to be locked up, they’ll do what they can to get out. Being an avian doesn’t just make you lighter and give you wings, there are things you have to deal with. Sure you already deal with some of it, like always having a sweater on to deal with getting cold easier. But this is just another cookie incident.”

Grian crossed his arms. “I’m not actually allergic to chocolate, I just get indigestion.”

Doc just sighed. “Right, well, obviously in this case at least, you had no clue what was going on. Can I ask why?”

Grian ruffled his feathers. “It’s not like I grew up with any other avians. I just had to figure it out on my own. And even outside of that I didn’t have the best life growing up. Then the Evo experiment was a mess, but that was the calmest I had been, so when I… hurt someone-”

“Alright, that makes sense. Instinct took a back seat because you felt in danger. When it was finally calm enough, it had been repressed long enough that it made you more violent. That worried you, so you continued until you got to this point. And you had no clue that that was what was causing things.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess that sounds about right.” Grian answered, rubbing the back of his head. “So wait, is all this going to happen again?”

Doc shook his head. “Not to this scale. Just make a mark on your calendar to watch out for this next year. Then just contact Mumbo, Scar, or anyone else you need and just hang around each other for a few days. No one will get hurt and you’ll feel fine.”

“Hey, that’s great and all.” Scar cut in. “But I think he should probably learn from example, right Doc?”

Doc was slightly flustered and tripped over his words slightly. “I-I’m sorry? I’m not sure wh-what you’re talking about.”

“You’re forgetting the few times I had to shove you out of Area 77 because you were sizzling too much. I may not know what it looks like when avians are repressing instincts, but I know how it is for creepers.”

Doc sighed. “Alright, yeah. Just took a few days waiting for you guys. But a few days is still better than a few years, so it’s not that bad. I’ll just… have to follow you guys back to the jungle.”

“Why the jungle?” Grian asked curiously.

“Uh… creeper thing. Long story.”

“How about we meet a bit more so you can tell me some avian things and you tell me some creeper things?” Grian asked with a smile.

“I’m not so sure about-”

“Oh, what’s this? A stray cookie?”

“Alright! Fine! I’m not dealing with that and Stress isn’t close enough to take over. Let’s just go.”

[sinfullittlebee]

The Royal Pain P.2 (Scarian)

Warnings: This is Smut. SEX. YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. Slight knife play, bodyworship, just end me.

Once again, you can blame the Discord for this.

The moonlight shone through the stained glass windows as Scar followed the advisor down the hallway, nerves making his heart beat at a million miles per hour and anxiety making his stomach pull tightly in knots.

What he was doing was so illegal that he was better off using magic in public. He was being summoned to the chambers of an unmarried royal in secret right after assaulting that same royal and holding a knife to their neck.

Silently, he wondered how he wasn't being strung up by his neck right now.

Scar knew deep down that he could just refuse. He could stop, say no, quit his job at the stables and keep his life. Yet somehow, the idea seemed all too unappealing to him.

The thought of never seeing that sly smirk and twinkling eyes again, never hearing that teasing tone and mischevious giggles, never feeling those soft lips against his own and nimble fingers threading through his hair…

"His guard doesn't know about your arrangement- just leave it to me, alright?" Mumbos hushed voice broke through Scars thoughts as he realized they had stopped just around the corner.

Straightening his tie, Mumbo took a deep breath and strode around the corner, walking up to the Guard with a charming smile.

Scar watched as they exchanged casual pleasantries, but became quickly surprised as Mumbo stepped closer and reached up to cup the guards chin.

Mumbo didn't know what he was doing, really. Intially, he had simply planned on telling Iskall he was allowed to take the night off. Yet somehow, the shorter male always seemed to be able to jumble up Mumbos plans.

"Nice night, isn't it Iskall?" Iskall looked at him with surprise before smiling at him cheekily, removing his helmet to see him better, "Mumbo! What a pleasant surprise. Taking a stroll a presume?"

Mumbo could have scoffed. How dare he act so casual with the little stunt he had pulled earlier.

"Well…" He trailed off before he stepped closer, reaching out and grabbing Iskall's chin to make the guard look up at him; cheeks growing red as his breath hitched.

"U-Uh...Mumbo?"

Taking another step forward, Mumbo pushed Iskall back against the wall and leaned down to capture the guards lips with his own, relishing the small noise that escaped his lips.

When he pulled back slightly, both of their eyes were lidded as they caught their breath's, cheeks flushed a bright red as a string of saliva still connected their lips.

Swallowing, Mumbo continued as the best smirk he could muster, "Iskall, you made me a little...proposition earlier during Grians break in training. I'm to assume it still stands?"

Blinking in recognition, Iskall gulped, eyes flickering between the Princes door and Mumbo before he gave in with a groan, "False is so gonna have my head for this- but fuck it." Shoving Mumbo back, he grabbed the advisor by his wrist and speed walked down the hall, just about missing Scar. Mumbo gave the stable boy a quick thumbs up before he disappeared around a corner.

Scar was shocked by the display, cheeks flushed a bright red. Knowing he had limited time, he didn't dwell on the thought and made his way to Grians door.

He knocked, waiting patiently before the door swung open, "Finally…"

His jaw dropped at the sight of the royal, his eyes roaming every inch of exposed skin. Grian wore a red silk robe that was tied loosely around his waist, the shoulders changing sleeves low exposing the light marks Scar had left from earlier.

Though he had arrived on time, The prince still had an annoyed and impatient expression, hand on his hip expectantly.

"Get in. Your late."

Ah. There was that usual demanding attitude.

Snapping out of his daze, Scar rolled his eyes and walked inside the lavish room.

Briefly admiring the decor, Scar jumped as the door was shut loudly. Turning to the Prince, he was annoyed to find the man narrowing his eyes at him.

"What?"

"Are you not going to apologize?" His words were less questioning, and more demanding, causing Scars annoyance to flair once more.

"No, because I wasn't late- you're just impatient your highness." He snapped right back, making the Princes temper flair up again, "Excuse me?!"

"You're excused." Scar smirked, confidence replacing his anxiety as he saw how he was getting under the other man's skin.

"You- Y-you-!!" Grians face grew redder in frustration as he strode closer, "Listen to me, just because you pulled that little stunt earlier doesn't mean you are off the damn hook, stable boy!!" Scar snorted at the name, the Princes tantrum being more amusing than annoying, "I know what you are, you hear me?!" This made Scar freeze, his stomach dropping as he tenses. This seemed to get the Princes attention as he grinned in victory, "Y-yea! Thats right, I know exactly what you are! And you and I both know the punishment for such practice…"

While this should have scared Scar, he simply continued to look at Grian with a cold gaze, feeling his anger flare up inside him.

"Now, unless you want to be burned alive, I suggest you start listening to me."

Something inside Scar snapped and he sneered, glaring at the male with a critical eye, "Oh really now? The little royal brat is threatening me? What, did I put a bruise in your little ego earlier?" He started walking towards the Prince, his eyes swirling in the golden glow once again as he backed Grian against the wall.

"H-hey!!"

"Maybe your ego needs a few more bruises to straighten you out, hm?" Looking fearful, Grian tried to make a dash for the door, only for Scars arm to shoot out and wrap around his waist. He pushed him roughly against the stone brick wall, pressing their bodies together as they came inches apart. Their breaths mingling, Scar could see the deep blush across the Princes face as he squirmed very gently.

Scar gulped, loosening his grip as he leaned by Grians ear, voice hushed, "This...Is this alright? Do you want this?" The stable boy needed confirmation before going any further, unsure if this was part of their little game or if Grian was really scared.

Freezing at his voice, Grian slowly relaxed, panting softly as he reached behind Scar and gripped the cloth on his back.

"God, more than anything…"

That was all Scar needed for him to roughly press his lips to the Princes in a heated, open mouthed kiss, Grian easily returning the affections eagerly. The stable boys hands slipped into the robe and he pushed it open, hands going down to his sides as his thumbs began rubbing circles into Grian's hips.

Pulling apart, Scar wrapped his arms around Grians waist and picked up the Prince, walk to the bed before dropping him on it. Crawling over him, He grinded his hips down on the blonde males as he kissed and sucked on the vein of his neck, drawing soft moans from him.

Pulling away, Scar sat up and looked around the room, spotting a knife sitting on Grians desk, "Hm...you seemed to like the knife earlier, didn't you~?" He teased, grinning as the blush on the Princes cheeks grew even darker.

Snapping his fingers, the Knife shot up and within seconds had itself pressed against Grians neck, making his breath hitch.

Scar watched in amusement as he began to unbutton his leather vest, speaking slowly and firmly with a smirk playing on his lips, "Let's get this right, hm? In here, I'm in charge- you've got no power." Grian looked like he wanted to protest, but lost his voice as Scar slipped off his vest and shirt, working on his belt next, "Secondly, your not allowed to touch yourself. All you are allowed to do is lay back like a good little prince while I do all the work. Got it?"

Gulping, Grian nodded as Scar took off his pants and underwear as well, "Good."

Going back down, Scar started to pepper and mouth kisses all over, moving from his collar bone, to his chest, to his midsection; worshipping every inch and leaving the man under him a squirming mess, quietly begging for more intimate attention.

Purposely avoiding his cock, Scar mouthed and nipped at Grians thighs, adoring the softness and the small noises he was making.

As he finished, he moved slightly up and wrapped his hand around the base of Grians dick before pressing a kiss to the tip- milking a hitched gasp from the Prince, "Your doing such a good job so far Grian~" he moved his hand up and down the shaft as a painstakingly slow pace, thumb swiping over the head every now and then.

Scar focused his magic on the knife, moving it to slowly trail the sharp edge along the skin of Grians chest until he trailing his eyes to the blondes face. His gut coiled in arousal at the pleading look on Grians face, groaning softly.

"Do...you have an oil?"

Grian whimpered softly, thrusting gently into Scars hand before gasping softly, "D-drawer-"

Grabbing the knife and letting his magic settle, he leaned forward and put it on the nightstand, opening the drawer to grab the oil lubricant.

Squeezing a good amount on his fingers, he pulled Grians knees over his shoulders and leaned forward. Scar pressed his lips to the Princes once more as he reached down and pressed a finger to the tight entrance.

Slowly slipping it in, Scar could feel Grian tense under him and he pulled away, kissing and biting gently at his neck to distract him, "Your being so good for me, my little prince…"

Grian whined in response as Scar added a second finger, whimpering and shivering as the brunette scissored and thrusting them gently. Scar buried his face in Grians neck, taking in the scent of roses and fresh oak as he slipped in a third finger.

"D-dammit, just fuck me already-'

Growling softly, Scar bit hard down on the vein in his neck as a warning, making Grian gasp and moan in surprise.

Slipping his fingers out, Scar used a bit more oil on his on shaft. After giving himself a few strokes, Scar leaned down and lined himself up.

"Ready?" He murmured breathlessly, "Yes- hurry, please~" Grian sounded desperate and with that Scar slowly began to press inside, moaning softly at the way Grians walls squeezed around him, "H-holy shit-"

"h-hurry up!" Grian moaned, grinding his hips up. Growling, Scar snapped his hips forward and wasted no time thrusting into the tight heat.

Grians moans grew into blissful screams as Scars pace grew rougher and quicker, "Fine, if you want to be such an impatient little brat-!"

Grian felt as if his body was being wreaked, climax growing closer as every snap of Scars hips seemed to hit directly into his prostate, making him see stars. Neither of them wanted this moment to end, in their own heavens as they pressed tightly together. Scars lips locked to Grians for what felt like the hundredth time that night, tounges tangling and fighting for dominance as Grians hands gripped and tugged at Scars soft brown locks, his gut coiling in heat at the acknowledgment of exactly who was courting him at that moment, pushing him closer to the edge.

"S-scar-!!"

"I-i know- go ahead~"

His back arching, he let out a soundless moan as one last direct hit to his prostate pushed him over the edge. White hot pleasure shooting through their bodies as they both orgasmed, Scar thrusting one more time before he came inside the blonde and Grian cumming onto his chest.

Both of them laid there wordlessly, trying to catch their breaths before Scar slowly pulled out.

Leaning down, he lazily licked the cum off Grians chest before sucking a few more hickeys into his collar bone.

Pulling away, Scar rolled on his side facing the Prince, the pair just staring for a few moments before Grian scooted closer and cuddling closer to Scar, burying his head into his chest.

"I...This won't be a one time thing, right? I...i-im...sorry...for the things I've said. I just- get frustrated…and..."

As Grian trailed off, Scar finally realized something.

He had mouthed off to and assaulted an unmarried royal multiple times in one day, and now- he had just courted that same Royal as a mere stable hand.

If he was found out, he would be probably be beheaded on sight.

Yet, as he listened to the soft tone in the Princes voices, he felt his heart flutter and he smiled softly, sitting up and grabbing a blanket and draping it over them before hugging Grian closer.

"No. It won't be, if you don't want it to be…"

As frustrating as the Royal Pain had been, in the end Scar couldn't help but fall.

[writing-the-end]

LoL Chapter 19- Exhaustion

Masterpost

A Wizard Hermits tale (AU and Red belongs to @theguardiansofredland )

On their way to lunch, the hermits are attacked. Jealousy rages within the guilds that are losing, but the hermits are unable to fight back. Will they even make it to the event in time? 

___________________________________________

“We make a great team, that paper birdy didn’t even know what happened to it.” Tango laughs, grabbing Grian into a headlock and playfully nuzzling his fist into the golden locks. His body aches, and he feels weak, but prideful. The other hermits around them chatter excitedly, walking down the smooth, clean roads of the noble district. Even the canals of swampwater are tiled and cleaned of dirt and debris. Streets Mumbo knows well- he grew up here. So of course he took the chance to go to his favorite cafe. 

“I’d say I’m happy with bronze, but I really wanted to beat that Mitch guy. Plus, pirates always love gold.” Cleo hums, looking at the medal around her neck. Of course, she’ll always take beating some 30 other guilds to get this medal, their moans and complaints of being beat in the wrestling challenge. She rubs her wrist, wincing. “Though I’ll admit, I haven’t felt this burnt out from magic in years. It’s like that one event sucked it all out of my body.” 

“I feel that way every time I step into the ring.” Tango states, earning a nod from Grian as well. “After day one, I could hardly get out of bed. I felt like a dragon was sitting on my chest.” A few others murmur agreement, and the conversation stops. Not for long, thanks to Grian.

“Scar, Mumbo, are you two ready to show everyone your skills?” Grian grins, fluttering to the front of the group. 

“I was born ready for the creative event. I’ve been dreamin’ about this since I was a boy.” Scar sighs, feeling giddy. He’s already got an idea in mind, building and creating within his own head. 

“I...I’m not so sure. Can’t someone else step in for me? I don’t think I can get my magic to work well enough, much less to beat the others like you all have.”  Mumbo’s terrified. He wishes he had the confidence that Scar just exudes. He has no clue what he’ll build. He’s not even sure if his magic will appear today. 

“You’ve got it, man.” Doc appears beside him, patting his shoulder. “Don’t doubt yourself, otherwise I’ll take control and make you believe.” Mumbo freezes, smiling weakly. He’s not sure if he should be comforted or not by Doc’s offer.

He turns, eyes glimmering upon setting his gaze on the cafe. He came here all the time when he was younger, before he joined the hermits. He would come here to study, to relax, sometimes just to get his favorite tea from the shop. Being back here is strange, the nostalgia mixing with nerves. What would his friends think of this place? Are they out of the normal? Doc and Grian definitely are. 

Mumbo reaches out, grabbing the door’s wrought iron handle. His hand goes right through the metal, iron warping and wiggling like air in the summer heat. “What in the…” 

The ripples cascade out, across the air and townhouses. The mosaics shatter before reforming, and the entire street is empty. But the hermits aren’t alone. “You freaks think you own this place, don’t you? That you’re anything like us? That you can just waltz into the noble district because you’ve won the past two days?” 

Doc immediately summons his magic, ready for a fight. More than a dozen other mages appear from the illusion. Torn shoulder pauldrons, glistening with gold spikes, announces them being from the Guild of Gedeon. A council guild. Behind Doc, he can hear other hermits drawing their circles, blues and yellows shimmering off the illusion they're trapped in. “Let us go, you’re messing with the wrong guild.” 

“Ohoho, win a couple of events and suddenly you think you’re a guild? No, no.” A burly man with feral eyes stares down Doc, shoving him and Cleo towards Scar and Mumbo. “You’re messing up everything. I don’t know why Magistrate Dolios let scum mar such a prestigious event.”

“Maybe it’s because he realized ‘scum like us’ are better at magic than you. Didn’t want the crowd to get bored of the same old dopey outfits and subpar spells.” Cleo’s words have hardly crossed her lips before fists collide with them, sending her splayed across the ground. Doc needs no further initiative, activating his circle and taking control of the mage that struck his friend. His eyes close, and open again looking at himself. Ugh, this body smells. He turns around, meaty hands instead crashing into the Gedeon’s own guildmembers. Three fly out of the illusion, out of the bubble that traps them where no one can watch the fight. Beneath another, the ground opens up beneath her to reveal hellfire. The flames claw at her feet, dragging her into the open chasm. Swallowing her up. 

Doc is thrown out of his puppet, head spinning and blood pooling from his own nose. Grian’s shout rings in his ear, making his head spin and splinter. He looks up, seeing the magical bludgeon disappear like a ghost from a Gedeon member. “You’re gonna regret messing with us. Messing with the order of things. You don’t belong here, none of you do.” 

The illusioner stoops low, snapping his meaty fingers and nodding the gang forward. “And we’ll show you why you don’t mess with the Council. The wrath of  the Guild of Gedeon is not something you walk away from.” 

The fight is intense. Six hermits against about a dozen combatants. What’s worse, the Guild of Gedeon is an offensive group. When the arcane guard can’t do a job, when a strongarm is needed, the Gedeons are the first in line. Cleo holds her own, blood boiling under her dead green skin. Her sword doesn’t back down from a fight, and neither does the poltergeists she summons to aid in the attack. She’s exhausted, but that doesn’t stop her from being in the middle of the battle. Doc jumps from person to person, tapping into their magic and turning it back onto their own teammates. Scar does his best to protect Doc in the process, throwing up walls of rock only for them to be crushed by a volatile spell shot their way. 

But they aren’t winning. Cleo and Doc’s attacks aren’t enough to stave off the fights and fragments of magic flown their way. Tango’s magic is all but gone, sapped from his body. Where did it all go? He had it all this morning, and the bird chase event couldn’t have been enough for him to lose it all! Even worse, Grian’s magic sputtered and died halfway through his attack. Mumbo peeks out from behind Scar’s barrier, hissing with pain as a bolt of hot rock is flung against his forehead. “Grian, what in the world is going on with your magic?” 

“I...I don’t know, Mumbo!” He flicks his wrists, but nothing happens. His arms snap in a quick dance, and he does manage to summon his spell. The wind is hardly more than a summer breeze in his hair. “It’s not there, I’m drained of magic, of energy! But how, I hardly used anything!”

“It’s like you’re me!” The four hiding behind the wall are crushed as the rocks collapse. Trapped, unable to fight off the onslaught. Scar can only block the worst attacks, but bruises and cuts blossom across the hermits.

Until the bell of the capitol building tolls a single time. As quickly as the fight started, it stops. Scar lowers his walls and arm, brushing the blood from his cheek. Immediately, he searches for his friends. Doc struggles to his feet, ready to fight. But Cleo, Grian, and Tango look like they’ve been fighting for hours. They’re completely out of magic, skin pale and eyes glazed with weakness. Something is very wrong. Is there a suppressor mage here? No, that would affect everyone. Mumbo scrabbles backwards, wrist hanging limp. “Good luck getting to check in for the rest of the events, freaks. We’ll see who’s in the labyrinth event now.” 

The illusion drops, and the busy street returns. Bustling crowds, horse-drawn carriages and carts passing by the hermits. As alone as when they first arrived at the cafe. People step around them, glancing at the battered group but never offering help. Scar gasps, wobbling to his feet. “The competition! Mumbo, we’re going to be late!” He pulls Mumbo to his feet. 

“You guys go ahead.” Doc growls, sitting down on a pile of rubble. He rubs blood off of his cheek. “I don’t think the others can get up. They’re too weak.” 

“What caused that? How could Grian not use his magic?” He’s an S-Class, he has ultimate control of his magic. But he acted like he was...well, Mumbo. And now? Now his friends are hurt. They lost the fight- no, they were thrashed. And he wasn’t even able to do anything. 

“I don’t know, but I have a sneaking suspicion who the dark mage is now.” Doc waves the two off, before snarling. “Go! I’ve got the others!” And he’ll be sure Gedeon’s leader, that monster Sidero, gets a taste of what he just did to his friends. He must be the dark mage, trying to stop them. 

But as Doc watches Mumbo and Scar flee, and he helps Grian, Tango, and Cleo to their feet, he’s only made them angrier. 

_____________________________

“How am I...gah, how am I supposed to take a giant cat statue and make it move?” Mumbo hisses, looking up at the relief. Scar’s winning sculpture for the creative event was incredible. He could practically see every hair and whisker of Jellie, carved from stone using her owner’s terraforming magic. Even her wings are feathered, each barb as thin and interlocking as the real thing. It’s easy to see why Scar won the creative contest, hands down.

And here he is ruining it all with his own magic. The council really outdid themselves, pulling a twist like this. His magic falters, and the redstone dust collapses to the ground. Mumbo’s chest feels heavy, lungs pressed and heart clenching. His head feels dizzy, and his magic is nearly impossible to tap into. Surely this is all just nerves? But even Scar looked exhausted, like he was struggling to breathe, to stand after his magic. Exactly what Grian and Tango looked like. 

What’s happening? He can’t help but look over his shoulder. Other guilds are working on the creations their teammates created. Whatever was before them, they had to automate. And from what Mumbo can see, most others are well ahead of him. Especially Ian, deep in the bowels of the contraption Sky had built. He can be heard swearing, the conductive gold making his machine move when he doesn’t want it to. At least Mumbo doesn’t have to worry about that. 

But that doesn’t mean he can do it. The redstone dust falls apart, showering the ground beneath him. He’s going to disappoint everyone, he’s going to ruin Scar’s wonderful statue. He’s going to be the only wizard in this event that can’t even get the thing to move! He falls to his knees, the pressure mounting in his lungs. Making it hard to breathe, crushing in on him. And he’s exhausted, even though he’s barely used any of his magic. He can’t even get it to appear. Like always. All this work, all his hopes to win, will mean nothing if he can’t get his magic to summon. He’s a multi-mage, but he can never prove it. He can never show off his powers, and it’s exactly why he could never join any guild. Looking around, he can see all the guilds in the field he applied to. All of them said no, laughed in his face and ridiculed him when his magic failed to show itself. And now here he is, proving them all right. Making a laughing stock of the Order of Hermits. 

“You can do it, Mumbo!” He picks his head up, looking around. He doesn’t recognize that voice. It takes him a moment to realize it’s not coming from any of the hermits. The voice is loud, echoing over the crowd’s low roar. It’s Ecto, one of the wanderers. Beside her, the other two teammates are cheering him on as well. Red’s practically bouncing in his seat, about to fall over the railing as he yells as loud as possible.

More voices join them. He can hear Iskall, shouting for him to breathe, to remember his training. He can hear some sort of soliloquy being written across the sky, intertwined with Joe’s voice. Zedaph and Impulse are holding up a sign, nearly knocking False and Wels with the board. Even the rest of Team Crafted was cheering for him. TFC is watching Mumbo, blue eyes gazing through silvery hair. He gives a small nod and a smile, his own way of showing his encouragement.

All of the hermits are his family, the family he never had. A family that would support him, help him, be with him no matter what. That never gave up on him. And TFC was like the father he never had, with a calm voice as smooth as obsidian and as strong as diamond. Someone he could go to with all his fears and faults, and know he wouldn’t be ridiculed or put down. That TFC would listen, and offer sound advice. Advice he can hear echoing in his head now. “It isn’t about the amount of times you fall down, Mumbo. It’s about how many times you get back up.” 

So he gets back up again. He brushes the sand and dirt off the black fabric of his trousers, ignoring the physical pain in his chest and the unwieldy way his head spins. He closes his eyes, hand outstretched. In his mind, he can see his magic circle. The ninety degree turns ending in dots, the petal-like curls from the center. His hands move unconsciously, following the pattern of motions he created. It’s like ramming open a door, trying to find his magic. Trying to connect to it. But once he’s in, it washes all over his body. 

He opens his eyes, his circle cast and the redstone moving to his bidding. Climbing up and ingraining in the pores of Scar’s stonework, following lines weathered through the rock. Lightning shoots through the circuits, from his fingertips and breathing energy into the cat. The haunches of the massive statue move, toe beans uprooting from the sand as Jellie comes to life. Redstone dances across her granite tail, flicking side to side. Mumbo can’t help but laugh, knocked over into the sand by a giant stone cat head rubbing into his chest. Scar’s incredible creation, brought to life with his redstone magic. Given energy through his lightning. 

Statue Jellie opens it’s mouth to meow, but no sound comes out. She turns her head, gazing across the crowd surrounding her. Her eyes stop at the crown seat, where the Council sits in awe. Redstone turns on all across her body, his magic branching out onto each hair as it rises and her back arches. “Whoa, what’s all that about?” 

Mumbo has never seen Jellie hiss at anyone, and even if this stone statue is just a version of her, his magic seems to have brought her to life. And her eyes are as thin as paper, ears turned back and hissing as she faces the Council. Mumbo runs over to the massive kitty, trying to calm her down. Lightning spreads across the redstone, forcing the stone statue to calm. For a second, Mumbo swears he can hear Magistrate Dolios’s voice, though his head is swimming from exhaustion. “Well done, boy. What i wouldn’t give for such...raw power. Soon.”

[ii-iidiiot]

some of the dragons request help from a few of the hermits in order to procure new books for joe's hoard.

hermitcraft. dragon au.

grian, scar, tango, zedaph, iskall, cleo, cub, joehills, and vintagebeef. mentions of xisuma and keralis.

1194 words.

tw for attempted violence, mention of killing, and fire.

i personally do not ship the hermits and for this au, the dragons are written to see each other as brothers, but you are, as always, free to interpret my works as you wish. there will likely be a lot of this au coming, so feedback is appreciated. any questions asked will be answered.

zed had actually been the one to suggest they surprise joe with some books to add to their hoard. the other dragon liked reading a ton and was constantly running out of reading material. cleo did the best she could on her own, but she could only travel so far and so fast. so zed brought up the idea with grian, tango, and scar and they'd agreed fairly quickly. then they just needed to find a few humans to help them gather the books.

it had been a bit.. difficult to get the question across to the humans they asked. scar had approached cub and it took a good couple minutes for scar to get his point out. he eventually settled on trying to draw a book with his claws and cub seemed to get it after that. then cub had gotten the agreement of cleo and iskall for them, making it much easier. then they set off, leaving beef and joe with the message that they'd be back later.

iskall got a kick out of riding on grian's back as they flew in search of villages with libraries they could raid and even convinced zed (really he'd just suggested it and zed had agreed without question) to let him hop to his back and back to grian's mid-flight. scar and cub had a much more laid back ride, merely gliding about as cub told the purple-scaled dragon about his latest work. cleo had chosen tango as her flight partner, on the other hand, who was rather eager to comply with cleo's chants for tricks as they flew.

they raided quite a few libraries in about an hour or two timespan, and without trouble. the villagers didn't seem intent on stopping them, just watched and went on with their days. what were they to do, really?

then they reached a larger village, one zed had spotted as he scouted ahead. they landed outside the village, as per usual, and cleo, iskall, and cub scrambled off their backs to go search for libraries. tango and zed took to wrestling playfully, while grian and scar took back to the sky to fly in lazy circles, chittering to each other in their language.

"there were two libraries in this village," came cleo's distant shout as she, iskall, and cub ran back down the path toward them. tango and zed leapt apart, exchanging teasing clicks and bumping playfully against each other. the humans hopped back onto the dragons' backs once scar and grian landed and were securing the books when a small group of knights approached.

"don't worry," one of the knights called, "we'll kill the dragons for you. be ready to run when you get the chance!"

cleo squinted and went to speak, only for another of the knights to lunge- sword drawn- for grian, who was closest. iskall cheered when grian took to the air with a burst of speed. another knight darted for zed, who swept the guy's feet out from under him with his tail. zed retreated to stand beside grian, who'd landed once more. tango made quick work of a pair of knights with coordinated bursts of fire to keep them back and scar merely extended a wing, the air and motion sending the knight scrambling away.

"we're totally fine!" iskall tried to tell the knights- only to be ignored as they continued their advance. the knights were, slowly but surely, backing the dragons into each other and preventing them from doing much, short of killing or severely wounding them.

a teal-scaled dragon shot in and landed in front of the four with a thump, spooking the knights back. cleo whooped. "joe!"

the shadow of a dragon larger than the ones they were currently faced with hovering overhead was what pushed them back even further. beef landed behind the other five dragons and flared his wings, staring down his snout at the knights.

the black-scaled dragon spoke quickly to the five in a series of chirps and clicks, then swept his tail out. it scattered the knights, giving the six dragons time to take to the air- humans, books, and all.

beef, quite clearly, decided they would retreat, but the knights continued to shout and gesture, even drawing bows. he merely shook his head when the other dragons looked at him and turned to head back to their home village- though he didn't say anything when tango shot a fireball down at the knights' feet.

it was near sunset when the group returned, buzzing with energy from the encounter and eager to show off their book haul to joe. they landed and the humans leapt down.

"your dragon friends here asked us to help 'em out getting you some books, joe," cub informed the teal-scaled dragon as they gathered together the collection of books they'd found.

"they wanted to surprise you with them," cleo added, "though that didn't go totally to plan."

"still, i think it's a good haul!" iskall stated proudly. "that was a lot of work and we've got a lot of books for your hoard."

joe chuffed, seeming to smile as he bumped himself against the three humans first, then the four dragons who had worked to collect the books with them.

"you're mighty welcome," cub stated, patting the dragon on the wing and smiling when cleo wrapped her arms around joe's neck in a hug.

"yeah, you're welcome, joe!" iskall agreed, scritching behind grian's horns idly when the feathered dragon bumped against him.

when cleo extracted herself from her hug with joe, she squinted up at the sky and sighed. "we should get inside, it's getting late and we don't want to be caught outside past dark."

"we're gonna have to tell x about those knights too, just in case they decided to cause problems if they managed to track us," cub muttered thoughtfully. "well, this was great, but i'll be on my way. c'ya cleo, iskall, dragons."

"me too," iskall agreed. "bye guys!" he raced off after cub, waving over his shoulder.

"since you guys have got the books from here, i should going too. bye!" cleo called, following behind the other two humans.

each of the dragons took a fair share of their book haul from the day except for joe, who they insisted not carry any. their surprise had been ruined, so this was the least they could do. they returned to their shared cave, where they dropped the books carefully for joe to organize as he pleased. after that, they were all content to settle down for the night. it had been a long day of flying for zed, tango, scar, and grian, and beef and joe had been helping x and keralis out with a project too.

the six of them curled up- tango and zed huddled together in a mess of red and gold, joe and scar lounging amongst joe's new books, and grian draped haphazardly across beef's back. it had been a long day and they had many, many more long days to come (if mostly by their own hands- feet?- but that was beside the point).

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

Hi there!

I finally have an idea for the sequel to the angst! By the way, it really did help. Less strong emotions :D

Anyways, idea. Woot woot-

Wels, as a kind of revenge for the death of Hels, wants to save some other helsmits from the world that is Hels. Because it sucks there. He ends up secluding himself from the server to try this. When somebody goes to check on him, they find an obsidian portal frame with a firey red portal contained within. Queue Wels and another Helsmit conveniently coming through, and Wels having to quickly explain before the Hermit tells X-

this is a long boi!!! lol

first part here

...

This is it. This is the moment Wels has been waiting for. After weeks of hiding out in his house, doing experiment after experiment, he’s finally managed to create a portal directly to Helscraft. Now he can finally start on his mission.

He steps through the portal and finds himself facing a bridge across a gigantic ravine with lava at the bottom. On the other side is a mountain made of netherrack and magma blocks, some of which are on fire.

Shivering, he crosses the bridge slowly, one step at a time, keeping a wary eye out for any helsmits around. There doesn’t seem to be any.

Until he steps off the bridge, glances up, and happens to spot a familiar person sitting in a “tree” made of soul sand and bone blocks. Familiar except red eyes, red streaks in his hair, a much shorter stature, and black-and-magenta dragon-like wings.

“Hi,” he says cautiously.

“Helsknight…?” The person narrows their eyes. “Why do you look different?”

“I’m not Helsknight, I’m his hermit counterpart.”

The helsmit blinks in surprise. “Welsknight? What are you doing here in Helscraft?”

“Are you Grian’s helsmit?” asks Wels, avoiding the question.

“...surely you can tell,” the helsmit scoffs. “Yeah, I’m Xelqua, Grian’s helsmit. Why’re you here? Where’s Helsknight?”

Again, Wels tries to avoid the question. “Were you… close to Helsknight?”

“Not really.” Xelqua again narrows his eyes. “What do you mean by that? Where IS he?”

“He’s…” Wels hesitates and bows his head. “I’m really sorry, but he… he passed away.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath from Xelqua.

“I’m sorry,” he says uselessly.

“Why are you here?”

Wels looks back up at Xelqua. “What?”

“WHY ARE YOU HERE?” demands Xelqua loudly. “What, is it not enough that we exist here in this HELLISH place?! You wanna come here and take it over too?! Drive us out AGAIN?!”

“I- No!” Wels hurriedly shakes his head. “No no no! I came here to invite you back to Hermitcraft.”

A flash of shock flickers over Xelqua’s face. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because Helsknight wanted all of you to be free. He sacrificed himself for me, so I’m carrying on his dream.” Wels offers his hand to the helsmit. “Xelqua, come with me to Hermitcraft. I can get you a better life there.”

“Wow.” Xelqua appears not to know how to react to this unexpected offer. “What do you get in return?”

“Nothing.”

Xelqua rolls his eyes. “SURE.”

“No, really,” Wels insists. “I want to help you, all of you. I’m not asking for anything in return. I just want you guys to have a better life.”

Xelqua regards Wels with a half-suspicious look. “Why me, of all the helsmits?”

“I want to save all of you at some point. You seem like a good place to start.”

The helsmit doesn’t appear to have a response to this.

“Please, Xelqua,” says Wels softly. “Give me a chance.”

Xelqua is silent for a while as he processes this in his head. Finally, he says, “Okay. I won’t turn down a chance to go to Hermitcraft.”

Wels can’t help an excited smile. “Great! You won’t regret it.”

When Xelqua hops down from the “tree”, Wels is surprised to discover that the helsmit is only just half his height. The height of a child, despite looking almost exactly like Grian.

“Okay, come this way,” he says.

He leads Xelqua back down the bridge and over to the portal. “Will you be able to come through?” he asks.

“I dunno, you’re the brainiac hermit,” Xelqua responds. “Will I die if I go through?”

“Not inherently, but…”

Xelqua shrugs. “Whatever. Death is better than another day in Helscraft anyway. YOLO.”

Wels blinks as Xelqua steps through the portal. Did he just say… YOLO?!

He hurriedly follows Xelqua. As soon as he steps foot in his house on the other side, however, he sees Xelqua frozen on the platform. When he steps forward, he sees why.

One of his friends is standing at the bottom of the staircase, staring at him in shock and horror.

Wels blinks, his heart starting to pound. “...J-Jevin. Hi. You’re in my house.”

“Of course I’m in your dang house, Wels!” snaps Jevin. “You haven’t been seen on the server for WEEKS! And now you come out of a demonic nether portal with a DEMON?!”

Wels quickly pushes Xelqua behind him. “He’s not a demon, Jev. His name is Xelqua. He’s Grian’s helsmit.”

Jevin’s eyes widen and he steps back.

Wels sees his friend’s muscles bunching. “Jev, no…!”

Jevin takes another step back.

“JEV.”

“Somehow a demon would have been BETTER!” yells Jevin, before taking off running.

Wels sprints after him. He’s a lot faster than Jevin so he’s able to tackle his friend to the ground at the top of the stairs.

“Jev, wait!” Wels grunts, trying to hold his squirming friend down. “Hear me out!”

“Are you INSANE?!” Jevin shrieks back. “WHY would you bring a helsmit here?!”

As Wels is about to respond, a dry voice comes from behind them. “Now I know why you said you wanted to avoid this guy, Wels.”

Wels twists his head upwards to find Xelqua standing over them, arms folded. “I didn’t say-.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” demands Jevin, disentangling himself from Wels.

The hint of a smirk is visible on Xelqua’s face. “He said you were pretty close-minded and quick to jump to conclusions.”

“I never said-!”

Wels is cut off as Jevin jumps to his feet and jabs his finger at Xelqua. “You shut your mouth. You’re not even supposed to be here!”

“I’m not the one judging someone I just met based on their nature of birth, Slime Face,” retorts Xelqua.

“If you call me that again, I’m gonna ram my fist in your eye,” Jevin growls.

Xelqua lifts his chin challengingly. “Go for it. I’m not afraid to fight an old man.”

As Jevin moves suddenly, Wels gets between them and holds his friend back. “Okay, STOP it! Both of you! Jev, be the bigger person here.”

“I AM the bigger person!” Jevin snaps back. “Literally!”

“Wow, a short joke,” Xelqua says expressionlessly. “Original. You proud of that one, Slime Face? You feel funny? Clever?”

Jevin’s hands curl into fists. “Wels, you better explain yourself before I punt this obnoxious kid straight into the goddamn sun.”

“Your stupid slimey foot would go right through me,” Xelqua responds immediately.

“Right, that’s it.”

Wels has to strain against Jevin to stop his friend from physically attacking Xelqua. “JEVIN. STOP.”

“Explain yourself, then!”

Wels quickly draws Jevin aside into the next room. “Look.” He takes a deep breath. “I spent months befriending my helsmit, learning about how he dreamt of freeing his siblings from their torturous existence, only for him to die before even being able to start on his dream. Helsmits aren’t inherently evil, Jev. Helsknight grew as a person right in front of me. With the right environment and people surrounding them, they can become good.”

He pauses, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Even if I can only change one helsmit’s life for the better then maybe Helsknight’s death didn’t have to be meaningless.”

Jevin gazes back at him, an odd expression on his face.

“Just…” Wels sighs quietly. “Please don’t tell Xisuma until I’m ready. If he finds out about this before Xelqua makes any noticeable improvements, he’ll have him thrown back to Helscraft and all this will be for nothing. Helsknight’s dream can’t die like that. I can’t… I can’t lose him all over again.”

A short pause follows his words.

Finally, Jevin unfolds his arms and says, “Okay. How can I help?”

“By not treating me like a stupid kid,” comes Xelqua’s voice.

Jevin turns to find the helsmit poking his head through the doorway. “Wasn’t talking to you, Parrot Boy.”

“I’m not a parrot,” Xelqua says. “I’m a dragon.”

“Sure.”

Scowling, Xelqua extends his jet black and magenta wings. “My wings are dragon wings.”

“Whatever you say, Parrot Boy.”

Xelqua glares at him and doesn’t respond.

Jevin raises an eyebrow. “Nicknames hurt, huh?”

“Jev,” sighs Wels. “You’re the adult here.”

“Why AM I the adult here?” Jevin demands. “If he’s Grian’s helsmit, why is he still a kid?”

Xelqua stomps his foot. “I’m not a kid!”

Ignoring him, Wels replies, “Helsmits are only born once a person becomes a hermit. Grian’s only been a hermit for a few years, so Xelqua hasn’t had a chance to grow up yet.”

“Hey, I’m PERFECTLY grown up!” snaps Xelqua. “I already know how to kill things without spilling much blood and how to steal stuff from a chest from right under someone’s nose.”

Wels and Jevin exchange a slightly concerned look.

“But you never had a normal childhood?” asks Jevin.

“I’M NOT A CHILD!” yells Xelqua angrily.

Jevin persists: “Have you ever even seen grass?”

Xelqua scowls. “...what’s grass?”

“Okay…” Jevin pauses for a moment. “Come up this way.”

As he goes to the door, Wels starts to speak: “Jev-.”

“I’ll be careful,” says Jevin reassuringly. “Come on, kid.”

Clearly deciding not to argue anymore, Xelqua follows Jevin out of the house. As soon as he gets outside, he glances up and immediately jumps almost a foot in the air. “What is that?!”

Jevin quickly identifies where he’s looking. “The sun.”

“That’s not the sun,” scoffs Xelqua.

“It is.”

Xelqua shields his eyes from the sunlight and squints up at the sky. “But it’s not hurting my skin.”

“It will if you stay out in it too long.” Jevin pauses. “Why, what’s your sun like?”

“Volatile,” Xelqua responds. “If it’s in a bad mood, it’ll set you on fire as soon as you step out in it. Which is almost every day.”

Jevin blinks. “Your sun is sentient?”

“Trust me, that’s not the weirdest thing that’s sentient in Helscraft.”

“Do I wanna ask?”

“Nope.” Xelqua lowers his hand. “So what’s this grass thing you mentioned?”

Jevin gestures at the ground. “What you’re standing on.”

“Really? This is grass?” Xelqua hops up and down on it a few times. “I thought it’d be a bit more interesting.”

“Lie down on it.”

Xelqua shoots him a suspicious look. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

After a moment, Xelqua lies down flat on the grass. “Okay, now what?”

“Look up at the sky,” Jevin responds. “See those clouds?”

Xelqua frowns up at the sky. “The grey things?”

“Yeah. Do you have clouds?”

“Not like those. Ours are spikey and red and rain lava.”

“Oh jeez…” Jevin shivers. “Well, these ones won’t hurt you. Just watch them for a while.”

“Okay…”

The two fall silent. Jevin watches the clouds himself for a while, before turning back to Xelqua, whose expression is almost completely blank. “So?”

“Weirdly, this is nice,” admits Xelqua. “It’s a bizarre concept to not be afraid of every single thing around me.” As if on cue, a few raindrops start to fall from the sky. Xelqua hops up as the rain gets heavier and dives between Jevin’s feet, clutching Jevin’s leg tightly. “WHAT IS THIS?!” he shrieks.

“It’s just rain!” Jevin reassures him, gently stroking his wings. “Don’t worry, it’s just rain. Just water. It won’t hurt you.”

After a moment, Xelqua sticks out his hand and lets some raindrops fall on it. When it doesn’t hurt him, he carefully emerges from his shelter and hovers just above the ground, closing his eyes against the rain falling on his face. A smile appears on his face and he shoots upwards, his beating wings scattering raindrops everywhere.

Shielding his eyes from the rain, Jevin laughs as he watches Xelqua shoot up through the clouds and dive back down several times. It’s like watching a foal discover how to run for the first time.

“How’s it going out here?” asks Wels, emerging from the building. Immediately, he lifts his arms to shield his head from the rain. “Oh! It doesn’t rain often on this server.”

Jevin continues to gaze up at Xelqua far above him. “...Wels?”

“Yeah?”

“This kid really needs a better life.”

Wels nods. “He does. They all do. This is what Helsknight wanted: for the helsmits to have the same opportunities as us. The same expansive resource-rich world to explore, not the barren hellscape they’re forced to live in year after year. To be able to live and grow without worrying about being robbed or hurt or attacked or murdered by the world and people around them. They have so much potential that’s not being realised because they’re stuck in literal hell. I won’t rest until they’re all as free as Helsknight almost was.”

After a brief pause, he glances over at Jevin and finds his friend smiling at him. He chuckles. “What’s that look for?”

“I’ve never seen you this passionate before,” says Jevin softly. “It’s nice.”

“It IS nice,” Wels agrees. “I haven’t had a cause like this to fight for in a long time.”

Jevin pats his friend on the shoulder. “If you ever need help with Xelqua, lemme know.”

Wels glances at him in surprise. “You want to help with Xelqua?”

“Yeah, I really do.”

“Why?”

As Jevin starts to respond, Xelqua suddenly lands on the ground in front of them, soaking wet. “What are you two nattering about?” he demands. “Come fly up here with me!”

“We can’t fly when it’s raining this heavily, Xelqua,” responds Wels. “It’s too wet for our elytras to work properly.”

“Oh.” Xelqua rolls his eyes. “You guys are lame.”

Wels raises an eyebrow back. “Mhm.”

As Xelqua takes off again, Jevin says, “To answer your question Wels, I want to help because I can tell Xelqua has the potential to be a good kid. He’s got some problems I wanna help iron out.”

“Wow, I…” Wels smiles gratefully. “I’d love the help. Thank you.”

At that moment, Xelqua reappears through the rain and holds out a shovel to the two. “I stole this from a chest in that guy’s house over there,” he says proudly. “He didn’t see me.”

“That’d be Beef’s house,” Wels sighs.

As Wels reaches for the shovel, Xelqua sharply steps back, hugging the shovel protectively.

Wels shakes his head. “You don’t have to steal things here, Xelqua. We’ll help you get your own stuff.”

“Oh…” Xelqua reluctantly relinquishes his prize to Wels.

“Thank you,” says Wels gently. “Do you want your own shovel?”

After a moment, Xelqua nods.

Wels smiles, feeling strong paternal instincts towards the kid.

“Okay, let’s get you a shovel.”

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

VAUNNA I LURK A LOT HI BUT I JUST WATCHED IMPULSE'S FINAL YHIRD LIFE EPISODE MY HEART IS BROKEN AND I NEED M O R E P A I N

(coherently: impulse angst please i beg of you. i grovel at your feet. alternatively villain impulse. just take my heart out and stomp on it. thanks <3 also sorry for the caps i just have a lot of feelings rn)

ahh Villainpulse is such good material! i decided to make this a sequel to this one so go read it first :)

cw: fire, murder (just in case, cuz this one is kinda dark)

…

Impulse returns to the wool castle late the next night and collapses onto his bed, exhausted and a little frustrated. Etho’s confrontation with Bdubs didn’t quite go as planned. The closest they came to a fight breaking out was when Cleo started snapping about how she didn’t trust Etho. No angry words were exchanged between Etho and Bdubs at all. It seems Impulse has overestimated their rivalry.

A knock at the door. “Impulse?”

He gives a sigh but quickly rolls onto his side and calls, “Come in.”

The door opens and Etho’s face peers in. “Hey, do you have a minute to talk?”

“Yeah, sure.” Impulse forces a smile. “What’s up?”

“I’m worried,” Etho admits. “Cleo REALLY seems to think I murdered Tango, and I’m a little concerned that she’s going to turn Bdubs against me.”

“Really?” Impulse responds. “That wouldn’t be good, since she was talking about making an alliance with the desert people earlier.”

“Exactly. If we’re not careful, the server will end up splitting into war. I know you’re on better terms with Bdubs than I am; would you consider going over to talk to him tomorrow?”

Impulse nods. “Sure thing. I’m sure I can work something out.”

“Thanks.” Etho gives a grateful smile. “Anyway, goodnight.”

“Goodnight, man.”

Impulse lies back on his bed, even more disgruntled than he was before. The war he’s slowly been cultivating is so close to being brought to fruition, but the slightest wrong move might destroy all his hard work. Bdubs and Etho will be the catalysts. They’ve got the right animosity and the right allies behind them to spark the war, but he just needs the right fuel to set it off.

It’s time for drastic action.

…

Under the cover of night, Impulse makes his way out to the crastle, armed with a sword and a flint and steel. With his intricate knowledge of the crastle’s defences, he makes it to the inner wall undetected and sets up a ladder against it. Climbing up, he creeps in through a very specific window.

As expected, Cleo is fast asleep in her bed. Impulse hesitates for only a moment. This is neither fair nor right, but Impulse doesn’t really care at the moment. He’s come way too far to fall now.

So, with a cold and emotionless expression, he stabs Cleo through the chest, in such a way that will severely injure her but not kill her immediately. She lets out a weak cry, but her eyes don’t open.

When he’s sure she hasn’t woken up, Impulse sets the fire near her bed, before escaping back out the window and shimmying down the ladder he set up. He can see smoke starting to pour out of Cleo’s window.

So he turns and flees.

He’s just made it back to the wool castle when the notification comes up on his communicator.

ZombieCleo went up in flames

Impulse settles himself back into bed.

And he smiles.

…

The next morning, Etho isn’t around, so Impulse goes straight to the crastle. He can see noticable fire damage around Cleo’s window; clearly, Bdubs had managed to put out the fire in time to save the crastle but not in time to save Cleo.

He knocks on the door.

It takes a full minute for the door to open but when it does, it reveals a red-eyed Bdubs, who’s clearly been crying.

“I’m so sorry,” Impulse murmurs, pulling his friend into a hug. “I saw in chat. What happened?”

Bdubs sniffles. “Th-There was a fire. In C-Cleo’s room. I woke up in the middle of the n-night and smelt smoke so I r-rushed down to her room and put out the f-fire but it was too late for her.”

“Oh, I-I’m so sorry…”

Impulse opens his mouth to speak again, but Bdubs quickly draws him inside the crastle and shuts the door behind him. A haunted look has appeared in his eyes. “Impulse… I-I think Etho murdered Cleo.”

Impulse’s eyes widen. This isn’t quite an act; he’s genuinely shocked that Bdubs came to the conclusion Impulse wanted him to come to this quickly, and all on his own. “Wait, what?! Y-You mean the fire wasn’t accidental?”

“No, it was deliberate. She…” Bdubs suppresses a sob. “She was stabbed in the chest first. The fire was to cover the tracks of whoever killed her, to make sure their name wouldn’t show up in chat.”

“Oh no…!” Impulse gasps. “B-But what makes you think it was Etho?”

“I don’t know for sure, but wh-when we talked yesterday, Etho mentioned something about how easy it would be to sneak into the crastle with just a few ladders and… this morning, I found a ladder outside the wall. I know it’s far from conclusive evidence, I just… I can’t shake the horrible feeling that he did this because Cleo said she suspected he killed Tango. Maybe he realised he had to take her out before she discovered any evidence he left behind.”

“N-No, I… That can’t be…! Etho would never do something like that!”

“I want to believe that,” says Bdubs sadly. “But I-I just can’t. I’m gonna avenge Cleo, Impulse. No matter what it takes.”

After a moment, Impulse nods. “I understand. Are you gonna talk to him?”

“Later. First, I’m gonna finish making that alliance with Scott and Grian’s group. Etho’s got Dogwarts on his side, so I’m gonna need the other guys on mine.”

“Got it. And I’ll help too; I’m on your side 100%, remember?”

Bdubs nods gratefully. “Yeah, thanks. Let me know if Etho does anything suspicious.”

“I will.”

…

When Impulse gets back, he finds Etho waiting for him. “Hey,” he says. “You went to the crastle, right? How’s Bdubs doing?”

“Not good,” Impulse responds sadly. “He seems to have got it in his head that you murdered Cleo.”

“What?!” Etho gasps, sounding genuinely shocked and taken by surprise. “Why would he think that?!”

Impulse shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know, dude. But he’s pretty convinced. And he’s going over to the desert right now to ally with Grian and Scott so he can rally them against you.”

Etho’s gaze darkens. “Okay, he’s gone too far. First he tries to pin Tango’s murder on me, now Cleo’s? We gotta do something about him, Impulse. Are you in?”

“Absolutely. I’m on your side 100%.”

“Good.” Etho gratefully places his hand on Impulse’s shoulder. “Thanks. We’ll rally the rest of Dogwarts and see if we can get to Scott and Jimmy before they do. If it’s a war Bdubs wants, it’s a war he’ll get.”

Impulse smiles. He can sense no distrust in Etho’s voice or expression whatsoever, just like Bdubs. Neither of them suspect him of anything.

Oh, he’ll get it all right.

You both will.

[votederpycausemufins]

Rustic House Club chapter 2

Jrum had a crayon in one hand as he laid on the ground, drawing on a blank map. “Okay, then which way?”

Jrum’s friend had been helping him make a fun treasure map to play with today. It had been something they had suggested before and now it seemed like the perfect time.

“Well, from the sign platform, you’ll go down to the big doors on the mansion in front of you.”

The robot nodded as he drew a line going to a sketch which he made look like his dad’s mansion. “Then what?”

“That’s the end! You’ll find something really cool there! Even better than a rustic house!”

“What could be so good that you think it’s better than a rustic house?” Jrum asked his friends with a giggle.

“It’s a surprise!”

“Well, okay then! I’m gonna go tell my dads what I’m doing and then I’ll start!”

Jrums friend agreed and Jrum headed back to the mansion, glad to find his dad there and not out at the shopping district or somewhere else. “Daaaad!”

“Hi Jrum. Are you done playing already?”

Jrum shook his head. “No, my friend and I made a treasure map and I’m gonna go looking for the treasure at the end!”

“Is that so?” Grian asked. “Can I see your treasure map?” Jrum handed him the paper and he looked over it. It wasn’t really that legible to him, but he saw the start and end points being the magic village and the mansion, so it seemed fine. He handed the map back and patted Jrum on the head. “Alright. Remember to stay safe and call me or your daddy if you need help, okay?”

Jrum nodded before running off again, returning to the village and then following the path. The hardest part of the journey was through the nether. His dads haven’t figured out how to make special elytra that would work for him and his brother since their bodies were much heavier than what the wings could deal with at their size. He was careful as he built up to the path on the map. After that, it was just a really long walk with a surprising amount of bees. This was the nether, why were there so many bees in this tunnel?

Finally, Jrum reached the end of the tunnel. He checked his battery level which was rather low, so he ate one of his snacks - some charged redstone dust - before continuing. It took a bit of scaffolding, but eventually Jrum got down to a platform hanging over the lava lake of the cavern. It was hung up by chains that looked sturdy, but it still made Jrumbot a little wary. 

But it wasn’t like he needed to stay there too long, as right in front of it, just a chunk or two away, was a mansion. It looked just like his dad’s, except it was red instead of blue. Also it was built completely upside down. 

Jrum nervously looked around, making sure there were no ghasts around, before he started to bridge out towards the building. The minute he heard even the distant cry of a ghast, he booked it back to the little hanging platform and make sure everything was safe again before continuing. 

After many minutes and one close call with a ghast later, Jrum reached the door of the mansion. He struggled a little pushing it open, but eventually managed. Jrum was expecting some kind of prize or treasure at the end. Maybe a stack of diamond blocks piled up. Or maybe even some netherite. It could have been something fun to explore. Or anything really. Instead the place looked mostly empty and somewhat abandoned. There were the remains of an incomplete farm in one area of the building, but otherwise, there wasn’t much.

Jrum closed the door behind him and made a safe area for himself before letting himself fall to the ground. He laid on his back, staring up at the roof - floor? - for around a minute before he started crying in frustration. He had come all this way and for nothing! He thought maybe for a second, it might have been the building itself that was the prize, but that would just rub in how bad of a builder he was. But his friend had said to go inside the building, so it should have been some other prize.

Once Jrum had exhausted himself enough, he sat back up and started to send a message to his dad. He was so frustrated, he didn’t notice two important things. The first was the person coming up behind him. The second was his battery which was giving him a warning with it in the low single digits. But Jrum was too focused on getting home.

<Jrumbot> Dad. I finished my treasure hunt, but there wasn’t anything at the end. I’m really far away and tired. Can you please come g

Jrum wasn’t able to finish writing the message out before he heard a noise close behind him. He whirled around to see someone. It was his dad! “Dad! I wanna go home! There wasn’t anything here!”

Then the person moved forward and Jrum froze. At a glance it looked like his dad, but looking again, it wasn’t. His eyes weren’t the right color and he seemed to have metallic plating on his face. Along with that he didn’t seem to move quite right, all his movements having a jittered and halting form of movement.

“Y-You’re not dad…” Jrum pushed himself back a little in fear and then also noticed his battery level. 1%. Jrum didn’t have time to make a new message, so he quickly added what he could before sending it with the last bit of energy he had. And then, he powered off, collapsing to the ground.

Grian had completely lost track of time while working in Aqua Town. He had just finished up renovating his new buildings when his comm buzzed. It pulled him out from hyper-focusing on building and caused him to look around. He looked out the window to see it was well past midnight. 

He was so sure the message was likely Mumbo asking him where he was and that the kids were worried, so Grian packed up his stuff and flew back home. Once he arrived at the mansion, he put all his shulkers down before going upstairs. The avian looked in the bedrooms to find them all empty. That was fine. Mumbo had likely put them to sleep at his base.

Grian grabbed something quick to eat before flying to the ancient monument, easily finding Mumbo who was just in his storage area. Grian carefully snuck up on the redstoner, trying to be as quiet as possible, though he also couldn’t help humming as he approached.

Mumbo finally noticed the humming and froze with what he was doing to pay more attention. “Why do I hear boss music?” His question was quickly answered by Grian tackling him from behind and pinning him to the ground. “Grian!”

“Sorry! You just looked so lost in thought and I couldn’t help it!” The avian laughed before helping Mumbo back to his feet. “Thanks for getting the boys to sleep. I completely lost track of time. I hope Jrum wasn’t too bad tonight.”

The smile on Mumbo’s face turned to a look of confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Huh?”

“I thought Jrum was with you. I only put Grum to bed.”

“But Jrum wasn’t at the mansion. M-Maybe he snuck into bed here?”

Mumbo didn’t answer. He just ran with Grian to the bots’ bedroom. There they found only one of the beds occupied. Grian’s wings puffed up immediately when they saw the sight, which nearly knocked over Mumbo, but he wasn’t complaining about that.

“Mumbo, you look around here and I’ll check the mansion again. If you find anything, message me. If not we check Scar’s village and Jrum’s houses, got that?”

The redstoner nodded and then Grian was in the air, flapping his wings as fast as he could to get back to the mansion. He scoured the place from top to bottom. The boys’ bedroom? Empty. His room? No one there. The basement bed? Nothing but cows. The nest? Barely there since it had mostly been disassembled.

Grian took a second look around just in case before pulling out his comm to tell Mumbo which place he was headed to next. But before he could, he noticed a message from Jrum. Grian breathed a sigh of relief. If only he had checked sooner. Jrum was likely saying where he was. Probably one of his houses or even with another hermit.

But then Grian’s brow furrowed with confusion that quickly turned to worry. He didn’t just have a message from Jrum. He also had a status message. Shortly after the incident with Grum and Iskall, Mumbo had added one last thing to the bots. It would send messages on the boys if something happened that was a cause for concern.

Grian opened up the message for Jrum first. Maybe that would explain it. Maybe what happened was he lost track of time too and shut himself down to conserve power. That would be the best case scenario. As Grian started to read the message, he was sure that’s what was going on. But his heart dropped when he got to the end.

<Jrumbot> Dad. I finished my treasure hunt, but there wasn’t anything at the end. I’m really far away and tired. Can you please come gHELP! There’s someone scary and I’m out of power!

Grian then looked at the other message. If Jrum had powered down. It would have his coordinates. He read it, and then his heart managed to drop even more.

[Bot Status] Jrum lost power at X Y Z in the nether dimension.

The nether. The Nether! Why was Jrum in the nether?! His hands trembled as he tried to message Mumbo, but instead he just selected the world chat. That was probably okay. He might wake a few people, but this was an emergency that could need help.

<Grian> Mumbo, have you looked at your status messages?

<MumboJumbo> No let me do that

<MumboJumbo> The nether?!

<Renthedog> What about the nether?

<Xisuma> Do you mean status as in the messages you get for the bots?

<Grian> YES

<Iskall85> Oh no. What about the nether?

<MumboJumbo> It says that Jrum completely lost power while in the nether

<Xisuma> What were the coordinates?

<Grian> He also sent a message before he powered off that’s really concerning

<MumboJumbo> X Y Z

<StressMonster> What was the message?

<Grian> It was the start of one he almost sent before which was a normal one

<Xisuma> Let me check where that is

<Iskall85> What was the message

<StressMonster> Grian?

<MumboJumbo> Give him a second, he’s probably trying to copy it down.

<Grian> Dad. I finished my treasure hunt, but there wasn’t anything at the end. I’m really far away and tired. Can you please come gHELP! There’s someone scary and I’m out of power!

<Renthedog> Oh that is not good

<MumboJumbo> Is that the only message?

<Grian> Yeah.

<Xisuma> Those coordinates are within the upside down.

<Grian> How’d he manage to get all the way out there?!

<Xisuma> Because this is an emergency, I can teleport the two of you there.

<MumboJumbo> Please!

<Grian> PLEASE

Grian put his comm away and watched as the purple energy from Xisuma’s admit powers surrounded him for a moment. The next moment, he, Mumbo and X were standing in the interior of the red mansion.

Immediately Grian was looking around, Mumbo doing the same. They didn’t get far though until X stopped them. “He would have been right in front of us when we teleported in. In fact…” Xisuma pointed, and while there wasn’t Jrum’s powered down body or a scattering of items that would signify someone dying, there were a few stray items left on the ground.

Mumbo was closer and picked them up. “Some of the charged dust I gave him for snacks. He didn’t even have enough time to eat that to get some more power. There’s also this map drawn in crayon.”

“Jrum showed it to me this morning. He said he was going on a treasure hunt or adventure or something. It started in the village and ended at the mansion. But I didn’t think it meant this mansion. How did he even know about this place?!”

“I don’t know. Did you ever tell him about it?” Mumbo asked.

“No. It never came up! And I don’t think any of the other hermits brought it up!” Grian then remembered that morning. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Jrum said he made the map with his ‘friend’ in the village. I thought it might have been imaginary, or maybe a Jellie… but now…” Grian looked over to X, who immediately pulled his admin panels out.

“I should have realized something was up. There had been some errors popping up here and there. They seemed consistent, but for the life of me I could not figure out the source. I couldn’t find anything dangerous or threatening connected to them, so I didn't worry too much. I thought it might have just been a bug. But…” Xisuma moved his hands and Grian watched as the panels shifted. “A similar message, but this time, instead of the usual area it showed up in, it instead appeared in the world joining messages.”

Grian paled. “So whoever or whatever this is was communicating with my son for weeks and now has shown up and kidnapped him?!” Mumbo pulled Grian closer as the avian started hyperventilating. “W-We… it could be anyone. B-But who? W-Why Jrum? I- Was i-it the Watchers? N-No I would know. But wh-” Grian cut himself off as someone came to mind. “No. No no no no nonononono! Not him, not him!”

“C-Calm down Grian. I’m sure it wasn’t. X, please tell me you can try and find an origin for whatever this was?”

X nodded and messed with his panels while Mumbo tried to help keep Grian from getting completely hysterical. “Here we go. Whatever it was seems to be some sort of player entity, but also not at the same time.”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s similar to the code for Grum and Jrum or Biffa. Someone who wasn’t so much born as they were created.”

“Alright. Is that all?” Mumbo asked, earning a shake of the head from Xisuma.

“No, there’s some data here that’s very interesting. They have five worlds listed as ones they’ve been to before. Two of them being ones Grian had been in. Technically there’s six if you include this world since they just entered, but-”

“Wh-what worlds?” Grian managed to ask.

“Not the one you were in when you went to highschool.” Xisuma started with his answer, making Grian give a small sigh of relief and calm slightly. “That being said, The first two worlds are Grian’s solo world as well as the Evolution world. There’s also one connected to Evo called… The Down Side Up?”

Grian’s eyes widened. He had talked about his solo world plenty of times. He had talked about Evo a lot as well. But the last one he had only heard about. Heard about from the one person who had been there. Someone who had been in Grian’s solo world and Evo. And that someone… had… also been in… the highschool. 

The builder only half recognized Mumbo talking, but it did bring him back into paying attention to what was going on. “And what are the other two?”

Xisuma hesitated, which made Grian worry. And by the way Mumbo shifted, he was worried too. “The two other worlds… are the fourth and fifth worlds of Helscraft.”

“-W about two rustic houses?”

“No.”

“Okay, you’re really driving a hard bargain. I can build you three rustic houses.”

Jrumbot half registered the people talking nearby. He was really out of it. Even though he was a robot, he still felt sore from walking all the way to that weird mansion.

“I don’t want any of your bloody fucking rustic houses!”

“Well then what do you want?”

“What I want, is for you to go back to season 4 and find Grifter to bring him back here!”

“Hmmm… Sorry Sense, I can’t do that. True might get upset and Xannes would get really mad.”

“You think I give a fuck? You and EX are the only ones who can get in and out of here. So What I want is-”

Jrum had sat up and in his bleary eyed like state, he saw his daddy and ran over to them with a hug. “Daddy, I’m sorry for going too far out. I didn’t know it was gonna be that far away.”

But Jrum didn’t get a hug back, instead his daddy stiffened up and then spoke in a dark tone. “If you don’t pull this thing off me right now, I will tear it limb from limb and harvest its redstone for my experiments.”

Jrum was pulled away by someone behind him, and this time the robot got a better look at the person he hugged. It looked like his dad, except his suit was messy with burn holes and redstone dust everywhere. His tie was a blue color instead of the normal red, also with similar burn markings. His mustache seemed like it was hardly cared for, it was frizzy and lopsided, singed to the point where small embers seemed to be resting in the hairs. And finally, the look in his eyes was familiar and yet not. It looked like when he had spent days on a redstone project and still hadn’t figured it out, but turned up a thousand percent.

“So, how about two rustic houses and a rustic mansion?”

“I already told you what I want!”

“Fine, just one rustic house. I know about that project you’re working on and wouldn’t it look nice if instead of that concrete base-”

“Fine! Fine! I don’t want anything. Just don’t fuck up my redstone!”

“Okay!”

Jrum watched as the daddy clone stomped off before looking to see who had helped him. When he turned to look, he saw a familiar face. “Dad?” Then his memory from just before powering off came back. “N-no… y-you’re not my dad! Wh-who are you?!”

The person smiled. “Don’t worry! I’m your friend! It’s nice to meet you!”

“What do you mean?” Jrum asked warily.

“You kept coming to visit me in the village, didn’t you?”

Jrum paused. Though this person looked like his dad, their voice wasn’t quite the same. But it did match the voice of his friend. “Why do you look like my dad?”

“Oh! Because we’re not just friends. We’re also family!”

Jrum tilted his head. “Is that why you look like my dad?”

“Yeah! Because he’s my dad too! In fact, he named me NPC Grian, but I normally get called NPG.”

“Wait… so does that mean you’re also my brother?”

“Yep! In fact, I’m the oldest! From what you’ve said, you’re the youngest?”

Jrum nodded. “Yeah, I guess you got built first and then Grum got built and then me!”

NPG smiled and then hugged his younger brother. “Well, now that we can see each other face to face, how about we explore the world? We’ll have to stay together because not everyone is nice, but I’m sure you’ll be fine!

“Okay! That sounds fun! But um… can you carry me? Walking so far before wasn’t fun…”

NPG tilted his head in confusion. “Why didn’t you use elytra?”

“Grum and I can’t use them. Daddy says it’s ‘cause of our proportions or something.”

“Well then! We’ll have to see if Prof can do anything about that! He’s pretty nice, I think you’ll like him!”

“Do we have to go far?”

“Nope! We can use the aether to get there! Since it’s faster!”

“What’s that?”

“Well it seems to be whatever is here instead of the nether. Everything is really backwards here. But it’s not too hard to wrap your head around, like with rustic houses!”

Jrum frowned at that. Like rustic houses. He couldn’t wrap his head around those. So he was probably going to just get more confused here.

“Alright! Let’s go!” NPG picked up Jrum and walked off, going to a portal with glowing blocks and blue magic in the middle. Jrum rested his head on his brother’s shoulder as the magic swirled around them before moving them to another dimension.