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Grian’s hands hadn’t stopped shaking in three days. He stubbornly defends to anyone that comes near him that he likes it that way, he can focus with the “quake setting,” and he was fine. Those shaking hands thumb across a stray shard of amethyst that he’d come across while caving for diamond and iron and anything else he would ever possibly need to survive this hellish game.
He knows the bags beneath his eyes are horrendous and his purple feathers marked with eyes and misgivings are ruffled beyond completion, but he’s not done working yet. From the desert, Grian had taken preservation. Now, here in a forest miles from Hermitcraft, he hands that preservation over to the Watchers not as a show of peace. He hands it over as a warning , painted in eyes and sharpened teeth. His ear feathers twitch, and they are as dull as his wings, because Grian rarely stopped moving enough to preen his ears.
It’s barely a scratch, but he feels the splinters of the crystal in his thumb where it had been cut open. Across the map, he knows his soulmate felt it too, looking down at his thumb with the same clouded worry he stared Grian down with on the off-chance that Grian returned to their shared base to dump off materials. His eyelashes flutter, the same purple tinge that stains his wings, and he keeps working, placing geode after geode neatly in his pouch for later.
How long has he even been down here? Grian drops a hunk of amethyst and ignores the way it shatters, placing his hands over his eyes where the tattoos on his palms were visible and opens his Eyes. Even through the purplish haze that clouds his Sight like a veil, he can see the sun shining down on the surface of their river. “Good,” he hums, forgetting the way his voice projects itself around the cave with sticky-sweet agony, and his Eyes close.
His real eyes, stained brown like the dirt in a cemetery, slide open again and are blinded by the shine of crystal. “Fuckin’ hell,” he swears, a slip-up he can look past just this once in his delirium. Grian blinks a few times to mitigate that blindness, and he almost topples over. “Goodness me, that takes too much to be useful,” he jokes to himself, picking up one last crystal that reflects the shade of his underfearhers. It slides into his pouch and he takes off without a thought, beating messy wings towards the sun.
Grian soars through the cave-system, pulling his feathers in tight between stalagmites. Experimentally, he seeks out the green string that links his heart to Scar’s, stained purple on his end from the too-big push of his Watcher influence. He tugs once on it, to see that it’s still there and Grian isn’t hallucinating and he isn’t sitting in the Watcher’s hall, the sun crowning his head, observing . Scar tugs back, and the little whisper in his head that sounds delightfully like his soulmate and nobody else, asks him, okay?
He replies yes , and narrowly avoids crashing into an errant waterfall. His wing gets wet anyways. The Scar-shaped voice shakes its head and says, liar. Come home. Grian doesn’t reply, shifting his weight with a powerful flap of his wings. He pulls into a tight spiral in a small, one-block wide gap, head tipped upwards towards the sun. It’s well within his abilities to build a bubble elevator, or widen the gap so he can fling out his wings, but he just doesn’t want to .
Grian’s face hits the sun and the breeze of the surface world, tumbling into the sky. He’s above the clouds before long, soaring to look for his riverside home. His wing hangs heavy and damp, and his eyes are threatening to close on him, but Grian forces himself away from that particular cliff until he can safely see the tiered wood of his base. Wind drifts between feathers, knocking some off-course and some directly as they should be.
Then an arrow cuts through his wake, and he spooks easier now that he’s delirious, because everything flashes purple and the arrow snaps like a twig when he sees it. He knows eyes, both his own and other players, linger on him, watching and waiting with muted breath to see what he’d do. It’s an effort to keep himself in the air, heaving in breaths to abate the purple haze. Grian is almost above his base now, he can see the trees and the flowers that litter the grass inside the walls. If Scar is down there as well, petting Jellie in the sun, he’s none the wiser.
His head flicks around looking for the bowstring that shot the arrow, his ears flat to his head, bursts of purple shooting across his vision. Grian can’t find the origin point of the arrow, spinning around in the air beating his wings just to stay above the breeze. He can feel the soul-string tugging in his chest, and there must be something said, but Grian can’t hear it as his head gives a beat of pain and his wings fail him, whistling through the air at record speeds. He looks up at the sky that floats away from him, and there are purple feathers drifting slowly in front of the sun.
The fall is slow, like he’s being rocked on an ocean instead of falling to his death, killing his soulmate at the same time. One last cognitive thought echoes in his mind. Tell Scar I’m sorry.
“GRIAN? GRIAN!” Scar is shouting as he falls into earshot, but there isn’t the pinprick recognition that it’s his soulmate. It’s just somebody new, perhaps a Watcher acolyte coming to retrieve their Head.
Everything is underwater as he falls closer and closer, “GRIAN! PRETTY BIRD!” Scar practically screams, and there’s a little smile on his face as the tips of his wings brush the dirt floor, but his rib cage never crushes itself into pieces and his feathers never jut out backwards, because Scar has caught him and he’s okay.
Out of the corner of his drifting, purple-tinted eyes, he can see the slice from the amethyst. “Scar…” he whispers, reaching a shaking hand up to rest on the man’s face, rubbing his thumb across his cheekbone.
“G, G you can’t just fall out of the sky, oh my goodness, are you okay? You aren’t dead and dying because I’m not dead and dying, but that is besides the point!” Scar pulls him close and checks all over, pressing two fingers into his pulse just to make sure Grian won’t die at any moment.
The world begins to swim in front of his eyes, and Grian’s wings flop across Scar’s body as he passes out.
——————————
He wakes up slowly. His wings feel heavier than they do usually, and he can feel a feather from his ears prodding at his mouth. It’s dark, but he’s warm and comfortable in a place his body swears it recognizes and he burrows into a comforter that’s draped over his body. Grian wraps his hands around the soul-string and tugs once, humming in his throat when he feels the pull resound in his own chest. “G-man?” somebody asks.
“Hmmmrmrmm. Five more…minutes…” Grian mutters, flapping his wings indignantly.
“You’re awake, thank the Void, you scared me, bird-brain.” Grian’s eyes peel open because that’s Scar, and he’s alive and he isn’t on a Watcher throne.
Regretfully, he’ll miss the pillowy softness of the bed he’s in, Grian forces himself to slowly sit up and look into the aftermath of the fall. His wings arc and stretch as far as they’ll go, and he hums coarsely, “Hi, Scar. Yes, I’m awake, thank you.”
His eyes open and everything isn’t purple, his vision is back to normal and his Eyes are closed. Grian looks down at his thumb and the cut is healed over. He blinks those purple eyelashes, flexing his fingers in the blanket, and looks at Scar with one hand still looped into their soul-string. “You were so tired…Gri…when was the last time you’d slept?”
“Uh…three days?” Grian shrugs, combing a hand through the ragged mess of his curls.
Scar looks at him with infinitely soft eyes, easy green melting. “Bird-brain, you gotta sleep,” he chides, walking over to Grian slowly and sits down on the bed, facing the floor.
“If you think about it, I don’t, really, I only screwed myself because I opened my Eyes once or twice and freaked because of an arrow, I could’ve gone longer but—“
“You could have died .” Scar mutters, and his voice is tougher than hardened sand. “I could have died. We could have DIED .”
Grian’s mouth falls open as he’s cut off. His ears flatten against his neck in fear that ices itself down his veins. “I—I couldn’t—I couldn’t feel the string while I was asleep, Grian I thought the string snapped and we were alone again, and it was going to end like the desert, and—“ Scar continues, talking with his hands as Grian realizes.
“Scar. Scar look at me,” Grian pushes the covers off of his legs and scoots towards Scar, cupping his cheek towards him. “I am sorry. I am so incredibly sorry, I never meant to worry you. I just wanted to get the base finished so you would be safe and we’d survive the game.”
His wings circle around them, bubbling them in a warm purple tide of light. The eyespots are closed as Grian wills them, allowing the two of them a moment of privacy. “This will never end up like the desert. I swear on the soulbond.” Grian’s forehead rests against Scar’s as he internalizes how close he came to bathing in yellow soul-light.
“I don’t doubt the fact that you’d turn down a button for me.” Scar laughs quietly.
Grian snorts, “Don’t put too much credit to my name. I am still an avian.”
Scar shakes his head, and reaches up to brush a hand against the feathers of Grian’s ear. He looks down at the hand in his peripherals and leans into the touch, until Scar asks, “When was the last time you preened?”
“Mm. Within the month. Probably.” Grian shrugs, pulling his wings down so they can breathe cooler air from the room.
“Within the month ?” Scar struggles to keep his voice down, to spare Grian’s feathered ears, but he finally notices the ruffles in the down-feathers on the undersides of Grian’s wings, and the dirt that lingers between the layers.
Grian shrugs again. A sigh whistles through Scar’s nose. “Can I…?”
A noise hums high in his throat as Grian realizes Scar is thumbing at his under-feathers, scratching away the dirt. “Oh.” Scar hadn’t preened his wings since the desert, and for just a minute he’s right back in that ring of cacti, bleeding knuckles and a cracked heart. “Do you…do you remember how?”
Scar nods, and he knows where Grian’s mind has gone. “Never forgot how. I remember cleaning sand out of these feathers for hours, and it was kind of worth it because you made these funny little chirping noises.”
Grian pulls his forehead away from Scar’s and his eyes are wide in embarrassed horror. “No.”
“Yes! I remember it perfectly, it was like perfectly reminiscent of a baby chick, oh it was glorious!” Scar coos as Grian hides his face in his hands, wishing to disappear within his wings.
“Kill me. Kill me right now.” He groans, and Scar stops cooing at him, shaking his head.
“It’s allllriiigghhttt Grian. Just your birdie instincts,” he says with a grin, and Grian smacks him with a wing. “Will you still let me?”
Grian sighs through his nose, and turns around, letting his wings drape out across the bed. He sits there, waiting, until he coughs pointedly and flicks his wings. “Oh! Oh! Okay!” Scar pulls his legs up onto the bed and, resting on his knees, begins to work away at Grian’s ruffled wings.
He’s methodical in scratching the dirt out of the feathers near the base, where feathers give way to skin. True to form, Grian chirps softly, and claps his hands over his mouth. “Oh my void .”
“Told you!” Scar laughs.
Grian’s wings flick back, batting at Scar’s hands, and the man coos softly, smoothing out the fluffed-up feathers with a practiced hand. The purple feathers are relaxed against Scar’s hands, eyespots closed without complaint. He’s entirely content to sit like this, allowing his soulmate to preen his wings, to fix the feathers with such caring hands he didn’t entirely mind the bird noises that came with.
The room is entirely silent, Grian stares at the panels of the red wooden walls in front of him with sleepily-lidded eyes, and Scar starts to murmur quietly. “I figured out the panda sanctuary. Maybe we could go there, just you and me. Named one after you. Real sleepy fella, never awake for more than a few hours at a time.”
Grian hums quietly, and Scar continues to talk as he preens, a quiet mindless drivel that he can focus on and remain at peace. He talks about what happened after Grian passed out, what Scar had for breakfast that day, how he’d personally beat the shit out of somebody for assuming he didn’t want Grian as a soulmate. “What?” Grian asked when he said that, his voice light and joking.
“Oh, yeah!” Scar sounded delighted to tell the story. “Scott mentioned that I could break the string if I wanted. In case I wanted a better soulmate, one who didn’t take risks. I told him to hold still and before I knew it, oh no! He’s bleeding!”
He nods pensively, and he says quietly, “Why? He was probably right.”
“Grian Xelqua you shut your feather-brained mouth. I’d never trade you for anybody else.” Scar’s voice is scarily low, and Grian shivers.
“Alright, settle down. I got it, soulmate loyalty, blah blah blah.” Grian reaches over his wing to grab Scar’s hand and squeezes once, letting go.
They go back to peace-soaked quiet, and Scar finishes up on his wings with one more precise pinch to a flight feather. “There. All pretty again.”
“Stop that, you stupid man.” Grian bats at him with a wing and turns around, looking at Scar gently. “Thank you.” He says, kinder.
“Of course.” Scar looks back with eyes greener than leaves in the summer sun.
Grian goes to leave, tugging his sweater into the right position where it had twisted in sleep, but Scar calls out, “Do you avians preen your ear-wings? Or whatever they’re called?”
Yes, but it’s reserved for the person that avian trusts with their entire soul .
“Yeah?” Grian responds, warily, and Scar raises his hands in surrender and leans back. “Scar, not like that.”
He sits back down on the bed, grabbing Scar’s hand. Slowly, gently, Grian pulls his hand up towards his feathery ear and allows Scar to run a thumb across the softer-than-clouds feathering. It takes everything and a herculean miracle to stay still while Scar cleans the dirt away from his ears, pinching the feathers to prime form and pulling loose ones out with utmost care, piling them onto the bed.
Grian leans into the touch, more cat than bird, fluttering his wings. “Man, I wonder what it would be like to fly with these…” Scar whispers, starting on the second ear.
“I can show you.” Grian hums.
Scar looks up at him, then, eyes glittering with the possibility. “Really?”
“Really.” He nods. “Finish up on that ear, then.”
He chokes on a laugh at Scar’s increase in speed, smoothing feathers and standing up, bouncing on his feet. His hands reach up to check his ears himself and deems them satisfactory, and Scar grabs one of his hands to pull him off the bed. “Okay, so how does this work, G-man, flight me up!”
Grian covers his mouth with both hands and wheezes out his laughter. “Flight you up? Good Void, Scar, how haven’t you been beat silly by an avian yet?”
He shrugs, “There’s still time!”
“Oh my void. Okay. Come on, outside, out, out, out!” Grian shooes him outside, onto the grass and between the flowers, staring up at the sky.
Scar stands there with his arms loosely crossed, looking at Grian with such hope. “I’m ready!” Scar announces, throwing his arms up.
In true trickster fashion, because tricks are Grian and Grian is tricks, he swoops in and Scar is off his feet and in his arms. It’s unexpected, the shorter man being able to carry Scar, but he makes it work with muscles hidden underneath his red sweater. “Don’t look down!” Grian says cheerily, and he’s beating his way up into the sky, soulmate in his arms.
“WOOOAHHH WOAH WOAH!” Scar shouts, barely a whistle above the wind, and Grian laughs as he clings to the avian’s shoulders. “I said don’t look down.” He muses quietly, soaring over the river and flicking water up onto Scar.
Flying is exhilarating, especially with clean wings and nobody’s prying, purple eyes on him. Having Scar along for the ride just makes it all that much better.