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There’s grit in his wings.
There’s sand in his feathers and warm arms around his torso. Grian sighed. “Scar?”
“Yeah, G?”
“It happened again, didn’t it?”
“…Maybe?” The hesitant voice of his partner replied.
Grian cautiously opened his eyes and chanced a glance at his surroundings. Sure enough, the familiar sandstone of a haunting base greeted him. A few months ago, it was a sight that sent both him and Scar into hysterics.
Now… Now it’s just another thing they deal with.
Yeah, involuntary server hopping so sporadic, sometimes Grian would be fishing and suddenly find himself with a fishing line in sand. Scar would be playing with Katy and Finn one second, and in a blink be in front of Pizza’s grave.
It was one heck of a learning curve, but Hermits like them were nothing if not adaptable. They soon basically figured out the pattern, and could convene and be together when they teleported.
Case in point. They fell asleep cuddling under the stars of HCX and woke up in their bed at Monopoly Mountain.
Grian huffed. “How does the sand even get in this base?! We made sure it was clean last time we left!”
“We have open windows, Grian.”
Grian wiggled out of Scar’s hold and sat up, glaring at the aforementioned “windows.” Indeed, they had fences instead of glass, because why would a desert base have glass windows despite being surrounded by sand?
“We should really fix that…” Grian grumbled.
“Aw, that’s history, Grian! We can’t mess with the mistakes of our past!” Scar replied cheerily. He did not mention the fact that almost the entire base was rebuilt on their first port back, since the Game ended with it half blown up. Nor any of the other renovations they did to the desert.
Grian rolled his eyes, internally cursing their past selves. As iconic as being “the desert duo” was, he really wished the desert part of it was less bothersome. Every part of it was a downside, from the heat, to the sand that got everywhere, to the large territory that had been near impossible to defend. Despite their base being called Monopoly Mountain, they in fact had no monopoly on sand.
The desert didn’t bother him ninety five percent of the time, but teleporting and getting sand on his person, and more importantly his wings, only made him less forgiving.
Grian stood up and dusted his sweater off with a frown. “Why didn’t we monopolize something less messy? Like, like clouds!”
“Clouds?”
“We could’ve made this whole scam about touching invisible clouds that only I could get. You probably would have said something like I can only get them when someone’s not looking!”
“I don’t think anyone would’ve fallen for that.” Scar sat up and slowly got off the bed. He reached up and dusted sand out of Grian’s hair.
Grian stared at him with a deadpan face. “Scar, you sold overpriced glass in Last Life.”
“Hey, those were jen-you-wine magic crystals!” Scar rebutted. “Infused with the highest caliber of luck and prosper–prosperity!”
Grian rolled his eyes and fussed with Scar’s hair in turn, being more thorough in untangling the locks and removing the grains of sand. When it was clear he was done, Scar leaned down and kissed his nose in thanks.
“So. What’s on the agenda this time?” Scar asked.
Grian turned away with a red face that was definitely from the heat and not him being flustered. He stepped back and stretched his arms over his head, wings flapping languidly. “Cabin. Preening. We can start on that flower garden you’ve been wanting?” Grian suggested casually.
Scar gasped excitedly. “Yes! Oho, I’ve been waiting for this; I’ve got so many ideas!”
The two left their original Third Life base and walked down the mountain, consciously not looking at the circle of cactus nearby.
The way it worked was this: only Grian and Scar teleported randomly. Always together, and always to the desert of Third Life. It could last from an hour to a few days. Their record was a worrying two weeks, during which by the end, both believed they were trapped forever, never to return home.
They couldn’t leave the server. Xisuma couldn’t reach them, Grian couldn’t kick them or close it down. They could leave the desert, and found that everything stayed eerily stagnant throughout the land. Every evidence of explosions, bloodshed, and destruction was exactly as it had been years ago.
Through mutual unspoken agreement, they stuck to the desert.
No amount of shouting at the sky in the hopes of the Watchers hearing them seemed to do anything. Grian wasn’t even sure it was the Watchers teleporting them; They’d never done anything like this before. He didn’t have an explanation as to why it was just him and Scar, and always this specific location. It seemed like some cosmic joke he didn’t get.
Scar took this in stride like he usually did with everything. He gathered seeds to make a farm, built them a little cabin made of sandstone and dark oak at the foot of the mountain, and fixed up the desert with ponds and bridges and little custom trees.
For his part, Grian stocked up on survival resources like golden apples, various potions, and ender pearls. As much as it unnerved him to have Scar out of sight in this place, him being in the Nether made Grian outright panic. They had only one death during this whole thing and it was due to a ghast knocking Scar into lava. Since then, Scar was banned from the Nether and they both had an inventory full of healing items at all times.
Scar had respawned normally, but neither wanted to take chances in a potentially permadeath world. Universe Reincarnation was finicky; you didn’t always respawn the exact same and it could take years to regain past life memories.
At the base of the mountain sat their very first renovation, affectionately dubbed the SandCabin.
Unlike the typical bases built in the Life Games, the SandCabin was aesthetically made and would fit right into any regular Hermit town, quaint as it was. Poppies and lilacs bordering the structure brought a pop of color to the dark oak, along with a little sandstone that surrounded the actual glass windows they installed.
The duo opened the door to find the place exactly as they left it. The interior was decorated with bookshelves, carpeted floors, and an elaborate fireplace. There was a kitchen area and a bed in the corner. The place was lit up with a singular lantern on a nightstand and glowstone built into the ceiling.
Scar dragged the reading chair that was next to the bookshelves closer to the bed and sat down. Grian sat on the bed with his back facing Scar. With the experience of many previous mornings and nights, Scar began fixing up Grian’s wings, dislodging debris and straightening crooked feathers.
Grian’s soft sigh trailed off into a pleased warble. Despite having just woken up, the warm desert air and methodical motions of preening lulled him into a dozing state. With his eyes closed, he could almost imagine they’d gone back in time. Him as a perpetual Green Life and his Yellow Life “boss,” still unconfident when it came to assisting with preening. The rush of adrenaline when any moment meant certain death and the closest companion he relied on would most certainly be the death of him.
How far they’d come now, that Grian thinks back on it fondly.
Once his wings were back in order, Grian repaid the favor by lazily running his fingers through Scar’s hair again. The vex purred contently. While preening wasn’t really a vex thing, Scar appreciated being doted on in a very avian way. Vex soaked up attention like they did mischief and madness—greedily and without caution. And attention from his favorite avian would never be turned down.
Scar looked at him, face soft and adoring. Grian couldn’t resist cupping his face and giving him a gentle peck on the corner of his mouth.
“So. Garden?”
Scar grinned. “I thought you’d never ask!”
…
The garden was simple and yet difficult to cultivate. There weren’t many flowers within the Third Life border so it takes a lot of bonemeal (and nicking a few poppies from the Flower Hobbit nook) to liven up the desert. In the end, Scar’s new garden consisted of poppies, lilacs, sunflowers, and a few blue orchids in a fenced in lawn beside the cabin.
It’s counterintuitive when Scar then suggests making flower crowns, but they have enough of an assortment to spare and extra bonemeal to replace the picked flowers anyhow, so they sit right on the grass and get to work.
Grian plucked a few poppies and had just begun the meticulous construction of a flower crown when Scar tucked a sunflower over Grian’s ear wing. “How long do you think it'll be this time?” Scar asked.
“Less than a week, probably. Last time was… eight days, I think? And it was last month, mid afternoon.”
Scar tossed bonemeal onto the area where the flowers were picked and watched it duplicate the singular poppy in the space into four.
“This time was during a Sunday night, so that means we’ll return on a late morning on Friday. Man, it’s weird that we know this. You’d think there wouldn't be a real pattern when a desert kidnaps you.” Scar started on his own flower crown. “Maybe it missed us too…”
“…Yeah.”
Grian caressed the flower petals in his hands. How many times had he seen a flash of red and lilac and thought of explosions and huddling for warmth on cold nights? Of Pizza’s soft fleece, glochids buried in stinging hands stained with blood, whispers and regrets and matching ponchos shielding skin from oppressive heat?
He would catch himself being reminded of the desert long before the whole teleporting thing began. Over time it stopped hurting and became more of a comfort, like a second home even, one he thought he would never physically return to. Before they somehow did.
It’s been years and they only felt the hiraeth grow stronger with the passing time. It’s bittersweet when they, through no decision of their own, finally set their sights on the nostalgic dunes once more.
“In my dreams, I’m always here with you. It’s like I never left.”
The confession slipped from Grian’s lips almost unconsciously, yet still with a difficulty only he could feel. In the wake of it there is silence, like the desert itself is acknowledging its tether on the two souls who claimed it long ago.
“Do you think… that has something to do with this?” Scar asked hesitantly.
Grian shrugged. “Dunno. At first I thought it was… some punishment, some sick joke. Now… Now I don’t know.”
It was strange—it wasn’t like they were trapped. They returned home in between a few weeks and a few hours every time, with little drastic changes. None of their memories, or anyone else’s, had changed. It wasn’t a time loop situation where they had to learn something in order to make it stop either.
It simply… happened.
“Is it weird that I like spending time with you like this? I know we hang out a lot at home, but it’s different here; it’s like we have our own server, just us. Honestly, it feels like more of a vacation nowadays.” Scar said.
“Yeah, I can see that. I mean, if it’s not some strange new Game there’s no harm in enjoying it.” Grian chuckled softly. “Hard to believe all this was just an experiment. And now look at us, six victors in.”
“Wild, huh? It was simpler back then.”
“Well it was my idea first. They’re the ones who took it too far.” For a moment Grian glanced at the mountain. The SandCabin was built in such a way where they couldn’t see the cactus ring, nor Pizza’s grave. Some things deserved to be untouched in their melancholy, yet not dwelled on. Any previous offenses were forgiven and the duo moved forward closer than ever after Wild Life.
Scar’s voice turned wistful. “It must’ve been one heck of a show, to always be chasing the same feeling.”
Grian looked out on the horizon. The desert was a shell of its former barren self, nearly unrecognizable from all the renovations. Even still, the air was thick, heavy with the weight of past transgressions. It permeated in every grain of sand that never got to become dynamite.
It’s haunting, the remnants of a war’s end etched so deeply within him, within Scar, perhaps even within the Watchers, that its ghost lingers and clings to the present like cobwebs. That just a few spur of the moment decisions led to the events of the cactus ring, and that moment sticks.
It’s monumental enough that somehow the last two standing and claiming a double victory despite the brutality that follows are dragged back to the scene of the crime.
The desert is a corpse, a ghost, a zombie that just won’t die. How could it? The components are sand and sun and those things just are. They could never be erased, not like the faulty memories of Players. And even then, one doesn’t need to remember to reminisce in the past.
Yet, would it ever be the past if they kept thinking on it?
For a while it was a perplexing puzzle Grian wanted to resolve, but pieces were missing and colors were muddled. Was it meant to be a merciful resolution to this chapter of their life? Or was it a torment, a taunting that no matter how they moved on, their hearts and minds would forever linger in this beginning?
Still stuck, They would say. Never left.
Grian regarded Scar. Scar, his other half, and what made the desert the desert. At the end of it all, it wasn’t the nonexistent monopoly or the reputation board or the friendship passes that made it all worth something. It was them. Grian and Scar against the world. The Desert Duo bound by oath and mischief and a little bit of swindling.
“Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“Or maybe They decided to be nice for once.” Scar smiled.
Grian finished his flower crown—an alternating pattern of poppies and lilacs and one singular sunflower— and carefully adorned Scar with it. “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.”
…
Three days later, the world warped around them and they fell two feet into the freezing ocean of HCX.
“Aw, come on, I wasn’t finished with the potato farm!” Scar sputtered once he managed to resurface.
Grian chirped indignantly and clung to Scar’s back, his wings uncomfortably heavy from the water.
“Swim.”
Scar dragged both of them to land and they ended up on shore soaked and disgruntled. “Whatever it is, its got a weird sense of humor.” Grian commented.
Scar glanced at him and snickered. “You look like Mr. Finnigan when he fell in the dolphin enclosure.”
“Don’t encourage it! Next thing you know we’ll come back in a cave at bedrock level or on the roof of a skyscraper with no elytra!” Grian exclaimed. Scar laughed.
“I wish I got to start on a proper mega base.” Scar mused. “Maybe something nether-y. Could work with the sand and gold.”
Grian shook the water out of his wings and realized that he too was looking forward to returning to their desert again. At some point, making the best of the situation turned to anticipating their next project.
And really, with Scar, Grian wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Next time then?”
Scar nodded. “Yeah. Next time.”
“Wanna go prank Joel?” Grian asked. Scar’s eyes sparkled with keenness.
“I would love nothing more.”