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That looks terrifying , Grian thinks, one hand on the netherrack wall behind him and the other clenching around a golden sword, a parting gift from the pigmen when he left them. He had been growing a bit too old to still depend on a tribe, but Grian did miss them, missed the safety they seemed to provide, missed the little cave with the gold ore hanging low from the ceiling where he grew up, surrounded by the tribe’s piglets, that he used to call home. But, Grian takes a deep breath, trying to tear his gaze away from the lava ocean just beneath the ledge he’s trying to traverse, he’s no longer a little child and the pigmen have no reason to protect him anymore when, technically, he should be able to protect himself, being all grown up now.
With a shake of his head, Grian takes another sideways step, biting his lip as he eyes the netherrack platform he’s trying to reach, the glowstone formation above it bathing the red in a yellow hue. It’s fine, he reminds himself, he just needs a bit of dust for something to light the way, he’ll get there, he just needs to keep going, just a little bit further, and he won’t fall, he won’t-
Grian looks at the glowing lava again and his face scrunches up a little, sweat beading on his brow. He takes a few more steps. He’s so close now, Grian almost smiles as his foot lands on the wider dark red platform, his heart still beating loudly in his chest as he all but collapses on it. He looks down at his hands and notes that they’re trembling. With slow movements, Grian rises to his feet, tail swishing slowly behind him as he approaches the glowstone.
And then, he hears a scream, sharp and high and Grian tenses up, ears flicking, trying to find the source of the noise, but he can’t tell where exactly it came from. The netherrack walls let the sound bounce around, echoing in a way that that makes Grian’s hair stand on end and his tail still and curl around his leg.
Laughter follows.
It is such a sudden cacophony of sound and it sounds so close . Grian looks around wildly, head whipping from side to side, ears flopping down. He frowns and digs his fingers into the sleeves of his sweater, the red strings coming undone and clinging to his claws. Without even noticing, he gets too close to the edge of the platform, feet shuffling back as the booming sound of the laughter, cruel and cold, grows closer, but Grian still doesn’t see anyone and it makes him back away even further.
Then his feet meet air and Grian is falling, all air whooshing out of his lungs, limbs flailing wildly as hot air whizzes past his face. He chokes on his own voice as he tries to scream, no sound leaving him as he falls to his doom.
But them his back meets the molten rock, so hot that it burns through his clothes, burns through his skin and still, the agony doesn’t end. The lava is too thick, it envelops him inch by inch, slowly , and sends bolts of pain through his overworked nerves.
Grian does scream, then, he screams until his voice starts breaking, until the lava reaches his jaw, until the pain becomes too much and his brain stops trying to register it. He screams as he passes out.
When Grian comes to, his eyes open slowly, mouth partly open, his throat constricting as he tries to let out a whine, but his voice is too groggy for anything other than a sharp exhale. Everything hurts and his muscles are still numb, as though Grian were still sinking into the lava ocean, but slowly, very slowly, so as to not jostle his sensitive body, he raises his head, then his torso, from the netherrack floor and looks around.
Surrounded by unfamiliar formations of netherrack, Grian knows he respawned in an unknown area of the Nether Wilds. The skin on his back still feels tender, but his sweater seems to have been burned right through, leaving only some rags hanging from the front of his body, so he can only guess that the lava must have left some marks on his back. Grian hugs his knees to his chest and clenches his eyes shut, letting the silence envelop him. And that’s when he feels it.
Grian thinks he must be shaking again, at first, his shoulders trembling, but the vibrations that rack through his chest don’t seem to be a result of movement, but rather, of sound. He feels it in his throat, the low, rumbling noise that almost sounds like… What does it sound like, actually?
Grian’s never heard anything like it before, and yet, it feels familiar.
He listens to the humming sound coming from deep inside his chest, which seems to reverberate throughout his whole frame. Grian hunches in on himself some more, rocking himself as his heart settles in his chest.
He’d been told, Grian recalls, how dying affects a person after respawning, but still, he’d never thought the pain would linger quite like this, that the feeling of dying would persist after coming back, and it scares him.
It’s much later when Grian finds the strength to get his feet back under him, when the rumbling sounds stop, that he manages to get a look at his back. The marks are faint, a few spots of paler skin.
Something tells Grian that this unfortunate day is just the start of what his life is to become in the Wilds.
But alas, he must move forward, as staying still is not an option, and of that Grian is sure. The next time Grian hears the sounds of other demons approaching and, this he flees .
He had left behind a half completed tower of bricks that Grian had spent a painstaking amount of time smelting, shaping and then putting together and Grian had felt a swelling emotion in his chest when he had left, something that he had come to recognise as pride. And truly, it wasn’t too tall, but it the crevices and the support beams made it look grounded, while still keeping an open air about it. and Grian had spent so long thinking about this build and to finally see it take shape had been a ray of sunshine in the clouds of despair that seemed to envelop the Nether wilds if one thought about it too much.
With some more bricks arranged neatly inside his pack and a bit of glowstone dust for some much needed illumination in the dark and dingy place that was the Nether, Grian carefully makes his way back to the small gravel valley hidden between hills of netherrack and expects to see the dark structure that he’d put so much time into, but instead...
Instead, what Grian sees is just a ruin and the ghostly shape of a ghast.
He lets out a small scream before backing away, dropping his pack and hiding behind a pile of gravel, heart beating loudly and ears perked up, hyperfocusing on the sounds that the ghast made, all the awful mewls and high-pitched groans that haunt Grian whenever he’s out in the open.Grian risks a glance above his gravel pile, eyes watering at the sight.
The ghast is slowly floating away, leaving behind a pile of rubbish, of collapsed walls and smoking holes. As soon as the little valley is empty, Grian drags his feet to his pack, which is still on the ground where he dropped it, and he picks it up, looking at the supplies inside. He feels something crawl up his throat as he averts his gaze back to the ruined building, whether a scream or a groan, he’s not sure, but a sound that he’s becoming more and more familiar with leaves his lips instead, a low rumbling.
Heart heavy with hopelessness, Grian sets about clearing the remains of the structure because despite everything, even if he feels like all he does is exist without rhyme or reason, only to have everything he tries to make for himself ripped from his grasp, Grian still needs these materials, needs to survive , because that’s all he can do.
His humming echoes around him and Grian takes just the slightest bit of comfort in that.
The screeching of metal clashing against metal rings in his ears as he looks about, thighs twitching with the effort to keep running, and all Grian sees is red. The deep red of the netherrack, the blood of other demons splattered against the ground , the red of the lava ocean below, gaping wounds that Grian knows won’t ever fully heal glaring at him from the other demons sprawled on the floor , the red of his own clothes, they slashed at him too, but he was too fast for them, too scared to do anything but run, and they didn’t get very far with him .
Grian is clutching his arm as his feet slam against the uneven floor of the small tunnel through the netherrack that he’d thrown himself into as soon as he had the chance and he knows that he is bleeding, can feel the stickiness of the blood seeping through the gash that one of the hunter’s diamond sword had managed to cleave right into him, but Grian doesn’t have the time to stop and asses his own injuries, images of his kin, cut down, torn limb from limb, with their horns ripped right off, flashing before his eyes and making Grian stop, finally, and lean against a wall. The little tunnel, albeit a long one, probably resurfacing on the other side of the netherrack mass, barely allows one person of Grian’s size through, but Grian still looks behind him and keeps his wits about him as best as he can, but he can’t, he can’t run anymore.
The nausea he feels is getting to him, making him dry heave and lean against the side of the tunnel, the world spinning before his eyes. Grian feels cold seeping into his fingers and feet and he tries to clench his hands into fists, but it only makes it worse, prompting his muscles to start shaking violently and his breathing to kick into overdrive, chest vibrating with the familiar sound whirring away as he deigns it necessary to finally, finally, look at his wound.
With a deep breath, one that really does nothing to alleviate either the pain or the queasiness, he removes his hand from his upper arm, trying not to flinch at how the threads of his red sweater cling to his bloodied palm, but the purring grows slightly louder.
And then Grian looks at the wound. It is hard to tell anything apart, seeing as the blood covers everything in a thin layer of crimson, but he can still tell that the cut is straight, almost oddly perfect, which is a bit of a delirious thought, Grian muses, but…
But.
As soon as he spots the bone peeking through the split up flesh of his arm, Grian doubles over and shuts his eyes, his chest rising and falling erratically, the rumbling fluctuating with it.
He can feel the tears in his eyes but with them closed, there’s nothing that comes from it.
It takes time, but after a while, Grian manages to calm himself down enough to rummage through his pack and see if he has and cloth that he could turn into a bandage, but alas, he used the last of his “medical” supplies after being chased by the very demons…
The demons that were…
Grian looks up, grimacing and trying not to work himself up into a frenzy again. He turns to his already torn sweater and rips a strip of fabric off. With quick movements and a gaze that keeps flickering between looking at the wound and looking anywhere but, he ties the strip around the cut and leans back into the wall. The rumbling had stopped and the tunnel feels oddly silent without it, but, Grian thinks that might be a good thing, since he should be as wary of his surroundings as possible, especially if the hunters are still around.
Although he’d rather stay here and try to comfort himself some more, take some time to just rest for a bit, Grian knows that he has to keep moving. With stumbling steps, he starts walking down the tunnel again.
He stumbles to a halt when his back hits one of the obsidian pillars, making Grian groan as the pain spreads from his spine to his lungs, leaving him breathless, but he has no time to contemplate whether or not the force with which the dragon threw him at the pillar is enough to shatter his bones, as she is lunging at him again, wings folded on her back and tail swishing behind her as she runs at him, almost seeming to melt into the void as her black scales barely reflect any light at all, but her vivid purple eyes make it quite obvious, squinting at him, that she intends this for this last hit to end their fight, but Grian leaps to his feet, using his claws to scale the obsidian just as the dragon slams her tail into where he had once stood.
Grian flinches as the movement jostles his many developing injuries, but he throws himself from the pillar and manages to land on her head with a grunt, where he had lost his only sword, which is embedded between two rows of thick scales. Grian manages to grab it just in time, as the dragon rears back and throws him right off and Grian’s vision spins as he meets the endstone, hard .
This time, he is sure he hears a crack, but he can’t give up, not yet-
The dragon’s nostrils flare as she eyes the stubborn demon but Grian is running on pure adrenaline right now, so he doesn’t hesitate to run right at her and, in return, she opens her jaw, fangs as long as Grian’s whole arm glinting menacingly, but it doesn’t deter Grian.
He keep running, the sword clutched tightly in one hand, and, by the time the dragon realises that should be a sign of something not being quite right, Grian throws himself onto his knees, the momentum keeping him going and he slides right under the dragon.
He thrusts his sword into her stomach, but it can’t quite reach her through her scaley hide, so he switches his grip, both hands gripping the hilt as he uses his whole force to push the sword through.
The dragon snarls, but it doesn’t sound all too angry, it seems like she is more resigned than anything and then, just like that, her body starts to glow, runes that seem familiar but aren’t quite legible to Grian’s hazy eyes lighting up all over her sleek body, her giant wings flashing purple before she disintegrates into purple particles which look suspiciously similar to the particles of the void with a howl.
Grian is left on his back, witnessing this morbidly beautiful creature erupt into sparks, but at this point, the deafening last roar of the dragon before she melted into nothingness for a bit only a distant chime and the colours all blending together in a way that Grian is almost sure they shouldn’t, his eyes focusing and unfocusing at random.
When he finally lets go of the sword, which he had been keeping supported on his chest between his hands ever since he managed to get impale the dragon, he notices just how hard he’d been clutching the damn thing, his fingers aching as he finally relaxes them, and, actually, his whole body aches, now that he has a moment to breathe.
Grian allows himself only one moment of laying on the dusty endstone, eyes closed, his whole body numb with extortion, sweat dripping off of him and his chest buzzing with the sound he’s come to find more comforting than anything else in his life, if a bit inconvenient, as he tries to regain his senses and to stop the dizziness that seems to have take a hold of him in order to get up.
And when that moment is over, Grian crawls towards the closest obsidian structure on all fours, using the hard, smooth crystal to support himself as he gets to his feet.
After all, he came here for a reason, and the more he waits, the more danger he’s putting himself in.
Grian starts walking again, the void swirling around him with a silence that he hadn’t expected, no voices calling out, just quiet enough to barely register, no distant shouts, no nothing, as if it, too, just like Grian, seems a bit shocked at what he’d just pulled off.
Regardless, Grian walks on, the noise in his chest the only thing filling the silence.
The moon is barely over the horizon when Grian pulls Iskall aside onto a balcony of the G Team’s base, where they are a bit more secluded from the others who are getting ready for bed in the barracks. The last couple of days had been truly hectic and Grian had found no good time to fly back to his base and get some sleep in, so it is fair to say that he is running on fumes right now.
“Something the matter?”, Iskall sounds tired, but a hint of worry still colours his tone. Grian shuffles where he stands and looks at the night sky, the stars glimmering where they are visible between dark clouds, and then, and Grian tries to make it as obvious as possible, he turns his attention to Team Star’s base, the shadows that the moon leaves behind in her wake looking almost ominous in the silent surroundings.
“I was thinking that I could examine their ghast canon”, Grian says, trying to sound casual and less afraid than he really is. This is a stupid plan, Iskall would never fall for it, he admonishes himself, but he schools his features into nothing but a blank facade, wings settling behind his back where they are folded.
“Now…? I don’t know, Grian, it’s kinda late”, Iskall retorts, a yawn interrupting him midway through. Grian smiles, but he can feel the uncertainty slipping through the cracks.
“That’s exactly what Team Star will think, too! And plus, I’m only looking around a little”, Grian tries to sound confident, but he is fidgeting and speaking a bit too quickly for it all to sound genuine.
“I guess. Would you like someone to join you?”, Iskall asks as he rubs his bearded chin, looking between Grian and the stone base on the opposite side of their war zone.
“No! Err… Let’s not attract more attention than strictly necessary, is what I’m getting at”, and Grian holds the biggest sigh of relief in when Iskall doesn’t say anything, but just nods, eyes warning Grian to be cautious, but Grian just smiles and bids him farewell as he spreads his wings and jumps off of the balcony as best as he can, fumbling a little with redirecting his body as he heads towards the Star Team Base, letting the winds underneath his feathers do most of the job of carrying him, Grian gliding as best as he can down onto the field where a few fires still simmer and a few abandoned pieces of armour or weapons glisten in the low light.
No sooner do his feet land on the ground does Grian head for the cover of the trees and then, trying to make the least amount of noise, Grian gets his shovel out and digs a hole straight down, just a few feet deep, as quickly as he can.
It’s barely wide enough to allow Grian to climb into it, covering the top with some foliage. Then, Grian is curling into a tight ball, wings folding around his frame, their colour true as the feathers blacken, leaving the dark little hiding place even darker.
He won’t sleep the night away here, Grian isn’t foolish enough to do that, but he just needs to let his glamour fade for just a few minutes, just wants to rest his eyes a litte…
Grian sighs and buries his chin in his chest, closing his tired eyes and staying like that just a little. He feels like his body is just seconds away from collapsing in on itself, but that’s on him, Grian thinks. When he starts purring, because, apparently, that’s what he’s been doing, he recalls, a small smile curling on his face as he remembers Cleo’s cats, however, he knows it’s time to get moving. He’s gained back just the slightest bit of his strength and the purring did help him relax, just a little, so there’s that, he tells himself, his body not willing to go out of this little warm cocoon and back into the cold night, but Grian has a job to do.
Reluctantly, Grian uncurls himself and gets out of his little hole, plucking it back up and letting the glamour fall around him again. After checking, just in case, that his wings are not still dark, Grian takes off.
Grian had meant it when he said that he wanted to examine the ghast canon, and if Grian took a detour while on his way there, no one needed to know.
Mumbo is pressing with his fingers on Grian’s palm repeatedly and, maybe, to someone else, it might have been annoying, but at the moment, with Grian laying face down onto Mumbo, the both of them resting on a double bed covered in more blankets than any one person could ever need, all Grian feels is content happiness. He lets out a sigh as Mumbo continues playing with his claws, seemingly fascinated with the way they retract. It’s actually kind of adorable, Grian thinks, smiling into the material of Mumbo’s suit.
“Having fun?”, he ends up asking when Mumbo shifts his attention to Grian’s horns, tracing a finger on the ridges gently and though he can’t feel it, it does make something in Grian’s chest shift slightly, like that simple action holds a lot more power than Grian thinks Mumbo is aware of.
“I never know demons were so...”, Mumbo starts, sounding fascinated. Grian flips himself as Mumbo rises to stand with his back to the shipwreck’s wall so that he is left with his head in Mumbo’s lap, which leaves Mumbo in the perfect spot to bury his hands in Grian’s hair and run his fingers through the strands soothingly. Grian watches him for a second, feeling like he’s about to melt. He can’t deny that the unfinished sentence sends a small jolt of panic down his back, but Grian has been trying to stop jumping to conclusions, though that’s a bit hard when he always seems to overthink everything, even now, after everything.
“So, what?”, he asks and Mumbo’s face seems to soften, one hand trailing back to Grian’s face to caress his cheek. Then Mumbo’s smile turns sheepish.
“Cat-like?”, he phrases it like a question, but Grian smiles crookedly and playfully glares at Mumbo, any remaining fragment of anxiety leaving him.
Mumbo just makes his palm into a paw and swats at the air jokingly.
“Either way, I think it’s kind of… Cute”, and with that, Grian sighs, louder than he would if he meant it, flopping back down into Mumbo’s lap, who brings both hands back to Grian’s hair, massaging his scalp slowly with his blunt fingernails.
Grian feels so relaxed at the moment, not a single thought, beside the expected, ever-present thought that he loves Mumbo so much, it’s almost scary, floating through his brain. And then he starts purring and it’s such a startling thing that he jolts up, wide eyes looking at Mumbo’s shocked face and then Grian is patting himself down.
He would have felt if he suddenly got some sort of injury, right? Or if he got sad or anything of the sort, right?
But Grian can’t seem to find anything wrong at the moment, so why is he purring?
Mumbo frowns a bit.
“Is something wrong? Did I go over a sensitive spot? Oh no, I’m so sorry, Grian, I didn’t-”, before Mumbo can start apologising for any and everything under the sun, as he tends to do sometimes, Grian laughs lightly, shaking his head.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong, silly, it’s just… I was purring”, Grian explains, calming down and Mumbo nods, thoughtfully.
“Yes, I was about to comment on how adorable that is”, he grins and Grian can only stare at him like he just proclaimed that he loves swimming in guardian infested waters every Thursday or so.
“But”, Grian looks down, then back at Mumbo, “Isn’t that a bad thing?”
Mumbo lays his hands on Grian’s shoulders, pulling him closer.
“Uh… No? I don’t… Well, cats purr when they are happy, so I thought you might, you know, too...”
And it hits Grian then.
That maybe purring isn’t just a thing for bringing comfort when under stress. That it might not be just a coping mechanism. That it might also mean that… Yeah, maybe Mumbo is right. Maybe demons are a lot more cat-like than Grian thinks, and Grian remembers the first time he held a cat and how it had to be explained to him that he hadn’t broken it, that he hadn’t harmed it, but rather, it just felt content in his arms.
And with that, Grian hugs Mumbo close, hiding his smile in Mumbo’s shoulder as he feels the arms around him tighten slightly, allowing the rumbling sound in his chest to fill the small room of his sunken shipwreck. Mumbo giggles as they hug and Grian can only smile wider in return, his purring growing even louder.