Archive of Our Own ^beta

To say that Mumbo Jumbo was worried was the understatement of the century. It had been almost a year since Grian had gone off to his brand-spanking-new server, and it had been almost a year of complete radio silence.

He understood, when his friend left, that they would simply talk less, living on different servers tended to do that. But even when Grian had been working on WynnCraft, they still messaged each other on their comms, and met up in the World Hub every once-in-a-while, to play their favourite game, Build Swap.

But since Evo had started, nothing, not even a response to the birthday message Mumbo had sent, - a very well written one, if he did say so himself. It was complete and utter silence. 

So, he decided, after talking it through with Xisuma, that he was going to visit. Just to see how everything was going. Grian had whitelisted him - “In case you want to join, I’m sure we’d all enjoy having you!” - so it was easy, getting into the server. 

It was still nerve-wracking, standing outside the swirling portal in the world hub, the employee who’d led him to the portal’s footsteps slowly fading away. He was probably just worrying for nothing, and Grian would be there, having the time of his life. He probably just got super busy, running his first full server. Mumbo would get a tour, say hello to all of Grian’s new friends, and tease him about his height. Everything would be normal.

Except.. It wasn’t. When Mumbo stepped through the portal, after his eyes had adjusted to the sudden daylight, all he saw was a simple shack, made of materials he knew weren’t in the versions Evo would be on. He was in the present version. He was in the present version. Grian’s server was supposed to pull from old code, making the world run on mere foundations, so why was he in the current version. He pulled out his Comm, opening the Nerd-Stats, and there it was, Version 1.13.  

It had been nearly a full year, and there was nothing. Mumbo searched as far as he could, there was nothing in the world. Just a shack full of notes about the code Grian had made. It seemed like he was about to set the code in motion, by the looks of the place, so where was he? Maybe Code-Jumping was more complex than Mumbo had previously thought, maybe it was something to do with his code.

The Redstoner took a deep breath and looked down at his Comm, pulling up his ongoing message chain with Grian. He sent a simple message,

You whisper to Grian: Hey dude, I’m on your server, do you want to give me the grand tour?

Mumbo nearly jumped out of his mustache when, under a stack of papers, a muffled ping sounded out. He rushed over, nearly crashing into several things, before he made it to the worktable. He shoved the papers aside, and there it was, Grian’s busted up Comm, covered in stickers and held together by hope and prayers.

Grian had left his Comm. Grian, the man he knew was vigilant on taking the thing everywhere he went, had left his Comm in a shack. 

There was something seriously wrong. Mumbo made his way back to the World Hub, nervously slicking back his hair, fixing his moustache, and straightening his suit. - His self-calming methods always seemed to make him more presentable, which would be hilarious to anyone that wasn’t him in this current moment.

He stepped through the Hermitcraft portal in a daze, not paying attention to anything else as he made his way to Xisuma’s base. He would have a nice cup of tea, and everything would be okay.

~1~1~1~

Evolution was a horror story Xisuma had been told since he was a voidling, and something he’d made his life’s purpose to avoid. The Elders of his home told of Watchers worming Their way into a server throughout its lifespan, influencing the Players with riddles and rhymes, rewarding them with gifts and silky words, punishing them with laughs and little inconveniences, gaining their trust slowly. The Elders had told the children in his village, 

“リᒷ⍊ᒷ∷ ꖎᒷℸ ̣  ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ᓭリᔑꖌᒷ ∴╎ℸ ̣ ⍑ ∴╎リ⊣ᓭ ᓭᒷ∷ᒷリᔑ↸ᒷ ||𝙹⚍, ⎓𝙹∷ ╎ℸ ̣  ∴╎ꖎꖎ ⚍ᓭᒷ ||𝙹⚍∷ ℸ ̣ ∷⚍ᓭℸ ̣  ᔑᓭ ╎ℸ ̣ ᓭ ᓵ⍑ᔑリᓵᒷ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ᓭℸ ̣ ∷╎ꖌᒷ. ”

“Never let the snake with wings serenade you, for it will use your trust as its chance to strike.”

The teachers at his Admin school in the World Hub had taught the story of Evo as the story of an Admin with so much ambition, that his very first project was something never seen before, a server that moved through the versions and evolved as its players built and explored and lived. They had a certain.. reverence for the admin. Nobody knew his real name, just the Admin Signature they’d found embedded in the server’s ruins of code. Xelqua. Xisuma had immediately recognized the name, it was Ancient Galactic, meaning Chosen. 

The Players of Evolution had vanished, long gone by the time the ruins of Evo were found. Some believed they made deals with the Watchers - or something else - to get out. Some believed they were simply Permadead. X didn’t quite know what he believed. He hoped they got out safely, but there was really no knowing.

Xisuma spent a lot of his Admin School years learning how to protect servers from Their Eyes. He spent hours pouring over the code of Evo, trying to find anything he knew how to fix. He would never let Them get to him again.

When Xisuma became Admin of Hermitcraft, he promised he would protect his Players, new and old, and he was going to work like Void to keep that promise. 

So, when he found himself with a shaking, all too presentable, 19 year old Mumbo Jumbo, sitting ramrod straight on a double chest in his base after a visit to his friend’s server, he knew he had to help, in any way that he could. 

He had barely had the chance to sit next to the guy and gently rest his gloved hand on his shoulder before he burst out with the monologue. 

“He was- They were all just gone X!” The moustached man blurted out. “There wasn’t even a server! It was empty! Like they hadn’t been there for nearly a year!” 

Xisuma hummed, his hand squeezing his shoulder gently to ground his friend. “And- And G, his Comm was there! He wouldn’t just leave his blimming Comm! He-” Mumbo repeatedly slicked back his hair as he spoke, it was a habit X had picked up on pretty quickly, you could tell when the Redstoner was upset by how neat and tidy he was. Hair perfectly slicked back? He was probably having a hard time with a project. His suit was completely smooth, no wrinkles or rumpled parts? He was probably having an anxiety attack, and you should probably check up on him. Perfect suit, perfect hair, and a perfectly curled moustache? The man was having a full-on crisis.

Mumbo was in full-on-crisis mode. He even seemed to have re-folded his cuffs, multiple times.

~1~1~1~

It took a couple of hours, and four pots of tea, for Xisuma to calm Mumbo down enough to explain.

He didn’t really get all that much information from him, in the long run. Most of what he tried valiantly to explain was circular and made X’s head spin to try and decode. What he did know was that Mumbo’s friend - who he had called G, Gri, Grian, and several other nicknames, X decided to call him G in his head - had become admin of his own server a year ago, and had told Mumbo he would stay in contact. G hadn’t, in fact, kept in contact, and when Mumbo went to visit - Xisuma, after being told this plan days ago, had assumed he was whitelisted for some reason or another, before his friend moved to the server - there was nothing.

X had tried to suggest he’d had the wrong server, but that had sent Mumbo further into his spiraling. So he’d focused on getting the man calmed down.

Now, it was night, Scar had come and gone to drop off biscuits, and the two were sitting in silence. Mumbo’s hair looked deflated, as did the man’s face, moustache included. “You should get home, rest. I’ll call up some of my Admin friends, maybe they’ve heard something,” He said, standing from his resting place, against his crafting table. X scooped up the platter of biscuits, the teapot, and Mumbo’s cup, depositing the teacup and platter into his disheveled vampire friend’s hands.

He left the teapot in a chest, making a mental note to wash it later. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to rest, to be honest,” Mumbo complained, munching on a biscuit solemnly. “I mean, we’re about to move up to Season Six, and- How will he know where to find me? I- I have his comm.”

“Mumbo,” He soothed, his armoured arms moving up to hold his vampiric friend’s shoulders, “You can’t work yourself up over this, your needs come first. I’ll-” He had an idea, like a redstone lamp lighting up above his head. “I’ll whitelist him in the Season Six server. Then if he comes looking for you, he’ll be able to get in without his comm.” 

Mumbo’s redstone-coloured eyes lit up. “You’d do that? I know you don’t know Gri, you-” X cut him off with a hand held up. He pulled up his Admin controls for the new server, looking to Mumbo for his friend’s Tag. “It’s Grian, capital G, r, i, a, n.” He spelled out, X typed it into the whitelist easily.

“We’ll have to talk to the rest of the Hermits about this, but I’m sure they’ll understand,” He said, waving the control panels away before leading Mumbo out. “Go to sleep, or I’ll sicc Scar on you.” Xisuma warned, a smile on his face, despite the seriousness in his tone.

Mumbo, having been gently shoved out the front door, turned to Xisuma with a sincere, “Thanks, X.” Before he jumped up, fireworks propelling him into the sky as his elytra caught the air.

~1~1~1~

Xisuma didn’t think about it much after that night. 

He’d called all his admin friends the next morning, most of them hadn’t heard of the dude, one had met him at some World Hub competition a few years back, but none had heard from or about him in the last year. After relaying that news to Mumbo, he got swept up in the move preparations.

He didn’t think about it until, a few days into Season six, as he was caving, his comm pinged; Grian has joined the game. The chat immediately blew up, everyone sending their share of question marks and Huhs. He may have forgotten to talk to the other Hermits, in his distracted, pre-move mindset. One message, sent a few minutes later, stood out to him, it was from Mumbo. 

X, EMERGENCY @ SPAWN

He replied, Coming, Mumbo. And in another message, Hermits, meet at spawn in four hours. Xisuma then muted his comm, ignoring the several questioning messages that followed. 

~1~1~1~

Mumbo had almost given up on seeing Grian again. He knew what happened when servers malfunctioned, and that was the only logical explanation he had about what happened to Evo. He’d kept his focus on his starter base, and tried to keep his mind from worrying about him.

He’d been mucking about the server, collecting his items he’d managed to leave about in the very short time they’d been there. It was taking an exceptionally long time. He hadn’t realized how much he’d started to rely on his elytra, until they were gone.

Then, the two comms he’d been carrying on his person - his, pristine grey and black, updated every month to the newest tech, worn on his arm, and Grian’s, ancient red and green, covered in stickers, and barely functional other than the chat feature, kept in his toolbelt’s main pocket - pinged. He’d stopped in his tracks, expecting a message from Scar, who he was planning on going caving with later that day.

Instead of a message from his favourite pirate, the chat announced something that Mumbo never thought he’d see again, Grian has joined the game.

He stared at the message for a good few seconds, before he raced off to spawn. Very slowly, in a boat, because spawn was on an island. 

As he docked at the island, he saw a bundle of purple and black writhing on the grass. He couldn’t tell which part was cloth or which part was feathers, the shapes seemed to change and shift as he looked on. He stood, frozen, for a good minute. Then, the figure shifted again, feathers and fabric keeping their shape, they were twisting their body uncomfortably to look at him, their long, matted dirty blond hair framing blank black eyes that could have been the void itself. They cried out, and Mumbo shot forward, landing heavily in the sandy grass bordering the beach.

“Mumbo..” Grian cried, his voice hoarser and raspier than he’d ever heard it, like he’d gone years without a drop of water.

“Grian!” He heard himself say, his voice too excited to match how his heart was pounding. “Where have you been, you spoon!” His friend clawed his way closer, his purple tinged hands gripping to Mumbo’s dress pants like a lifeline.

“I need help, Mumbo,” He said, trying with clumsy hands to grab at Mumbo’s comm. Mumbo sprang to action, pulling his suit sleeve up and sending a quick SOS message to Xisuma. Grian nodded resolutely, before passing out onto the sand.

He cradled his injured friend’s head in his lap, waiting impatiently for his admin.

—-------------------------------------------

Life with the watchers was a constant flip-flop between too much and too little. Sometimes Xelqua would find himself entertained for years, watching over his players, sometimes he’d be working with other Watchers, punishing those who disobeyed, sometimes he’d be the one being punished. Other times he found himself drifting in the void, the silence loud in his ears as he floated, his wings beating idly to keep him afloat in the starry darkness.

It was during one of those times, as he watched the lights fall and rise, waiting for Oculine to give him something to Watch, that he felt something change. For the first time in three hundred years, he felt his code, it was tugging him towards something in the distance.

He Looked out around him. He couldn’t See anyone near him, nor could he feel anyone Watching him. So, in a moment of rebellion, one of the very few he’d allowed himself, in his Watcherdom, he followed the feeling. He angled himself, shooting downwards as fast as his four flight wings could carry him.

He had to hurry, soon They’d come looking for him, and he’d have missed his chance. He chanced opening his Eyes again, his mindwings flaring out and illuminating his robes in their violet light. In front of him - relatively, distance wasn’t something he could measure, anymore - was a server. As he Looked into its code, he could almost See it flickering in and out of existence, like he wasn’t supposed to be able to See it. He shot forwards again, coming to a stop in front of the server, holding the warm lavender bulb in his hands gingerly.

He closed his Eyes, and he could see it clearly.

That was backwards, wasn’t it? He thought, turning the server in his hands like an apple he was considering eating. As he held it, he could feel a hauntingly familiar warmth, radiating from the code itself. He examined it closer, still juggling it between his hands, using the tips of his wings to glide the orb along the inky black of the void.

“ ̇/ᒷꖎᑑ⚍ᔑ,  ᓵ⍑╎ꖎ↸,  ∴⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ  ᔑ∷ᒷ  ||𝙹⚍? ”

“Xelqua, child, where are you?”

The words rang out in his mind, he froze, his Eyes opened involuntarily, and he Saw One, their Eyes searching valiantly for him.

“ ᔑ∷ᒷ  ||𝙹⚍  ⍑╎↸╎リ⊣  ⎓∷𝙹ᒲ  ᒲᒷ?  ↸𝙹リℸ ̣   ||𝙹⚍  ꖌリ𝙹∴  ∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣   ⍑ᔑ!¡!¡ᒷリᓭ  ∴⍑ᒷリ  ||𝙹⚍  ⍑╎↸ᒷ? ”

“Are you hiding from me? Don’t you know what happens when you hide?”

Xelqua forcefully held his Eyes closed, resolutely ignoring his commander’s words of warning. He flew down again, retrieving the server from where it’d drifted after he’d dropped it, in his surprise.

He could feel Oculine approaching, so he gripped the server tightly, his code reaching out to it desperately. Xelqua, despite everything, had the feeling that if he could get in, Oculine would never find him. The server rejected him, and he dropped it, suddenly the warmth was red-hot, burning as his purple-stained hands tried to reach into the code.

One caught up to him, their wings spread around them like a halo, intent on intimidating Xelqua into submission. He felt a spark inside himself, a stubbornness that had long since died, resurrecting in his chest like a sunrise. 

Grian shot downwards, his hand outstretched to the server in one last act of defiance, his secondary wings folding into themselves. One shrieked, their Eyes desperately tearing at his code, their claws tearing at his primary wings. He felt his fingers brush the server, and then, as Oculine grabbed the bridges of his wings, crushing them in their clawed grasp, he crashed through the server’s walls. 

He opened his eyes, desperately searching through the blue soaring past him for anything to hold onto. His back felt like agony, not dissimilar to the pain he’d felt when his wings had come in, all those many years ago.

He flailed desperately, phasing in and beating his secondary wings to try and catch the void. But he wasn’t in the void anymore, and he’d never learned how to fly in the Overworld.

He crashed into the ground, the last of the void being knocked out of him like a tire going flat. He writhed, trying desperately to open his Eyes, he couldn’t See. Xelqua regretted it almost immediately, as when he tried to pry his unseeing Eyes open, a white-hot shooting pain wracked his body, he could feel his code being re-arranged, and he heard himself screech, an almost birdlike sound that made his heart hurt, a vague longing for his siblings.

Grian finally came to his senses, deciding to shift his form fully, to stop the pain from the server’s code. His broken wings shifted from crystalline black to the same purple as his robes, the secondary wings folding into his back, safely inside his code. They went from crystal shards to feathers. From a horrible reminder of his otherness to normal avian wings. He ripped his mask off, shoving the white and lavender abomination into the ground next to him roughly. Grian ripped the crown-like headdress from his head, using too much of his strength to crumple it as if it was paper. 

He felt a sharp pain in his chest, and he realised he should have been breathing. He tentatively inhaled, before gulping down as much of the salty air as he could handle. The suffocating feeling of the void in his useless lungs was only a memory, in that moment, as he laid in the muddy grass, feeling like a person for the first time in centuries, greedily sucking in air.

He rolled onto his side, coughing to expel the void dust from his lungs, he cried out, when he felt the bones shift, the open wounds brushing against his rough hair. He opened his regular eyes, intent on cursing the sky, and he saw someone, standing at the edge of his sight.

They had a black suit on, recently pressed, their black hair was slicked back, and their handlebar moustache was well manicured.

His black voids-for-eyes met their piercing red ones, and he cried out again, his voice sounding like he’d gargled a stack of obsidian, “Mumbo..” The man ran forward, landing in front of Grian on the sandy grass - when had that got there? Was he near a beach? - he said something, but he couldn’t hear anything besides the rushing in his ears and the remaining whispers of the void.

“I need help, Mumbo,” Grian whined, feeling as if he was trying to control a puppet with its strings cut as he fumbled for Mumbo’s communicator. Mumbo pushed his limp hands away, quickly typing on the communicator. Hopefully he was getting help, because as Grian nodded, satisfied, he felt his consciousness slip out of his hands like grains of sand.

Sand that his head hit seconds later, passed out.

~1~1~1~

He woke an unknowable amount of time later, in a bed, in an underground bunker. Grian did a quick check of himself, he was still wearing his Watcher robes, but his hair, when he grabbed at it nervously, wasn’t in its usual style, with the two ribbons holding the sides of his bangs away from his face.

His head swiveled around the room, desperately trying to locate the lavender ribbons. When he failed to, he tried to stand, attempting to unfurl his wings to keep his balance, still not used to having steady - and visible, it was cobblestone - floor underneath his - now - bare feet. 

His wings didn’t respond, and he twisted around to try and look at them. They were bound by bloodspotted bandages, splinted with several sticks, and held against his back with a loose spool of surprisingly soft rope. 

He realized, as he started to untie the rope, keen on using it to escape, somehow, that unlike the blood that he had bled, when he was being punished in the void, which had been an unnatural violet, the blood on his wings was red, the color of player blood.

Could he really be called a player, after everything he’d done?

His thoughts were interrupted, when the iron door on the other side of the room - that he hadn’t noticed, until just then, and had apparently been locking him in, since he didn’t see a way to open it from the inside - opened, and a large, armoured man walked through. He had on a grey helmet with a purple visor, and his armour was green and beige.

Hanging behind his back were what looked vaguely like dragonfly wings, but they were a shiny purplish-grey material, matching the colour of the helmet. They were connected to the suit of armour with a plate of metal, and they swayed with each movement the man made.

Grian had never seen anything like them. He was snapped out of his thoughts when the man spoke, “Hello, you must be Grian. I’m Xisuma, the admin of this server.” His voice was softer, politer than Grian would have expected from such a large, imposing man. He pronounced his name like Ix-ooh-muh. Before he spoke again, he glanced at his comm, inexplicably, before taking his helmet off. His skin was a vaguely inhuman pink, his hair, which Grian had thought was brunet, was actually a dark burgundy purple. “You were in a pretty bad state, so Mumbo and I-”

Grian cut him off, “I’m not here to hurt anyone, I just needed- I just needed to get away.” He knew those features, Voidwalkers tended to look human, to an untrained eye, but his eye was anything but untrained. Due to the obvious anti-Watcher warding put on the server, pointing to a not-very-friendly outlook on Watchers, Grian thought it wise to state his intentions clearly, to avoid any animosity.

“I’d assumed so,” He said, a slight deadpan in his voice. “It’s not every day a Watcher crashes onto a server like that. It’s also not every day that a Watcher gets so injured.” He motioned at Grian’s wings. “Are you comfortable with telling me what happened? It might help Cleo - a friend of mine - heal you.”

Grian flexed his back, rolling his shoulders nervously. It jostled the semi-quickly - thanks wholly to his Watcher code - healing bones slightly, and that distracted him from his fear enough to speak. “Where is Mumbo?” He asked, dodging the question expertly, the less the Voidwalker knew, the more likely he’d be able to leave without issue. “I just need to get to the World Hub, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

The expression the Admin made looked vaguely pained, he said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, your wings are shattered. I’ve never seen an avian as injured as you are still awake, let alone standing.” Grian glanced back at his wings, his fingers twitching to open his code and fix them himself. But since Oculine had been messing with his code, he wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t directly help. Also, the warding on the server keeping him from using his powers. “I can call Mumbo over, but I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”

A primal fear gripped Grian’s heart, it beat like a jackhammer in his chest, which was strange and foreign to him, after so many years without one. (Watchers didn’t need hearts, they barely needed physical form.) He pinned himself to the far wall, eyeing the windows on the ceiling like he could fit his winged form through them. (He could not.) The voidwalker continued, “I’m not going to force you to stay forever, Grian,” Hearing his - old? - name being said aloud was like ice water being poured down his robes. “But it’d be safer if you took it easy for a few weeks, at least.”

There was a knock on the iron door, and Xisuma turned to face it, “Come in,” He said, and the door swung open, revealing Mumbo, holding a small pile of clothes. “Speak of the devil, are those for him?”

Mumbo nodded, wasting no time waltzing up to Grian, who flinched away slightly, at the sudden proximity. “I had one of your old jumpers lying around,” He said, setting his pile of clothes on the bed and ignoring the flinch as he always did. “I had to get False to help me add holes for your wings.” He swatted at Grian’s arms, which he lifted. As he gently pulled the jumper over Grian’s head, he said, “She’s also an- an Avian.” He stumbled over the word, obviously confused as to when that happened. “X, can you step out, so G can change out of these culty robes?”

X made a slightly confused face, probably because Mumbo wasn’t planning on leaving himself - they were close enough to change in the same room, they’d lived together in boarding school, for void’s sake - before shrugging, pulling his helmet on, and sidling out of the open door. Grian heard the clunk of his armour hitting the outside wall as he leaned against it. The iron door swung closed, and Mumbo’s demeanour changed.

“What happened to you, Grian?” He asked, a determined look on his face, as he crossed his arms expectantly. “I went to Evo, there wasn’t anybody there. Just a shack with this,” He pulled Grian’s comm from his toolbelt, and Grian swore he felt his heart melt. “And a few hundred papers. There wasn’t even a server!”

As Grian made barely restrained grabby hands at his comm - he hadn’t seen the thing in three hundred years, and he’d used to take it literally everywhere with him, he missed it - he handed it over. He ran his hands over the stickers - ones he’d collected throughout his life, mostly from high school - as he replied, “I- We were on the server all year, having fun. But- The way that we jumped updates wasn’t the way I’d coded it. There were these buildings, that popped up,” He looked up at Mumbo, who made him sit on the bed, joining him. “They were made of obsidian, and bedrock, Mumbo. I- I went along with it, what else was I supposed to do?? The people who made them, The Watchers, They moved us through the updates.”

“Well, that’s weird as all get out, but it doesn’t explain where the blimmin’ server went,” Mumbo interjected, looking slightly annoyed. 

“I’m getting to it!” He chided, a bit of his old self shining through. He continued; “Everything went pretty well, we moved through Beta well enough, they had us do puzzles and tests to get the coordinates of each portal. When we made it to the End update, they brought the End portal to us. We all jumped in- We jumped in together, but when I got in..” He held himself in a sort-of hug, rubbing the soft material of his jumper self-soothingly. 

“I was alone. I- I killed the dragon, and the Watchers.. Recruited me.” Mumbo raised an eyebrow, thankfully not interjecting, Grian didn’t know if he’d be able to get it out, if he was interrupted now. “They- They made me into one of them, Mumbo. I got wings, four- no six of them, they- It hurt so much.” He felt his eyes well with hot tears, and he blinked them away before Mumbo could see them. “They- Gods, They showed me how they’d done it, the version updates. We were actually back in time. That’s why you didn’t see the server. It didn’t exist. They transported us to a different server, one that wasn’t connected to the World Hub.”

His voice had lapsed into a whisper, barely audible over the anxious flapping of his mindwings. Mumbo took his hand, rubbing over the scars there with practiced delicacy. He took a deep breath, trying to calm Grian down. He realised he hadn’t been breathing, and followed along, grateful for his vampiric friend’s handling of the situation. (He tended to forget to breathe, as well. Which had caused.. problems, when they had been in a dorm together, and Grian awoke one night to an unbreathing, pulseless Mumbo.)

As Grian got his breath under control - taking a breath every two seconds, he was counting - he undressed. After he took off the jumper, easily, since Mumbo hadn’t bothered with pulling his wings through; he fumbled with the intricate construction of the garments; it wasn’t meant to be taken off, of course. The Watchers never expected anyone to leave, after all. His purple stained hands morphed into claws, and he tore through the infuriating fabric. 

Mumbo simply huffed a slight laugh and gathered up the fabric as it fell to the floor, stuffing it in a chest when he was done. Grian had already put on the button-up and his jumper, carefully slotting his wings through the new holes made for them, when Mumbo said, “I’m surprised they managed to get you into those. The fanciest thing I’ve seen you wear is a button-up and a bow tie, and even then you were still wearing your jumper over it,” He said, handing Grian the trousers when he reached for them. It wasn’t all that true, really; Grian had worn many a suit, in his days - and even quite a few dresses. He’d just never worn them around Mumbo, he was fancy enough for the both of them. “I borrowed these from Scar, so they might be a bit long, sorry.”

As Grian stepped into the trousers, he had the opportunity to look down at himself. He hadn’t worn his jumper in so long, it almost looked foreign on his wiry body. He slipped the soldier-esque boots he’d been wearing when he fell from the heavens onto his socked feet, folded the hem of the trousers a few times, so he wasn’t stepping on them, and sat back on the bed, suddenly bone tired.

His stomach rumbled, feeling alien and strange to him, after so long. So much of normal life was foreign to him now, and it made his head throb. He nervously weaved his long side bangs around his forefinger, waiting for Mumbo to say something. 

“Your hair’s gotten long,” He commented, apparently as lost for words as Grian was. Grian hummed in acknowledgement, his mindwings flapping once absentmindedly. 

There was a knock on the door, and Xisuma called, “Are you two done in there? We have a hermit meeting to go to, Mumbo.” He sounded slightly annoyed, and Grian winced. He wasn’t sure about the man’s temperament, or how to act around him.

“Yeah, yeah, X. We’re done,” Mumbo replied, casual as always. The iron door swung open, and the admin waltzed in, staying near the door, obviously privy to Grian’s uncomfortability towards him. Mumbo turned to Grian, “You can come to the meeting, if you want. You don’t have to talk to anyone, but I think meeting you will sway the Hermits into letting you stay, at least until you’re healed.”

Grian hesitated for a moment, his gaze sweeping from Mumbo, to the admin, to his hands, wrung together in his lap. “I.. I think that would be best. If I’m to be staying here for the foreseeable future, I should at least know who I’d be neighboring with.” He struggled to articulate his thoughts, since They would just read his mind like it was a waiting room magazine, and he’d do the same with Them. The void didn’t carry sound very well. Something or other about the vacuum, Grian hadn’t cared enough to ask.

Mumbo nodded, standing from the bed and waiting for Grian to do the same, before walking casually out of the room. Grian paused slightly, before passing Xisuma, and the admin said, in a softer voice than he’d heard from the man, “I don’t blame you for your situation. I’ve seen what Watchers will do to make you one of them.” He reached out slightly, his dark grey gloves hesitating and stalling before they reached his shoulders. It was obviously a ploy to comfort him, so he acquiesced, nodding thankfully at the man. 

“Thank you, Admin,” He said, voice still little more than a whisper. “I appreciate your patience.” He nodded resolutely, and followed Mumbo out of the room. The entrance was a small, dirt room, different from the planks and cobble of the makeshift infirmary. There was a redheaded person, with slightly green skin in patches all over their body. They were packing up a box of medical supplies, so Grian presumed this was Cleo.

“You’re seriously up and at ‘em, already?” They asked, eying him suspiciously with piercing green eyes. “If I were in charge you’d be in bed ‘til next season!” Grian looked at her like she had two heads, before remembering the ‘Season’ system that Mumbo had described to him, all those years - and simultaneously, only one year - ago.

“I’m durable. Don’t worry, please,” He said, a ghost of a smile gracing his lips, which cracked slightly with the unfamiliar movement. “I’ve survived worse.”

Cleo looked at him with a mix of worry, disbelief, and a sort of snarky annoyance on her face that he could tell was based in good intentions. “Doesn’t mean you should make my job harder,” They jabbed, a matching half-smile breaking their stoney expression. She stood as well, when Mumbo continued up the stairs, ignoring the conversation happening for the promise of sunlight - He was an odd sort of vampire, one that fed on the sunlight, rather than being hurt by it. Grian had called him plant-boy for three weeks after he’d told him - coming into step with Xisuma, who smiled and rested his arm on her shoulder, with an air of comfortability radiating between them. Grian wondered how long they’d known each other.

The sunlight from the now open door, at the top of the stairs, hit him in the eyes, temporarily blinding him. As he stepped out into the warm sunlight, his surroundings came into focus. The place they’d just come out of was a door nestled into the side of a hill, sort of like a barebones hobbit hole. There was the beginnings of some sort of large ship on the horizon, floating in the turquoise water like a very large piece of driftwood.

Mumbo, who was already down at the water, using a crafting table to throw together two boats, shouted, “Get down here, you spoon! We’re going to be late!” Grian rolled his eyes, and half-ran, half-stumbled his way down the hill, still slightly unsteady on his feet.

—-------------------------------------------

X didn’t expect much from the newcomer. When he’d arrived to Spawn Island to see a crumpled mass of all-too-familiar purple robes he’d nearly had a heart attack, to be fully honest. He’d been prepared to chuck them out of his server, whether or not they were Mumbo’s friend.

He suspended his doubt, however, when he saw the state of his wings, broken so bad they didn’t really look like wings anymore. He and Mumbo carried the man to their boats, then sailed to Cleo’s stretch of beach, as they were the most knowledgeable and least likely to blab to others about the new guy. He took the liberty of making a makeshift infirmary-slash-holding cell during Cleo’s initial check-up, it was less of a holding cell. It wasn’t until the Watcher awoke, that his mind was changed.

Xisuma had been nervously peeking through the holes in the iron door, as the man shot up from the bed, much earlier than any of them expected. Cleo gave him an inquisitive look, as he just observed, but he shrugged it off, giving her a look that said, “Just wait.”

He continued to watch, as the man gripped at his hair - that had been undone, so Cleo could check for head injury unimpeded - and looked around desperately for the lavender bloodstained ribbons. (They’d smelled like void dust and rot, so X had tossed them out, on principle.) When the man stood, it took all of X’s willpower to stop himself from going in and forcing him back down. He shouldn’t have been awake, so why in all the hells was he standing up?? He saw the way his wings twitched, like they were trying their hardest to respond to his calls to action, but couldn’t due to the dressings keeping them together.

He started untying the rope, and Cleo all but forced him inside, pulling a lever from her med-kit - why was that in there? - and opening the door. Xisuma nearly fell through. As he regained his balance, standing awkwardly in the doorway for a few seconds, as the, predictably, spooked Watcher took in his appearance. When his eyes stuck on his newly-acquired elytra and stayed there he took his chance to introduce himself, “Hello, you must be Grian. I’m Xisuma, the admin of this server.” He tried to keep his voice neutral, but friendly. This was Mumbo’s friend, and judging on the state of his wings, he’d be staying for a while yet. No need for animosity, the server wouldn’t have let him in, if he were particularly dangerous.

Xisuma also counted only one set of wings, which meant he was standing down, “Good,” He thought, glancing at the air-index on his comm and taking his helmet off before speaking aloud once again, “You were in a pretty bad state, so Mumbo and I-”

The Watcher - Grian, he should call him Grian. He wouldn’t like to be identified as only “The voidwalker,” would he? - interrupted him, his eyes widening as he was saying defensively, “I’m not here to hurt anyone, I just needed to get away.”

He took a deep breath of overworld air, and lied, “I assumed so.” He explained the circumstances that had led him to his decision, that Grian hadn’t joined guns-blazing, and that he was injured so badly he realistically couldn’t harm them. Then, Xisuma asked if he would explain the nature of his injuries, and the man clammed up.

He tried to explain that he just needed to get to the World Hub, but X wasn’t having any of that. He explained as much, telling the man he would call Mumbo, but that he was much too injured to be doing any world-hopping, whatsoever. He immediately reacted, clutching at his heart and looking suspiciously like he was about to try and squeeze his way through the windows he’d made to help with airflow, in the underground room. 

Xisuma quickly amended, “I’m not going to force you to stay forever, Grian. But it’d be safer if you took it easy for a few weeks, at least.” There was a knock, and X saw Mumbo, nervously idling behind the door. “Come in,” He said, then, when he noticed the pile of clothes in his friend’s arms, he smiled. “Speak of the devil, are those for him?”

Mumbo nodded, zipping past him to his friend, speaking fast and slipping a red jumper over his head. X felt a smile tug at his lips, when he watched on. Mumbo dismissed him, and he obliged, slotting his helmet back onto his head and slipping out of and closing the iron door, before leaning against the wall next to Cleo’s worktable.

She looked up at him skeptically. “You’re not going to listen in on them, are you?” They asked, an eyebrow raised for effect. He shook his head, actively tuning out the conversation ringing in his ears. 

“He’s a twig, Cleo, I believe that he doesn’t want to hurt us. Whatever did that to him forced him in, and he’s been calm and cool since he woke.” She nodded, shrugging slightly before focusing in on the tidying of their medkit. He opened his admin panels, checking the status of everyone on his server. He heard Grian shout, “I’m getting to it!” as his code flared, and it took all of Xisuma’s willpower not to go back in, if only to protect Mumbo.

The shouting died down, and he no longer needed to actively ignore their conversation, as it had lapsed into whispers. He waited a few minutes, as the audible shuffling - and, for some odd reason, ripping fabric? - sounds of Grian changing out of his Watcher robes rang out to his sensitive ears. When he no longer heard any movement, he knocked on the door, calling, “Are you two done in there?” despite his already knowing they in fact, were. “We have a Hermit meeting to go to, Mumbo.” He reminded, a smile breaking his falsified annoyance when Mumbo replied, flippantly.

“Yeah, yeah, X. We’re done,” He said, and Xisuma took it as his cue to flip the lever, opening the door to slip into the room and stand, once again, awkwardly to the side. He watched on, as Mumbo surprised him by inviting Grian to come as well. When the man glanced towards him, he gave a small, encouraging smile. He agreed, and followed Mumbo to the door. Xisuma stopped him, his hand slightly outstretched in front of the door.

“I don’t blame you for your situation. I’ve seen what Watchers will do to make you one of them,” He said, his outstretched arm itching to hold Grian’s shoulder, like he would with Mumbo. He aborted the movement halfway through, at the vaguely afraid look on Grian’s features.

“Thank you, Admin,” The man whispered, his voice raspy, assumedly from breathing unwelcoming void-dust. “I appreciate your patience.” He nodded like a soldier about to step out onto the battlefield, and walked past Xisuma. 

X found himself with a small smile on his face, watching him and Cleo banter. Cleo admonished him for being up, and he replied, in a small voice, “I’m durable. Don’t worry, please.” A smile ghosted across his lips and he added, “I’ve survived worse.” Both X and Cleo couldn’t argue with that, remembering the scars they’d seen, covering his head and neck. Some of them had looked like gunshots, and Xisuma couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a server with guns. They were banned for a reason.

Cleo replied, in their usual tone, “Doesn’t mean you need to make my job harder.” She gave Grian a half smile, glancing up to meet Xisuma’s eyes before standing and coming into step with him. He rested his arm on her shoulder, and Grian soldiered on, following far behind Mumbo’s mad dash to the sunlight. 

X and Cleo followed, having a silent conversation as they walked up the steps

~1~1~1~

Mumbo dumped Grian into his boat, Cleo and X following close behind as they raced back to Spawn Island, where the rest of Hermitcraft was undoubtedly waiting, confused and looking for answers. The two boats split up when they could see the island on the horison, Mumbo and Grian slipping around behind the island while Xisuma and Cleo docked at the front, to explain the situation to everyone. 

Mumbo hopped out of the boat, gingerly helping Grian out as well, steadying him on the sandy grass by letting him cling to his arm desperately. They walked together, quietly standing next to Scar, who only noticed them because Grian stumbled slightly, and Mumbo had to scramble to catch him. 

“Who’s this stranger, Mumbo?” He asked, crossing his arms in a joking sort of defensiveness. His eyes shined with curiosity, as they looked over Grian’s disheveled form. (Being back in his normal clothes didn’t do much to fix the mop of scraggly dirty blonde hair. Seriously, Mumbo thought it looked something like roadkill. He’d have to get Grian to allow him to cut it, and soon.)

“Aparently I’m staying here for the time being,” Grian said, sounding about as sure about the situation as he could be. “My name is Grian.” He held a purple stained hand out, (Seriously what was the deal with that? Did they make cleaning supplies for getting those out?) expecting for Scar to shake it. Scar did not shake it. He didn’t do handshakes, if you met him you were getting a hug, or at the very least a pat on the back. 

Mumbo couldn’t warn his friend in time, before he was pulled into a hug by a giddy Scar. “I can’t believe we’ve got a new Hermit! I wasn’t expecting to make any new friends!” Despite the all-encompassing nature of Scar’s hugs, it was clear he was being wary of Grian’s bound wings. 

Zedaph, who was standing nearby, obviously trying his hardest to hear Xisuma’s speech over Scar’s excited squeals, turned to the group, and said, “If you don’t mind, some people are trying to listen to Xisuma, y’know, our admin?” When he saw Grian, he just swept over him with lapis blue eyes, and said, in a monotone voice, gesturing at Grian’s wings boredly, “If those need support later, come to me. I’ve been wanting to try my hand in prosthesis.” He had a mischievous look on his face, as he turned to look longingly at Doc, who had been actively ignoring the man’s pleas to get a closer look at his high-tech mecha-arm for years at this point. (There was a betting pool, on whether he’d acquiesce. Mumbo’d bet on no.)

Grian looked vaguely uncomfortable with the idea. Or maybe he was uncomfortable because he was still being hugged, either way, Mumbo shooed Scar away from his friend like a stray pigeon. “Go hang off of Cub, he looks bored,” He suggested, half-carrying half-dragging Grian away from the Vex’s grabby hands. When they’d cordoned themselves off at the sidelines of the group, close by where Ren and Tango were trying to set fire to the shrubbery. Mumbo gave the two a look, and they shuffled off, presumably to try and set off Doc’s fuse, by lighting his tail on fire.

Grian clung to the tree they’d huddled nearby like a lifeline, looking bone tired. As various explosions sounded behind them, Mumbo pulled out a potion of regeneration he’d been saving for this very moment. Grian made grabby hands at it, but didn’t make a move to detach, so the vampire uncorked the bottle. He walked up to the sleepy avian, and he opened his mouth, like a baby bird. Mumbo chuckled softly as he poured the burgundy purple liquid into his friend’s mouth.

“You drugging the new guy?” A voice sounded from behind him. He turned slightly, still holding the circular bottle to Grian’s lips. It was False, her tawny owl wings held tight in sympathy for Grian. When Mumbo just rolled his eyes, she continued. “He should be lying down, I once clipped a few feathers on one of my builds, ‘n I was down-and-out for two weeks!” She looked at Mumbo like this was his fault.

“Noh, m’good,” Grian mumbled against the treebark, looking the opposite of good. “Just a scratch, really.” He said it like he believed it, which did not ease Mumbo’s anxiety about what Grian had truly been through. “Be fine in a few days.”

False, in all her one-point-seven meter glory, looked unimpressed with both of them. She nodded resolutely, pulled on her flight goggles, and picked them both up. With a yell to Xisuma, who questioned why exactly she was kidnapping his new Hermit, “Your “New Hermit” is about to keel over, X! I’m taking him home so he can rest!” She flew off, Mumbo desperately hanging onto her arm, and Grian just hanging in her grasp, looking mildly annoyed.

—-------------------------------------------

Grian, decidedly, did not like being kidnapped. He’d done it before - long story, or well, long stories, in his case - and it was not nearly as entertaining the gajillionth time around. He hung limply in the owl woman’s grasp, because even if he was unimpressed, he didn’t want to be dropped into the middle of the ocean, thank-you-very-much. As they flew, she had the audacity to make small talk. “My name’s FalseSymmetry, but you can call me False!” She said, bringing Grian up closer to her by the back of his sweater. “It’s nice to have another Avian on the server! Flying with X just isn’t the same, even if he’s pretty good at it.”

Grian grimaced slightly, not willing to tell her that he could not, in fact, fly. Not in the Overworld, at least. He’d need to remedy that himself, nobody else - he gave Mumbo a discreet side-eye - needed to know that he wasn’t really an Avian. It would just be one more secret he took to his grave, in the event of his perma-death. (He mentally pushed another bead to the side of his overfilled abacus of Secrets-and-Lies-and-Mistakes)

“I’m not sure I’d be a very good partner for that,” He explained, a nervous hand coming to muss with his mindwings. False’s own - regular ears - twitched in time with their flapping. “I lived in a big city, so I’m not very practiced with free-flying.” It wasn’t totally a lie, he had lived in a big city for a long while, and he’d seen how it had affected the Avians there - his annoying canary brother and technically-not-an-Avian voidmoth sister included - not being able to fly freely, because of airspace laws and anti-hybrid lawmaking. It was convincing enough that False accepted it, at least.

She shrugged, lowering Grian back to Mumbo’s level as they closed in on wherever she was taking them. “Well,” She started, as they descended. “If you ever want lessons, or some help with preening, I’m your gal!” As she finished the sentence, having set both men on the ground, she landed gracefully in front of them, her finger pointing to her chest proudly.

Grian gave her a polite half-smile, “I’ll think about it, thank you.” Mumbo fumbled with the door to what was presumably his base, and the two Avians were left awkwardly standing there. “You have beautiful wings,” he said, lost for anything else to fill the silence. She beamed at him, her wings bouncing slightly in her happiness.

“Thank you!” She said, visibly restraining herself from flying up in the air. “I bet yours are too! Or- or I bet they’re handsome. Come visit me when they’re healed!” She said the words very quickly, and then shot up into the air. She idled there, waving enthusiastically at the two of them, before shooting off into the distance, following the quickly setting sun.

Grian, to his credit, staved off the pull of unconsciousness until it was just him, Mumbo, and the mobs quickly digging their way out of the dirt.

Dirt that his head, unfortunately, hit straight on. Mumbo couldn’t hope to be fast enough to catch him, then.