blog for au ran by - @kairamuwu @skimmeh header - @bucket-of-cheese . //note: if you have any questions, please send those kinds of asks to either of the runners of the au instead of this blog, as we can answer you there. the ask box is only really open here, so people can inform us on missing cw // .
Speaking of candidates we are now able to share with you our lucky contestants!
Meet them! And place your bets:
As they venture through this death game, our overseer has offered us a supernatural insight into the minds of these variants. For those unfamiliar with our games, we will tell you their story through images, comics and literature!
(special thanks to @shirahoshiumi for the cover for this episode!
Writers, editor and proof readers: @kairamuwu @skimmeh @scrambledlikeeggs @ruden404 )
---
don't wander too far apart
CW: injury, description of pain, description of dead body, guns, knives
Read below↓
Disclaimer!!!! the whole chapter couldn't fit on tumblr, you can read the whole thing on archive of our own!!
Early dawn rises over the rubble and ruins littering the desert landscape, casting long shadows. The dark blues and greys of the twisting metal stand out in stark contrast against the red sand and sky. Like remnants of the passing night.
A lone figure sits in the rusting doorway of a rounded ship. Deftly, he picks at the inner mechanisms of an old gun resting in his lap. Surrounding him, lain strewn across the ship floor, are countless wires and parts of gutted weapons and machines. Across the sand at his feet lie long wires with small, shimmering shards of metal haphazardly tied on at random intervals. The wires cover the ground in a twisting, labyrinthine pattern. Some have even been attached above the doorway, hanging low as they sway slightly in the breeze, small pieces of metal clinking together in a quiet, dulcet tune – like a junkyard beaded curtain that had gotten tangled up in a wind chime and was forced to be a rudimentary intruder alert.
Amongst the metal art projects, just above his head, hangs a small crystal. Its glow casting him in a soft blue hue.
With a click, the last piece of the gun snaps into place. He picks it up out of his lap, testing how comfortably it rests in his hands, before reaching behind him and pulling out a scrappy, worn strap. He clips it onto the gun, satisfied with his work.
With a groan, he rises off the ground, his joints cracking from lack of use. Ducking out of the way of the hanging makeshift bells, he heads into the ship and towards the dingy cockpit. The windshield that had once allowed the pilots an unobscured view of endless space is now covered in a thick layer of sand and dust. Only slivers of light peak their way through the top edge of the glass.
There, in the repurposed space, lie beaten canisters filled with old cans and preserved rations. Amongst them is a dented pot and bottled water resting against it. He walks further into the room, towards a bed – if you can even call it that – fashioned from two passenger chairs and another storage container that had been wedged between them, along with old rags that had been stuffed in the gaps to make it long enough to fit a person. It’s messily cobbled together, but it does the job. As is made evident by the man snoring loudly, one arm slung over his eyes and the other holding a knife close to his chest.
Etho thumps his boot against the closest chair, hard. Echoes of the sound of dust falling between the gaps in the metal ceiling reverberate down the ship, but the other man sleeps on, undisturbed. Only the slightest scrunch of his face indicates that he had heard. Etho rounds the makeshift bed till he’s stood by his companion's head. He narrows his eyes at the sleeping man and raises his newly fixed gun.
He whacks the sleeping man on the forehead with the hilt.
Joel sits up in an instant. He swings his distinctly deactivated blade wildly with a cry, before blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“What the hell, man?” Joel flops back down on the bed with a grumble, rubbing his forehead absently with his free hand.
Etho doesn't respond and just hits him again.
“I’M UP!” Joel barks as he pushes himself up and fully off the bed, and shoves Etho in the same movement. Etho, unphased, steps back around the chair to his side. Joel stumbles over to him, catching himself before he collides with a wall as he tries, and fails, to shake off his sleepy state.
“Blummin’ heck,” he complains, rubbing his head, “I don’t even know why you insist on getting up so early, man… ‘s not like we have a schedule.”
“The phantoms are gone, but the sun is still down,” Etho explains, for far from the first time, “Unless you’d rather we go patrolling the area when it’s hottest…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You just don't gotta be so mean about it.”
“Ah… Well, would a mean person repair an old blaster for you?” Etho pulls out a second gun, just as patched together with scavenged parts as the one slung over his shoulder.
“OH! YOU DID IT?”
Joel’s head snaps towards Etho, eyes wide. The last remnants of sleepiness shed away in an instant.
“Yeah. While you were eating spiders in your sleep, I fixed a couple.”
Etho hands the gun over to Joel. The Glare snatching it up immediately.
“How did you even get the stuff for ammo?”
“Granted, it was hard and we don't have much, but these ruins are old…” Etho runs his finger across the ship's dusty console. “Did you know they just had whole intact crystals in them back in the day? It's insane how many resources they wasted,” he pauses, “No wonder your kind ran into crystal drought so often… so wasteful.”
Joel stares at him with a flat look, “My kind?”
“You know…” Etho gestures vaguely.
“Vindicators?”
“Right… yeah. Well, lucky for us!” He shows off his own gun.
“What the hell? Yours is so much bigger!”
“Yup,” Etho brushes past Joel and walks out of the cockpit. Behind him, the Glare sputters as he rushes to follow.
“Wait, wait, hold on… Let me put my boots on first!”
Joel kicks at the dirt. Small glints of eroded metal sparkle in the sand as he kicks up small clouds in his boredom.
Etho hushes him quickly, as he grabs him by the back of his shirt and pulls him down behind the cover of a fragmented storage container.
“What?”
“Look!”
Etho gestures ahead of them. Joel's gaze follows his direction, quickly finding what had caught Etho’s attention – a dark shape moving across the brightening sky. They watch as a figure in the distance glides towards them on long, bright wings.
“Is that a phantom? During the day?”
“No… Its shape and colours are all wrong.”
Etho raises his new gun to his face, looking through the scope.
“It's a person.”
“What?” Joel squints at the figure, the sun's harsh glare obscuring the necessary details Etho’s scope was able to discern, “What business does an Avian have here?”
“Dunno.”
Etho’s sure that the figure hasn’t spotted them. Their flight pattern seems aimless, flying in a way where they’re just gliding through the air slowly, watching the land, rather than heading to any particular location.
Suddenly, the figure jerks, hard. Their wings losing height as they tuck into themselves. The figure clutches its chest and tumbles through the air, before seeming to regain their senses just enough to catch a pathetic amount of air under their wings. Only slightly lessening their painful collision with the ground.
Etho and Joel watch on as a cloud of sand appears from where they landed, in silence.
“Did you just shoot it?” Etho turns to Joel after a moment.
“What?” Joel bristles at the accusation, “No, of course not! You would have heard the stupid gun.”
Before they have time to think about it, the figure kicks themselves off the sand. It’s shaky and a struggle, but they successfully beat their wings just enough to carry them back up into the sky and distinctly, back in the direction they came.
Seconds pass in silence before Etho breaks it, “I think we should follow them.”
–
Scar wakes with a shout. A sharp and disorientating pain grasps at his heart like it's trying to pull the organ from his ribcage. He leans forward with a gasp, curling in on himself. He finds that his hands are already balled up in his shirt, clutching the fabric that lays across his chest. The pain tears and claws at his mind leaving his head spinning. Scar isn’t sure if he has his eyes open or not, his vision instead is flooded with white hot pain as static buzzes in his head.
“Oh gosh! Are you okay!?” An unfamiliar voice calls for him, “Scar?” He feels a large hand gently grab the side of his arm.
Scar takes in a shaky breath as he realises he had stopped in his panic. He leans forward, resting his head on whoever's in front of him as he tries to count his breaths, desperately willing the spinning to stop.
In an attempt to ground himself, Scar feels the space around him. He feels sand sticking uncomfortably to his skin. He feels the slow rise and fall of the shoulder beneath his head. They smell like ocean water.
Opening his eyes, he sees his jacket loose over his lap. It’s inside out. He can’t remember why, but he knows he needs it to be.
His name is hand stitched onto the label facing up at him. He can clearly remember being scolded for having the name of the jacket’s previous owner still printed on the inside. He had scraped away the print and threaded over it in bright wool, hoping that was enough. It wasn’t. But his superiors had gotten tired of reprimanding him and it wasn't like the name on the inside was a stranger to him – literally his next of kin – so they let it go.
The threads are pulling apart now, his name slowly becoming unreadable with wear. Ironically, it’s only now, years later, that Scar realises why they had wanted it printed.
Distracted enough from the pain that pulls at his chest, Scar moves. He holds a gloved hand out, expecting to see it covered in blood, but there’s nothing but frayed edges, and the burning feeling doesn’t falter.
Jimmy, the man Scar remembers and happens to be leaning against, dips his head into Scar's line of sight.
“Scar, what's wrong?” he asks, his features softened with worry.
“My heart, it…”Scar bites down on his cheek as the pain spikes again. It’s a worryingly unfamiliar kind of pain. It feels like his core is outside of his body and being dragged across the sands. Like every single one of his nerves is set alight and in the wrong place. Scar doesn’t understand why or how, but it fills him with the need to run.
He places a knee under himself in an attempt to stand, but the moment he tries, he’s overwhelmed with the feeling of falling, the nausea keeping him firmly rooted on the ground. If Jimmy wasn’t already holding him, he most certainly would have eaten dirt… or sand.
Suddenly, his shoulder bursts with pain. Spikey nerves on the sides of his face and shoulder start to warm. He flinches, expecting to recoil like he's been punched, but there's no fist near his head.
Like the ping of a rubber band, Scar feels his heart slot back in place. Left raw, numb and exhausted from the whole experience.
Someone, he assumes Jimmy, brushes a tentative hand over Scar's bare shoulder. It stings.
“Where did that come from?” Jimmy asks. Scar looks up to see red on Jimmy’s fingertips. Blood, from a fresh scrape on Scar's arm.
He lets out a groan, choosing to ignore the question of how he had even gotten such a wound. His head far too scrambled for the mental strain of self-actualising wounds. Instead, he wraps his arms around himself – ignoring the aching in his shoulder, as he does – and curls in on himself, reeling from the slowly fading aftermath of the unexplained pain.
“Is there anything we can do?” A new voice utters from his other side. “Is he injured? What happened?” they ask Jimmy, quietly… Tango, Scar remembers.
The small Blaze kneels in the sand, leaning towards him, a concerned expression spread across his features. His long coat is draped over his shoulders, utilising it as a makeshift blanket. Lit by the flickering light of Tango's flame-like hair, Scar absently realises it’s still somewhat dark.
It can’t have been that long since Grian and he had fallen asleep.
Grian, Scar remembers the Glare. He looks around, expecting to see him curled up in his wings behind him.
But he’s not.
There’s a distinct lack of a heap of grumpy feathers. Only a few strays lay alone in the sand where he had once been sleeping.
“Would you like some water?” Jimmy pushes something into Scar's hands. Scar turns back to look at him, instead staring through him unfocused, his mind preoccupied with the missing Glare. He nudges whatever he’s being offered away. His pain is temporarily forgotten as he pushes Jimmy to the side with a hand on his shoulder, looking beyond him in a search for the missing bird.
“Where's Grian?” he chokes, recent memories catching up to him. The illusions. Their talk that only ended when they woke the others up to take over their shift. He glances around once more, hoping that the Glare had just found a dark, easy-to-miss corner to bundle up in. But the air is cold in the early morning light, and the shadows hide no bodies.
Jimmy looks past his shoulder and then deeper into the cave, confusion dawning on his face. “No, wait, where is he?” he stands up, immediately bumping his head on the low wall. He lets out a whiny hiss as Tango pats him on the thigh with a sympathetic laugh.
“You were supposed to be on the watch… Wh…” Scar shivers in the cool morning air. He pulls his jacket over his shoulders, he stumbles to the front of the overhang. Spinning on the spot, he looks frantically in every direction. “Grian!” yelling and coughing, as his voice catches.
“Shhh, Scar… You said there were phantoms!” Tango hisses, shuffling towards him, at the edge of the cave, with a hand outstretched.
“Come back under here, we can figure things out,” Jimmy beacons him, “You woke up with a yell, are you okay? Your shoulder…”
“I'm fine,” he mumbles. Their calmness is baffling. How aren’t they at all concerned about Grian vanishing? He stumbles back over to the overhang. Placing a hand on the roof of the cave, he leans towards them, speaking in a hushed voice, “We need to find him, he could be hurt.”
“I very much doubt that,” Tango scoffs. Jimmy thwacks him on the shoulder, aiming an unimpressed look at the Blaze. Tango whines with an unsure shrug.
He sits back down on the sandy ground and busies himself with folding the supplies that lie strewn on the ground, “Breakfast?”
“I…Tango?!” Jimmy hisses, giving Scar a hesitant look.
Scar coughs again, one hand still gripping his shirt. He sways, unsteady on his feet. Jimmy reaches out and catches him before he has a chance to fall over and hurt himself, instead bringing him down to sit on the ground. Blood rushes in his ears as he grounds himself on the shaded ground. He moved far too fast.
“Grian,” Scar breathes out, barely audible as he hangs his head down. Blinking repeatedly, he rubs at his forehead, trying to get his vision to stop spinning.
“Tango, you were the last one on watch. I uhhh… You let me nap,” Jimmy grimaces awkwardly, “Did you see anything?”
“About what?” Tango teases, bitterness evident in his tone.
Jimmy's mouth snaps shut tightly in a frown, frustrated at his lack of cooperation, before he splutters, “Grian, Tango!”
“Oh, that guy? Yeah, he left about an hour or two ago,” Scar sits up straight. He absentmindedly rubs at where he had been grasping his chest as he looks at Tango, dumbfounded.
“...What did he say?”
Tango sits back, abandoning organising the supplies in favour of pulling out some dried meat from a small bag, “Nothing. I pretended to be asleep. I could tell he was waiting for me to be.”
There’s a lapse in conversation as everyone falls silent. Scar breathes in heavily, trying his hardest not to throw up as this rude awakening mixes poorly with the nausea he was already fighting off. At his side, Jimmy, who’s still holding onto Scar with one arm, stares back at Tango, mouth agape.
“Why didn't you stop him?” he practically yells.
“I don't know. Hey, I'm not his babysitter,” Tango looks up at them, “He went out of his own discretion. Jumped up into the sky and everything,” he swings his piece of dried meat casually in the air, as if re-telling a funny story.
“We need to find him.”
“I don't think he wants to be found, bud, if I'm being honest.”
Scar shakes his head, his vision spinning slightly from the motion. Blindly, he feels around at his side until he finds Grian’s knife still tucked into his belt where he had put it. Pulling it out, he holds it up in a hopeless attempt at evidence that Grian’s coming back, “But …but he left his weapon.”
Tango just shrugs, not swayed by Scar’s argument.
Jimmy sighs at Scar’s side. He looks mournfully at Scar, concern written across his feathered features. He hands him his water pack once again, “You should drink, you look like you’re gonna faint.”
“He could have seen something… was protecting us and got taken…”
“Nah. I was on watch, I would’ve seen… Honestly, this is good. I never trusted the guy,” Tango counters, tapping his ration against his lip as he talks. He hands Scar and Jimmy their own portions, Jimmy taking both pieces as Scar makes no attempt to move. “And hey… free weapon,” the Blaze shrugs, a small smirk spreading across his face.
Jimmy grabs Scar's hand, turning it over and placing the chunk of dry meat in his palm.
“I don't believe… He wouldn't just… leave.”
No one says anything. Neither Tango nor Jimmy make any effort to agree or disagree. The silence stings.
“What if… I mean, you guys have that weird sort of magical connection, curse thing,” Scar argues desperately. The other two just look uncomfortably at each other, “That means whoever put us here knows that stuff. What if they also have the ability to make someone do something they don’t want to, like mind control?”
“The likelihood of that is pretty low…”
“It just doesn't make sense, we talked… he never mentioned the idea of leaving us,” Scar continues.
Tango just shrugs in response, “People lie.”
That, out of everything Tango’s said, stops Scar in his tracks – jolting with a horrible realisation. The sickening irony of that statement.
Jimmy pushes at the piece of food in his hand and manually folds Scar's fingers around it, “Please eat and drink. We'll figure it out once you’re steady.”
His hand brushes Scar's injured shoulder. It hurts. Somewhere in his mind he can feel grains of sand that aren’t even there irritating the sensitive skin.
“I suppose we don't have the gear to treat this, though,” Jimmy utters quietly, most likely not directed at Scar. “What happened? Did you scrape it on the overhang just now?” Jimmy turns to him.
Scar doesn’t even bother attempting to figure it out. Instead, taking a swig of the water as an excuse to remain silent, before handing it back to Jimmy.
“It looks like it’s just a scratch, he'll be fine. We should leave, though. It's starting to get bright out,” Tango mumbles as he chews on the tough piece of meat.
Scar’s own piece of meat feels heavy in his palm. He can’t help but stare at it, as Jimmy and Tango begin talking amongst themselves about something unimportant to Scar.
It looks small in his hands. They have been rationing the meat after all, the food intended for one person being stretched to sustain four, now three, people. Scar’s stomach growls ravenously, despite the sour taste that floods his mouth as he looks at the lifeline.
Strength slowly seeps back into his limbs, but the food remains heavy in his hands, taunting him. He furrows his brows as he turns it over in his palm, before tearing it in half and slipping one half into his pocket while the other two aren’t looking, far too engrossed in one another.
He chews on the remaining meat, staring at a lone feather in the sand. It’s white and fluffy, with a soft brown colour on the tip, and it’s distinctly not one of Jimmy’s.
People lie.
No, there had to be a reason. He isn’t about to give in to the idea that their deal meant nothing.
His hand drifts to the gun at his hip, his fingers drifting over the cold metal. Grian had left the gun as a promise to Scar that he was coming back for it; that is what Scar is choosing to believe.
–
Sunlight streams down through breaches in the metal wreckages overhead, lighting the otherwise dingy passage with patches of golden light. The mangled frameworks of once-grand-ships meet one another in a strange landscape of knotted hulls – like the looming, rotting skeleton of a great space beast. Metal arches and fragmented hulls meld together to create a tunnel-like structure hidden from the junkyard above, allowing Etho and Joel to traverse the rough terrain in the far cooler shade while remaining largely hidden from those with a birdseye view.
“It’s like following a white rabbit,” Etho breaks the silence. He keeps an eye on the sky – only glancing to the ground occasionally to watch his footing on the uneven ground – catching glimpses of their prey as they pass under breaks in the ruins.
“...No, it's like following a giant bird,” Joel retorts, deadpan.
“You're not one for metaphors, huh?”
“What if I metaphor your face into… As in I mean… I throw a punch. But it’s a metaphor…” Joel gestures wildly, punching his palm in some kind of violent mime as if it made his so-called metaphor make any more sense. “That came out bad. Like the punch is a metaphor… You know… I mean like…” he trails off, losing hope in his words.
“Or just words in general.”
Joel’s head snaps towards Etho, appalled by his comment – even after his poor display,
“Hey, no fair, this sticky heat is melting my brain. I don't have long appendages like you to dispel it,” Joel kicks at a bolt, sending it skittering across the uneven ground, clanking loudly against the metal.
“Hmm, clearly.”
They fall into an awkward silence. Only interrupted by the sound of their footsteps echoing off the metal and the gentle raining of disturbed sand.
Joel stretches, placing his hands behind his head.
“Do you think it's leading us to like… a test? Or an arena?”
“What, like we're going to have to fight, like gladiators?” Etho drags his eyes from where they’re locked onto the sky to look at Joel, an eyebrow quirked at the Glare.
“Seems a bit unfair to include an Avian,” Joel pouts.
“Hmm.”
Etho pauses, mulling over Joel's words. The theory would answer a few questions… but it raises far more.
“You've met an Avian before?”
“You could say that,” Joel grins, throwing Etho a cocky wink. He picks up his pace, walking ahead of Etho, refusing to elaborate even as Etho lets out a confused noise.
–
Tango and Jimmy chat loudly with one another. Laughing and gently shoving each other about as their voices ring out, bouncing off the canyon walls. Scar hasn’t been paying them much mind as they walk, keeping a few feet behind them in hopes they don’t remember that he’s there. In his solemn boredom he kicks at the ruddy sand, wincing as his braces let out an upsetting squeak at the movement. A squeak they had begun to develop throughout their journey across the sands, and an unfortunate sign of their decay. They won’t last forever in such conditions but they’re still doing their job so Scar shouldn’t complain too much.
“...If I was to make a cafe, my priority would definitely be efficiency and whatnot.”
They’ve been debating about a simple life. If Scar was in any other mood, he’d involve himself. Especially with their current subject being something that Scar is familiar with, having worked in food services himself. But he can’t quite bring himself to put on a friendly face, so he doesn’t interrupt them, instead just letting them fade into the background.
“Yeah, but what about the hospitality? Isn't that most of the fun with owning a small shop? You get to meet so many kinds of people,” Jimmy replies, brushing at the tassels on his trousers, “Like a saloon!”
“Naaahhhhh,” Tango stretches out his words dramatically, the most cheery Scar has ever heard him, “the point is to make the food. If it was up to me, everyone would be served by robots.”
“Oh, but that's no fun! What would I be doing if I worked there?” Jimmy huffs.
“Hanging out with me! That's fun, right?”
Scar continues to quietly lag behind.
He tries his best not to feel bitter about how nonchalant and cheerful the other two are acting. One of them could be lost or hurt. He’s trying even harder not to think about the other reasons for why he’s gone, all of which involve Grian choosing to leave Scar behind.
Scar barely knows the guy, but thinking about that makes him feel like even more of a stranger in his current company. He knows them even less. It all just culminates into just feeling lonely. And maybe that makes him feel a bit bitter that the others moved on already.
He looks up, watching as the sun slowly peeks over the top of the ravine, casting its walls in a golden orange glow. A colour that Scar adores. He watches sand billow and catch the light as the gentle wind lifts it off the top of the ravine, like golden waves. Further in the distance, a shape, painted over with the sun's golden light, emerges in the static sandy landscape. Its moving form stands out against the still backdrop as it races closer. Far faster than they’re walking.
Scar sucks in a breath. Tango and Jimmy turn to look at him.
“That's him!”
The sunlit shape grows, blue tipped feathers emerging from the haze as they beat through the air. It's almost impressive to watch how quickly the form of Grian becomes recognisable.
Tango and Jimmy turn back around to face the Glare that Scar has pointed out. Not having time to do much other than gawk at the bird.
Then Jimmy’s scrambling backwards, grasping Tango. “Whoa, whoa, he’s coming in too fast-” he’s cut off as Grian swoops over their heads, a wall of air hitting them. It’s weirdly quiet, Scar thinks, as he watches Grian land haphazardly behind them. His feet barely catch the ground, slipping in the sand to keep him upright, a huge cloud of dust kicking up around him as he rights himself. Scurrying on his feet, Grian quickly turns and runs to catch up with the others.
Tango and Jimmy don’t move from where they stand as Scar starts jogging towards Grian.
A smile spreads across his face so wide it almost hurts as he watches his small friend stride up to him, his relief only halting slightly as he notices the worried look on Grian’s face. Scar’s eyes scan his friend quickly. His shoulders are shaking, and his wings remain held open behind him in a frazzled manner.
“S-Scar,” Grian wheezes. His breath comes in fast, deep gasps.
“Why are you panting?” is the only thing Scar can think to say.
“Oh…” the bird gulps, taking two deep breaths between each word, “uh… just flying.”
Scar takes in the sight of his friend. His feathers are all blown out and fluffy and with his fringe windswept out of his face, Scar is greeted with the sight of a small white star-like marking in the feathers that decorate his forehead that he hadn’t been able to see before. The sight feels all too perfect, despite the others sweaty and disheveled appearance. He’s okay.
A heavy stone lifts from where it had rested in his gut. It takes all of Scar’s will not to grab Grian by his shoulders and hoist him into the air.
“But you weren't out of breath last time you flew?” Scar questions with a cheery lilt to his voice, hovering a hand over the bird's shoulder.
“Oh, well…” Grian brushes a hand through his hair, a nervous look crossing his face. He forces a small smile onto his face before, too quickly, replying, “I came back really fast… I uh,” he straightens his posture, “wanted to get to shade.”
His eyes catch sight of Scar’s hand, he grabs onto it, holding Scar up, completely misinterpreting the gesture for a desire for support.
“Are you okay?” he asks, a small part of Scar upset by the idea of being seen as weak. But he’s far from new to biting down feelings like that. Instead he lets the hurt be overcome with confusion.
Scar tilts his head, “Yeah I'm fine.” He, for once, is the one to pull out of the touch.
Grian doesn’t back away, instead holding his hand in front of Scar’s heart. “Your chest is alright?” he mutters quietly.
“Y-yeah,” Scar stammers, he'd almost completely forgotten about his rude awakening. Mostly because he was too preoccupied with… “how would you know that?”
“I… um,” Grian closes his open palm, his face turns red, and Scar can swear he hears him gulp.
Grian moves his hand an inch to the side and points, “I don't… I meant your shoulder.” Grian isn’t looking at him.
“Yeah. It’s fine…” Scar replies, confused by Grian’s peculiar behaviour.
“Couldn't have just stayed missing then?” Tango interrupts them, approaching from where he and Jimmy had been standing.
Taking the chance to redirect the conversation, Grian’s expression changes, shifting to something mischievous, the feathers on his head pointing upwards as he regards Tango.
“And rid you of my presence? Never,” Grian grins back, snidely. “You didn't hurt him, did you?” he returns to scanning Scar over and over, almost like he was expecting to find some kind of injury.
“Should have thought of that before you ran,” Tango grumbles. “No, we didn't hurt him. He's likeable, unlike you.”
They sneer at each other. Noses scrunched up ridiculously in a way that makes it hard for Scar to take either of their aggressiveness seriously.
“Where did you go?” Scar interposes, drawing Grian's gaze back to him.
He stares up at Scar with a blank expression, the illusion only broken by his still-heavy-breaths. It’s abruptly replaced when a deep look of shame takes over his face. He’s quick to hide this new expression behind his hand, coughing awkwardly, before struggling and saying, “I scouted up ahead.”
Grian trails off as Scar hops in place, turning to Tango in particular as he points at the Glare.
“Oh, oh! See, I knew he was just checking the area!” He looks back at Grian, still bouncing, albeit only with his heels now, “They thought you abandoned us!”
Grian's almost constant frown flickers slightly, his eyebrows betraying his flat expression. He grimaces slightly.
“Likely story,” Tango grumbles, his good hand on his hip.
Jimmy whacks him gently, leveling him with a look that can be clearly translated as saying ‘not now’. Tango returns his stare with a series of animated expressions, engaging Jimmy in a ping pong match of silent conversation as they compete on how high they can raise their eyebrows.
“What did you find?” Scar continues, ignoring them.
The Glare flexes his robotic fingers. He looks up at Scar hesitantly, like he’s debating whether or not to share with only Scar or not. Eventually, he turns around and leans back in a way that perfectly slots himself in right next to Scar. Scar can’t help but feel like he’s using him to maintain his composure. The bird folds his hands over his chest, brows frowning in a guarded way.
There’s a brief lull in the conversation, everyone waiting on a baited breath.
“There are ruins… It looks like a crash site. Could be hundreds, maybe more, of ships,” he stares between the others, his gaze unfocused and his voice even.
“Ships? Maybe there's people,” Jimmy mumbles mostly to himself, but still loud enough for the others to hear.
Grian shakes his head, “They're old and I'm pretty sure abandoned, but I didn't really get a chance to see them too well. I didn't want to land in case I disrupted anything.”
“You think they could have supplies?” Jimmy asks, glancing towards Tango.
“Maybe… There's really only one way to find out,” Grian replies.
“Well, that's alright. Our plan was already to head there,” Tango huffs.
They all move, ready to leave, but the Glare stays rooted in place. He holds himself still, the nervous flick of his tail betraying his emotions.
“What's wrong? You look constipated,” Tango frowns, noticing Grian’s hesitancy.
“Ah…” Grian bites back a shout, his mouth snapping shut. His nose twitches before he continues flatly, “If we're in a game, with traps, trials, and tribulation… It awfully feels like conveniently placed bait.”
“Nuh doy.”
“Well, what other choice do we really have,” Jimmy adds nervously.
“We don't, I just think we should be cautious. I don't like how easy it has been so far,” his ear feathers flatten as he gestures around anxiously to illustrate his point.
“You're just saying things we already agree on,” Tango taps Jimmy's arm, pulling him forward as he turns to walk, “Let's just get there already, this is such a pointless conversation.”
Scar glances at Grian, who remains stood still, his arms crossed. He takes a step, only to walk right into Scar’s outstretched hand,
Scar looks back to the others. Tango grumbles to himself with Jimmy following close behind, neither caring to look back as he watches them walk out of earshot.
He looks back down to Grian again, who almost jumps at the intensity of his stare. Judging by the tightening of his shoulders, the Glare doesn’t appreciate Scar holding him in place.
“What?” Grian sniffs, frowning impatiently. Scars hand remains in place, blocking his way.
“I just want to know if you’re okay?”
For a very brief moment, Scar catches a look of surprise. It floods Grian's deep eyes, only for him to blink and immediately replace it with annoyance.
He searches Scar's expression incredulously, before rolling his eyes and making a move to push past Scar. Not even bothering to indulge him.
Scar scrambles forward, “Hey, hey. Wait. I also have something for you!” He almost trips stepping in front of the bird, but he does his best to establish a healthy space between them in an attempt to minimise Grian’s discomfort as irritation radiates from him more and more.
The deep frown on his face lightens, his features betraying his excitement. It reminds Scar of something his cat would do, “Oh?” His voice pitches up slightly with intrigue.
Scar holds out the food he had saved from breakfast. The dried meat looks ridiculously small in the middle of Scar's palm.
“You must be hungry! Energy spent flying, right?” he stares at the Glare, wiggling his eyebrows.
Grian’s long, sharp talons unwrap slowly from his chest. He hesitates, looking up at Scar.
“You saved that for me?”
“Of course!” Scar nods, holding his hand out more. Grian carefully takes the meat.
“…Thanks.”
They begin to walk, Scar using their distance from the others as a chance to talk in private.
“When did you leave? Why didn't you just wake me up?“
Grian chews on the meat, staring ahead, rather than at his companion. He seems, to Scar, to be taking the opportunity to mull his answer over while he eats.
“I was losing light… It's easier for me to see at night here. Also, you needed sleep,” he shrugs, taking another bite.
Scar doesn't believe him in the slightest. He watches Grian, his face devoid of any expression that might indicate that he's lying. It’s easy for him. He carries his deception with a kind of coldness that Scar recognizes in his higher ups or even the particularly shady insurance providers Scar has unfortunately become familiar with. But there’s something else, he’s avoiding Scar’s eyes, like he’s trying to put a barrier up between them both – it reeks of shame.
He isn't going to tell Scar the truth, and Scar decides to accept that. So instead, he smiles, pooling all the softness at the edges of his grin. He'll figure out all his secrets in time.
“I'm glad you're back,” Scar says, he admits that is genuine.
They look at each other and Grian's tight shoulders begin to unwind. Scar’s giving him so much honest endearment it might drown him, he wants to break down the Glare’s walls.
Grian glances at Scar impassively, he licks at his teeth, his food now gone. He blinks before a smirk spreads across his face.
“You've literally only known me for a couple of days, you can't be that attached already,” his tone comes off with an amused lilt, but Scar clocks how he's only half joking in his voice.
Scar holds his hand to his chest, playing along in the drama, “Oh, but Grian… Our sand trading endeavor! We can't possibly jeopardise our business that easily.”
“Psshhhh, shut it,” the bird waves his talons at Scar, “No one actually believes that, you know?” He pokes a claw dangerously close to Scar's face, “You just have a stupid face that's hard to argue with.”
Scar beams, he flicks his braid over his ear theatrically, “Oh yeah? You think I'm pretty?”
Grian's mouth snaps closed in an audible click, a blank expression betrayed only by the red spreading across his face and the twitch of his nose. He recovers quickly, tapping his chin with a talon.
“Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have flown back,” he opens his wings as if to take off dramatically. Scar whines sadly at the display.
Then he shoves Scar jokingly, tucking his wings back behind his back, “I think you're annoying, actually.”
“And handsome?”
“Like a splinter.”
“Charming?”
“Maybe even a whole tree branch worth of splinters.”
–
Etho is crouched in the sand, rooting in a pile of rubble, looking around for abandoned light crystals. They're finicky and keep slipping between his fingers and deeper into crevices. He would have lost them if they didn't give off a vivid glow.
There’s a pulse of pain buzzing in his veins and pulling at his ribs, which subdues briefly before coming back. It’s like a switch flicking on and off. Etho sighs and rolls his eyes.
He leans back to see Joel a good distance away from him. He was standing on one foot, making a show as he stepped further away, resulting in their tie pulling and warning them of their distance. He keeps hopping back and forth in cartoonishly way.
Unfortunately, the distance wasn't far enough that Etho couldn’t make out his impish grin.
In an almost childish response, Etho slowly stands up, taking his time, and he itches his ears and brushes at his trousers, ignoring the spikes of pain as his company pulls at their invisible tether like an impatient dog.
Etho catches up, adjusting his gun back into his hand, leaning it against his shoulder.
“Was that really necessary?”
“You were taking too long,” Joel huffs.
“So what, putting us in discomfort is justified?” Etho glances at Joel, narrowing his eyes.
“That's real cheap coming for you, Mr. Knives in the heart morning alarm,” Joel spins on his heels, standing in front of Etho and jabbing a finger into his chest with an accusatory scowl.
“It's not that painful,” Etho rolls his eyes. He hadn’t done anything to Joel that he couldn’t also feel himself. He didn’t feel like testing his own limits too. Besides, he’s sure the Glare can handle far more than what he’s dealt with so far.
“Then why are you complaining? Hmmm?”
Etho swipes Joel’s hand away and pushes past him. Ignoring Joel’s squawk of offence as he continues walking.
“Because I'm actually doing stuff, you're just sleeping in when I do it.”
“Oh... interesting dust, is it?” Joel jogs to catch up, gesturing wildly in the direction the Avian had flown, “The bird went that way – with rapid speed, may I add.”
“We're in no rush,” Etho answers, paying him little mind.
“Plan on sprouting wings?” Joel jeers.
Etho shakes his head, ignoring the obvious sarcasm in that remark.
“They don't know they're being followed.”
–
They finally reach what they have colloquially begun referring to as the ‘junk’. Literally walking into it as Scar barely avoids tripping over a piece of metal framing that has long been buried in sand, almost completely hidden. Rust and erosion from the sands removing any signature shine to warn him there was anything more than sand and rock ahead of him.
After that, more and more jagged shapes surround them, jutting out of the smooth sandy landscape. Most find themselves pushed up against rock walls or buried mostly in the ground after years upon years of sand storms and decay. None of the ruins are particularly identifiable to the four, but they’re definitely growing both in size and volume the further they travel.
It’s not until they make it to another split in the path that they come across something intact.
What looks like half of a ship is laid to rest in the sands, once spacefaring wings stretching out reaching for nothing.
They all come to a halt, curiosity leading them all to silently agree to rest under the shade of the wing. Tango and Jimmy practically fall onto each other as they lean heavily against each other as they sit down, both using the other for balance to accommodate for their functionless arms.
Grian doesn't sit, instead remaining standing. In fact, he doesn’t even look at the ship, choosing instead to stare out, down one of the passages.
Scar, however, is entranced by the ship. He runs his hand across the warm metal of the remaining ship. It looks to him that only the engines and tail of the ship have survived, no cockpit or cargo hold left over. It feels weirdly familiar to Scar – the style of the welding and the blue-grey colouration of the metal.
If he was to guess, It had probably been a smaller fighter ship, built far more for agility than durability. The kind of ship that would have spent most of its time nested inside the belly of a far bigger and more intimidating craft.
He notices decals painted on the side, covered in red sand that almost neutralises the colours underneath. Wiping off some of the grime with his, already stained, gloves; he reveals worn numbers and a blue patch that looks like it runs down the whole side of the ship.
“I know these ships,” he realises.
Scar steps back, taking in as much of the aircraft in front of him as he can, "They're an old class.” The others look at him inquisitively, asides from Grian, who continues staring out into open desert.
“Or not… These are very old.”
“You know about ships?” Jimmy questions.
Scar traces the painted numbers. It’s, in a weird way, nostalgic to him, “I… I knew an old family friend who had this book. These ships are long retired. Like, hundreds of years ago.”
Tango leans around Jimmy, squinting, “…A vindicator ship, right? As if the blue isn't a dead giveaway,” he leans back, a look of slight disgust on his face.
“Oh, um,” Scar falters, turning towards Grian. He completely forgot how he’s supposed to be hiding. Grian looks at him with an expression that, as always, is completely unreadable.
“Do you think this was a battlefield?” Jimmy asks, completely oblivious to Scar's hesitation. They all look around, investigating their surroundings like there could be some kind of big, obvious detail buried in the sands that could answer everything.
Strangely, it’s Grian who replies. He’s still standing apart from the others, half turned towards them, “Hmm, it's more likely the battlefield – if there even was one – would have been in space.”
There’s a lull in conversation. Largely from the shock that Grian decided to join in. Looking at the ground, the Glare crosses his arms, his tail swaying behind him. After a moment, he steps towards them and continues.
“It probably all got washed up here, so to speak. Pulled in by this planet's gravity and proximity.” He hums, “A Graveyard planet… um, as my friend, who’s a scraphunter, calls them," Grian talks, a restrained grin crossing his face, like he's almost embarrassed about enjoying the subject.
“So, it's all junk pulled from space and buried in the sand?”
“Yeah,” he confirms simply.
Jimmy pipes up, “Who do you think the battle was between?”
Scar doesn't say anything. He’s getting the creeping feeling that he might become very uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. He can’t help but think about how there’s probably a mirror to this ship and conversion going on at home in a museum, just sanitized, in more than one sense of the word.
“Scar said the ships are old, what if it was between the Lost Faction?” Scar almost jumps when Tango says his name. It takes Scar a couple more seconds to even process what he said.
“What’s…” Scar instinctively starts to ask, before getting cut off by the feeling of cool metal wrapping around his wrist. Grian had gotten very close to him when he wasn't looking. He almost yells out of shock, but the Glare stares up and through him in a way that takes away all the words he had to say.
He shakes his head slowly, positioned behind him in a way where only Scar can see.
“A lost mystery…” Tango says weirdly wistfully, oblivious to Grian dropping Scar's hand.
Jimmy shuffles in the sand, his demeanor suddenly anxious, “So this location is some kind of threat? Are they just going to leave us here? Bury us in the sand?”
Tango rubs his back, “Maybe it's a clue? Something we have to find?” He tries to provide Jimmy some comfort with a flimsy smile.
Grian snorts and snidely adds, “Or maybe it's just ruins. You're putting too much thought into it.”
The Blaze shoots around to look at him, staring daggers, “Really, who made you this unfun?”
“A- I'm not …what? Are we supposed to be enjoying ourselves?” Grian barks at Tango, offended, “I'm actually so fun in different circumstances.”
“Oh, I bet you are,” Tango grumbles sarcastically.
He opens his mouth, presumably to continue digging into Grian, but is cut off by Scar speaking, “You know, actually,” Scar crosses his arms, one hand tapping at his chin, “Old ships like this actually still used…”
Both Tango and Grian expressions light up with realisation, “Whole pearls!”
They both push their way towards the ship, Tango immediately making his way to a maintenance panel on the side, as Grian wavers slightly. Almost as if he’s realising he doesn’t know where to look, instead he waits for Tango to find what he’s looking for. He peers over Tango's shoulder, the Blaze not having a free hand to push him back, resorting instead to nudging him hard with his elbow, to no avail.
There's a click and then a squabble. Scar assumes that means they both found it.
Grian dives in, opening his wings deliberately in Tango's face. The Blaze falls backwards, knocked off balance and is caught by Scar and Jimmy, who had joined the two during the ruckus.
“Hey!” Tango yells. Grian pulls at something, giggling.
They all look on expecting the Glare to pull out the precious item, flaunting it over them. But suddenly he falls very still. His feathers drooping and the enthusiasm draining out of his posture.
He turns around to face them. Sitting in the center of his palm is the distinct round shape of an ender pearl. The first thing Scar notices about the pearl is its uncharacteristically inky, dark center.
That's not what it's supposed to look like. He's only seen a few whole ender pearls before in his life. His closest friend being a scientist of sorts means he uses them a lot in his research. He had even let Scar mess with one before.
They were so very distinctive and beautiful, like mini galaxies trapped in small stones. Filled with the ability to take a soul anywhere, a raw form of teleportation magic. Its fragments are used a lot in travel, and an intact one is very rare and would be incredibly helpful in their predicament.
But this one doesn't glimmer. In fact, it almost sucks in all the light around it, dimming the bright world around them. It was still intact, but the shape bears no colours, just void.
They all stare at it.
“What's wrong with it?” Scar eventually asks.
“It's corrupted…” Grian answers, his voice distant.
Jimmy reaches out, but his hand is smacked away by Tango, “Don't touch it.”
Scar, confused, asks, “What? Why?”
Tango frowns at the small thing, “You’d get void poisoning.” There’s a deep disappointment caking his voice, “It's useless now.”
“How come he can hold it,” Jimmy questions, before Tango nudges him and points to Grain's metallic limbs, “Oh.”
Grian, in fact, doesn't acknowledge them at all. He looks lost, glaring into the gem’s centre, almost like it’s hypnotizing him. His expression painful and confused.
“Grian? Are you alright?” Scar quietly urges.
The Glare snaps out of it, staring up at Scar in response, ”What? …Yeah.” He looks back down at the pearl and startles, almost like he'd forgotten he was even holding it.
It drops into the sand. Not breaking – barely making much of a noise at all. It’s a little pathetic how uneventful it is.
Grian pushes his hands into his pockets, snorting, “Oh well. Couldn't have been that easy.”
Tango scoffs, pointing an accusatory finger at Grian, “Yeah! And you were going to use it all up on yourself!”
“You snooze, you lose,” the Glare simply responds with a smirk.
Scar looks at him, concerned, his posture drooping slightly after the whole ordeal. He looks drained. Grian holds himself up as best he can, clearly wanting to avoid whatever feelings the empty pearl had stirred in him.
“You pushed me!” Tango shouts.
Grian sticks his tongue out at him.
–
Joel balances along the top of a half-buried shipwreck, a bored expression on his face. He declared a while ago that walking for so long across the sand was dull and that the sand in his shoes was ‘bloody irritating’, and resorted to clambering over just about every ship he could. Etho, however, decided to keep his feet firmly on the ground – even after Joel complained about him getting in the way of unlocking his ‘true trash climbing abilities’.
“Soo… Nether!” Joel announces from above Etho.
“What?”
“Are you from the Nether?”
“No, sorry,” Etho answers. The other has been trying to pry information about him for an hour now and he isn’t any closer to learning anything than he was at the start, “Guess again.”
Joel pauses, wracking his brain for a planet he hasn’t already named, “...Spawn?”
Etho laughs. That’s perhaps the worst option he’s come up with yet. He’d far sooner deal with the heat of the Nether than live in the Vindicator capital, “You're so far off.”
“WELL I DONT WANT TO ASSUME WRONG!” Joel barks, getting frustrated at his lack of success. His heavy footsteps reverberating across the degrading metal he’s been trusting with his weight.
“Then stop trying to guess.”
Joel falls silent for a moment with a huff. Etho knows better than to hope he’s done, he’s probably just trying to think of anywhere else he could possibly come from. It’s a pointless endeavor, there’s no way that Etho will tell him even if he does guess right. Joel’s just about the last person he trusts with that information
“Are you from a hermit settlement then? What, like 1? Or 6?”
Etho shakes his head, “Nah.”
“There's no way you're actually an Ender,” Joel looks at Etho, an incredulous look spreading across his face. Etho takes it back, that’s the worst one Joel’s suggested. What’s even worse is that Etho can see on his face the moment it crosses from a joking suggestion, to a serious consideration, “No, actually, maybe? You've got that whole sickeningly mysterious deal going on.”
Etho can’t even begin to think of a response to that, so he remains silent. Instead choosing to stare at the man with what he hopes comes across as judgement. It doesn’t even make Joel pause before continuing rattling off every place he can think of.
“Oh, maybe Keres!” Joel says, breaking the silence Etho wishes had lasted longer.
“Nope.”
“Can you at least give me a hint?”
“Oh, spilling secrets to a Vindicator, I'm smarter than that,” Etho scoffs, an amused tone bleeding into his voice.
“Then what's the point of me even guessing if you're just going to lie?”
Etho shrugs.
“Psshhh, it's not like you could be anyone important, anyway,” Joel snorts, seemingly amused by the idea. As offended at him underestimating him as Etho wants to feel, it’s far better than the alternative.
“You're probably right.”
“Hey, wait, what's that?” Joel trails off, stopping dead in his tracks, staring out towards the horizon. Etho turns to look at him, eyebrow raised at the other’s change in behaviour.
“Hmm?” Etho scans the desert ahead of them, trying to find anything aside from wrecks and sand. He’s greeted with nothing, but the harsh sun beating down on the land. Nothing moves aside from the occasional sandy cloud, picked up by the breeze.
“I thought I saw something orange,” Joel says, clambering down from his vantage point on the shipwreck, and returning to Etho’s side as he motions towards that same spot in the distance.
“The sand.”
Joel rolls his eyes, unamused by the Enderians unwillingness to work with him, “No. It was also blue.”
Etho, deciding to continue being unhelpful, turns his gaze to the sky, staring markedly at the cloudless blue above them. He’s rewarded with a strangled squawk and a punch to the shoulder, which, judging by the way Joel tries to subtly rub his own shoulder, he’d forgotten he’d also feel. Etho bites back a grin, even though it wouldn’t be seen behind his mask in the first place.
“Is there any way that thing could have noticed we're following it?”
Etho hums in thought, “I don't think so, it's pretty far away. It'll take a while for us to catch up at the speed it left.”
“That barely answers my question,” Joel huffs.
Etho shrugs again.
“You like doing that, shrug guy,” Joel jeers as he wanders away from Etho to, once again, hop up onto the rusted form of a half buried wreck. Unlike last time, though, it doesn’t quite go how he’d planned. The second his feet land loudly on the hollow hull, what looks like a family of mice scurry out of a crack in the metal, distressed at their home being invaded. Joel flails, yelling as they run under his legs and disappear into the depths of the wreckages, barely avoiding slipping off the metal, onto the sand below, “AH, THOSE DAMN MICE!”
Etho tries not to snort as he watches Joel quickly try to regain his composure and continue like nothing happened, “Is that where you’re from, shrug planet?”
–
They’ve been tracking further and further into the desert. The only relief that they’re heading in the right direction is the ruins slowly becoming so cluttered, that they’ve found themselves having to climb over or under most of it. Scar hadn’t realized how much he'd miss the plain sand. If it means he'll stop accidentally burning his bare arms against hot metal, he'll take it.
Conversation has long since all but stopped between the four of them. They’re all too occupied with watching their steps and saving their breath. Besides, there isn’t much more to talk about, especially between Scar, who is actively hiding who he is, a guy who obviously has put up the most emotional walls, someone who has spent a considerable amount of time in a cave before coming here, and a cowboy. There isn’t much to say.
Despite the fact that everyone is quietly somewhere else in their minds. Scar can't explain it, but he feels a foreboding feeling seeping into his bones, and an awful feeling like something bad is going to happen. As if answering that though, Scar spots something.
There, held on one of the withered fragments of metal framing, lays a limp form of something... Scar sucks in a sharp breath. His stomach dips despite his mind scrambling for any other kind of evidence that what he is looking at isn't what he thinks it is.
At first, it just looks like a forgotten jumpsuit and helmet, laid out to dry in the hot sun. The jagged shapes in the sleeves could believably be just metal wiring, ruin, balling up the fabric in a way that looks like…
"Is that… A person?"
Scar almost gets angry at the idea of someone dispelling his illusion. He turns, hoping to find Jimmy looking somewhere else, but his warm hazel eyes look past Scar to the empty jumpsuit. Empty.
"Oh shi-" Tango hisses from behind Scar. There's a pause in their steps, Scar assuming all four of them have spotted it now.
Jimmy suddenly jerks back, his hand finding Tango's shoulders as he pulls them both backwards, fear taking over his expression.
"Oh…Oh no. What happened here? We shouldn't stay," his eyes are still locked on the empty jumpsuit. He ducks his head, almost leaning it on Tango’s shoulder as he whispers, “Should we run!?"
Tango doesn't move, his hand quietly lays on top of Jimmy's and his mouth works for reassurement, but uneasiness takes his words away.
There’s only one that pointedly doesn’t look scared.
"I wouldn't be so worried, we're surrounded by ruins of ships, it was only a matter of time before we were to come across their pilots," Grian says. His face is hard to read as he walks ahead of the others, no fear, squints up and examining the empty jumpsuit.
"They're just bones, it's been a very long time since they weren't. If anything, we're lucky they aren't anything else," empty, but filled with bones. Scar looks away, looking instead at Grian as he talks. He can't look at them anymore. Those sharp shapes under the fiber aren't just ship ruins. They were people.
“That uniform…”
Though Scar was no longer looking, he didn't need to see. The image of a sun stained, sewn on ‘V’ patch fresh in his mind. Just like the ship earlier, it doesn't take a genius to guess what colour it used to be.
“Vindicator.”
Scar flicked his line of sight off the distance. He didn't even realise Grian had moved from where he was. The Glare is looking straight at Scar, and weirdly, he almost thinks the look was pity directed at him.
“At least they have the decency to go down with the ship,” Tango mutters from behind Scar.
A hot, uncomfortable feeling grows up the back of Scar's neck and throat. All he can think to do is bite his tongue and look at the ground, stopping himself from saying anything.
“Now that I think about it, we've only really seen one kind of ship,” Jimmy hums, considerably less worried than he was a moment ago.
Tango tuts from behind Scar, “Good riddance. The fewer Vindicators in the world, the better, I think.” It makes the hairs on the back of Scar’s neck stand. He could stare a hole into the sand with how intensely he was focusing on it.
“But don't you think it's odd? We haven't seen any other sign of any other factions?”
“Fighting an invisible fight?” Tango walks into Scar's peripheral, his demeanor so laid back, so unaffected after learning who those remains fought under.
Scar has his head still down. No one was paying him any mind, none of them had any reason to. Asides from one.
Scar can feel Grian watching him. Usually that feeling was something Scar took solace in. But this time it was like a burning fire, he didn't need to look towards him to feel its sharp warmth and Scar took no comfort in it this time. It felt like he was being monitored. Grian didn't want him to say the wrong thing despite how hurt Scar’s pride feels.
He doesn't like being governed, but he isn’t stupid, he knows why Grian is watching him.
Still, a part of Scar's mind won’t quiet until he says something.
“Don’t you feel bad for them? The… pilots?” Scar says. He does not look at Tango, he’s scared that he'd be wearing an expression that might give himself away.
That comment must have taken Tango by surprise, because he doesn't say anything for a considerable amount of time.
“...I mean, sure. But they sort of signed up for it.”
Scar looks at Tango, he holds his face as still as he could, “What if they didn't know?”
“Oh, wait guys,” Grian loudly interrupts them. Jimmy even flinches from the sudden volume.
They all look at the bird expectantly.
“Hold on,” Grian stands back, signalling for the others to move back, before he winds up to launch himself into the air, his wings catching him in an impressive swoop.
Haphazardly, he lands on the metal frame. It creaks, but holds his weight. His long tail fanning out, balancing him, and he reaches gently to a small device strapped to the jumpsuit.
“Oh! Does it work?” Tango calls up to the Glare, completely forgetting the one sided standoff with Scar.
Grian leans back, blows the dust and sand off the screen, squinting, before deciding to hop down out of the sun. Tango shuffles up to him and the small old box of hope, held in his hand. A communicator.
Suddenly, a snapping noise echoes across the ravines. The frame shakes with the aftermath of Grian jumping off. They all watch as the helmet from the jumpsuit thumps onto the ground like an apple.
It rolls in the sand and stops a step in front of Scar. Completely uneventful to the others, however, sickenly haunting to Scar. All he could do was fixate on the sad thing.
A helmet not very different from his own, if only a couple generations older.
Of course the others didn't pay it any mind, too focused on the com. Despite that, Scar still senses Grian's burning.
All Scar can feel is an overwhelming sense of dread. He tries to swallow it down hard, turning to the others and pretending he isn't close to throwing up.
“The com’s fried and looks like all the enderchests have been retrieved,” Grian mumbles, as Tango took the item from his grasp, not so politely.
Jimmy looks over Tango's shoulder, “By who?"
“Probably salvagers. Most likely… Vindicators themselves,” Grian muses. Scar picking up on how he hesitated at the faction name. He could tell the Glare desperately doesn't want them to talk about it for Scar's sake.
In defiance, Scar speaks, “...But ...Why wouldn't they retrieve the bodies as well,” he looks at Grian.
The Glare holds that same worry in his brow for a moment, before brushing his claws through his hair and putting on a neutral frown, “Hmmm, too much effort? It probably would take a lot of resources to move them, much easier to just take what's valuable and leave.”
“Spent like flies,” Tango, bored of the conversation, drops the com. It hit the ground with a clatter. He walked ahead, with Jimmy close behind, neither of them gave the jumpsuit a second look. The journey needed to be travelled.
Scar turns back to the now headless jumpsuit, it isn't easier to look at.
He feels Grian walk up next to him, his arm gently brushing Scar's, almost as if he was trying to comfort him. That realisation dampened the anger within him slightly. He doesn't want to be mad at Grian, he knows that was the irrational part of his mind when clearly Grian just wants him to be safe.
It still hurts.
“Should I bury them?” Scar whispers to the Glare.
Grian doesn't answer straight away. Scar could feel his tail loop subconsciously around Scar's leg, “... That's a sweet thought, but I don't think we have the time.”
There were actually far more reasons they couldn't, Scar knew.
“I don't know how to feel,” Scar murmurs in a small pathetic voice.
“You're allowed to feel angry, just, maybe not at Tango,” Grian's claws worry over the fabric of Scar's glove. Scar does not ignore how Grian doesn't mention himself.
He regards Scar, eyes so full of inky nothing that all Scar can look at is his own sad reflection in them, “There's a lot you don't know about, Scar, and I want you to come to your own conclusion at your own time,” Grian says far too tenderly.
“But you won't tell me now, because I'm not safe,” Scar says more flatly than he intends.
“I don't think any of us are… at this point of time,” Grian looks around anxiously. A nervous mock of a smile on his face.
Scar smiles back just as fraudulently, “For now we're just liars.”
“Yeah …for now.”
–
“You should really wear that strap properly,” Etho watches as Joel fiddles with the strap to his gun, holding the weapon in his hands, rather than attaching it securely to his body like Etho had initially instructed.
“Ugh. No, it's uncomfortable and it's hot and stop nagging me about it!” Joel barks, absently moving his fiddling to the gun itself, switching the safety off and on again, repeatedly.
Etho puts his hands up in a poor, half-serious attempt at calming him down, “I put it on that thing for a reason.”
“I KNOW,” he snaps, “I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a freaking Vindicator soldier. I've heard the whole spiel!” he finishes by slinging the gun over his shoulder, holding onto the strap by only a couple fingers, in what he probably intended to be a ‘cool move’.
“We're good, I'm good. I don't need to wear it right now.”
Etho lets silence fall over them. Deciding that there’s probably better hills to die on with this man.
After a moment more of walking quietly, he speaks up, “This place puts you on edge?”
Joel turns to Etho, eyebrows pinched in a confused frown. “What?”
“You know…” Etho begins, before immediately trailing off, unsure of how to word it. He doesn’t want to upset him by fumbling around the topic.
“It's ruins from your faction.”
Joel doesn’t miss a beat, “So?”
“Well, doesn't that bother you?” Etho asks, taken aback by his apparent indifference.
“Not really, it's just my job,” Joel responds, like it's obvious.
“It's a pretty big deal of a profession, though.”
“Do you want me to burst into tears? People die, as long as they ain't me, I couldn't really care,” Joel shrugs – Etho chooses not to turn Joel’s earlier jokes back on him, far too caught off guard by the answer to mirror the Glare’s antics.
He supposes it makes sense, even being a soldier is just a job to some, but Etho finds it hard to look at a Vindicator and just think about someone doing as they’re told for a paycheck. He certainly finds it hard to imagine not even caring if those you work with die, but he supposes that’s probably the difference between what they’re paid to do.
“What do you know?” Joel grins, “You probably just work in an office or some shut in nerd thing, whatever…”
–
Scar watches dust spill off the side of the old ship wing they all find themselves shading under, all of them sitting in an uncomfortably empty quiet. The sun is baking any meaningful conversation out of them. They are all hungry, grumbling in all senses.
Scar sits on a lump of metal, with one of his legs laying out In front of him, he fiddles with the screws on his leg brace, holding a scrap metal piece he tightens the brackets.
He faces away from the others, towards the graveyard of ruins, the cold metal littering the warm landscape like pools of reflections compared to the matte stone and sand surrounding them.
It's rather fitting, feeling like his whole concept of the world has fallen around him, while sat amongst fallen sky. A painful kind of irony dawns on him that he might be forgotten amongst these ruins. A skeleton that the Vindicators won't bother to bury.
Uncomfortably gloomy thoughts that Scar has been desperately trying to push down with the lack of distraction around them. The others weren't in a talking mood so instead he opted to focus on ‘fixing’ his braces.
There's a small scuttling that catches Scar’s attention, his lazy gaze drags to it, expecting it to just be something moving in the small breeze.
Instead, he locks eyes with two beady ones.
“Hm…” Scar stops his fiddling, freezes, completely not expecting the distinct familiarity of the tiny mouse creature staring at him. It scratches its nose, as if Scar's not losing his mind.
“Just to check I'm not… you know, seeing things.”
Scar chooses to not look away in case the mouse becomes a ghost when he looks back. He just hopes the others heard him.
“Do you guys see that small thing?”
There's a loud pause as all four of them turn to peer down at their new company. It grooms at its ear completely oblivious, or even completely aware, with how it relished their sight of four hungry beasts.
Scar flickers a glance to his company and catches Grian glaring at Jimmy who conveniently sits closest to the creature. Almost mirroring the mouse, Grian's own ears twitch before he throws himself forward.
Then chaos breaks loose.
Jimmy yells, being pushed over by a steady thump of Grian’s wings, he grabs at the sand scrambling to his feet, spluttering grains from his mouth between yells. They both grab at each other, pulling themselves forward off each other, and tripping over one another's tails in the process. The small creature dashing out into the sand, only to make the scramble more frantic and loud.
“A mouse!”
“FOOD!”
Tango watching Jimmy fall face into the sand, shakes out of his shock as he rubs at his nose and lunges to grab onto Grian's tail, and pull him away from Jimmy.
They all yell and scuffle in the sand, their prey taunting them by running loops around them, not even seeming concerned about being caught.
“Stop with the pushing.”
Watching the hubbub, Scar finds himself sitting comfortably. He laughs, observing the others' scrap. He swears he watches Jimmy trip over his own tail more times than any of the others. Amused by Tango’s high pitched shrieks and Grian's squabbles, as they push each other's faces into the dirt.
Scar lets them chase the mouse in circles. Laughing so deeply he almost falls backwards off the elevation he's sat on.
Blinking tears from his eyes, he watches Tango shove Grian to the side, Jimmy sprinting ahead on his long feet, ducking under a metal arch after the mouse.
Grian grumbles, shaking sand from his hair as he pushes himself up and meets Scar's eyes. A grimace taken over by the most mischievous grin Scar has ever seen.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Scar willingly pushes himself back off the platform this time, in fright as the bird runs in his direction. He shields his face, expecting to be pulled into the fight somehow. Instead, he peers through his fingers to see Grian sat, straddling him, his brow buried in concentration as he grabs for something at Scar’s waist.
Only when Grian holds the shiny blue blade up with triumph from Scar's belt does he realise what the Glare’s intentions are.
He hurriedly grabs Grian’s wrist, along with the bright blade, just as he's about to leg it to the others who find themselves badly trying to corner the small creature.
Scar stammers a “Wait!” Grian tugs at Scar’s grip, but doesn't leave.
“GUYS WAIT!” Scar yells over past him to the other two, scaring the mouse as it runs between Jimmy's legs. The tall man spinning and falling over for the hundredth time with an “oof”.
“WE ALMOST HAD IT! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” Tango yells back, huffing next to Jimmy, who was also out of breath and brushing sand from the side of his face.
“I think I might have a smarter idea than…. whatever you guys were doing,” Scar laughs and lets go of Grian.
“Gun?” the latter replies with a smug half smile.
Scar snorts, “No, I mean, the mouse had to survive off something.”
He watches the realization wash over the three in a comical manner.
“Ohhh.”
“Why would we even bother when the mouse is right here right now?” Jimmy tries, wiping the lost pride that is smudged all over his face.
“You really think we could all snack off that small thing? I bet you could burp the same weight as it,” Scar lightly points out with a laugh.
Grian giggled at Jimmy, “You were planning to eat that thing? What a stupid idea.”
Jimmy recoils in offence, quickly regaining himself and yelling back. “I don't know why you're making fun of me. You started the fight,” Jimmy notices the gun in Grian's grasp, “Since when did you get that?!?“
“I was going to make it fair, considering you made it two versus one.”
Tango huffs, rubbing his knee, “I only joined in cause I kept having to experience second hand being shoved.”
“You were going to shoot us?!?!?” Jimmy instead focuses on.
Grian blinks slowly. “...I mean, it could have been for the mouse,” he swings the weapon around.
“That would have turned the thing into dust!” Jimmy remarks.
“More importantly, why do you still have it?” Tango adds.
“Ugh,” Grian rolls his eyes, and makes an exaggerated movement as he pushes the gun into Scar's chest.
Scar catches it as Grian lets it go. He looks up at Tango who gives him a very pointed ‘don't let him get to it again’ look.
“Hm, as I was saying, we should follow the mouse,” Scar continues from earlier, “It might lead us to a slightly more sustainable food source.”
Tango looks nervously at Jimmy.
“That feels like it might take a while.”
“Well,” Scar taps his chin in thought.
“We could always eat your friend here,” he says, nodding with the biggest grin and running his fingers over the gun's surface in a comically villainous way.
He points it at Jimmy, who squabbles, “Me? Why me?”
“You’re the tallest! More meat on the bones,” Scar shrugs, Grian nodding next to him like it's a completely understandable conclusion to come to.
“...Right, so maybe let's avoid that.”
As if understanding the conversation, the mouse scuttles back from under the rubble, tauntingly digging at the dirt and cleaning itself in the sand.
After what feels like hours of following a small shimmering creature down small reviven passages, squeezing between husks of ships half buried in the wall, singing to them as sand rings the bartered surfaces, they finally come to fork in the path. Almost guarded by the spilling remains of a giant ship, the outer skin of the ship shining and standing tall above them at the top of the riven, with its insides spilling out in huge compartments barely being held by wires and cables.
It scuttles into a gap in an air lock door that’s connected to a corridor. Like a tube cut open, leading to larger units, completely reinforced, cables spilling out like roots.
“How can we really be sure there's food, aside from Mr. Dirt butt here,” Tango huffs. Jimmy awkwardly mutters, “We are talking about the mouse, right?”
“Who knows, maybe the mouse is a secret game maker, leading us to a trap,” Grian jokes sarcastically.
Scar walks up to the torn open hall, the walls have lines along it of different colours.
Before the air lock there seemed to be a white sign with the same colour as the line’s text. It reads ‘hall 3, food production: dry storage, plant cultivation, frozen storage, kitchen, cafeteria’.
All the other three peer over his shoulder, each at a different height and squinting.
“There's your answer, Tango,” Grian chuckles.
Tango grumbles, “Aren't we lucky Vindicators labeled everything.” He kicks at the air lock.
It's mostly closed, one half of the door knocked out of its place, wedged in a way it couldn't be moved. Jimmy shuffles over and gives the door a hefty push, to no avail. Yeah, no, it wasn't going to move easily.
“Maybe I could...”
The opening is narrow. Scar crouches down, leaning his head through, his shoulders are too broad even when he tries to wedge his arm in first. His leg braces slip against the metal floor as he tries to pull himself out, Jimmy helping him. “Nevermind,” Scar sighs.
“Hm,” both Scar and Jimmy looked to their shorter company.
The shorter two look back with the same gloomy expression, without even coordinating it. They both come to the same realization simultaneously.
“Not it,” Grian holds a hand up.
Tango looks around and gestures to himself with offence, “I am not going in there.”
The Blaze walks up to Grian, holding his hand at his height, comparing it to the Glare, “Why don't you go in? You're shorter than me,” he pushes his hand over Grian's ear tuffs to demonstrate to the others. The Glare shoves him away and holds his ear tuffs away, his cheeks slightly red.
He regains his composure, shaking his feathers and holding his wings out. “Can’t you see I got these big ol' wings,” he smiles.
“Yeah, but they fold, don't they? I have a broken arm,” Tango challenges, holding his own arm out, mirroring.
“In some situations that helps,” Grian mocks.
Tango squeaks angrily, “NOT THIS ONE!”
He pushes Grian, leading them to squabble. Jimmy and Scar, sharing an exasperated look.
“Why don't you both go, probably safer,” Jimmy suggests with a shrug.
“With him?!?” Tango exclaims, as he has Grian's face in his hand at arm length, Grian half-heartedly swatting at him.
“Yeah, I could break more bones if you need to get through any smaller gaps,“ he says, slightly muffled, before he pulls his head out of the grasp.
“Oh, you want to see broken bones,” Tango sneers at Grian when suddenly his stomach growls loudly. They all pause.
“…Fine, only because I'm hungry and mad about it,” Tango surrenders, rubbing his stomach.
With an eventual agreement, the rest let out a collective sigh.
Neither of them move.
Grian laughs to himself, nodding to Tango. A mischievous grin appearing, “Losers first.”
“Yeah, that's why I'm waiting.”
“GUYS, PLEASE! Literal starvation is happening,” Jimmy grumbles, completely frustrated by the two's back and forthing.
“Fine, fine,” Tango crawls through, closely followed by Grian, who only slightly struggles with his wings.
Scar and Jimmy pop their heads through. “Hm… Yell or something, if you're in trouble,” Scar tries with a wobbly smile. He's not completely sure how they could help from the outside, but the least they need is more stalling.
Tango scoffs. “Oh, I'll definitely yell, don't you worry,” he looks pointedly at Grian, who pretends to ignore him.
Upon entering the ship wreck, the heat halves, everything feels cold and dusty.
Grian taking a satisfied sigh at the low light.
Tango wasn't as at ease. He may be in a constant state of glowing, but that light only reached so far, less so now that he was exhausted and showing it. The dark gloomy tunnels could go on for years for all Tango knew. It certainly felt like they did.
Grian's talons echoed through the halls, sounding like chain rattling against the metal floor. It was setting Tango's nerves on edge as the sound bounced back like they weren't alone.
“Alright then, light the way, Tango.”
Tango doesn't turn to look at Grian, his gaze is fixed on parts he couldn't see, “You go first.”
“What? You don't trust me?” Grian didn't even try to hide the amusement in his voice.
Tango reluctantly looks at him to give him a grim expression he knows the Glare could see, “Yes, completely that.”
Grian snorts, “Psshhh, you already took my gun from me. What more do you want?” he waves his claws in front of Tango's face, “My nails filed?”
The Blaze takes a step back. He doesn't say anything, holding his ground with a stern look.
Grian's shoulders sag, bored of the standoff, “Alright, let's just get this over with.”
The halls are as eventful as the desert outside of it – old and untouched for years. They follow the discoloured lines across the walls that lead them to the storage, stepping over gaps in the flooring and under particularly caved in hallways.
Until finally they reach their saviour: a sad looking door with so much grime it was hard to even read the ‘storage’ sign printed above it.
“Looks like this is it.”
Grian grabs at the door frame, pressing buttons and kicking at the panel.
“Ugh… More doorsss,” Tango wanders up to him, head back in annoyance.
After scratching at the sides and pushing against the frame, Grian huffs, standing back and crossing his arms, “It's locked.”
“Do these mice have thumbs?” The Blaze throws his arm out.
“And we don't?” Grian snorts.
Tango simply makes a face.
The Glare laughs and rolls his eyes, before his attention is caught.
“Oh, no. Here!” Grian crouches down to a metal panel that has been dented at the corner, enough space for a mouse to fit through. He runs his metal fingers against the surface with an uncomfortable ringing.
“…Can you shrink?” Tango watches the Glare hook his hand through the gap, feeling the other side.
Grian responds, not looking at Tango, instead lowering his face to the floor, looking through, “Do I look like a Vex?” his voice echoes into the closed room, full of sarcasm.
Tango sucks in a breath, before pinching his forehead and grumbling, “Oh… oh, god dammit, why didn't we just ask Scar, he's a Vex, right? He could have just walked through all this stuff,” All the dust and creepy cramped spaces were for nothing.
“I don't think he can.”
Tango opens his eyes, the Glare off of the floor, staring at the wall. “What makes you say that?” he asks.
Grian frowns, shrugging, “I don't know… maybe he’d mention it, or he just gives off the vibes of not really knowing how to use magic.”
He shifts so he's sitting on the ground, knee pressed to his cheek as he maneuvers himself to pull at the bent metal plate.
Tango pauses, “ So you have met him before these games then?” he asks, as the Glare pulls on the metal. He scrapes his claws obnoxiously over the surface.
“Plus I would think a vindicator ship, of all spacecrafts, would have precautions against Vex magic,” Grian continues, ignoring Tango's comment. He strains, adjusting his grip and sliding his hand further into the gap, both his feet planted against the wall, “AGH! I think I could.”
Tango snorts as he watches the Glare struggle, the smooth metal providing not much traction, causing Grian to slip a couple times and thumb his head against the wall, or falling flat on his back, “I don't think you're getting through that.”
The Glare, too determined, picks himself back up. “Not with that attitude,” Grian replies, out of breath.
He pauses briefly before taking in a deep breath and pulling at the metal.
Surprisingly, despite its sturdy resistance, Grian pulls at its supports. There's cracking, screeching and Tango swears he hears hissing. Only then realising the mechanics of Grian's limbs are the ones also making noise.
The Glare rests, having pulled it a considerable amount from the wall, no longer mouse sized, maybe a small dog wide.
“Whoah,” Tango says without realising.
The Glare flexes his fingers, the small brackets and pistons moving across his exposed prosthetics simultaneous.
“I guess that's the perks of having arms made of metal worth several settlements.” Tango jokes. But the Glare ignores him, and Tango would have thought he simply didn't hear him, if it wasn't for the uncomfortable look that spread across Grian's face. His shoulders going tight, an awkward silence falling upon them as Grian prepares his footing to pull at the panel more.
Tango steps back with a sigh, bored. He looks at the door, it's not misshapen like all the other doors they've come across. Its frame unbent, the door sitting neatly within it. He pressed the button on the handle despite knowing it'll do nothing. Grian had vigorously pressed it upon seeing it first earlier.
It is old, made from rubber that was starting to flake away from age. Tango pulled at it, the small thing popping out into his hand. A glimmer catches Tango's attention, the space left behind the button is exposed wiring, uncovered gold, looking right back at Tango.
He stands back and regards the door again. It is painfully simple, no locking. It wasn't like the air lock earlier, there was no point installing another expensive door to another, the only reason they couldn't open it was the ship’s lack of power.
“…You know, I don't think we need to go through there,” Tango presses his fingers to the inner workings.
Grian didn't respond, in fact, when Tango looked at him, the Glare had his head into the wall as well as one foot, folded into himself like an awkward cat as he pulled himself through the small gap, “Yes! Head through!”
“Grian,” Tango tries, unheard.
A few feathers are caught on the frame, falling out and joining the dust and grime on the floor. Grian not caring, battling his way through with an unusual determination.
“HAH HAAA!” He declares loudly.
Tango exasperatedly knocks on the wall, raising his volume. “Hey, bird brain, I can open the door!”
“What?”
“I said… You know what, nevermind,” Tango gives up, the other clearly set on his method.
Tango watches him make it through, hearing a cough and shake of feathers on the other side of the wall.
Putting the tips of his fingers to the gold wiring, Tango starts to pool the energy from within himself to the ends of his digits. He barely spent any when there’s a click, the door immediately opening with a swoosh.
Grian stands on the other side, looking cartoonishly shocked and confused with Tango's achievement.
“Ah… wh-how?”
Tango grins wide. He wiggles his fingers, still glowing slightly at the ends, “Fizz, pop, BOOM!”
Grian's mouth stays agape, a couple feathers in his hair, wonky and messy, adding to his image of bewilderment.
Tango laughs, “Just… a Blaze thing, these doors are super old… they don't have the most elaborate mechanism. I could short circuit it with my fingies.”
The Glare’s face morphs into a frown, brushing at his hair in frustration, “…Well, you could have said.”
Tango laughs loudly. “You were pretty set on pushing your face through a wall,” he smirks.
Grian just stares at him, slightly red in the face and ears flicking absently.
He awkwardly coughs into his hand, “Right, so… food.”
Stepping into the room, the first thing Tango notices is the smell: it was stale and pungent. The source coming from a pile of empty and chewed perspectives can.
They both looked grimly at the sight. Most of the food had been knocked off the shelves and chewed up cardboard riddled all the corners. Sliverfish had definitely made the room a home. Tango even swore he could see them shift around at the corners of his eye, the light too dim, but the feeling of hundreds of little eyes on him didn't cease.
“Dang, not the only ones hungry,” Tango breathes.
The Glare shuffles ahead. He steps onto one the shelves, reaching for a large box. Whatever's in the box must be heavy, as he struggles to balance on and pull it off.
There's a sway from the frame, before the Glare bails and falls backwards. Tango subconsciously reaches out to catch him, only to get a mouthful of feathers. He staggers back, catching a shelf on the other side of the room, his own good arm taking the brunt of the force.
Tango groans, feeling bruised. The Glare is looking back at him, holding the box and completely fine from the fall. He has a confused look.
“What happened to you?”
Tango pulls himself up with a grumble. He spits out a feather and rubs at his face, “Oh, you know… an unexpected meal. You should really watch those things.”
The Glare looks under his arm, at his wings, and shivers.
“What's in the box, feathers?” Tango asks.
Grian places it on the floor and pulls at the tape, yellowed and barely tacky anymore. Inside laid out in neat rows are a fair amount of canned food, fruits, veggies and meats.
“Jackpot,” Grian gleefully says.
“Can we trust these?”
“Well, the box does say preservatives! And you've gotta trust the little guy on the package!” Grian holds a can up to Tango's face, a small cartoony Vex printed on the label, their thumbs are up, face winking. Tango frowns.
Imitating the image, Grian also winks at Tango. “Long lasting! Quality approved! Space mush!!” he said loudly in a dorky voice.
“That’s not reassuring...”
Grian giggles, satisfied with his reaction. He holds the can in his palm and squints at it, running his thumb pad over its surface.
“It looks like there's enchantments etched into the tin,” He chucks one to Tango, “If Vindicators are anything, they are resourceful… thankfully for us.”
Tango lets out a sigh of relief. He slides down to the floor, resting his head back against the shelf.
The air was stuffy inside the enclosed area, that realization only dawning on him now that he could convince himself he had been holding his breath this whole time. The ceiling looks blankly back at him, only loose wires and dented reinforced metal to stimulate his mind.
He stretches his arm out, unclenching his hand. When something sharp pokes Tango's hand, he looks down to see various utensils spread across the floor, all bunched up under the shelf.
They probably got knocked off the shelves when the shipping crashed all those years ago. All new and unused, and there, standing out amongst the spoons and forks, was a knife, longer and wide. If Tango knew anything about cooking, he would have guessed it would have been used to cut veggies or meat, Tango's own reflection staring back at him in it.
He looks back up at his company. Grian is too preoccupied with sorting the cans into a bag from the shelf. His tail swaying behind him, not paying attention to the Blaze in the slightest.
Tango slowly grabs the weapon and holds it behind his back, quietly moving to a stand. He can't help but frown to himself, a plan forming in his head.
Grian swings the bag over his shoulder, standing and wobbling as he adjusts his balance.
“Well! We better feed the tall ones,” he turns, interrupted by Tango pointing the weapon at him.
The Glare doesn't react much, just pushes his brows up before putting on the most unaffected grin, sharp teeth and dark eyes challenging the item.
“….What's this? Mugging me?” he says, unseriously.
“I want you to tell me who you are,” Tango stammers, his one free hand readjusting his grip.
Grian looks straight into Tango's eyes, his gaze flickering to the tremors in Tango's arm. “…Not scared of these claws anymore?” the Glare rings his metal digits together intentionally.
Tango adjusts his footing. “What is your deal?” he keeps his voice stern.
Tango steps forward, and thankfully, Grian takes his own step backwards. He holds his hands up in response. The bag he was holding thumping to the ground, sound echoing through the halls.
“I don't know what you did to get a person like Scar to protect you so much. But I know it was a lie,” Tango hisses.
Grian's grin faulters at Scar's mention. “A person like Scar? You know him well?” he sneers.
“Maybe not… But there's something you two aren't telling us,” it was obvious. Tango noticed how much Grian would cling to Scar. The Glare was clearly not a very trusting person, he wanted to leave Jimmy and himself dead in the sand. But for some reason, Scar convinced him otherwise.
Scar was someone a person like Grian cared about.
Anyone could see they were sharing a secret.
Grian blinks, his nose twitches. “And you're going to …hurt me? Hold me prisoner?” he continues to smile sourly. It's like he can sense the uncertainty in Tango's resolve.
Tango huffs, moving more forward, feigning confidence, “Stop with your snide not-answers and witty comebacks!”
Grian doesn't move, the shelf behind him is already pushing against his back, he just tilts his head back further, knife being an inch from his nose.
“I've just come from one bad place to another, I can't afford to be taken advantage of, I don't trust you. I need to have control of what happens to me next, me and Jimmy,” Tango warns, grief in his voice as his glow flickers.
Grian's shoulders sag and weirdly he stops scowling and instead, gives Tango a sullen look.
“We have a lot more in common than you would want to believe.”
Tango almost laughs at that. “Then tell me! Stop lying and just tell me the truth,” he stabs forward, there is a clank as Grian's hands grab the edges of a shelf, desperately pushing himself out of the way of the knife.
“And does the blade know the difference?” Grian tittered, eyeing the kitchen wear.
“I will."
They both lapse into a lull. Tango keeps his ground, eyeing every small movement Grian makes in his uncomfortable position.
“What do you want me to say?” Grian defeatedly asks, his grasp slips on the shelf, adjusting his wings out of discomfort.
Tango leans back, giving the Glare some room to breathe. He keeps his gaze on the other, squinting in thought. Before he glances down to Grian's arms that hook the metal frames.
“…How did you get those robotics?”
When Tango looks back, almost spluttering at the haunting face the Glare is pulling. His mouth was thin and still, eyes looking right through Tango.
“No.”
“W-what?”
“Pick another question,” there was no amusement in Grian's voice.
Tango laughs nervously. “You can't just do that. I have this pointing at you,” he gestures to the weapon.
Grian looks away, and Tango swears he sees his chin quiver. “…Please,” he says in an uncharacteristically small voice.
“O-okay,” Tango falters, he looks around the room as if searching for another question, “Why did they put you in here?”
Grian scoffs.
“Like I know,” humour pools back into his voice.
“You do,” Tango wasn't falling for that for a second. He knew after Grian refused to tell the group, the other day, that the Glare had his own idea, that he just wasn't sharing.
“Ugh… alright,” Grian grumbles, he shifts his weight, basically sitting on the shelf behind him, “They were looking for me, you could say I was a wanted individual of theirs.”
“You must be a pretty important person then?”
“I wish I wasn't,” Grian says gravely.
Tango lets his arm drop, tired from holding it up, the blood flowing back into his veins. He notably doesn't let go of the blade, “Why did you run this morning?”
“I don't like being trapped.”
“No one does,” Tango refutes.
They both fall into a pause, neither daring to move, just soaking in the still air.
“Can I ask you a question?” Grian breaks the silence, he almost mutters the words, as if unsure he even wants to ask.
“...Okay?” Tango replies, mildly confused.
Grain doesn't ask immediately. He was looking off to an unimportant corner of the room, chewing on his lip. In fact, he doesn't ask for so long, Tango almost impatiently snaps at him. The Blaze’s words halt as Grian's eyes finally land back on him.
“Why didn't you run from them sooner?”
Out of all the questions he could have asked, he didn't expect that to be one of them. “I…” Tango stammers.
“You said you worked for them for almost a year. Why did it take you so long to walk away?” Grian repeats with the same level flat look. His expression doesn't waver in the slightest.
“I didn't know they were Enders!” Tango utters defensively.
“I'm not accusing you of anything, I just want to know,” Grain shakes his head.
Tango takes his own step back, only so he can lean his back against something for support. The question was so out of pocket, but it wasn't something he’d never thought about before. He collects himself, staring at the tin cans that have rolled out of the bag on the floor. He isn't even sure he has a concrete answer.
Tango looks up, expecting, or maybe hoping, Grian looks bored by Tango's stalling. Instead, the Glare’s eyes are fixed on him, creepy in the very low lighting.
“I… they were using me,” Tango swallows.
He fidgets with the knife in his hand subconsciously, “Feeding my unhealthy habits. I got so engrossed I didn't even realise it.”
“You were having fun,” Grian says in a strangely understanding tone.
Tango winches at his words, he doesn't like how they match the thoughts in his head. “It wasn't fun. I was making things to kill people!” he blurts out, he couldn't have been enjoying himself.
Grian doesn't respond. He, in fact, doesn't move; just stares at Tango with those deep judgey eyes. Mirrors of Tango's own fuzzy light ones.
Tango coughs out a forced laugh. “Is that how we're similar? You've killed people?” in a lapse he tries to turn it around on Grian. It feels bitter, pushing his own guilt onto him, maybe Grian just shouldn't have those eyes.
“You said you left before your creation could hurt anyone. You said you took the blueprints when you ran,” he doesn't fall for it. Once again Tango is faced with himself.
He looks down to the knife in his hand, it's clumsy and not meant for defence, yet it still could hurt, that's why Tango picked it up.
“That's not how guilt works, it was still close to being done. I may have not pulled the trigger, but I made the gun. I still feel that responsibility.”
Tango wasn't stupid, he knew it would be easy for them to find another overeager redstoner to finish his work. Taking the blueprints barely hindered anything, most of them had been physically made.
He knew that he mostly ran with them for his own sanity, something to tell himself he did after all he could to stop it from continuing when he snapped out of it. But he was too smart to fully indulge himself into the delusion.
If only he ran sooner, he thinks about all the chances he had. If he wasn't so enveloped by his work, if he wasn't so excited by his game.
“Did you know, Blazes don't need to sleep. We run on energy that can last us for days, all we need is fuel to burn... It's not healthy, to keep going till you're spent, a Blaze could die doing that!”
“I never stopped working, and when I ran out and collapsed, I’d wake up, filled with healing potions and keep going.”
He looks at Grian, breaking to take a shaky breath.
“And the worst thing is, I didn't even notice what was happening. You always think, when you hear of stories, that you yourself couldn't possibly let it get that bad, that you'd have the self preservation, the foresight to be better.”
“But I didn't notice… I was alone in that ice cave. None of my friends knew where I was or what I was doing, they couldn't have told me to stop...”
He looks away, then back at the knife in his hands. He knows he'd never have used it, not on a person, even a person like Grian. Tango's never been the one to get his hands dirty, it's always more entertaining to make the mechanics to do it for him, he guesses that’s ironic now. He places it on the shelf behind him.
“I'm not a bad person,” Tango says in a pathetic small voice, to no one in particular, maybe himself.
“I know,” the Glare at least has the decency to sound sympathetic.
They both lean back heavily on their respective shelves either side of the narrow room. Tango's emotional guts laid out like the cans on the floor. Neither of them reach to pick them up.
“How did they capture you?” Grian speaks out into the empty air.
“I don't remember,” Tango answers honestly, all that's left of those memories is panic and disorientating fuzz. “Do you?” he hands out the comment like it’s regular small talk.
There's a pause.
“...” Grian's tail flicks, probably an indication of consideration, the only indication. In fact, Tango feels like he hasn't blinked since he asked the question.
Tango doesn’t really expect an answer. He still waits patiently, even if he's 90% sure it's going to be vague.
“I was led by someone I thought I trusted into a trap,” Grian's gaze is fixed on the preserved food, a subtle scowl bunching up at his nose.
“A truth?” Tango asks.
Grian watches him and nods, “Yes.”
Tango lets his shoulders drop, his elbow knocks against the knife on the shelf, looking at the pathetic thing, “…You weren't really scared of me hurting you, were you?”
“Not really.”
Tango sighs, “Well, I thank you for at least making me feel like you were.”
Grian gives an unsure look, “You're welcome?” He groans, rolling his head back rubbing and his face in exhaustion, “This is literally why I wanted to avoid teaming with others.”
“People… politics, blaahhh,” he sticks his tongue out.
“Maybe you shouldn't have been walking around the desert with Mr. Charisma,” Tango suggests with a weak chuckle.
Grian hums in agreement, his hand reaches for his shoulder, rubbing at the fabric of his clothing, “Hmm, maybe, but he has his charms.”
Tango would be amiss if he didn't notice the faint fondness in his features. He felt an uncontrollable desire to challenge that.
“You know, he really cares for you. For some unexplainable reason, he lost his mind when you left, really believing you wouldn't just abandon him.”
Grian frowns, “I came back.”
“Psshhh… like that ever was what you intended to do. I saw that grim look on your face when you left,” Tango scoffs. He pins the Glare in place, relishing in how he squirms, shame radiating off of him.
But that feeling flees, he's tired of being mad, the Glare had given him his ear with no judgement, it doesn't feel right. He still doesn't like the guy, but maybe something like pity makes him let the Glare go from his stare.
“Maybe you wouldn't feel so much guilt if you didn't make stupid decisions.”
“What are you, my therapist?“ Grian replies.
“No, but like you said, we're similar.”
“Painfully so.”
That was it. Too alike, hating that reflection. Sat opposite inside the carcass of a ship, with two others waiting eagerly for their return.
“I still don't trust you,” Tango says, in case the other was getting any ideas.
Grian understands, “That's fine.”
There was nothing else to say.
Grian moves first, pushing himself off the shelf. “We should go,” he picks up the cans, pushing them back into his bag.
Tango just watches. He plans to head towards the door before Grian interrupts him.
“Honestly, you should keep that… you never know,” he nods to the knife behind Tango.
Tango brushes his fingers against its surface. “In case you need a hair cut?” he jokes.
Grian stands up, with the bag over his shoulders, back to where they were a few minutes ago. “Something like that,” he replies with a weak smile.
They leave, both through the door this time. Tango making a display to pat at the door frame, laughing at Grian's grumbling.
–
They sat outside, backs against the wall in the shade, and waited for Grian and Tango. They both look outwards at the horizon, outwardly guarding the area, but inwardly daydreaming wistfully.
It's peaceful for once, even if Scar keeps having to pull his mind out of dark places, instead counting how many silverfish mice he sees hiding in shadows.
“You mentioned yesterday that you were a baker?” Jimmy asks, seemingly out of nowhere.
Scar catches up with what he said, thinking back and remembering the smell, “Oh, yeah. I used to work in a small shop near a spaceship dock.”
“That sounds quaint and cosy!” Jimmy crosses his arms resting them against his knees.
“It was nice…” It was also very cosy, Scar has many fond memories of the place, it was what he thought of when he thought of home, “My favourite part was watching the people. I mean, obviously I enjoyed the cooking too.”
Jimmy hums lightly, “I can imagine you would get all sorts of people passing through, right? Sounds just like my town.”
“Yeah. So many pilots, adventurers and captains of old spacecrafts. Sometimes I would just drift behind a booth pretending to clean tables so I could hear the stories.”
He nods in recognition, urging Scar to continue.
“I used to imagine myself on my own adventures. I remember one day I promised myself that I'll see the stars, travel through them even! Just like all those pilots, be a hero,” he looks somberly out across the sands, fidgeting with his fingers.
Jimmy beams next to him, clueless to Scar's sorrow, “And you achieved it! You said you were a Mayor! I don't even know what that means, but it's gotta mean something good, right?” Jimmy nudges him playfully with his elbow, “I bet you're itching to get back.”
“…Yeah,” Scar looks at Jimmy with a small bittersweet smile, “maybe I embellished a little about being a Mayor,” he said, half truths were easier to hide behind.
“Hey, that's alright, same!” Jimmy laughs, “They call me Sheriff, but I'm more just the tallest guy in town that can reach all the top shelves.”
“The best duster,” Scar jokes.
“Yup!”
Scar doesn't laugh, his smile is too much of a burden as it is. Jimmy’s enthusiasm unintentionally painfully reminding Scar of a version of himself that he didn't even realise he had lost.
He kicks his boots together, and some of the screws on the leg braces catch against each other. Something he is long past being concerned about. They were never good to begin with and it was a miracle they were still working.
Jimmy's watching him. “Are those okay by the way?” he shoots a sad look down towards the things.
Scar lays his feet out, examines them, cleaning dust off the brackets like it would make a difference, “Yeaaaahh. Well, no. But there's not much we can do with them in this place.”
“You sure you don't want to take them off? Give yourself a rest,” Jimmy looks at him concerned.
“It's fine,” Scar staggers backwards into the wall to rest against, "In fact, it's safer for me to keep them on, in case we run into trouble. I can't risk being immobile until I get them on, which isn't a simple task.”
He closes his eyes and rocks his head side to side.
“Plus… I've got a feeling that if I disable them, they might never start working again.”
“Ah,” is all Jimmy says in reply. Scar can tell he's uncertain what to say to him. A lot of people act like it with the subject.
Jimmy shuffles awkwardly beside him. “Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?” he asks with so much sweetness in his voice.
Scar opens one eye, smirking to him, “I'm so sure. Unless you have a secret ender chest.”
“Oh. What's in there?”
“My GOODS!” Scar puts a hand to his chest, proud, “I have so much!!! I have my wheelchair, a super cool bow crutch I designed! A series of VERY important costume changes.”
“How cool!!”Jimmy smiles widely, gesturing to Scar's braces, “Did you also design these?”
“Ah, no,” Scar tries not to sag so much visually, “…these are more like bad rentals that I can't seem to get rid of.” The Vindicators had given them to him so he could do his job better, or so they said.
He looks Jimmy up and down, desperately wanting to change the subject, hating how his throat feels now at the thought of his faction.
“What about you? You’re missing something? Maybe a very cool hat?” he points to Jimmy's messy, but stylish hair, imagining how he'd look with a cowboy hat on.
Jimmy gasps, “How could you tell?”
“Well, a dignified man such as yourself has got to have a very cool hat to finish the picture,” Scar pulls a lopsided smile, holding his finger up in a frame shape.
Jimmy feature’s flood with recognition. He pays the top of his head like grabbing for said hat, “You're so right. It's been killing me that I lost it, I don't even know where it could be.”
Scar pushes his shoulders, “You'll just have to get an even newer, even cooler one when we're free!” He winks at Jimmy.
“Definitely!”
–
Etho and Joel lay at the top of a ravine, they've tracked down their bird to surprisingly more, new people. Four of them.
It was embarrassingly easy for them to find the bird once they were in hearing distance. The group of people weren't quiet, their shouts echoing through the valleys.
“You'd don't think they're the people that put us here,” Joel asks, he peaks over Etho's shoulder, trying to steal a look through his scope.
“Those guys?”
Etho watches one of them struggle to open a tin can, the others laughing, then in frustration throwing it across the sand, hitting metal scrap with a clank. They couldn't be more clueless to the fact that they were being watched, Etho fully considers standing up just to stretch his back, not really worried about being noticed.
With how they act, Etho has a pretty good guess that they're probably as clueless about what's going on as him and Joel.
“I doubt that,” he replies.
Joel snorts. Shifting uncomfortably, he rises from the ground, sitting on his knees. No longer worried about being spotted.
“You'd think they'd be smart and look up. It's painfully too easy to spy on them,”
“I think smart is exactly not what they are.”
Joel smirks, “Sounds like someone I know.”
Adjusting his hold on the gun, Etho ignores that comment. He instead studies the details of the group. They all look pretty disheveled, two of them even have their arms in what looks like slings. They're not defenseless though, he notes, spying a blade on one's belt.
Joel, bored, pops his mouth, picking at his finger nails. “Should we jump down? Scare the hell outta them?” a wide grin growing across his face.
“No…” Etho ignores Joel's grouching. “Let's see what they do. They might lead us somewhere,” he concludes.
The group is still eating, completely oblivious. Joel scoffed at them.
“Pffft, likelihood it'll be off a cliff.”
–
They all had their supper for the day, the food hung heavy in their guts, old beans and preserved fruit. They stay for a long time after, mostly waiting for the sun to no longer be at its highest point. Talk is instead replaced by eating, and then silently laying back, too full to even talk.
They start to walk again, food digested and sun low. It would only be a couple of hours until the phantoms came out and they are hoping to find a ship wreck with enough shelter to protect them.
There is a nervous feeling swallowing them all. They have reached the landmark they were planning for, and it is as dead as where they started. No closer to anything, all they have is each other's company and small plans which are wishful thinking at best.
Tango throws around the idea of fixing up a com to contact the outside world and Jimmy suggests the idea of making a home amongst the ruins, pointing out the frequency of dry bushes between the metal cadaver. Talking about how to collect rain or use roots, whilst Tango prods at the ground with a metal rod he has pulled out of the ground.
They are all painfully optimistic about it all. Scar, for once, is hesitant. He has, in fact, not adopted that optimism, his mind far too preoccupied with cloudy thoughts. The Vindicators weren't going to look for him, that much was clear, almost spelled out to him by the ruins themselves. He still holds a small piece of hope that someone might start looking for him. But the universe is so big and he wouldn't even know if he left a trace when he was captured by whoever put him here.
Maybe it is a little mellow dramatic that all he can think about is how much stuff he didn't get to do, how a lot of his dreams were hindered by his blindness to see he had stopped moving towards them a very long time ago.
He doesn’t have anything to think or say. It is all too confusing, betrayal and denial fighting vigorously behind his eyes, leaving dust and rubble to cloud his acknowledgement around him.
He does feel a certain recognisable burning feeling though.
“Are you doing okay, buddy?” Grian has been following him like a shadow, maybe he's caught onto the fact Scar is battling his own conflicts inside his mind. Solace is not something Scar ever heard in his voice before, and by how Grian's voice is clipped, it is probably something Grian wasn't used to.
Scar sighs and wills enough of himself to reply, “I don't know… I think I have enough reasons to feel weird.”
“…Yeah.”
Scar isn't even looking at him, just feeling the Glare buzz. Scar could practically hear him thinking next to him about what to say, that sound of his feathers ruffling like tree leaves. If Scar was in any other mood, he would have pointed it out and made the bird squirm.
“For what it's worth, finding out that you've been working for a secretly evil corporation isn't as much of an exclusive experience in this weird group we've found ourselves in,” Grian chuckles halfheartedly.
“I'm not… evil.”
Grian hums, tilting his head to the side. “Yeah, that's part of the problem. You've got to separate yourself from your,” he catches on the wording, “…them.” He shuffles beside Scar, pushing his hands deep into his pockets, “That tends to give you a lot more clarity on the whole thing.”
Scar notes his almost reminiscent wording. “You've also been in a similar situation?” he asks, watching the Glare carefully. He meets Scar’s look, face snapped with a completely innocent, flat expression. He doesn't even blink, that mask glued on tight.
“…Tango talked about it,” he doesn't bite and Scar isn't as disappointed as he probably should be. He looks towards Tango with Grian, who continues, “In fact, we had an uncomfortably vulnerable conversation about it.”
Now that was surprising. Scar switches to him with a high eyebrow, “You and Tango talked?”
Grian smirks back, “I know, shocking, though it was sorta at knife point.”
“WHAT?!?”
He swats at Scar dismissively. “Don't worry, I dealt with it, I'm a big grown up,” he stumbles uncertainly, “…bird thing.” The Glare laughs at his own description before shaking his head,
“Ehh… We're getting off track.”
“What I'm saying is, doubt isn't a weakness.”
Scar smiles, and moves his head to the side, “That sounds familiar.”
“Yeah,” Grian trails off, before something sparks in his eyes, recognition. “I learnt it from a very strange fella, actually. Kept trying to sell me sand.”
Scar’s smile grows, he feels the murkiness behind his eyes fizzle away, replaced with a warmth. “Did he have massive abs and glistening pecks?” he jokes while playing along.
“Ah, I… I didn't notice,” Grian stammers, scratching at the feathers on his cheek.
They both start laughing, Tango and Jimmy spin around to look at them, confused. Turning back when the giggling teeters off.
Scar rubs at the cheeks on his face. They're sore from the sun and sand, but the pain from his smiling doesn't bother him.
There's a quiet pause.
Grian fiddles with his hands, eyes everted, “I just wish it wasn't like this…” he considers Scar with a sympathetic look, “That you had more people to talk to about it. There isn't much company when you're actively hiding this part of yourself.”
“I have you.”
Grian cringes. “...I suppose,” blinking sand out of his eyes.
“Though, I mostly just say hypocritical things and cause stinks,” he pushes his shoulders up and leans back to look at Scar with a grin.
“Don't forget, can't take any kind of compliment.”
“Yup, you know me too well."
They lightly laugh, with not as much energy as earlier.
Scar looks towards Jimmy and Tango, who walk up ahead, in their own conversation. He thinks about his conversation with Jimmy and how they chatter between each other, talking about optimistic ideas of escaping the planet. How they have their own huge lives that they left and can go back to, “Is it really that bad to tell them?”
“Yes, it's very dangerous,” Grian leaves no room to argue, stiff shoulders and flat look.
It makes Scar’s cheeks warm, in discomfort. He feels frustrated, maybe that's what it is. Staring ahead at the never ending horizon. He doesn't believe Grian, but he's had a lot of big revelations today and he isn't going to act on it.
If anything, he's scared. Everything he has seen today would make him snappy and antagonize himself in the eyes of the others. Grian was probably right. Scar just felt embarrassed at suggesting that it could be any different.
Weird, though, when he spares a glance to Grian he looks the same, squeamish and flustered. He pulls out an empty food can they have been carrying (the idea being if it ever rained they'd have something to catch it in), he turns it around in his hand, the enchantments on it have been broken once they opened it, the symbols cut it in half along the seal. His sharp talons pick at the label.
Grian throws up the can into the air and catches it, his metal hands ringing against the tin. “Hey…” he twists his head to Scar, with a small smirk.
“I dare you to throw this as high as you can into the sky,” he beacons Scar to hold his hand out and reaches over, placing the thing into Scar’s palm.
Scar looks at the item, “What? Why?”
Grian's smile spreads across his face. “I dare you,” he says, with a glint in his eyes, like he knows Scar can't refuse a dare.
“I'll catch it.”
“What?” Scar laughs, unsure what he's even implying.
He's cut off when Grian strides backwards and he pulls his wings out. Scar, for a brief second, gets mesmerized over the large limbs. They are always tucked away neatly behind Grian's back, he doesn't get many chances to examine the colour and span of them.
The Glare pushes himself off the ground, the large wings catching air rapidly as he pulls himself into the sky. Scar shields his face from the sand and dust.
He watches Grian make a circle in the air, gaining height.
Tango and Jimmy walk up to where Scar is standing, “...What is he doing?”
Scar shrugs, watches the bird take sweeps in the sky, waving his arms as he flies. Scar looks back down to the tin in his hand, the realization dawning on him, “Oh.”
He pulls his arm back in preparation as he lobs the can straight up into the space above him. Maybe this is a bad idea, and the projectile heads straight back down from him with the same intensity.
However, before it collides with him, sharp claws wrap around the metal cylinder in a flash, Grian’s yells of joy fading fast as he flies past.
“WOAH!” Jimmy hops in places. He almost loses balance from the movement combined with his head being craned backs, “Let me try! Let me try!”
Tango rolls his eyes, handing Jimmy a can from his own stash.
And with considerably less finesse than Scar, he overhand throws it at an angle. The Glare darts in the air, catching it before it hits the ground dangerously close, huge clumps of dust billowing.
“Oh, it's too easy for him,” Tango scoffs, he pulls out a next tin, playing with it in his grip, “let me even the field!”
The Glare hovers above them ready, Tango aims for the side, waiting for the bird to dip in preparation, only to fling the can right for the bird as he passes. It hits Grian at the side of his arm, the Glare spinning in the air, trying to grab at the tin before it leaves his reach and thumbs to the ground.
“Look out, bird!” Tango shouts with a satisfied grin.
“Hey, you can't just throw it at me,” Grian hangs in place, holding his hand to his mouth as he yells across the distance.
Tango replies, his voice barely a yell, “I'm giving you a challenge.”
“Ngg, my hair!” Jimmy cries as the Glare swoops past, ruffling his head in flight, fleeing before Jimmy's wide swatting arms could hit him.
Tango yells after Grian in Jimmy's defence.
Scar has a thought, watching the Glare tease the other two, and retrieving back into the sky before they could reach him.
He swings his hands up in the air as he watches the bird turn in the sky. Hopping in place and hoping he can convey the idea he has to Grian. The Glare in the sky hovers before spotting Scar and staring at him.
Scar hardly gets a chance to see Grian’s face before metal arms lock onto him and pull him into the sky.
The feeling of sudden weightlessness is filling his stomach with fuzzy giddiness. He watches the sand move fast under his feet.
He looks up to Grian, the bird is smiling and giggling to himself, that sound barely being heard against the air flowing through Scar's hair and Grian's feathers. Scar is also laughing, he feels adrenaline fizzle inside him, Grian's grip is uneasy as he keeps adjusting it. If anything, it adds to Scar’s fearful excitement fueling his laughter, metal claws hooking under his shoulders. They may be in the air, but weirdly, all Scar can think of is how this is the closest he's been to the Glare, his ear close enough to the Glare’s collar bone to faintly make out his fast heartbeat, or maybe that was Scar's.
Grian catches onto his gaze and for a brief moment he looks confused at Scar’s stares. “This is what you were gesturing for, right?” he says loudly over the wind, his voice slightly concerned.
Scar looks back to the ground. It's further away, Grian turning in the air to loop back,
“THIS IS AMAZING! YOU'RE AMAZING! AHAHA!”
He doesn't see Grian's face in response, more hears a squeak. Scar smiles to himself.
The ground is getting worryingly close, Scar feels a subtle fatigue in his arms under the strain. “You can land with another person safely, right?“ he asks in the air.
“Only one way to find out.”
Grian slows himself in the air, it's hard for Scar to see the land they're heading towards, as he's facing the other way but he feels dust hitting his feet, the loss in speed pulling them closer to the ground.
Scar braces himself to feel his feet hit the ground, but instead he feels Grian grab on his waist and shoulder. They turn in the air, the other protecting Scar from the fall, enveloping them in wings and rolling in the sand.
All things considered, their landing wasn't that bad. Both laugh as they tumble.
Scar opens his eyes, all he can see is feathers. He feels giggles rock his head and hears air through lungs. Looking up, he realizes he's placed on Grian's chest, the latter's cloaking them both from the sun. Grian still has his hold on Scar, but he doesn't seem to notice, too preoccupied by his chuckling, his cheeks are red and he has sand in his hair.
All Scar can do is take in the sight of him, he places his hand next to Grian's head, not wanting to pull at any of the feathers, and lifts himself up. His legs are still wobbly, even if he wanted to stand, Grian's wings and hands still hold Scar in place, maybe out of reflex from the fall.
Scar laughs, the adrenaline leaving him slightly loopy, “We didn't die!”
Grian kept giggling, until his eyes eventually opened, smiley creases slowly opening wide.
In this low light Scar can see the browns and purples in his eyes fully, no sun or other illumination to drown out his eyes in the reflection. Just an ambient glow between his feathers painting them in a warm hue.
The Glare goes silent, his grip drops, Scar leaning more forward on his arms above his head as result. He looks timidly down at Grian as the other stays frozen. His eyes are no longer marked by a smile, lost in thought.
“Urrh, G?” Scar anxiously tilts his head at him.
Grian's wings open, he shuffles out from under Scar with an awkward laugh. They both sit opposite each other on their knees. Grian shakes the sand from between his feathers.
“We lived!” Grian grabs Scar's shoulders and shakes them, smiling with so much enthusiasm that Scar can't help, but mirror him with a bright smile.
“I've been wanting to ask you, for soooooo long! I just thought it might be a little rude,” Scar admits.
“Pffft, trust me, I could sort of tell and you wouldn't be the first!” Grian gleefully laughs, knocking his head back with the motion.
“I've never really tried to pull someone into the air like that,” he looks back at Scar, thrilled, and shaking with energy, “…Gosh, that could have gone so wrong. You might be a horrible influence on me, Scar.”
Scar winks, “It's a pleasure!”
“That was sick!!” They both turn to see Jimmy and Tango catch up with them, Jimmy hops in place, “I wish I could do that!! What!”
Grian gives the man a weird look, but dispels it almost like he was choosing not to say something. He instead leans back, laying his wings out in the sand and stretching his legs.
“Sorry guys, the taxi is closed!”
Scar chuckles, shifting his feet to stand. The ground is weirdly smooth, he looks down to see an inconsistent surface under the sand that his boot had just revealed.
He looks at the ground around them, it all bears the same, even curved. He taps the surface and feels a weird echoing noise from under him, moving makes whatever panel they’re resting on bend. It feels like they're leaning on an unstable surface.
“Hm,” Scar starts, but gets interrupted by a gasp.
“T-there's people,” Grian stutters, looking past Jimmy and Tango. The two turn around to see that, in fact, far down one of the forking paths, are other people. Two of them.
They're too far away to see their features in any detail, but they hold items that concerningly bear the shapes of guns. And not only that, but the two figures have definitely spotted them, approaching with intent.
“No, no, no,” Grian crawls backwards, his claws dig into the ground, leaving marks in the metal.
That reminds Scar, he holds out his hands, “STOP! Don't come here!” he yells to Tango and Jimmy.
But it's too late, they’re both looking the other way and already taking a step towards Scar and Grian.
The ground below them warps with the added weight, and they all look down, as the floor gives out. Next thing, all four of them are airborne, falling with the sand.
–
Joel’s steady strides waver as he watches the group of people they're pursuing inexplicably disappear. “Where'd they go?!?” frustration fills his voice between breaths.
“I think they fell,” Etho jogs ahead of Joel, holding the strap of his gun, stopping it from swinging as he runs.
“Where!?”
Etho glances back at him with a shrug, “Down?”
“God’s sake, come on” Joel grumbles. He picks up his pace running ahead of Etho, “Well, at least they're cornered, I'm tired of running.”
Etho keeps his eyes on where their bird and friends had fallen. From afar it was obvious to see the shape of a huge ship's remains, covered in sand and fallen stone. He briefly imagines what the ship might have looked like, large and intimidating. Etho has to admit it's a little satisfying to see such a thing in ruin. He’s so preoccupied by the site he fails to notice Joel coming to a fast halt, swigging his arms out for balance.
“Wait, wait, it's a trap! ETHO!” He yells but it's too late, Etho’s long legs slip as he tries to stop, colliding into Joel. They both fall into the sand snagging the tripwire.
In a very fast movement, the two of them are pulled upwards in a net that was buried in the sand. Joel thrashes, panicked and tangled up in the rope and Etho's limbs.
They both hear a very distinct clatter, Etho looks to Joel who winces.
“Please don't tell me that was your gun.”
Joel yells out, kicking. Etho tries, and fails, to shield himself from the onslaught.
The Glare pauses to take heavy breaths, grumbling the whole time.
“Hey, I still have mine. It's only a little bad,” Etho tries to ease, struggling to pull the thing from behind his neck in their limited space.
He rolls over as much as he can, resting the barrel of the gun through the rope, looking around as they spin slowly. He gets no response, the other clearly not listening to him.
“AGH! AAHHHHH!” Joel goes back to struggling, trying to tear their binds. They swing more with the force.
“Stop squirming, I can't get a clear shot on someone if you keep wiggling,” Etho sighs.
The Glare moves more in retaliation, “I WANT OUT! GIVE ME THAT GUN!”
“You should have worn your strap properly, then you might not have dropped it,” Etho says slyly, holding his forearm up to protect himself from Joel's heavy boots.
“THAT’S REAL HELPFUL NOW!”
“Well, I did say it before,” he adds.
Joel, in fact, doesn't appreciate the advice, “NOT THE TIME, AGH!”
“Stop moving.”
“WHAT ARE YOU EVEN AIMING AT?” He stops his flinging only to shoot glares at Etho.
Etho gives him an obvious look, “Preferably whoever laid the trap.”
Joel's mouth hangs open for a brief moment, before a boiling anger overcomes him, “SHOOT THE DAMN ROPE, YOU IDIOT!”
“Oh.”
Etho, slightly embarrassed, turns back over, he aims to where all the rope culminates where they hang, the barrel and inch from them.
He flicks the trigger, instantly, the net splitting open. Both of them tumbling onto the ground, unfalteringly both face first.
Joel gets up first, shaking his head, and crawling across the floor to his dropped gun, “NGH!”
His fingers touch the strap, but a heavy boot lands on the gun. Suspiciously out of nowhere as small sparks of blue and orange rain down, fizzling out on the sand.
Etho and Joel both look up. The figure standing over them is draped in an array of bright colours. Bright teal hair with luminescent orange streaked curls hangs over mismatched eyes that stare down at them. A tufted Blaze tail sways behind them, sporting the same teal and orange, and a selection of chunky golden bangles. One of their arms is a clawed, robotic prosthetic, painted a deep blue with stars dotted across the surface, the edges of its segments scratched and worn, revealing the golden metal underneath. Their appearance feels so whimsical that it’s shocking how intimidating they look.
They pick the gun off the floor before the shock wears off Joel. He shuffles back, bumping into another person neither him nor Etho had noticed, their focus elsewhere.
This figure is far more fitting of the scary presence they command. Their outfit consists half of armour with spiked shoulder pads, and half a dark, sleek space suit and a long blue cloak tied on their waist. Bright fiery red hair is decorated with small golden snake brooches buried amongst the waves. No, not brooches, they’re moving. They’re alive. Bright blue cracks decorate their stoney skin. Weirdly, Etho feels like he's seen their face before.
Before Joel can act, they kick him to the ground, grabbing his arm and pulling it back in a hold. Joel yells, Etho feeling that uncomfortable feeling in his own arms.
He raises his gun at them, but there's a click to his side. A gun, now pointing at him, caught in a broken triangle.
“WHO THE HELL!” Joel's feet kick uselessly at the dirt beneath him.
Etho feels pressure on his back, anxiously looking at Joel on the ground, he glares at the one restraining him.
They glare back, before their face warps into recognition, Etho now remembering why they look so familiar.
“Etho…”
“Cleo.”
They adjust their footing, turning her head to the side. “Shouldn't you be running around Sanctuary or something?” she laughs.
“You're from Sanctuary?”Joel yells loudly in surprise, despite his position, pinned with his face in the dirt.
Cleo leans down, whispering loudly near Joel's ear. “Oh, he's more than from Sanctuary, mate.”
Joel splutters, “What does that mean?”
She laughs, twisting his arm more.
The pain pulses through Etho’s own arm in tandem, but he doesn't cry out like Joel. Instead, it motivates him to hold his gun back up, pointing it at Cleo who just smirks at him.
“Let him go!” he threatens.
The other person, still directing their gun at Etho, walks to Cleo's side, leaning towards them as they say, “Oh! I think they might also be paired.”
“Would make sense…” Cleo eyes them both.
Etho shakes his head quickly saying, “No, we're not…” he stutters, realising his mistake. “I mean… I don't know what you mean?” he tries instead.
Joel sighs, hitting his head softly against the ground and saying under his voice, “For god’s sake.”
“Pffft, you were never a good liar,” Cleo laughs.
Etho moves his shoulders, feeling Joel's strain in them. “What do you want with us?” he jerks his gun towards them in an attempt to look threatening.
“We want to win the game, nothing personal,” the other shrugs.
Joel cranes his head from the floor, “What game?”
Cleo and their company look at each other, then back to them.
“You don't know? You didn't get the memo?”
Cleo pushes her shoulder up, and adds “Better for us, I suppose, we got the upper hand.”
“I still have a gun,” Etho doesn't lower his hold.
The one with the gun changes their aim, instead pressing it to the side of Joel's head, the latter squirming in frustration, “Yeah, but what are you going to do… Can you shoot faster than I can?”
“And I have a pretty good idea that we can get two birds with one stone,” Cleo finishes.
They all hold each other's gaze in a stalemate, none of them daring to move; aside from Joel, who continues to try to break free, to no avail.
“What about another idea?” Etho reasons.
Cleo looks unconvinced already, “What?”
“We could leave this place, run?”
There's a pause, Cleo's companion snorting, “With what?”
With uncannily perfect timing, above them there's an ear-splitting noise. They all look up to watch something break through the atmosphere, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake as it loudly descends from the sky.
(special thanks to @bucket-of-cheese for this episode cover art!, as well as @karkatwaddles @chip-the-dip @scrambledlikeeggs @kairamuwu with editing)
---
Our favourites cross paths
CW: threats made with a weapon, mentions of injuries
Read below↓
Or AO3
Time passes, though horribly slower in the desert heat.
Grian and Scar both spend their morning groggy and aching from the phantom fight the previous evening. Not to mention the little rest they were able to get during the relatively short night that this planet provides.
Now that they feel rested enough, Grian shoots up high above the canyon with a few strong beats of his wings. Scar watches him from the ground as he makes a few circles in the sky before he dives down back to join him. With a greater bearing on his surroundings, thanks to the high vantage point, Grian picks a direction that seems most prominent to head towards. He returns grumbling about how he could see something in the distance, but it looked like nothing more than a bunch of junk to him. Not much of the optimist it seems, but Scar prides himself on being able to make the most of any situation. He pats Grian's back, giving a small speech about how 'that a bunch of junk was better than nothing after all'. Grian blinks slowly, reluctantly agreeing. They have a destination now!
Grian consistently finds himself needing to catch up with Scar, occasionally mumbling about how the ground is too flat and something about bird feet. It’s obvious by how he’s fidgeting that he’d rather be flying, even though that option means either leaving Scar behind or carrying him there. And as much as Scar wants to ask, he’s also scared he might lose an eye as a result.
He leaves the slightly personal question unasked, the conversation instead being filled with Grian complaining about walking. He hesitates when their passage opens up to the blaring, exposed sun. Holding his hand up to shield himself from the harsh light, he scrunches his face, occasionally wincing when his hot metal limbs hit his skin with his heavy, tired steps.
Scar himself isn’t having much of a fun time either. The leg braces he uses aren’t meant to be put under a lot of strain for such a long time. It’s only a matter of time before they might snap. The grains of sand grating against them are probably hastening the unit's deterioration. He'll have to use Grian as support if they do break.. and go through the laborious task of requesting a new pair from the Vindicators.
Occasionally they have to take a break, with Scar trying to brush as much dust and sand from the joints of the braces, doing the most he can to slow down any decay it might have caused them. On the other hand, Grian uses the opportunity to rest, immediately slumping against the nearest wall and fanning himself with his tail.
Scar has long since taken off his jacket and tied it around his waist, relieved by the fact he'd been wearing a tank top underneath. The lack of sleeves feels like a world of difference in the heat, not that he wouldn't take it off completely if need be, despite his company. Every so often, he catches Grian's lingering looks when he thinks Scar isn't watching, his expression weirdly guarded and lost in thought. One time, when he notices he’s being examined, Scar flexes jokingly in response, receiving a roll of the eyes and quiet mutterings about indecency.
Despite how hot it is and how much his company seems to fidget and scratch at the uncomfortable feathers underneath, Grian seems insistent on keeping his layers on.
Finally, they reenter the shade, and the winged man groans, flinging around his stiff arms.
”What's wrong?” Scar turns around, watching as the strange man shakes out his feathers. Sand rains down as he does as if the sunlight has been caking him in the sand.
"I lost my helmet and, therefore, my visor. It sucks."
“Sucks how?"
"The light hurts my eyes." Grian rubs at his temples, scrunching his eyes closed.
Scar tilts his head in response, confused. It’s bright, not enough to be painful yet, but it’s clearly bothering Grian more somehow.
When he’s met with a lack of a retort, Grian glances up at Scar, quickly taking note of his confused expression. He rolls his eyes like he knows what Scar is thinking.
"I'm a glare," he says so simply, answering the unspoken question.
"Not… glare-leaning? Or an avian?" Scar, not so subtly, looks Grian up and down, the other tensing uncomfortably with a weird look to match.
"No."
"But…" Scar trails off, not quite being sure how to ask respectfully.
"I have wings?" Grian finishes for him, like he’s heard it all before. Tucking his wings behind his back on reflex, he takes in a deep breath, as if psyching himself up for a speech.
A series of looks flash across his face. Scar waits patiently, only for Grian to breathe out a quiet "Yeah," with no further elaboration.
"Glares can have wings?"
"This one can. It's complicated." Grian walks past Scar, losing eye contact deliberately as he strolls ahead. He doesn’t appear upset at least, bored is the closest to how Scar could describe it.
"But… How?" Scar asks cautiously, against his better judgment.
"Family curse from hitting a magical bird with a ship centuries ago." Grian holds his hands out, imitating piloting, before hitting his hands together with a metal clank. "BAM! Wings for all your firstborns."
"Wait, really?" Scar exclaims. Genuinely believing Grian’s story. He catches up to him with a quick jog, looking to the glare in an attempt to get a read of his face only to be met with a smirk. Oh.
"Nah-" Grian chuckles to himself, patting Scar on the shoulder.
Scar watches as he continues up ahead, looking at the feathered tail with a new perspective. A glare. That explains why his feathers look so real — they’re a feature all Glares possess to varying degrees – and his deep inky eyes that never seem to shrink, even in the harsh light. Maybe the wings are just artificial add-ons, but that doesn’t feel right — they’re far too realistic and fluid. He shakes the thought out of his head. It probably isn’t polite to dwell on it, the subject is obviously something Grian doesn’t want to talk about.
But no, Scar isn’t about to be done with this conversation completely.
"Prove you’re a glare, then."
Grian, who had walked slightly ahead, stops and turns around to give Scar an almost offended look before he shrugs, replacing it with an amused, yet tired one.
“Sure,” he says with a resigned sigh.
Without warning, everything in Scar’s sight goes dark, like an all-encompassing shadow out of nowhere, the murky nothingness only just reaching his toes. He sticks his hands out in front of him, looking at them as they become outlined by a dark void.
He knows what this is. Most glares possess this skill, it’s the baseline ability tied to their magic. ‘Darkness’ he thinks he remembers it being called. Scar has never experienced it first hand though, and he can’t help but ogle the slightly frightening power.
“Whoah-”
As quickly as it appeared, the gloom flees, leaving him with the less-than-friendly, hot reflective sands.
Grian looks at him curiously, his arms crossed.
“Okay, so believe me now?”
Scar smiles, nodding vigorously.
“That was sooo cool!!”
Grian very hesitantly smiles back, turning away before Scar can process it completely.
Despite his wary demeanour, he secretly revels in the reaction, not quite being able to help but grin to himself.
“Can you do illusion magic too?” Scar asks, making Grian's steps hesitate for just a second, the mood in the air changing quickly. His back is still facing Scar, but it doesn’t stop him from noticing the slight shudder in Grian’s shoulders, and the subtle flicks of his feathers.
“…No,” is all he says in slow response… too slowly.
Ah, so another sour subject, it feels like Scar is collecting them all. As much as he wants to pry, he feels like he has asked enough.
There’s a lapse in their conversation as Scar's eyes wander. They both continue walking, albeit slowly, probably due to Grian's obvious intent to savour the shade when passing through it.
"If the sun's bothering you that much, why don't you just do the darkness thing to yourself?" Scar inquires, filling the silence.
"That's not how it works. It's only a perception, I don't actually switch off the sun," Grian replies, his voice back with some light, the previous question forgotten.
"Oh."
"And trust me, oh how I want to switch off this sun." He holds his long claws up to the sky, imitating crushing the light that peeks from the shade touching the tips of his claws.
“I'll still get the painful headache even if I make everything dark for me.”
Scar glances down to his waist, where his own helmet has been clipped. He once again catches up to Grian, leg braces creaking slightly.
"… I could give you my helmet." He hands it to him.
Grian looks down at the poor thing with a gentle look on his face.
"It's got a huge crack in it, so it's pretty much useless. Sorry about that, by the way." He flicks a guilty look at Scar before settling back into stride ahead of him.
"I wouldn't call it useless-'' Scar looks down at it with a frown. He hopes he can repair it, it’s dear to him.
"Even if it wasn't, I would never put that thing on."
"What’s wrong with the cat ears?" Scar questions, a smile evident in his voice. He knows well that it isn’t his cute accessories that’s deterring Grian from putting the helmet on, he just thinks it’s amusing to indicate so.
He holds up the helmet up in front of Grian, closing one eye and envisioning him wearing it with a smirk.
Grian squawks out a laugh and pushes the helmet aside, "Hah. Ironically, I don’t have a problem with that, though I wouldn’t break the dress code just to put cat ears on a helmet."
"You know about the codes?"
"Sorta. I mean, I've unfortunately become very familiar with them – know your enemy or whatever."
"You really don't like vindicators, then," Scar says, with no malice in his voice. He’s more curious than anything.
"I feel like that much should be obvious."
Scar hops ahead of Grian, stepping slightly in front of him so that Grian has no choice but to look at him. "Well, I'm okay, right?" Scar smiles tilting his head.
He watches the bird’s gaze shift from the dust on Scar’s boots up to meet his eye, a brow raised.
And with a genuine smile and quiet laugh, Grian answers "Yeah, you're alright".
—
"Be careful they might be dangerous."
While navigating through a particularly maze-like part of the ravine. Grian had stopped abruptly, and grabbed Scar by the shirt mid-conversation, pulling him around a corner.
Scar attempted to ask what was wrong only for Grian to shush him, hissing about how he’d seen two figures deeper in.
Wiggling slightly out of Grian's hold, Scar popped his head around briefly, catching a glance at their new company.
There were, in fact, two figures who sat up against a stony wall as the passage opened up, connecting to another, larger passage. Scar and Grian had an advantage, as the corner shielded them from view. One figure had their back to them, their large silhouette obscuring the other figure from view. The only indication there was even two, being the distinct overlap of a conversation that could barely be heard from where Grian and Scar were hidden.
And that brings them to the present, with Scar tapping his chin, debating different ideas of how to approach them. Grian listens as he impatiently claws at the ground, grumbling at each suggestion that leaves the other's mouth.
There’s a quiet shift in the sand to Scar's side and he turns to watch as Grian shifts closer to him, his shoulders hunched slightly and wings puffed up.
Scar finds himself suppressing the urge to compare him to a pinecone.
"Why would they be dangerous?" Scar asks, tilting his head slightly. Confused about the other's comment.
Grian splutters, mouth working but not making noises aside from baffled squeaks before he eventually coughs.
"… I mean, I was a stranger a mere hours ago and I had a blade to your heart, dude." His voice pitches up at the end, causing him to flinch when it echoes slightly against the walls.
He ducks as if that would stop the sound, scooting closer to Scar, further from the stranger's direction.
"….Well, you're not doing that right now." Scar smiles a wide grin, hushing his voice pointedly before shrugging.
Grian just stares at him, almost as if testing Scar’s smile, before he rolls his eyes and scoffs,
"… Can't argue with that logic."
Scar's smile grows slowly, bright and excited at Grian's agreement. He watches all of Grian's feathers stand up even more somehow, catching on to Scar's enthusiasm.
“Don't-”
"Glad you trust me!" Scar beams.
"I wouldn't go that far, trust is a strong word," Grian pulls a dubious look before grumbling and looking away. He shakes his shoulders as if trying to suppress the stress that’s putting him and his feathers on edge.
“I honestly don't think it's a good idea to even approach them– People are almost always bad news in these situations. We could just work our way around them…” he trails off mumbling to himself.
“But that's no fun!” Scar hums lightly, nudging the bird out of his strategizing. “Besides, they could help us!”
Grian doesn’t reply, just huffs with a scowl that squishes his face comically.
Scar absently scratches at his chin before he leans up against the wall pressing his forearm high above Grian, leaning over, the other doing a double take, clearly taken back by how much Scar is leaning over into his space. He'll have to put on his charm to try and convince the bird, his most effective tactic.
"You're nervous but I can assure you this, I can gain any advantage in a situation, just by talking" He gives him a cheesy lopsided grin.
"What- do you possess the ability to talk someone to death? Boredom? Into sleep, perhaps?" Grian replies in the most mocking and deadpan tone, meeting his energy.
"All of the above!!! Depending on the weather of course," He says, leaning in slightly with a whisper before bouncing back to that quietish tone of his, "and then I steal their stuff!!" Scar grins with more eagerness than Grian has seen in quite some time, causing the glare to let out a slight wheeze of laughter, raising an incredulous brow.
"Wow, you're really starting to sound more like a criminal." He veers his head to the side, grinning widely up at Scar, and bearing his sharp teeth.
Scar retracts his arm from the wall, an unsure look spoiling his smile. He can’t help darting his eyes to the side, almost taken aback by the former statement. "I mean … not if they're the bad guy, right?"
“That's a very rudimentary way of thinking.” Grian's grin falters slightly, that cold look flickering over him briefly, as his eyes narrow. He shakes away whatever thought he had, bringing the prior conversation back.
“Fine, you do you're talking thing then,” the bird swats at the air absently.
“And you'll be my hype man?” Scar bounces on his toes excitedly.
Grian gives too blank of an expression before pushing up his shoulders. “I'll do something,”
“AHA! Be amazed, small friend! At my infectious likeableness,” Scar stands up straighter and puffs out his chest, before moving to turn around the corner between them and the strangers only for sharp claws to gently grab his arm.
“Wait-”
“Oh oh! W-what?” Scar looks around shocked, but nothing is amiss, just the surprisingly warm touch of metal talons.
“You're intending to make a good impression, right?”
Scar splutters awkwardly as Grian doesn’t give him time to answer the obvious question.
“My advice? I'd hide that you're a Vindicator."
“…why?”
“Ah–” Grian awkwardly chuckles, retracting his grip and scratching at his head. “I thought I’d already established that the general public isn't too fond–” he loosely gestures Scar up and down.
Scar raises a brow, leaning on his hip and looking down at the bird. “Really? Are you the general public?” He smirks at his own witty remark.
“Just take my word for it, this definitely isn't Spawn, and I bet you haven't even travelled off planet before. You have that sparkly dumb innocent look in your eyes–”
Scar gasps and clutches his hand to his chest in false offence.
“I’m just saying, if you wanna do the whole friendly talking thing, I'd recommend not immediately making it known that you're a Vindicator.” Grian huffs.
Scar looks down dumbly at the bright blue jacket tied around his waist. Grian follows his line of sight and muffles a laugh, noticing Scar's mild panic at the glaring obvious beacon of his faction, taunting him along with a bright stitched ‘V’ clearly visible even with it tied at his waist.
“Just– turn it inside out or something–”
“Oh! Smart!” Scar claps his hands, wincing as the noise echoed against the walls. Grian glares at him.
He fumbles with the jacket, taking it off and turning it inside out before tying it back around his waist, and nodding with satisfaction. He looks back towards Grian, the glare watching him slightly amused. “Now, Bird friend, watch as I charm these members of the ‘general public’ with my insatiable charisma!”
“… You already said that. There's only so much ‘impressed’ I can hand out, I'm afraid.”
Scar ignores him as he brushes off as much dust as he can to look somewhat presentable. He leans forward with a step but stops as quickly as he started when his company doesn't make a move with him.
“You're not… coming with??”
“I am, I just want to linger back, for safety reasons– you know?” Grian still stands with his arms crossed but his face has morphed into something far more neutral, clawed feet firmly digging into their place in the sand.
“Oh! Smart!” Scar replies. He continues, but not before catching the faint flicker of a smile from his companion.
Scar confidently marches towards the strangers, too distracted by his plan to notice the quiet whoosh of feathers behind him.
“Why, hello there!”
“EEEEK!”
“OH MY GOSH–” both of the strangers scream at Scar, frantically scrambling back in the sand up to a stand.
The shorter one gawks at Scar, their left arm held stiffly as their right tugs on the other's sleeve pulling them both back further. They push themselves in front in an act that almost could have been intimidating if the other wasn't practically two times their size.
Now, up close, Scar takes the two in. The shorter one appears to be a blazeborn, fuzzy and yellow with clothes that looked like they weren't originally suited for the heat, evident by the thick winter coat tied around their waist, mirroring Scar’s, and the torn-off sleeves of their shirt.
The other stands several heads taller, also strangely cradling their right arm. They’re far less identifiable, but the several neat feathers that frame their face and shoulders definitely imply that they’re probably at least glare adjacent, even with their height. They’re wearing what can be described as cowboy attire, sans a hat, and look far more in place in this setting.
“Oh, you're just a guy…” the taller one eventually speaks out after their initial panic.
“Yup, just a guy!” Scar stands up straighter, suppressing a wince as his leg braces squeak obnoxiously. “Sorry to cause a fright,” he smiles apologetically.
The two of them glance at each other, then back to Scar with bewildered expressions.
“I think I might be lost! And maybe you are too? We were wondering if you could help”.
“We?” One of them asks.
“OH! Well! I'm Scar and this here is my lackey.” He turns to look for Grian only to be met with the empty, dusty ground and no bird in sight.
“They're …not here?”
“Who-” Scar hears one of them ask. He doesn’t even have time to turn to identify who before a flurry of feathers swoops down and blocks his view.
The two figures scream for a second time as the taller one is pushed roughly aside by brown wings, falling clumsy in the sand and landing in a way that causes them to choke out a yelp.
“OW OW OW, I CAN'T SEE!” They sit up quickly with one arm hanging loosely over their chest, the other grasping and rubbing at their face and eyes in confusion. They continue to yell in panic, “WHAT HAPPENED I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING-”
“Drop whatever weapons you have,” Grian turns, holding the blaze in his grasp. He holds his wings wrapped around them, keeping their arms pinned. He uses one of his clawed hands to cover their mouth, the other holding a blue, glowing blade to their neck.
“What- what happened to the talking plan?” Scar sways on his feet. Too much is happening in such a brief moment, and all his plans for conversations are useless, blown to the wind.
“Too slow,” Grian replies bluntly.
The figure in Grian’s grasp desperately tries to muster out a muffled scream against Grian's hand, only causing the bird to tighten his hold and sword to their neck.
Scar feels lost. He looks to the other who is still on the ground, using one hand to touch the sand.
“I can't see!- It's all dark- Tango?!-”
The pure distress in their voices, mixed with the muffled yelping of the other, makes Scar falter, his mind short-circuiting in the chaos.
He weirdly feels scared, that same fear of Grian and his cold look is all too familiar to barely a day ago. A fear that he apparently didn't realise still has a frightful hold on him, his shoulder pulsing passively with pain on cue with the memory.
Despite the fear, he can’t help but step forward, reaching out to diffuse the situation.
Strangely enough, Grian flinches back. He stares up at Scar like he had completely forgotten he was there, his confused look immediately being chased away as the trapped stranger shifts in his hold. His expression quickly returning to an unreadable one.
“Let them talk… maybe? Please?” Scar asks slowly. Grian looks up at him with those deep dark eyes, cold and empty before a nearly embarrassed look crosses his face. He lowers the hand that had held the stranger's mouth, but the blade, however, is still pinned to their throat.
Immediately the blaze gasps and begins yelling “Please we're injured, we mean no harm- please-”
“…. Huh,” Grian squeezes tighter subconsciously, as they kick in his grasp.
“Our arms- OW! QUIT IT- LET GO!”
They shove against Grian, his grip loosening just enough for them to push out as he moves his blade. All of a sudden the bird looks incredibly guilty.
“What the hell man!” The shorter man scrambles to their partner's side, leaning down and giving them their arm to grab onto. They keep their eyes on Grian, scowling as the other weakly uses their hold to stand up.
In an almost too cheery voice for the situation, the taller one speaks, “I can see again! What was that?”
Their gaze immediately lands on Grian, who tenses under it.
“You’re a bird?” They mutter dumbly after rubbing their eyes and squinting at him.
Grian steps back, still holding his weapon by his side. He gives the tall man a look up and down his expression twisting into something uncomfortable.
“Not one of yours,” he mumbles back.
“Sorry, sorry?” the taller coughs, completely confused, but Grian ignores them.
“You're hurt, both of you?” Grian hums, pointing the end of his sword in their direction as he makes a move to stand by Scar's side, who stands, silently wringing his hands, considering his next steps.
They both nod, fear and anger plain on their faces, each holding an arm tightly to their chests.
A quiet sort of relief washes over Grian as he puts away his sword. His expression morphing into amusement, with a tinge of sheepishness.
“Wow, that's inconvenient! You don't pose much of a threat then, huh?” He tries to joke and smile, the expression faulting only when their company makes no indication of finding that comment funny, at all.
Scar shifts awkwardly to his side, considering many different options on what to do next moves through his head before he steps in front of Grian, a goofy grin being plastered across his lips.
“So… maybe we should start over?”
“You think?” The blaze spits, their shimmering flame-like hair sparking in reaction.
“We were only taking precautions, there are dangerous people in this big universe, you know!” Scar tries to lessen the anger with that same cheesy grin.
“I'd argue, you're one of them! Or at least they are,”
They point towards the bird, who does nothing but look away, crossing his arms.
“Just a common misunderstanding, we apologise. Let me reintroduce myself-” Scar tries to step forward with a handshake, but both of them move away from him pointedly. Instead, he retreats to Grian’s side, putting his hands up defensively, giving them more space to feel safe.
“Well, I'm Scar! Like I- already mentioned-” he nervously chuckles the last bit, then gestures to the glare. “-and this is Grian”
“Ah, so we're giving them our names- cool,” the other grumbles, his back practically turned to them, appearing like he’s given up on the exchange.
A tense atmosphere falls heavily on the four as awkward silence fills the air. Scar's eyes glance to the taller of the duo, who meets his gaze with a similar, nervous expression, unlike the blazeborn who stands next to them, festering with an anger that seems to almost crackle off of them in flames.
The tall one eventually finds the courage to speak, unsure and hesitant, without the anger and murderous look that their companion seems to have.
"Well, I'm Jimmy! And this is Tango!" Jimmy speaks with a similar cheer and charisma to Scar.
"Yup," the blaze, Tango, snaps with a slight snarl on his lips. His injured arm tightly held against his body, crossing over his chest as he stares daggers in the direction of Scar and Grian. There’s another pause of quiet that only causes the air to grow more uneasy, so thick with awkwardness that it can be cut with a knife. Tango and Grian stand their ground while Jimmy begins to kick at the sand absent-mindedly and an awkward cough escapes from Scar.
The former can't help but wring his hands once again, standing unsure in the moment before he decides to speak once again, "You seem tense,"
"YOU THINK?" Tango barks out, that snarl only growing angrier as he drops his hand to his side and balls it into raging fists.
Jimmy quickly tries to hop to some sort of defence, "We haven't seen anybody yet- we didn't really expect anyone to-" he’s cut off by Tango's eyes whipping over to look at him, the blazeborn pointing a finger to his neck,
"A KNIFE. TO MY THROAT." He speaks loud and clear making it obvious, if anyone can't tell, why he’s angry.
At that, Grian turns to the conversation, his tail flicking behind him. “Ah- Well, I didn't break your skin and, you know, I apologised.”
“Actually, you haven’t-” Jimmy points out, frowning.
“Oh… sorry?” Grian shrugs.
“I already dislike you-”
He ignores Jimmy turning to Scar with a neutral expression, “Right, Scar, ready to go?“
“What?”
“YOU'RE GOING TO JUST LEAVE US?” Jimmy shouts whilst Tango just looks unsurprised.
“Well, you're both injured so-” Grian says nonchalantly, not bothering to finish his sentence like it’s obvious.
“THAT'S CRIMINAL-” Jimmy squawkes.
Grian doesn’t reply, instead, lightly reaching for Scar, a weird sort of hesitance to his grasp, looking as if he’s going to grab Scar's arm, only to move to pull at his shirt. Scar doesn't move.
“We could- help them?”
Grian looks at him with a troubled look but doesn't say anything in response.
“You know?” He, in fact, makes no indication of knowing. “We have medical supplies, remember?”
Tango's eyebrow shoots up, his angry scowl morphing into intrigue. “Healing?”
“SCAR- Cool now they know our names and our resources-” the bird grumbles, Eying the two with a cold glare. He crunches up his nose, then looks back to Scar. “We're not giving them anything for free.”
“…Well I mean, we could always offer a trade.” Scar tries to smile, trying his best to appeal to Grian with a warm grin.
Grian takes in a deep breath, contemplating for a couple of seconds before he points at the strangers and clicks his tongue. “What do you two have to offer?”
“Do you have an ender chest?” Scar pipes in quickly.
“…No.”
“We don't really have anything-”
Grian hums in acknowledgement then smirks at Scar. “There you go, shall we leave then-”
Tango interrupts quickly as the winged man once again tries to pull Scar away. “We have some knowledge! You said you’re lost! I know some things to help! About this game-”
“Game?” Scar repeats.
“No thank you-” Grian now switches from pulling at Scar to pushing him.
“But aren't you curious? We have theories!”
“All good, we have our own plans, thank you.” He huffs in an effort to try and move Scar, but for once Scar has an advantage over him in height and strength. He barely moves.
“Okay! Deal!” Scar finally replies.
“SCAR!” Grian stops pushing Scar, instead staring at him like an angry feathered hedgehog. It takes all of Scar’s willpower not to laugh at him.
“We'll only tell you anything once you heal us,” Tango adds.
“Hah! As if that wasn't already a bad deal-” Grian mumbles mostly to himself.
“-What about during?”
“Okay, during.” Tango agrees to Scar.
Grian finally acknowledges the blaze, as he holds a hand to his chest and baps at Scar with the other. He scowles between them all. “Hey, hey. I'm the one with the supplies, you should be negotiating with me-”
He cuts himself off at the look Scar gives him. His lips press into a tight frown as he crosses his arms and taps his claws, the processing of his thoughts buried deep in his brow.
Scar tilts his head at him slightly.
“Ugh fine,” Grian finally relents, before huffing off to the side and making an upset display of sitting down and disrupting the dusty sand with a flap of his wings, the others coughing slightly.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Take a seat. Let me heal your stupid bones,” he finally spits when the others don’t make any motion, prompting the pair to finally move.
“Oh, it's really rich of you to think I'd let you get anywhere near to my arm again-” Tango replies, unamused.
“Well you're going to just have to deal with it,” Grian replies to Tango with a sardonic grin, “These are my supplies and I'd like to keep some autonomy in this situation.”
“If it makes you feel any better he healed me pretty well,” Scar chimes in, pulling his tank top aside, to show off the slightly bloody gauze. Tango scrutinises the wound, hissing sympathetically, looking towards Grian who’s trying and failing to look not guilty.
“… I suppose.” Jimmy hums, next to Tango.
Both he and Tango awkwardly shuffle towards the winged man, within arms reach of each other, they sit down in unison, Tango’s tail hooking onto Jimmy's ankle.
“You! Beanpole! Give me your arm” Grian moves closer, sitting up on his knees.
“Me?” Jimmy replies confused.
“Yes you, I don't see any actual bean poles around here do you? I'm talking to your daft mug.”
“You don't have to insult me so much, man-” Jimmy grumbles as he complies, as Grian makes a start on assessing his injuries.
There’s a couple of minutes of uncomfortable quiet, occasionally interrupted by grumbles and yelps. Scar stands, watching his company. He looks towards Tango, who it keeping a calculated watch on what Grian is doing.
“You didn't expect to be here…” Scar slowly sits in front of Tango. His eyes bright with intrigue.
Tango just turns to look at him confused. “What?”
“Those clothes-” Scar points at the thick coat, cushioning the blaze as he sits crossed-legged.
“Oh! OH, that's actually pretty intuitive.” He smiles at Scar and scoots closer indicating for him to listen.
“Yeah I'm not from here, I was working on a pretty cold planet, before …uh.”
“Waking up with no memories of how you got here?” Scar finishes, beaming.
Tango leans back, his grin faltering slightly. “…Yeah.”
“How'd you know that!?” Jimmy asks from behind them, apparently having been listening in.
“We're the same! Actually! We don't remember at all how we got here.”
“Even him?” Tango gestures coldly over his shoulders, not even looking in Grian's direction.
“Even him!”
“Interesting,” Tango appears to drift into his thoughts before Grian coughs loudly.
“Alright then, if you want me to do this, well, you better start to tell your story.”
Tango shoots him an angry look, then dusts off his trousers before sitting up straight, getting comfortable. He looks at Scar, coughs, and smiles.
“Well, first you gotta know some of my history.”
Scar watches Grian roll his eyes from over Tango's shoulder.
“I worked as… hmmm sorta freelance. I'm an architect, redstoner- weird lil’ guy with a nac for bizarre contraptions. I take all and any kind of jobs I can find across the universe, a travelling mechanic if you will,” Tango grins, pleased. “I'm actually- saving up so I can own a hermit settlement, start a small self-sustaining industry, build all kinds of wacky farms! Just work for me, you know?”
He pauses, waiting for a response only to be met with puzzled looks.
“Uhhh that's beside the point. What I’m getting at is that owning the land to make a hermit settlement is a lot of money and prep. And as it goes, the jobs that pay the most tend to be the most…. questionable. I like to believe I'm a good judge of character when it comes to my clients, I know when the people who are giving me a tempting offer are bad news, and I usually decline. I'm not about putting myself in trouble for a pretty price.”
Tango inhales, his thumb worrying over his knuckle, and continues.
“But there was this one job- These very mysterious individuals offered me a job to create a game! It honestly was a very tempting offer, because they were giving me so much free range with what I built. The only requirement was that any number of people could enter the game and there could only be one winner. And they offered me a lot of money for it.”
Scar clocks Grian making a small sneer.
“So I took it, I took the deal and started designing my game. I uhhh- I sort of made, think like… dungeon crawler type deal.”
“Wait but you said you didn't make dungeons,” Jimmy interrupts.
“Going to be honest, I didn't expect you to hit that nail on the head.” Tango turns to Jimmy, giving him a small smile, before patting him gently on his shoulder. “Pretty impressive.”
Jimmy splutters, his expressions flip flopping between being offended and proud.
“Anyway… as I was saying, the more I worked for them, the more I started to suspect a few things. They kept insisting on things in my design to be more…”
He swirled his hand around “Let's say lethal. And that was before I started noticing how much resources and wealth my employer owned. They kept giving me things with ease, I started even asking for stuff I knew was hard to find like enchantments and whatnot. And they didn't even sweat.”
He cuts himself off, a conflicted look shadowing his face.
“When I put my energy into a project, I put my whole heart in. This dungeon was my… my child! I’d been working on it for months! Almost years! I didn't like how they were twisting it. They kept taking away the things I included to make the game fair. And that was my last straw.”
“I ran, and I tried to take all the important endgame design prints with me. I couldn't let them use my work to hurt people in the gruesome ways that they so clearly wanted to do. And now I'm here.”
“…Oh, that's rough,” Scar replies.
Nodding Tango stares down at his lap, rubbing at the worn pads of his hands. He looks genuinely sad for a minute before he shakes that look away and carries on.
“Yeah, so what I'm saying is- I got to see enough of the kind of work these people were doing to notice a pattern.”
“The people I worked for were definitely Enders, and I believe they're probably pretty high up considering rather than taking planets and trading pearls, they were employing people to take their enemies and put them into ‘games' for their entertainment.”
“And I think we're in one of those games right now,”
Tango grins wildly, holding a finger up to emphasise his conclusion.
“WHOA, what really?”
“Ugh,” Grian grumbles.
“And if my assumption is correct, I think we've all wronged an Ender before, right?”
He shuffles so that all four of them were sat in a circle.
“I mean- me! Clearly, with leaving the job.” He points to himself and then to Jimmy. “You said something about Enders secretly operating in the town you were sheriffing.”
Grian’s gloomy expression immediately gets replaced with intrigue as he looks up from his lap for the first time during the conversation with Jimmy.
“You're a sheriff?” Scar asks.
“YES, I am for a matter of fact, from a small town on the Nether.” Jimmy smiles widely, adjusting his hair confidently.
“Now that's surprising…” Grian remarks to himself.
Jimmy either doesn't hear or ignores him as he continues. “Well it's more a self-proclaimed title, not much goes on in my town and I mostly just… give directions to the elderly and get bullied by local kids,”
“Nevermind.”
Jimmy shoots Grian a dirty look, the latter smirking back before he goes back to working on the supplies in his lap.
“But yes! Recently I tried to uncover a mystery and encountered Enders,”
“And that's the last thing you remember doing right?” Tango inquires.
“… Yeah, actually.”
He looks towards Scar “And you… what about you?”
“Oh.”
Everyone looks at Scar with intrigue. Grian has his head dipped down still, his gaze, though, points, staring straight at him.
Ah, right, not-a-Vindicator time.
“Well, I'm a mayor, as a matter of fact.”
Everyone looks at him like it was the last thing they expected him to say, including Grian.
Scar coughs, chasing off the nervous wobble in his voice and he sits up straight ready to prove his charm.
“For a pretty unknown-” Scar awkwardly trails off, not really familiar enough with space life for his own lie. “…hermit settlement! A beloved staple of the community, birds and children sing when I roam the streets.”
The others look at him speechless, he can feel them doubting him. Alright then, maybe he should learn to be more believable.
“The last thing I remember doing, actually, was chasing a criminal down an alley!” He settles on. He sees Grian go still. “It was epic and had glorious explosions and everything, a truly action-filled adventure-”
He stops when he feels Grian subtly thump him with his tail. Hiding the movement by sitting up, done with dressing Jimmy's wounds and moving on to Tango.
Tango ignores him, too interested in Scar’s story. “Was this criminal an Ender by chance?”
“Oh! Yes!” He very almost forgot that was what Tango was asking to begin with.
Tango sits up straighter with a look of triumph and excitement on his face.“That makes three out of four.”
“…Not a chance,” Grian says coldly.
Tango finally turns to him, Grian looking up whilst sorting out the supplies he has left.
“What?”
“I'm not telling you my story like we're all sat around a campfire-”
“We're trying to help, isn't that what you asked for?” Tango argues.
“This isn't helpful information, it's just a lot of assumptions and guesses.”
“Calculated guesses! And besides, what else could you possibly know about what's going on? Enlighten me,” Tango challenges him.
“I don't… but I also don't see how knowing all this even helps us in our current situation.”
Grian leans back from where he had been hunched over, closes his eyes, and flings his hand around in an almost smug way. “Yada yada, scary rich people put a bunch of losers into a death game. That doesn't help me whilst we're supposedly in one.”
“You find yourself in a lot of death games then?” Tango grins bitterly.
“I- '' Somehow that waveres Grian’s response briefly, he clears his throat before resuming. “I like information that helps. This doesn't- this doesn't fix a broken arm or get us any closer to escaping.”
“Well maybe it can- we can go ahead knowing that there's probably traps or trials set for us.” Scar says. The two look at Jimmy and Scar who had been quietly observing their conversation.
“Like the beeping!” Jimmy responds.
“Yeah-”
“OH, THE PHANTOMS!” Scar exclaims.
“Phantoms?”
Scar wiggles in the dust with delight. “Yeah! We encountered phantoms on our journey, which is a pretty odd place to find them,”
“Stole my helmet,” Grian grumbles, less happy.
“Yeah… they were definitely placed here intentionally, we almost got killed by them!” Scar exclaims. He sits up straighter and puffs out his chest. “But I fought them off valiantly.”
Tango and Jimmy share a doubtful look.
“And what about you two- did you guys encounter anything strange?” Scar claps his hands together, intrigued.
Grian rests on his arm and gestures loosely to them. “Strange enough to break both your arms?”
At that both Jimmy and Tango look at each other, coming to a realisation that makes them both grin wildly at each other.
“OH and THAT'S another thing,” Jimmy says far too gleefully.
“The game makers must have included this other mechanic to make it difficult for us!” Tango injects, matching his energy. He and Jimmy talk in slightly hushed yet excited voices to one another, Tango playfully pushing at Jimmy and whispering something about how it all made sense now.
Scar and Grian just blink blankly, clearly missing something. When neither of the two gives them context, instead excitedly making noises at each other over a discovery, Scar coughs.
“What mechanic?” He leans closer, curiously.
“We are linked! Somehow!” Jimmy exclaims loudly.
“It's probably a curse and enchantment related. But we feel and suffer the same wounds, hence… broken arms'' Tango adds.
“So you both broke your arm?” Scar hums still confused.
“No no just Jimmy, he fell.”
“Gracefully!” Jimmy interrupts with too much enthusiasm.
“Gracefully… from the top of the ravine. I was just walking nearby and received the injury too,” Tango sits back a little and loosely holds up his injured arm.
Scar hums to himself, gaze jumping between his company and their injuries. “So it's a proximity thing?”
Tango sits up fast with a gasp of excitement. “That's a good point! I don't know.”
He leans forward cautiously, still holding his bad arm to his chest as he beckons Scar to come closer.
Both Jimmy and Grian look at each other confused before Tango flicks Scar hard on the nose. Causing him to make a startled yelp noise.
With how they lean over, neither manages to notice as Grian also flinches, hand briefly touching his own nose, before he notices Jimmy watching him and stops.
“Nope didn't feel that,” Tango says, veering back to his previously comfortable position.
Scar reclines back too, leg braces creaking slightly as he rubs his nose and makes a small sad noise.
“Did you?” Tango turns to Jimmy who’s looking weirdly at Grian.
Tango nudges him, the taller shaking out of whatever thought he was having.
“Oh- no I didn't.”
He looks back to Grian who’s in the process of not so subtly shifting further from the others.
“Maybe… Are you two together?” Jimmy prompts, pinning Grian specifically with a look.
Obliviously, Scar says, “We just met,” still holding his nose.
“No, he meant the weird pain link thing,” Tango responds with a slight laugh.
“Oh!! Hold on-” Scar excitedly lifts his head up, his sore nose quickly forgotten.
He turns to Grian who had been trying his best to not be noticed the whole exchange.
Moving too fast and suddenly, Scar goes to pinch his arm, only to hit his hand against metal. The realisation hits him dumbly, but not before he watches Grian cry out and pull back fearfully with an expression Scar doesn’t think he's ever seen on the man's face before.
Grian regains his composure quicker than Scar. He shakes off the scared look on his face but keeps his arms held close to his chest protectively.
Scar goes to apologise but Grian's voice interprets him. His attention directed away from Scar.
“No, we're not linked.”
Tango shrugs, titling his head at Jimmy and smiling.
“Well, maybe it's a thing specific to us,”
Jimmy pulls a slightly unconvinced face before agreeing. “Yeah probably.”
Grian finishes patching up Tango, ignoring the three as they descend into rambles and theories about it all.
He packs away his remaining supplies, looking pleased with his two patients' bandaged and slung arms, even as they pay him no mind.
He stands up, Scar is the first to look at him with a questioning expression.
“Welp! Considering I'm done… and you've given your less-than-useful information, I think it's our time to leave,” Grian brushes the dust off his trousers and holds out a hand for Scar.
“Scar?”
Scar doesn't move, he looks at the others and back to Grian, a guilty look on his face. “I actually think we should all stick together–”
Grian doesn't respond, instead pulling his hand away slowly. Scar continues.
“There’s clearly something much bigger going on here and I think teaming up is a safer option,”
The bird remains silent, his feathers betraying his blank face as they all pin. He blinks at Scar.
“I agree,” Jimmy speaks up awkwardly after a prolonged quiet.
Tango grins. “You're more than free to go off on your own,” he says snidely.
“Ah, well…” Scar splutters, standing up and holding his hands out, that's not what he meant at all, but Grian beats him to a response.
“No.”
“Wow… what a change of heart, you're scared of being alone?” Tango teases.
Grian pays no mind to the comments, his hurt look settling on Scar instead.
“Scar please, I can protect us both we don't need…” he loses his confidence, the end of his sentence teetering off.
Scar lets his arms hang at his side, as he looks at Tango and Jimmy, still sitting by each other's side. Now with both their arms in slings and, despite Tango's intimating expression, looking slightly pathetic in the hot sun.
“… they're hurting, Grian, I need to help,” he gives Grian a pleading look.
The glare stares at Scar, he seems to take in all of him, annoyed and confused. When suddenly, a brief flicker of understanding fills his features.
“… Grian?” Grian doesn’t look at him, instead, he stares at the dust to his side. Tail flicking at his side in frustration.
“I'm not leaving you,” he says simply. Refusing to elaborate.
A small part of Scar is surprised by Grian's response, his weird protectiveness over Scar, especially in context to how he’d acted towards the others. Scar can’t help but smile softly, even if Grian isn’t looking at him.
“So you'll agree to be a group?”
The bird turns to him with a hard look on his face, a disruption on his tongue before he cuts himself off, face flushing red when he realises Scar is smiling at him with a completely different energy. He bows his head slightly. “I'm staying with you, but I do not trust them.”
—
Scar sits down, explaining their travel plan, which honestly wasn't much since all they had done was travel in the direction of supposed man-made structures that had been spotted, hoping to not die in the process.
Grian positions himself slightly behind Scar as they all start laying out all their possessions. Comparing their resources with each other.
Out of everyone, Jimmy still has the most on him, carrying one container of water, which he apparently had forgotten about, he lets Grian and Scar take a swig, Tango insisting he doesn’t need it as much with being a blaze. They also have Grian's healing supplies, which at this point aren't very much, just a few alcohol wipes and gauze. Then also some dried meat Jimmy had and one package of dried cat treats that Scar had been carrying, and no one seems stoked about potentially eating.
Besides that, all they have is some random useless items in people’s pockets, all laid out in front of them. Anxious, taking in the unfortunate sight of what they have to survive on. Scar sits on his knees, ignoring how the braces creak as he leans on them.
Tango is watching Grian closely, mumbling under his voice like he’s trying to get Grian's attention, but the latter knows and deliberately ignores him.
Tango finally clears his throat and speaks up, tapping the sand in front of Grian to ensure he has his attention. “You have your weapon with you,” he says like it isn’t a question.
“Yes.” Grian doesn’t look at him, instead rewrapping a rope they had found in one of Jimmy's pockets. The rope rings slightly against his metal digits as he pulls the thread between them.
“So we all have our comms, storage, and defensive tools missing except for you,” Tango states snarkily.
“Well, I also have my comms and other stuff missing. Guess they accidentally skipped out on the knife.”
“How convenient for you,”
Grian deliberately disregards Tango's biting word, looking up at the other two. “We might have enough for a day or two more of travel? Could even hunt along the way… if there are even any animals.”
“The knife will be handy then.” Scar tries, looking at Tango with a cheery smile.
“Could also… maybe… find plants?” Jimmy says, They all look around at the dry, sandy landscape, only occupied by the occasional dead shrub, with dismay.
“How much collective knowledge do we have with foraging?”
“I used to be a baker!” Scar interjects excitedly.
“Cool!- But I don't see any flour or water, don't know how that's going to help us in this situation, bud,” Grian pats Scar on the back.
“Unless you are secretly an enderian and can just … teleport bread to us or something,” Tango adds jokingly.
“I'm not-”
“Are you?” Grian cuts in, the others realising quickly that he’s addressing Jimmy with a weird look.
Jimmy looks up confused, apparently not paying attention to where the conversation had drifted. “What?”
“You’re very tall… thought maybe-”
“Oh no, I'm a glare!” he replies.
Grian goes strangely still, that cold look filling his face. He looks like he wants to say something, but chooses against it, going back to meaninglessly fiddling with a rope.
“Well, it would have been super convenient to be an enderian with y’know …the lack of water,” Tango hums next to Jimmy.
“It might rain!” Jimmy notes gleefully.
“Rain? Here?”
“I mean maybe? These kinds of canyons get formed by water, so there's a real chance a flash flood might happen!” At the last statement, he looks nervous. ”Which depending on where we are, could help us or … be bad.”
“How do you know that?” Tango looks up at Jimmy with a gleam of curiosity.
“Well I get bored, and there's this neat little library in the Nether with a lot of unique landscapes and… “
Jimmy and Tango titter off into their own conversation about various formations of rocks and caverns in desert-like terrain. Scar's mind drifts aside as he watches billows of sand blow above them on the top of the ravine. He catches movement out the sides of his eye as Grian shifts.
The sun has moved more in the sky, the shade they had hidden in changing direction. The hot sun finally reaching them, first hitting the feathers on the Grian tail. He must have just noticed as he pushes himself away from it, a scowl on his face while he creeps away and bumps into Scar in the process.
They look up at each other, Grian jumping slightly when he notices he’s being watched, his ears pulling back as he looks away.
“We should get going. You guys rested enough?” He cuts the other two off, Tango drawing in the sand with his claws with Jimmy instructing him.
“Oh sure-” Jimmy replies. He stands, using his large tail to help push him up, before lending a hand to Tango.
Grian stumbles up into a stand on the sandy ground, hissing to himself and mumbling something along the lines of “dumb bird feet”. He looks at Scar who changed to sit with his legs in front of him, inspecting his leg braces and sighing.
“Those aren't meant for the desert, are they?” He holds out a hand which Scar takes, pulling himself to stand.
“Nope! Not really, more like indoor use.”
Grian frowns, opening his mouth to say something, but Tango cuts him off.
“Actually…” The blaze moves towards them, holding a hand behind his back, a snarky look crossing his face.
His gaze is glued directly on Grian as he pulls his uninjured hand out, holding it towards them. Grian's hands are still in Scar’s, he feels Grian's grip tighten subconsciously before he pulls his hand away in favour of crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at Tango.
“You want this temporary alliance to go well right?”
“I mean… it would be convenient,” Grian frowns, confused about where Tango is going with this.
“Give me your knife,” Tango flicks his claws beckoning.
“… What?”
“I feel like it's very justified.”
“I'm not giving you my weapon,” Grian snaps, his hand moving to his side subconsciously.
Tango pulls his arm back, crossing it over with the other. “I still don't trust you, our minds would be more at ease if you didn't have that.” He looks up to Jimmy who’s looking over his shoulder, nodding slightly.
Scar looks at Grian whose back is turned to him, but regardless he can see the anger physically welling up, as his feathers stand up and his tail starts to flick back and forth. His claws hovering right above where the blade sits, ready.
“HAH, what do you think I care, there is no way I'd give it to you.” Grian spits.
Scar hears him take in a deep breath, sensing the start of something terrible happening. He takes a slightly stumbling step between them.
“I could take it,” Scar says simply. Both of them look up at him.
“I mean- you both seem to trust me more, so maybe I could carry it for now?” Scar tries, putting on his most easygoing smile. Tango's frown softens slightly, but that isn't who Scar is worried about most. The bird is now looking at him, a lot less spiked up with his mouth slightly open, his eyes searching Scar for something. He looks back to Tango, who just nods to Scar.
“Fine.”
Almost everyone lets out a breath of relief.
Grian pulls out his weapon, quickly, and grins to himself as he watches Jimmy and Tango flinch.
He hands it to Scar and gives him a weird look only he can see before his face morphs into a generally upset pout. Striding past them all, he barks “Follow,” and doesn't wait for them to catch up.
Scar looks at the weapon in his hands, remembering its hold before wedging it into his belt.
—
They continue with their walking, Grian at the front out of frustration over the loss of his weapons. Tango's prying eyes watch him from behind, insisting on being on the lookout for any funny behaviour.
The mood is off. Tango and Grian holding their weird rivalry and Jimmy and Scar lagging behind, looking at each other confused but not quite wanting to start small talk out of fear of getting on the other two nerves. They both opt instead to stare at the ground and savour as much of the shade as they can.
Tango is the first to break the silence.
“I don't think I trust you.”
He has his head facing forward, the anger in his voice enough to indicate he’s talking to Grian.
“I bet you’re one of them.”
“Them?” Grian almost laughs.
“Explains why you have your weapon and not us, why you're so reluctant to share why you might be here. And don't even think I forgot about your oh-so-welcoming greeting,” Tango responds with no amusement in his voice.
“What is your problem with me?”
“I think you're an Ender, a man from the inside sent down to watch us.” He says simply, pushing up his shoulders.
Grian snorts, drawing out his words. “Literally all you have against me is that I have a weapon and I’m a bit of an introvert, that's barely anything,”
“That's not all I have. What about your wings?”
The mood changes instantly, from bickering to an icy, quiet cold.
With that Scar finally looks up at the conversation, they have since all slowed down from walking to a standstill. Grian being the one to stop first as he scowls in Tango's direction.
He doesn't say a word. Tango continues with a malicious look on his face.
“And the arms, they're enchanted, right? I can basically smell it from here. You don't come across enchantments like that in the wild. And that's not even mentioning the level of skill that must have gone into those base robotics, for some random stranger– You'd have to be a part of a pretty powerful faction to get robotics like those and I definitely doubt you're a Vindicator.”
Scar watches Grian flash him a very brief glance at that name. Tango continues unaware.
“I've been around Ender technology enough to recognize its signatures, I used to work with it-”
“You don't know what you're talking about,” Grian cuts in coldly with a flat tone.
“I think I do.” Tango challenges, bearing his sharp teeth.
“Hey, hey, what about we uhh, calm down a bit?” Scar interrupts, shrugging his shoulders slightly with an open demeanour.
Tango's wild gaze jumps to him and sticks.
“I think you guys might have all come off on the wrong foot! Ahah,” Scar laughs painedly.
He stalls slightly, almost feeling the heat from Tango start to concentrate on him instead.
“I promise you, Grian is not as stabby as he seems.”
“Oh yeah?” Tango responds incredulously. “Is that why you have a stab wound on your shoulder?” He jabs his finger in the direction of Scar's shoulder, the gauze and tank top stained lightly red.
Scar shoots Grian a look, the other's eyes blown slightly more wide knowingly.
“…Unrelated circumstances,” Scar says simply.
Tango steps closer to Scar, causing him to stumble back slightly, Jimmy awkwardly drifting over his shoulder placing a hesitant hand on his shoulder briefly. “Why are you even sticking up for this guy? Didn't you say you only just met?” Tango all but growls at Scar.
“Well… We're friends.”
“No, there's something else. Something you're not telling us,”
Scar's mouth finds itself ajar, as he tries to think of what to say. Grian is painfully quiet over his shoulder.
Tango takes another step towards Scar, his mind spinning trying to figure out a believable story.
“…We made a deal!” He settles on.
“A deal?” That seems to genuinely take Tango by surprise, his imposing façade faltering.
“Yeah.”
Tango pulls a weird expression before it changes quickly as if struck by an idea. “If you made a deal maybe we could fulfil it instead, then we won't need this guy. I have the contacts, I know my loopholes. If this deal is so much more important, that you'd associate with this guy then choose what I can offer you instead. What even would it be? to you to find yourself associated with someone like him? What was it?”
“I-…” Scar hesitates and turns his gaze to where Grian is standing. The three of them have moved a considerable distance away from him during their argument, but he still stands within audible range, watching quietly.
The bird looks uncomfortable and small, he thinks. His feathers pinning and fingers flicking at his side, right where his blade would have been.
His expression looks complicated, Scar observes, like he’s expecting this situation but still feels a sense of hurt or pain. Weirdly, his gaze is fixed on the blaze rather than Scar, but he can see him fidget and glare as if he knows he’s being looked at, trying his best to avoid eye contact.
Tango coughs shuffling forward in the sand to bring Scar's attention back to him.
Scar had almost forgotten what they had asked. The deal. He wants to know what their deal was. Technically the deal wasn't even that specific, it’s just protection. That's all Grian had promised and even with a weapon, which he no longer had, in comparison to both Tango and Jimmy his usefulness might be matched.
Grian's expression makes sense now, he’s fully expecting Scar to take this deal.
Scar looks back at Grian, catching him looking at Scar before he darts his eyes away.
He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t understand why Tango is so hostile, it feels unjustified. Like he’s missing something, which is impossible. He's known Grian longer than Tango. Grian is barely a threat, yeah awkward, maybe a little impulsive and snide. But Scar doesn’t believe that justifies leaving him behind. Why is there so much bitterness between his newly acquainted companions? Why is Tango so insistent on Grian being a bad person? These questions circle around in Scar's head as he tries to think of some way he can defend Grian.
“We were going to start up a very specific business.” Scar grins.
“… What?”
“Trading goods. See, I need him because he’s got those fancy wings,” he gestures towards Grian, who’s badly concealing his bewilderment, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly, no sound escaping.
“What are you trading?”
Scar mulls it over before looking at the ground and shrugging. “….sand.”
Despite everything, Grian laughs at that. Coughing and suppressing giggles when the blazeborn shoots him a look.
“Sand?” Jimmy almost yells.
Tango taps at his chin in thought. “I- I mean I could maybe…”
Scar interrupts him. “No no no, I'm a dignified salesman. I made a deal and stayed true to my word. I'm sorry but I'll have to decline the offer,” he replies with an easy-going demeanour.
“We're now a package deal now,” he walks up to stand by Grian's side, patting his shoulder roughly.
Grian's only response is to make an awkward noise and to lean away from Scar, but not enough to actually break the space they share.
Tango looks at them both, an angry look directed at the two. Suddenly, Jimmy places a hand on his shoulder.
“I think we should just play along, even if we're suspicious of someone. I think we need all the help we can get.” The taller man says down to him, smiling slightly.
Tango takes in Jimmy's look, his frown smoothing out for a brief second before he looks back at Scar.
“Maybe I don't trust you now Scar, you've clearly also got secrets you're not telling us,”
“You're getting too caught up on secrets and mysteries, and supposed ‘them’s,” Scar puts on a wide smile, waving at the air with a nonchalant attitude.
“How about… G!” He slings his arm around Grian and pushes him in closer to the other two, while the bird sputters slightly at the new nickname.
“Promise you won't stab any of us in the back until we're free from this …game?” Scar holds him by his shoulders. Grian flinches slightly as he tries to look up at Scar only to get a face full of sun. The glare looks back at the other two, not saying a word, his ears flicking absently.
“Grian!” Scar nudges him.
“Yes, sure,” he says flatly. He crosses his arms. “I promise.”
Scar beams, looking at Tango and Jimmy. “Annddddd do you guys promise not to belittle my friend here for being a bit creepy?”
The both of them hesitate, looking up at each other, exchanging looks.
“I feel creepy is an understatement…” Tango scoffs.
“We promise,” Jimmy says at the same time.
Scar claps his hands together, Grian flinching and holding his ears at the noise. “See! Solved! We're now a team!”
No one celebrates, they all look at each other with uncomfortable hesitation, not at all meeting Scar's enthusiasm. He hops on his toes, ushering the others forward, getting them to start walking again.
“Team… yellow.” Scar looks around at his company, all pulling different forms of confused faces. “Why are you all blond?”
—
After several hours of walking, the sun had begun to dip over the horizon. They were all able to confirm the revelation that this planet has a pretty short day cycle.
The journey had been painfully awkward. Tango and Jimmy spent most of it talking between themselves, sometimes hushed, which Grian pretended not to notice. He’d closed off slightly despite Scar trying to start a conversation with him several times. It was a stark contrast to how they were in the morning. Scar missed their smallest interactions deeply.
At one point Tango had instructed Scar not to walk so close to Grian, mumbling that he could take his weapon back so easily with how close they were walking. Scar tried to argue, but Grian complied, closing himself off even more as he walked ahead of them.
They’re now settling in for sleep, taking turns in pairs, Tango not trusting Grian to be lookout alone.
Tango and Jimmy lay backed up into the shelter of an overhang, while Scar and Grian sit at the entrance, a considerable distance away.
“Wow- it got dark quicker. Darker than yesterday even,” Scar hums. The sky’s a deep, dark blue rather than the red of last night. Scar shivers, it’s also considerably colder.
“Yeah,” Grian murmurs.
“I bet this is really comforting for you, gloomy dim light,” Scar leans back looking towards where he assumes Grian is sitting, it’s pretty hard to tell.
“Yeah.”
Scar turns back and frowns to himself. It seems Grian is still acting distant, even with Tango and Jimmy snoring peacefully behind them.
“Hmm … wish I could see in the dark though, can't find-”
With far too much force Scar reaches forward, ramming his wrist into a rock wall. He winces.
“Ow…”
“Are you okay?” Grian asks from his side, genuine concern lacing his voice.
“Yeah… just, there's a wall there.”
Scar continues to blindly stumble in the dark, searching for his jacket. Suddenly there’s a warm glow, illuminating his surroundings. Scar's mind is slow to process as small flickers of light drift into his peripheral vision, like some combination of fire embers and little lightning bugs.
He jumps backwards, his knee slipping out from under him. “Oh oh oh– what is that!?”
He looks around in shock at the small fiery creatures, before his eyes make contact with Grian who looks completely unconcerned about them. Scar then realises the glare is actually slightly amused at Scars' fright.
“Oh, are you doing that?”
“Yeah… lights to see what you're doing,” Grian mutters somewhat shyly, looking at the space between them. Scar sits back down, reaching for his jacket now that the dim glow has lit up the area.
“Oh! Thanks!” He puts the jacket on, grumbling about the discovery that it isn’t as comfortable inside out. But at least it still keeps the cold at bay so he isn’t about to complain too much.
He watches the tiny lights float in the air. They spin and twirl into themselves, dancing around one another. Scar slowly recognizes the shapes of tiny phantoms, just like the ones from yesterday but smaller and made out of sunlight.
“… Aren't these technically illusion magic?” Scar thinks, not even realising he’s saying it out loud.
He looks to Grian when he hears a shuddered breath, “…oh I guess so,” Grian wraps his arms around his knees, pressing his face into them with a soulful expression.
Unlike the tired apathy he has been carrying, this look is pained and hurt, the little illusions dimming as if in response.
Scar holds his hand out catching one between his fingers. It flutters and whirls in his palm, never quite touching his skin. Scar can swear he can feel its warmth, even though he knows he’s most likely imagining it.
“Well …I like them. They're very cute,” Scar smiles, looking at Grian as he holds one of the tiny beasts in between his hands.
Grian looks up at him, half his face obscured, and that sad look still in his eyes.
“You’re very talented,” Scar pokes at the illusion in his hand, feeling nothing as his finger phases through it. The illusion still dancing and spinning as if it was affected by the force.
“…Thanks,” Grian responds, muffled. A small smile creeps into his features at Scar's compliment.
They fall back into a still quiet state. Scar pushes the illusion back into the air with the others, leaning against the wall as he watches them dance.
“A game huh? I wonder why I'm here…” He muses. Not really expecting an answer from the glare, more filling the air.
“Tango said that we all must have wronged an Ender in our past… But I don't think I have- aside from being a Vindicator… I wonder…” He mulls over ideas in his mind, but there honestly isn't much he can think of. He's never been that involved in the field, and he barely even knows if he'd recognize an Ender if he saw one.
Naturally, Scar's gaze drifts to his company. Grian seems to be as deep in thought as him, his brows deep and ears pinned back, upset.
“Are you… okay?” Scar asks.
Grian looks up at him, his eyes following each line on Scar's face before responding. “Have you decided if I'm a good guy or bad guy yet?”
Scar tilts his head, that’s a very particular kind of question. He leans his head back, taking in the sandy walls striped with different warm shades of colour.
“I don't…” he sighs. “I think I'm starting to realise it's a lot more complex than I thought it all was.”
“Yeah,” Grian mumbles.
“What do you think you are?”
That oh-so-familiar quiet rears its head again. Scar starts to think he isn't going to answer him until, finally, he’s proven wrong.
“… I don't think I'm either, I don't think there really are good guys and bad guys, at least that it's not so black and white most of the time.”
Scar tilts his head down to look at Grian. The bird has now wrapped his tail around his feet, he's almost perfectly wound, aside from his wings that lay out behind him, tired. He's not looking at Scar, but instead at his own illusions that continue to float in the space between them.
Scar looks at them as well. “… I think you're good.”
Grian shifts uncomfortably, raising his head high enough that Scar can see the pained grin he wears.
“Haha god–” he pulls one arm out from being wrapped around his leg and pushes it hard into one side of his face. “You really need to pick better alliances, you really don't know me…”
Scar tilts his head from side to side.
“Well then tell me… do you think you're bad?” He asks simply.
Grian doesn't answer straight away. Instead, he digs his nails slightly into his scalp and looks to his side, very quietly hissing in a breath.
“… I’m trying to be a better person than I was,” he says, almost below a whisper.
“Well, that's something! Bad people don't tend to want to change,” Scar smiles reassuringly. Catching Grian’s eyes and putting on the most friendly expression he can muster.
Grian doesn't seem to buy it though, he pushes his head back into his knees. This time leaning his face away from Scar.
They both sit there, not uttering another word for a few minutes. Scar looks again at the illusions. He wonders what it was like to summon them, and then to keep concentrating on them. Grian doesn't even seem to be paying them much mind, his head buried in his metal limbs. Yet they still dance softly in the air. Maybe it was a soothing thing to conjure and maintain. Grian's feathers certainly imply he's a lot less stressed compared to how they’ve been most of the day.
Scar watches as Grian taps his long taloned fingers against his arm in boredom, the sound resonating in their small space. Metal against metal. Scar stares absently at them, Grian’s head is turned away, so he doesn't feel so bad about picking up on the smaller details he can see now he's this close.
They look slightly scratched, the deep black of the metal is scuffed in places, turning a dark grey. Up this close Scar notices how the robotics look, unfinished. Like they’re just a frame, the mechanisms, and wires open to the world, no protective shell. He can see some of the wires have tape around them, stuck haphazardly to the inside as if they had been snagged and pushed in deeper to avoid being torn again. It strikes Scar as odd. They look incomplete, yet when Grian taps his fingers they move with the fluidity of an organic limb, the small mechanisms barely even make a sound.
“Is it true what he said about enchanted robotics?” Scar asks spontaneously.
Grian lifts his head, that cold look returning once again. He pulls his arms from being wrapped around his legs into his lap, still curled up in his position.
“So, you do think I'm an Ender,” he says plainly.
“Well– I mean– You're not doing much to refute being one,” Scar tries, chuckling under his breath.
“I'm not an Ender,” Grian responds coldly, the least bit amused.
Moving uncomfortably, Scar breaths in, dropping his smile for a genuine look. “And I choose to believe you.”
Grian looks unconvinced. “But you still think I am,” he says slowly.
“… I don't think anything.” Scar argues, interrupted by a surprising chuckle.
“Well, I knew that much already.”
“I– hey!”
Grian giggles to himself, it lays bittersweet on his face when he falls off into silence.
Scar finishes what he’d been saying. “I don't like to assume things.”
With that Grian looks at Scar, really looks at him. The deep dark pools of his eyes squint and scrutinise him. Scar thinks the reflections of the illusions in his eyes look like stars.
“You liked to assume I'm a good person.”
“That's different, I have evidence,” Scar responds cheerfully.
“And what Tango stated wasn't?” He squeaks, baffled, unwinding from his ball more to throw his arms out.
“It didn't feel fair.”
“Fair–” Grian parrots back in disbelief, almost sneering to himself.
“Besides, I feel like it might be hypocritical of me to be upset that you're hiding who you are.”
Grian folds his arms back over himself looking away. “But that's different, I know what you're hiding– I was the one to even suggest it–” He says bitterly.
“Well– maybe I also have my own secrets,” Scar winks.
With a slightly more light in his voice, Grian leans his chin on his knees. “I doubt that– you like talking too much.”
Scar laughs at that, then sits forward holding a finger up as the little illusions swim around him. “You truly underestimate the power of talking, my friend. You can know anything and be given anything by talking, whereas violence enlists the opposite. It cuts you off from ever knowing more. People love talking, and I love secrets. It's an art, really.”
“Why did you become a Vindicator then? If anything they're very for violence and anti-information,” Grian mumbles, looking up at him with a raised brow.
Scar winks again, but this time taps his nose, “For secrets,” he says simply.
Grian rolls his eyes and laughs. “Ah,” He smiles, slipping slightly at the edges. He taps at his arm again. “You sort of concern me,” he huffs. “I don't get you.”
“Well I mean secrets—” Scar starts.
Grian cuts him off, waving a hand. “No no, that's not what I'm talking about…” He rests his hand back down onto his knee looking straight at Scar. “You have this inexplicable blind faith in me and I don't understand why,” his nose scrunches up. “Now, either you're really dumb or …”
Scar splutters trying to defend himself, but Grian continues, closing his eyes.
“I don't know…” He titters.
“I'm just very curious.”
“… about me?”
“Yeah! If you're not going to tell me who you are, then I guess I'll have to get to know you,” Scar grins.
“Usually when people are investigating someone, they don't straight up tell them to their face,” Grian bobs his head smirking.
“And I'm not investigating you,” Scar argues, “it's called companionship— becoming friends. You do have those don't you?” Scar tilts his head.
Grian grins up at him. “Well, you see—” Leaning forward, beckons Scar to follow his movement, before pulling back suddenly.
“That! Was obviously an investigation,” he laughs unfooled.
“Worth a try,” Scar shrugs, also leaning back.
They both become quiet. A cool breeze blows at the feathers on Grian's tail. The little light illusions move through the air slowly, unbothered by the physical realm. Grian holds his hands out, as they all drift over to him, curling up neatly in his hands.
He looks at Scar who’s watching, intrigued, and flashes his teeth in a smile, before closing his hands together, extinguishing the light. Only slight shimmers make it out past his fingers, as Scar watches him push his palms hard against each other still looking at him.
He opens his hands to reveal one creature, slightly bigger than the ones from earlier curled up in his hands. Its form is slightly more detailed, its warm light shimmering with blues and pink at the tips. It bares its tiny teeth as if yawning, and stretches out from its sleepy curl. Grian pushes it up into the air, the small creature imitating catching air in its wings and drifting off into the space in front of them.
“I uh—” Grian interrupts nervously, pulling Scars' gaze away from the illusion. “Thank you! For sticking up for me back there.” He holds a small smile, pained at the edges.
“I honestly wouldn't have held it against you if you took their offer and ran… but—” He coughs and shakes his head. “I guess what I'm saying is it was nice, very foolish… we literally have so many lies to navigate now, it’s a walking nightmare… but it was very kind of you.”
Scar beams, almost wiggling in excitement. “Hey! We're a package deal now!”
The bird rolls his eyes but keeps his smile. “Ugh.”
He pulls his legs out in front of him, his wings lifting off the dusty floor. He shakes them off from the dust before folding them behind his back neatly. He gives Scar a tired look.
Scar shuffles forward waving his hands out, not done with the conversation just yet.
“Seriously! I like you!” Grian flicks him a nervous look, making a confused noise that almost sounds like a chirp. Scar itches his head and elaborates. “I'm glad we've gotten to meet each other again. Under different circumstances.”
Grian's wide grin falters. His eyes drift to the left side of Scar's face, darting away and looking at the ground instead.
“And let’s hope we leave this one better then, aye?” His hesitant grimaces switch to a small but genuine smile.
“I owe at least that to you,” he adds.
Scar nods.
It never occurred to him that they’ll have to part ways at some point, for some reason that thought never crossed his mind, and it makes him sad. He’s a Vindicator and Grian was, probably still is, a criminal. It would be hard to meet up with someone actively imprisoned, and that’s even if Grian cares enough to risk that. Considering he said the words leave, he must have assumed they'll likely never meet again.
It makes Scar feel a little sour, he was having the most fun time here, even with the lingering death and tense energy directed at his new friend. He'd had more fun being kidnapped and disregarded on some random planet than he ever had on a shift.
Scar watches the illusion spin, he doesn't need to dwell on it too much, this adventure is starting to appear long and treacherous, he should just enjoy what he has left of it and Grian’s company.
Scar puts light into his voice, eyes still set on the glowing creature.
“Now shall we discuss at length about our sand trader backstory?”
Grian snorts.
He looks at him to watch Grian fake an obvious yawn. “Wow! I'm suddenly very tired.”
Scar smiles more genuinely this time.
“I’ll be called ‘Scorn’ and you'll be my faithful lackey ‘Giran’”
“They already know our names why-” Grian wheezes, before holding his palms up. ”You know what- nah, actually I'm asleep right now- and actively not engaging” He lays down closing his eyes.
“Best friends,” Scar continues. “Found abandoned as children together in a sandbox, oh that could be where the trading started!”
Grian rolls over away from Scar, pulling his wings pointedly over his head.
“I'M SLEEPING! Can't hear you over how loudly I'm sleeping right now-” he says slightly muffled, starting to laugh. Before he chuckles loudly to himself.
He suddenly sits up quickly and holds his hands tight over his mouth, Scar noticing the noise of someone grumbling tiredly.
He sees a shadow of Tango toss in his sleep before settling again.
Scar and Grian both exchange a look, Grian trying his hardest to hold onto a laugh before he coughs one into his hands, hushing him. Scar joins in wheezing.
They both sit, in a warm glow, laughing quietly between themselves as the night continues.
Etho is relieved to finally have a moment of peace from that incessant beeping. It’s been driving him insane from the moment he woke up, surrounded by heaps of twisted and mangled space debris. Impact crates sat all around him, filled in and covered with the – barely recognisable – remains of old battleships. With some smug satisfaction, he’d spotted what was left of countless Vindicator insignias. They were marked on their dented hulls and scattered supply crates, their paint scraped away over time. The beeping had been increasing steadily, as Etho traipsed across the sand-swept wreckage, reverberating around his head in a way that made him worried that he’d suddenly developed a strange form of tinnitus… not that he hadn’t already been developing it for years thanks to his constant exposure to loud machinery. But now – as he approaches the rusting wreckage of a massive spaceship that rests, standing like a beacon, nestled atop a mound of its mangled brethren, its form surprisingly intact save for the side of its hull, the once sturdy metal gored open – the silence is deafening. After having grown accustomed to the constant beeps, the absence of noise is almost overwhelming.
Etho hoists himself up and over the mangled opening in the ship, grateful that his gloves prove to be enough protection against the likely scalding metal. He breathes a sigh of relief as his heavy boots thud onto the dusty metal flooring inside the wreckage. The cooler air hitting him immediately. The insulated walls and dim metal halls of the ship create a welcome reprieve after the blazing heat of the desert outside. Etho is not dressed for this sun, since the dark fabric and fluffy interior of his jacket are more suitable for the chill of space. Maybe if he’d known that he’d find himself waking up in a strange desert, he’d have actually dressed for the occasion. He pulls his hood down, shaking the sand from his clothes, finally protected from the wind as it peppers the landscape outside with sand.
Etho stretches, his long limbs cracking. With a sigh, he looks around the room he climbed into. It looks like some kind of barrack. Uncomfortable uniform beds line the walls and old, musty bedding lays strewn about the room. He grimaces. Those blankets look scratchy as hell. Despite his initial disgust, Etho would probably be tempted to pick one of the beds and not get up for days if they weren’t also covered in sand that had blown in through the fissures in the ship's wall caused by its crash landing, years ago. He assumes it was years ago, at least, considering the rust and the sand that has made itself home in every possible corner.
He walks out into the corridor, brightened by long strips of broken lights stretching down the hall in either direction. Tangled and fraying wiring hangs down from the ceiling, the panelling that was meant to hide them likely thrown and forgotten somewhere during the ship's rough descent. A ship like this should have plenty of rooms that could prove far more useful than a dusty dorm room. If he’s lucky it may even have a stocked storage room. The ship's crew certainly wouldn’t have run out of rations before their unexpected demise.
Etho turns right, padding down the hallway, periodically peering through the occasional unlocked door as he passes by, each one leading into increasingly dark and dingy rooms.The corridor leads him deeper into the belly of the ship, further away from the blazing sun’s reach. The interiors sit dusty, undisturbed and utterly useless. Not a single one appears to contain anything of use to Etho unless he wants to try and sleep on some of the sandiest beds he’s ever seen. He just woke up not even an hour ago, sleeping right now might be a bit overkill… and not all that useful. He needs supplies, food, anything. A weapon of some sort would be nice too, he doesn’t trust this dump to be as empty and dead as it looks on the surface. A planet with breathable air like this would surely have some inhabitants, no matter how harsh the living conditions. Hell, a blaze would probably thrive in this heat. Their dense fur and high body temperature would protect them from the worst the desert has to offer.
The thumps of heavy boots against the grated metal echo down the corridor. Etho’s careful steps do little to lessen the noise as the rusted hull groans in response to his presence. His tail drags behind him, through the sand and dust that litters the hall, pale white scales and grey-tinged fur drawing lines on the ground as he roams the winding halls.
He comes up to a split in the path… or well, it’s not much of a split. The corridor that should veer off to the right comes to a quick end, its flooring having collapsed in on itself, broken pipes and tangled wires hanging down from the ceiling. The floor is caved in on itself, twisted metal sloping down into the pitch-black pit that is the lower floors. Etho cringes at the creaking sound of metal that echos out of the hole. He doesn’t want to think about the strain the weight of the crashed vessel is causing on its fractured hull. The last thing he wants is to be trapped in this hunk of junk if its supports give way.
Deciding he’d rather not risk catching himself on the jagged metal… or falling void-knows how far down the dark pit. Etho, instead, turns left and ventures down the more intact corridor. At least there’s far less sand this way. Although Etho suspects the damage has already been done, he’ll be finding those persistent grains for months. Years, even. The lights above flicker sporadically – or at least the few that managed to survive the years in one piece – combating the increasing darkness with their cold, dim fluorescence.
Etho pauses, reaching up to flick one of the long bulbs as it fades out, causing it to sputter back to life for just a moment before dying out once again. Etho realises with a start that the ship must still have a functioning power source somewhere, Etho realises. It might not have much life left in it if these half-dead lights are anything to go off, but it’s better than nothing. This ship might still have some useful parts lying around. Etho could try fashioning… something from the scraps. Something that could help him get off this dead planet, or at least send some kind of distress signal, with the hopes that someone, anyone is close enough to hear it.
He’ll take anything that might prove useful while he figures out where he is. It’s better than his current lack of possessions. He’d had nothing on him when he woke up, which, concerningly, was not how he’d been before. Etho never left home without at least a knife or two, preferably a gun too. He’s not stupid. The last thing he wants is to be cornered by some Vindicator grunt without any means of defending himself. He’d never hear the end of it.
But, for now, it’ll probably just be nice to have shelter with some shoddy lights. While sleeping under the stars doesn’t sound too unpleasant, sleeping on trash in a sandstorm definitely does.
Etho picks up his pace. He can at least assess the damage to the ship's redstone if he can find the engine room. Until he knows what supplies he’s working with he can’t properly plan his next move. The thought makes him shudder. Being stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no clue where he is, no memory of how he got here, and no plan sounds like, quite possibly, the worst combination. Hell, graveyard planets aren’t typically in inhabited solar systems…if he’s really that far from civilisation, he’s fucked. The sooner he can figure out a plan of action the better.
Rounding a corner, the corridor quickly comes to an end. Standing in front of him is exactly what he had been hoping for. Another doorway the door itself, thankfully, resting mostly open. Albeit disconnected from the track that would usually enable its closure. Beyond its frame, flickering lights illuminate a room lined with control panels and overturned chairs. Lights pulse faintly behind dusty buttons and screens and wires stretch across the floor, twisting over and tangling with one another. He’s found the cockpit.
Etho grins behind his mask, the slight crinkle of his eyes the only sliver of emotion displayed for the lonely wreck. He cracks his knuckles before making his way over to the closest control panel.
He pauses for a moment, eyes narrowed in thought and hands hovering over the rusted controls. He never actually checked if he’s truly alone in this place. Glancing around the room again shows no more signs of life than his first inspection. He hadn’t noticed footprints at any point in his journey so far. Void knows there’s enough sand everywhere for them to show up. He’s well and truly alone.
Giving in to curiosity, he cracks open the console, prying off the loose screen, exposing the guts of the ship inside. Looking through the rusty parts, he investigates the state they’re in, hoping that any of the individual parts can prove useful. Who knows, maybe he can get the engine up and running and get out of here… it doesn’t look like it though. Holding up a particularly rusted part, Etho scowls, tossing it onto the metal flooring behind him with a loud clang. He continues to rummage through the mechanisms of the ship, anything unusable – which proves to be most of it – getting tossed, carelessly to the side with a loud clunk.
“...Oh, what the heck?”
Etho jolts at the voice behind him. Dropping the rusted redstone comparator he had been holding, in surprise. Spinning on his heels, Etho’s eyes land on a figure standing in the doorway, their face scrunched up in a frustrated scowl. They look like some sort of glare-blaze hybrid, judging by the green feathers scattering the right side of their face and the brown markings that tint their brow and the tips of their ears. The tips of their fingers are coated in that same brown, the point where the markings merge back into their paler skin tone hidden behind a pair of padded fingerless gloves. Etho notes, however, the figure's distinct lack of a tail, his own flicking to the side subconsciously. They’re dressed in a cuffed t-shirt and baggy, padded trousers. A singular grey knee pad is strapped to their right leg, though how much that would help them if they fell onto their other knee Etho is not sure. Their deep, dark eyes lock onto Etho. Huge, pure-black pupils boaring into him.
“Uhhh-” Etho stares, dumbstruck at his unexpected visitor. He'd been so sure that he was alone here. The metal dunes outside had betrayed no signs of life. All the ships look like they’d crashed into the planet, their hulls cracked and bent from the impact. It’s unlikely that any of their passengers survived.
“Who the hell are you?” The glare furrows his brow further, pointing an accusatory finger towards Etho. “What are you doing to my ship?”
“...Your ship?”
The stranger scoffs, seemingly offended at the insinuation that this mangled spaceship isn’t clearly his. “Yes, my ship! I found it first!”
Etho rolls his eyes at the childish nature of the argument, there’s no way of knowing who had actually seen it first. It's not exactly hard to spot. The massive ship stands like a beacon atop the mounds of twisted metal, it could probably be seen for miles across the ship graveyard.
“I saw it the second I woke up here,” Etho counters, throwing out a bit more information than he’d usually feel comfortable with, testing the glare's response. They don’t react.
Their brows remain just as furrowed, eyes just as piercing. A couple of seconds pass before their mouth contorts into an annoyed snarl. A small scar cuts across their lip, a gap in their teeth replacing the fang that should rest just behind it… Huh.
Etho runs a hand down his mask. He hadn’t realised that the stranger isn’t wearing one, nor a helmet. The air here must be safe to breathe. He decides against removing it for now, though. Maybe they just hadn’t dropped dead yet.
“Yeah, me too! You’re not special!” The other replies, crossing his arms. Etho frowns, the two sides of his split jaw grinding together slightly, behind his mask, in thought. So they had woken up here too, he concludes. They’re probably just as in the dark as he is, lashing out due to the fear of being lost on some graveyard planet with no idea how they got here… Or maybe they’re just like this.
“...I’m the one in the cockpit though.”
“You’re tearing the cockpit apart!” The stranger complains, striding over to a broken comparator, one of the many engine components Etho had scattered across the cockpit floor. They pick it up and twirl it in their hand, glowering at the state of it. Rust rubbing off the metal, staining their fingertips a ruddy orange.
Their dark eyes turn back to Etho, scrutinising him with their gaze. A mischievous glint crosses their face. They give the engine piece one last spin in their hand, before tossing it right at Etho. Hitting him square in the shoulder, the rusted metal cracking as it clatters back onto the ground by Etho's feet. “Ow- Thanks…” he murmurs
“It’s not gonna fly anyway,” he adds, brushing away a spot of rust from where the metal had bounced off his padded jacket.
“I can make it work!”
“Can you?” Etho raises a brow, he’s sceptical anyone would be able to fix a ship in this much disrepair, especially not this guy. They look like they’re more likely to blow up a ship than they are to fix one. The only thing this wreck is good for is shelter and spare parts.
“YES!” the stranger argues, their face contorted into an offended scoff. “GET OUT! FIND YOUR OWN SHIP!”
Etho stands up from where he knelt, hunched over the control panel. He wipes his hands on his trousers, leaving a smear of oil and rust behind on the green fabric. "…Fine, ‘s nothin’ useful here anyway. It’s a rusty mess.”
That only seems to rile the glare up further. Their green feathers bristle, standing on end, and a slight puff of smoke spills from their mouth as they huff angrily.
“IT’S NOT A RUSTY MESS! IT’S MY SHIP!”
Etho, paying their outburst no mind, strides over to where the glare still stands, blocking the doorway with their broad frame. Etho tilts his head, as he looks them up and down, sizing up the shorter, angrier man. They just glare back up at him in response. He snorts.
“Mhm, sure,” Etho finally responds, a sarcastic drawl to his voice. He pushes past them, knocking the stranger out of the way with his shoulder. They stumble to the side, letting out an offended squawk as Etho heads back down the dark corridor of the ship. He smirks at their reaction. Void that guy is full of themself.
If they want this ship so bad they can have it, it's not worth fighting over.
Maybe if he’s quick, Etho can find another, mostly, intact ship to seek shelter in before the sun sets. Preferably one where he won’t have to share with some obnoxious blaze-glare hybrid.
The gash in the ship wall he had climbed through proves easy to find again, thanks to the way it tears through room after room. He picks a door and makes his way through what looks like the remains of a small botany nursery. The plants that had once grown here would’ve helped to generate for the ship's crew back when it was still being maintained, but now it sits in disrepair. Its foliage withered and dry from neglect, the glass of their terrariums shattered and scattered across the ground. The only sign of life this room has to offer now comes in the form of a tiny, sandy rat, no bigger than Etho’s palm, sitting in a dusty plant pot. Though, it seems mostly unbothered by the enderian's sudden appearance, the shrivelled stick of a plant that it's digging its teeth into is clearly more important. Beady eyes follow as he picks his way through the overturned interior, careful to avoid the sharp shards of glass, even if it’s unlikely it would be able to puncture his boot's thick soles.
He doesn’t even need to climb over the jagged metal this time, the whole exterior wall is ripped out from top to bottom. The gnarled, torn edges of the floor and remaining walls the only evidence such a wall ever existed in the first place. Instead, he lowers himself and jumps down, landing with a clatter on the scrap metal ground outside.
The sun still beats down on the metal mounds surrounding him, the old wrecks sizzling from the heat. The topography shifts and ripples behind the torrid air. Etho blinks and holds his hand up to shelter his eyes as the metallic landscape reflects the bright light at him from every direction. He had not missed this, the ship had been stuffy, but it was at least sheltered from the worst of the heat. Etho had better find another shelter soon, he decides. Especially as the sun has now dipped far lower in the sky than it was before. He’d rather not be wandering the wasteland at night, at least not until he can assess how safe this planet really is.
Etho readjusts his mask – breathing in dust cloud after dust cloud probably won’t be great for his lungs – before beginning his descent down the mound. His pace is slow and careful as the scrap below his feet shifts and dislodges from its capricious position. Each step sends small waves of metal debris scattering down the hill ahead of him. It’s not the quietest of descents, but Etho can’t bring it in himself to care. Not when he’s already met and fallen out with, who is likely, the only person for miles.
He takes a deep breath before continuing.
The whistle of wind rushing through the trash peaks almost disguises a building ringing in his ears, the constant note mostly fading out into the background when he pays it no heed. Shaking his head, Etho groans. He almost misses the beeping.
He really should look into what had caused that… as soon as he finds himself somewhere safe to settle for the night. It’s far too risky to stay out in the open with the sun rapidly sinking in the sky. Not while he doesn’t know what kinds of wildlife might call this place home, and going back to the security of that ship is clearly a no-go.
The hairs on the back of his on the back of his neck stand up as a staticky sensation dances across his skin. Etho furrows his brow. That’s just another reason to find shelter. The last thing he wants is to get caught out in a thunderstorm. But, as he glances at the vast, cloudless sky, it holds no sign of a coming storm
Etho reaches the bottom of the metal mound, luckily only almost losing his footing once or twice. The moment his boot meets the sandy ground the ringing solidifies into something real, something vicious and sharp. He stumbles. It feels like hands are reaching into the deepest parts of his soul and wrapping their hands around his heart.
With another step electricity surges through his body. Etho buckles over, every nerve set alight in white-hot pain. A hook is driven through his heart. Etho bites his tongue. The hands pull.
His vision turns white.
Then red.
Etho keels over. His mind struggles for coherency as he clutches his chest.
He rips his mask off, struggling for breath as a haze settles over the world. Thick and suffocating. Shrouding the landscape around him until all he can see is his own shaking hands and the shipwreck, looming above him, mockingly.
A desperate resolve washes over him.
He needs to get back. It hurts to breathe and he needs to get back.
The ship is safe. It’s walls and shelter and shade and it’s safe. And there is absolutely room for two. Despite that glare’s adamant claims.
They don't need all that space.
Etho found it too.
They can share.
It’s massive.
He can easily stay there without even running into them once.
And it hurts.
And it hurts.
And he can't think.
And the world is spinning.
And he's clambering back over the gnarled ship wall. His clothes snagging on the jagged edge. The thud of his knees, connecting hard with the floor, echoing through his bones.
Relief washes over him. The strain on his heart easing slowly as he staggers back into the welcoming shade. With a huff, he slumps down in the ship's corridor as colours aside from the ruddy hue bleed back into the world.
Etho’s not sure how long he sits there, on the hard floor of the ship corridor, gathering his breath. The cool metal of the ship wall presses against his back, grounding him as his head slowly stops spinning.
But he’s not alone as he gathers his thoughts. Movement catches his eye as, across the hall, that small rat scurries into view, its dried-up twig abandoned. Beady eyes meet his own, unblinking as Etho stills, not wanting to scare the critter away. It’s nice to have some company that won’t attack him for daring to breathe the same air… hopefully.
Its pale, sandy fur stands out in stark contrast against the dark, grey colouration of the ship. He’s caught similar vermin hiding in the dark corners of his own ship before, but they had looked different. Their ears had been shorter and stubbier, their fur dull and grey to match their surroundings. Etho’s not exactly an expert on alien fauna, but if this planet is as uninhabited as it looks then the small rodent might actually be undiscovered. He watches as it slowly relaxes and begins to clean its long whiskers with its paws. It’s kind of cute. Maybe if he captures it and makes it off this forsaken planet he’ll be able to name the species. He’ll probably name it something scary. Like taxes.
Not that aiding scientific exploration should be his priority right now. He’s more likely to cook up and eat the rodent if he actually catches it. Food will probably be scarce in this desert junkyard, and Etho is awfully fond of not starving to death… besides, he’s probably eaten worse.
“You coulda leant a hand y’know.” Great, now he’s talking to a weird rat.
He drops his head back against the wall, inhaling sharply as the impact sends a jolt of pain reverberating around his, already aching, skull. Closing his eyes, he digs the palms of his hands into them. Today is going great so far. At least the beeping still hasn’t come back, hopefully, it’s gone for good now. Etho doesn’t want to imagine trying to think with both the beeping and fuzzy disorientation from whatever the hell that was, overwhelming his brain.
The only sound is the wind outside as it whistles through the cracks marring the ship's hull. It blows roughly through the rooms that are unlucky enough to share that exterior wall, creating a dull, rhythmic thrum, slowly getting louder as it echoes through the halls and – oh, that’s footsteps, Etho realises. Great.
The glare rounds the corner, dark eyes immediately landing on Etho. A scowl crosses their face. They’re clearly just as pleased to see Etho as he is to see them. Taxes scampers off, diving through a grate in the wall, at the sight of the other figure. Etho’s never wished he could follow a rodent quite as much as he does now.
“I thought you were leaving.” They plant their hands on their hips, eyes narrowing as they scowl down at Etho.
“Mm, I tried. Didn’t go so well.” Etho frowns, tearing his eyes away from the hole the rodent had vanished into.
He takes in the glare’s appearance. They look scruffier than before. Their hair is unkempt – well, more unkempt – it falls over their face in messy strands, green and brown mixing together in a muddy tangle. The green feathers scattered across their face are puffed up and dishevelled and their breathing is heavy. What had they been doing after Etho left?
“Huh? What do you mean you ‘tried’?” They ask, making quotation marks with their fingers to emphasise their point. An incredulous tone laces their voice. “Just walk away and find your own ship. It’s not hard!”
Just to complete their point, the glare strides forward in a mock impersonation of Etho’s own pace, coming to a stop in front of the enderian. They scowl down at him, not even trying to hide their distaste. If anything they’re exaggerating it. They place their hands on their hips in, what looks to be, an authoritative manner.
Etho rolls his eyes. It’s nice to know he’s stuck in this place with someone mature. “You try if you think it’s so easy.”
A childish part of Etho, that he’s not so proud of, hopes that the same thing will happen to the glare if they leave the ship. But then again, if that… sensation was indeed a product of trying to leave the wreck, instead of just a freak incident, that might mean he’s stuck with this guy. A thought that fills Etho with dread… It would be worth it to get back at them for taunting him, though.
“To… walk out the door?” They narrow their eyes, trying to figure out just what Etho’s playing at. Ethos face betrays no ulterior motives, though. Even with his mask discarded on the ground, his expressions exposed.
Etho nods. “Mhm. Bet you can’t do it.”
“Bet I can!”
That was easy… they’re way too eager to be right.
Etho pauses to think. If the beeping stopped when he reached this ship then this is clearly where it had been leading him. Etho wouldn’t be surprised if someone had put a chip of some sort in him before abandoning him in this wasteland… it wouldn’t actually be the first time. That could explain the beeping. It might even be the reason for what he just felt too. If that is the case, the glare is probably here for the same reason. Etho’s willing to bet they’ll feel the exact same thing. He’s also willing to bet that they wouldn’t believe him if he tried to tell them.
“How about this? You get the ship to yourself if you can get, mmm, 10 yards from it- the bottom of the mound. If you can’t,” He looks the glare directly in the eye, the inky voids returning an increasingly confused stare. ”It’s mine to scavenge for parts.”
They narrow their eyes, trying to parse Ethos logic. That’s not exactly a hard ask. “You’ll… leave me and this ship alone if I… walk… down a hill.”
“Mhm,” he nods.
The glare pauses. The last thing they want is their ‘beautiful’ ship torn to pieces for parts. What’s the point in finding shelter if you don’t pick the grandest option there is, damn it. This wager is objectively the stupidest thing they’ve ever heard, there’s no feasible way to actually lose it. They smirk.
“Your loss. Easiest bet I’ve ever made! Watch and learn!”
The glare turns on his heels, marching out of the hall with purpose. The sound of their footsteps echoing, loudly down the halls of the ship.
Etho relaxes slightly as the glare disappears from view. He leans back against the wall, mind still buzzing. The cool metal grounding him in place.
He waits. Anticipation slowly building.
The faint sound of metal sliding and clattering from the glare’s heavy steps meets his ears. Etho chuckles. They’re clearly not the stealthy type.
Etho’s amusement quickly dies down as a familiar tightness settles in his chest. He grimaces and steadies himself as he braces for round two as the ringing takes hold and the world falls to red.
He really hopes this isn’t going to be a recurring condition.
A distant yelp echos through the ship – shrill and startled – as the glare concedes their bet.
Etho breathes in a sharp breath as his heart tugs on its bindings. Vindication bleeding into his mind, through the gaps of his thoughts and pain.
He should leave the ship. Meet the glare on their ascent back up the shrapnel hill.
They might need help.
No.
They’ll come to him.
Etho waits. His mind slowly returning to its usual state.
He hears them before he sees them, their angry grumbles and stomps telling Etho all he needs to know about how they’re feeling.
They storm back into the corridor. Stumbling slightly as they steady themselves with a hand on the wall.
Wild eyes lock onto Etho. A fire burns deep inside, shining brightly through their pupils like a feral animal reflecting light in the night.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”
Their face contorts in a furious expression, as even more smoke billows out of their mouth than earlier. Etho wonders how much he can get them to do that.
“Told you.” A smug expression crosses Etho’s face.
“TOLD M- WHA- HUH- WHAT THE HECK?” The glare splutters, more smoke spills out of their mouth with each rapid breath.
“Just walk away, it's not hard,” Etho taunts, doing a poor imitation of the other, smirking as their face scrunches up in annoyance.
“...I’m gonna kill you,” they spit, marching up to Etho, their fists balled stiffly at their sides,
Let's see if these two have murdered each other yet
CW: injury, blood, violence
Read below↓
Or AO3
"You're that bird person from the alleyway."
In front of Scar, the familiar stranger stands motionless and quiet, framed by the striated walls of the ravine. Despite having placed their weapon back in its sheath, they still look as if they’re on edge. Their body is tightly wound, their wings held out slightly, in a subtle effort to make their form larger, combating Scar's height. At their side, their taloned hands hang, fidgeting restlessly.
Scar shuffles awkwardly under his piercing gaze, growing more uncomfortable by the second. His reflection stares back at him from the deep, black voids of their eyes. At first, Scar had thought that they were utterly black, but, looking now, he can see the slight edge of brown circling his wide pupils, the bright sun casting an almost purple sheen across their surface. They’re quite pretty, he muses, as he waits for the other's response. He rocks on his heels, grimacing slightly at the deep ache setting into his legs and the soles of his feet.
Growing impatient at the silence, Scar reaches out, tempting fate by waving his hand in front of the bird's face. Nothing. The stranger continues to stare at Scar, unblinking. The only sign of recognition he can decipher is the slightest flicker of his feathers as they bristle at the proximity. Scar huffs, disappointed at his failure to evoke a reaction.
“Has anyone ever told you that you have big, creepy eyes?”
That manages to break him out of his stoic stare. He splutters awkwardly, gawking, an incredulous look crossing his face. He looks away, embarrassed.
“Ah hah! You looked away, I won the staring contest!” Scar grins triumphantly.
“I wasn't- what? I was just processing-” The stranger doesn’t return the disarming gesture, their mouth a thin line. Their arms clank softly against each other as he crosses them. Scar hadn’t gotten a good look at them before. He’d thought that they had just been wearing a long, black undershirt at first, but there’s no mistaking the dark metallic casing and wiring of the robotic prosthetics.
“Imagine the chances we’d ever meet again, huh?” Scar grins wildly, stepping forward with as open a demeanour as he can muster, pretending he’s meeting an old friend. He almost is, in a messed up way.
The stranger doesn’t return this warm gesture either. Instead, he frowns at Scar, a multitude of emotions unsuccessfully masked as they cross his face. His gaze flickers up to meet Scar’s eyes before something scared or sorrowful flashes in him, directing the strangers' eyes to their feet instead. Their expression now hides behind their tangled hair as it falls across his face. He searches for the right words, but they die on his tongue. Shaking his head, he resets his expression, carefully masking any unwanted emotion. Finally, he looks back at Scar with a soft yet concerned smile.
“I- I couldn't- I sorta thought I killed you that night.”
“Oh… OH! I'm like a ghost to you!” Scar raises his hands in a mock scary gesture, making a low ‘ooo’ sound to do his best imitation of one. It would put everyone else’s attempts to shame at the yearly Vindicators' spaceween party, he thinks smugly. He’s sure his attempts to lessen the tension between his evidently awkward company and himself is working. It always works… or it works sometimes at least… Actually, this might be the first time he’s been able to get this far.
Unamused, the stranger raises an eyebrow. “Well not so much anymore- you'd be a pretty bad ghost if I could’ve tackled you that easily.”
“Ah- that's no fair. You have wings… and I don’t have the ability to turn incorporeal, yet.”
“Mm-hm.” The stranger hums, shifting as they drag their taloned feet through the sand, etching grooves in the grainy surface. Scar pauses, racking his brain for a response, desperately not wanting to lose the traction on the conversation he had just gained. If he lets the stranger shut himself off now, he’ll have to do all the work to get him to open up again. Scar doesn’t want the only sounds in this empty desert to be himself and the whistle of wind through sandstone tunnels.
“My name is Scar, by the way.”
The stranger turns his attention back to Scar. Pausing, as if they’re expecting there to be more to that statement. They frown, not looking convinced.
“Is that a nickname, or just an unfortunate coincidence?” They ask, tentatively, like they’re trying to avoid saying something to offend Scar.
“Hah! Wouldn't you like to know!”
That, out of everything, gets a laugh. However, the stranger quickly tries to disguise it behind a fake cough, burying his face in his arm. Scar smirks, satisfied by the other's reaction, ignoring a twinge of pain from the knife wound in his shoulder.
They look back to Scar, a more playful expression creeping its way onto their face. “…Yes, that is the nature of a question.”
Their wings slowly lower back into a more natural position, the muscles relaxing— not muscles, his wings look robotic, too. They’re covered in feathers, but they’re held up and moved by a metal armature where the bone should be. For a second, Scar wonders how much of their body remains untouched by metalwork.
Regardless, Scar just beams at him, revelling in his ability to make them laugh. Happy with his ability to lessen their agitation, he makes no indication of wanting to answer the question.
The stranger chuckles awkwardly at the silence and shrugs.
“Heh… well, my name's Grian.”
“Oh! That name really suits you.”
“Thanks?”
Scar watches as they pick up their helmet off the ground, shaking it gently to knock out the sand. They clip the helmet to their belt and turn away from Scar, walking off in the direction Scar had been headed earlier.
“Where are you going?” He calls out at him.
“I- We-” Scar catches the way Grian corrects himself, hoping that means his new friend has decided not to try attacking him again, “-should get moving to somewhere with more cover. It's getting darker.”
“Wh- how could you even tell that? It feels like the whole sky is just the sun.”
To emphasise his point, Scar stands up straighter, turning his gaze to the sky to try and pinpoint the sun within the harsh light. After a moment, he shields his eyes from the glare with his hand. Another moment later, unsuccessful, Scar lowers his gaze. He blinks rapidly and rubs his eyes, trying to lose the blurry afterimage that stays behind and plagues his vision. Grian looks away from Scar, an unreadable, mostly uncomfortable expression on his face. He flexes his wings, shaking his feathers out, then strides away.
Scar realises he’s falling behind. He catches up hastily, coughing up an air of responsibility to match Grian’s. They are a ‘we’ after all.
Scar is honestly glad for Grian's company. He provides a familiar face, even if he is a familiar face he met only briefly… and a familiar face that promptly tried to kill him upon reuniting. At least Scar doesn’t feel like he has to pretend to be serious around him— Grian has that handled for the both of them. Although, Scar is certainly going to do his best to break through the birds' cold facade. “So, are we heading in any particular direction?”
Grian shakes his head, before realizing he should elaborate.
“I can fly up and scout out a direction later, but not now. Right now, I'd like to find a spot to rest.”
He stretches his wings out fully, the feathers bristling as the hinges make a soft rattling whine. Scar marvels at the impressive wingspan. He’s never seen wings quite this big before.
“You were flying a lot?” Scar watches them, intrigued. They don’t look like elytra, despite their metal parts, and Grian has far more control over them than even an experienced user. Elytra also don’t tend to come feathered like his— his look jarringly realistic. Maybe he’s an avian?
Scar’s never actually seen an avian before, though that’s not out of the ordinary. Most people haven’t. Could robotic enhancements be commonplace amongst them? Scar is somewhat familiar with enhancements, they’d even been offered to him once, but he’d declined, opting for the less invasive options. Mechanically enhancing what were once organic wings is the only option Scar can think of that matches Grian’s capabilities. That must be what he is, Scar concludes. Though, he pictured avians being taller.
“Yes,” Grian replies bluntly, his tone changing noticeably at the subject.
“Do you have an enderchest?” Scar inquires instead, searching for topics that aren’t sore spots.
Grian whips his head up to look at Scar, a bewildered expression spreading across his face.
“...What? No.”
“Dang it.” Scar sighs.
“Why would you want an enderchest?” He asks, growing curious after the initial surprise.
“I lost mine. It has some pretty important things in it that I need.” Scar hums, looking down at his scratched leg braces. They’re starting to creak under the strain of walking for so long. If Grian had one, he could use it to access his stuff. He really could do with his cane, or anything that can ease the stress on his braces. Grian follows Scar’s gaze, a particularly strained expression returning to his face. Scar frowns at how he almost looks guilty.
“I know you’re a Vindicator and everything,” Grian makes an effort to maintain the current topic and hide the distaste in his tone as he eyes Scar’s neat, albeit dusty, uniform. Scar isn’t surprised by Grian’s opinion on Vindicators. Grian was wanted by them when they had first met, but he at least has the decency to swap his tone out for a more apologetic one towards the end. “Enderchests aren't as common as you think. It might be a while till you can get to one.”
“...Really?”
“Yup.”
“Do you know where we are, then?” Scar quizzes, taking note of Grian's phrasing.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I don't know where we are, or how I got here. You're the first person I've seen.”
Grian looks away, pausing to calculate his answer. His hard-won casual demeanour bleeds back into his previous defensive apathy. “We're in the same boat, I have no idea.”
Scar watches him, sure that Grian is holding something back. There’s something he doesn’t want Scar to know. He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. Pressing him on it would probably just push the avian further away. The last thing Scar wants to do is push away the only person he’s seen for miles, especially when that person seems to know more than what they let on. He chooses to stay quiet. He’s anxious to avoid agitating the bird further. He still has a weapon, and Scar is rather fond of the idea of not finding himself on the other end of it again.
Silence falls over the two, the only sound coming from their steady footfalls meeting the sandy ground, and the whistle of wind through the caverns. Eventually, his worry about Grian shutting him out completely resurfaces, but he isn’t sure what to say.
“So… got a favourite animal?”
“You have an awful way of being chummy with your would-be murderer.” Grian titters.
“I wouldn't call you that.”
“Still.” he shrugs, unconvinced.
“I don't think you were trying to kill me. At least not the first time.”
Abruptly, Grian stills, his feathers bristling.
“And about today- I'm not dead, and you’re not in the process of killing me, see?” Scar carries on. Grian turns away sharply, but Scar is undeterred.
“You're a pretty unsuccessful murderer, if you are one. I've put myself in more danger on purpose than you’ve put me in on accident.” Scar barks out a laugh, but receives no response. Grian's face hides behind his cheek feathers and hair.
“You don't know me,” Grian replies flatly.
“But I'd like to.”
Scar tilts his head, stepping in front of the bird, trying to get a read on his face. They lock eyes only briefly. Grian’s eyes are wide, his brow furrowed, and his face contorted by a frown.
“Anddd- we have time-” Scar adds more gently, “You said you wanted to rest.”
“What if my kind of rest doesn't involve talking?” Grian retorts, tone still flat, but the slight lilt of amusement is unmistakable.
“Oh, well-”
Scar doesn’t get the chance to finish his thought. A shrill, distorted cry fills the sky above them.
Grian and Scar both turn on the spot, their heads snapping in the direction of the sound. Soaring above them is a colony of three familiar creatures. Bright green eyes lock onto them both.
“Are those-”
“Phantoms.” Grian finishes, his feathers standing on end, fluffing up reflexively.
“What are phantoms doing here?” Scar asks, searching Grian for any indication that he knows what’s going on, but the avian looks just as clueless. Phantoms shouldn’t be here. They are artificially manufactured creatures, used as surveillance drones and protection in big cities, or anywhere where the landowners are wealthy enough to afford them. Scar encountered many during his patrols in the capital of Vindicator territory. They definitely aren’t something you would find in the wilderness, let alone a desolate desert like this one. They don’t even count as wildlife, as they’re more robotic than organic. The last of the desert sun reflects off the metallic plating lining their backs as they twist and glide through the air. The bright lights of their eyes shine, harsh and cold, illuminating Scar and Grian with a green glow in the ever-darkening wasteland.
Grian grabs Scar's elbow and drags him towards the walls of the ravine.
“We need to hide!” He hisses. Scar, not arguing, follows him through the tighter passages of the caverns. Unfortunately, they don’t provide as much cover as they had hoped, the walls still far enough apart for the bat-like creatures to give chase. They dash into a covered tunnel, but they have already been spotted, the phantoms fly lower, circling.
As one of the creatures dives towards the entrance, Grian pushes Scar behind him and backs them both closer to the wall. Scar, taken aback by the sudden protectiveness, can only go along with it in a dumbfounded daze.
“Do you have a weapon on you?” Grian asks, quickly scanning him up and down.
Scar falters. “Uh- no.”
“What kind of Vindicator are you?” Grian raises his voice, pulling an expression somewhere between angry and amused.
“Hey! I didn't decide I wanted to be stranded without weapons- they've been taken.” Scar counters, a comically sad look on his face.
“What?” Genuine surprise plasters across Grian’s features. Another piercing shriek fills the air, interrupting him, as another phantom separates from the group and dives towards them.
Quickly, Grian turns back to face the danger. Spreading his wings out as far as they can go, he presses Scar into the sandy, stone wall. Scar splutters, feathers catching in his mouth. As delighted as he is that Grian is now deciding to protect him, Scar can’t help feeling defenceless as Grian takes their lives into his own hands.
“We are so screwed with one sword between us.” Scar complains hopelessly, pushing the feathers out of his face. The phantom barely misses them, metal slamming into soft rock with a clang, causing sand and debris to rain down over them. The creature flies back to regroup with the other two, hopefully with wounded pride. That is, assuming it’s even capable of feeling pride.
“It's also a gun,” Grian adds.
“It's also a gun!?!” Scar gasps, a plan formulating in his mind. “How!? Show me! A gun is way more useful!”
Utilising the advantage of being held so close to the avian, Scar reaches forward and grabs the sword out of its holster, unnoticed.
“No, that's a bad idea!” Grian cries as Scar ducks, slipping under Grian’s wing and sprinting ahead to the mouth of the cave.
As he raises the blue blade, Grian lets out a shrill yell. He lunges for Scar as the Vindicator inspects the weapon, prodding at the grooves for a button and thumping the hilt against his palm.
Scar clicks a button that looks like a trigger. The knife folds in on itself, clipping in place, and the blue blade shrinks as a portion of its energy is diverted to fill a small bar. That must signify the ammo, Scar hums to himself, pleased at this discovery.
"Don't shoot it!" Grian yells with surprising ferocity, but Scar can’t see an alternative. Grian reaches him, grabbing onto Scar’s injured shoulder. He bites down on his tongue, hard, to avoid flinching. Making use of his military training, he forces himself to push through the throbbing pain.
Grian quickly releases him, hissing in pain himself. Scar doesn’t take the time to find out what hurt the avian, instead scanning the phantoms as they twist in the air, preparing to dive again, excited that their prey has moved into the open. He aims, and fires.
The shot makes contact with a phantom just as it dives towards them, long metal claws spread wide and teeth bared as it shrieks. The bullet burrows into the soft, fleshy material on its lower jaw, embedding itself deep in the phantom's head. The creature's cry dies in its throat, its eyes flickering out. It tumbles to the ground, kicking up dust in front of Grian and Scar. Smoke billows out of the mouth of the creature, the bullet wound smouldering.
Scar hears a quiet “woah” from behind him.
“Ahah! Did you see that??” Scan grins, amazed that he actually hit it on his first try. Scar spins on the spot to face Grian, who blinks at him, mouth agape. Scar twirls the gun in his hand, the remaining blade shrinking as more power is diverted to refill the used ammo.
Grian huffs, regaining his composure, and scowls. “Well, I was looking straight at it, so yeah- and give me that!” He snatches his weapon back from Scar with a grunt.
The other two phantoms dive into the ravine. They move faster and more daringly, learning from the mistake of their fallen friend.
“Oh … oh no.” Scar whispers.
Grian unfolds the weapon, its blade noticeably smaller than its original size, and places it back into its holster. “See, I told you the gun is a bad idea! Ask before you waste someone's bullets!”
This time he makes a point of keeping his hand on its hilt, both to prevent Scar from trying to take it again, and to be ready to fend off the approaching phantoms if they get too close.
“There's only two now- I could just hit them again!” Scar argues, casting a panicked glance at the approaching creatures.
“That was pure luck- without bullets, I don’t have a blade, and without a blade, I'm without a weapon!” A dark tone infects Grian's words as he glares at Scar, who sighs defeatedly.
“Well, what else can we use? There's no other projectiles.” The phantoms scratch at the exit, waiting for either of them to get too close.
“I don't know, be creative with it!” Grian huffs hopelessly, his face taut with frustration.
“I could throw you.” Scar teases, eyeing up the shorter man to emphasize his joke. Grian just stares back at him with a deadpan expression, and Scar giggles to himself. Scar takes a small step towards the exit. Not too far, but it's enough that one of the phantoms spots them separate and focuses on him with a screech.
Grian shoves past Scar, who continues to giggle to himself, and reaches for the only other thing he has on him. Holding his helmet in his hand, he takes a full-bodied swing at the phantom clawing towards him, close enough to scrape against Grian’s arm. Metal cracks against metal as he hits the phantom, hard, and it’s flung back by the force. The creature rolls helplessly through the sand, metal plating creaking under the strain of the new dent. Grian inhales shakily, thankfully unharmed.
Scar lets out an alarmed cry, and Grian looks up in time to see the phantom regain its bearings. It shakes, sand flying off in every direction, and launches itself back into the air with a powerful flap of its wings. It circles a few times before swooping back down towards them, faster this time, its eyes blazing and its jaw wide and unhinged.
Grian panics. He makes an involuntary squawk and launches his helmet right at the injured phantom. The helmet collides with the phantom's head with a sickening crunch, and the phantom falls limply out of the air.
“Aha! I got it!” Grian shouts triumphantly. Scar cheers behind him, just as surprised that it worked.
Their celebrations are horribly timed. The final phantom wails and plummets towards them. They both throw themselves out of the way, only to watch it grab the helmet in its claws and retreat over the ravine walls, out of sight.
“Noooo!” Grian cries out, running hopelessly back into the ravine. He stretches his wing out, readying himself to take off after the phantom, but he hesitates. He decides against it, holding his head in his hands, groaning over the loss of his helmet.
“…. Well …at least it's gone now,” Scar says, walking up beside Grian, hoping to cheer him up a little. Grian just laughs, dejected.
Sighing, he looks up at the sky. The sun has almost entirely disappeared from view now, revealing a dark red sky. Grian yawns, stretching his arms over his head. He flinches as his wounded shoulder is pulled by the movement, and Scar yelps quietly to himself, his hand reaching for his own injured shoulder.
Grian turns to Scar, a tired look on his face. He eyes Scar’s jacket as he rubs at it absent-mindedly, the fabric stained from where Grian had stabbed him. Grian frowns, contemplating his next move.
He walks past Scar, his steps heavy on the sandy ground. Re-entering the cavern, he all but collapses onto the sandy ground. Exhaustion and pain catch up to him as the adrenaline from the fight wears off. Sand billows around him as Grian’s tail drags across the floor, curling around himself. He looks up at Scar, who hasn’t moved, hesitating over what to do while Grian makes himself comfortable.
“...Come here.” Grian instructs him, his expression softening.
“Okay?” Scar replies, and sits himself down next to the bird. Slumping against the wall, he lets out a sigh of relief, glad to finally be off his feet.
Looking at Grian, he expects him to move away, but the avian shuffles closer to him.
“Alright then, take off your jacket.” Grian taps Scar’s arm, directing him.
Scar complies, pulling his shirt over his head at the same time.
“Just your jacket!” Grian squawks, “You don't need-” he fumbles at Scar’s teasing grin.
“It's hot! Besides, it’s a perfect opportunity to show off my awesome pecs.” Scar flexes for added flare. The softness is gone from Grian’s face.
“I just need to get to your shoulder.”
“Oh- what are you doing?”
“Wound dressing, or it's gonna get infected.”
“You have healing supplies?” Scar raises an eyebrow.
Grian fixes Scar with a weird look. Of course he has healing supplies. He always has healing supplies. He was just hoping to save them for himself… Scar doesn’t need to know that, though.
“...Yea… I just- forgot.”
Digging into one of his trouser pockets, Grian pulls out a small box. He pulls open the latch, revealing a small collection of items inside. It’s nothing like the regeneration potions that the Vindicators are equipped with, but Scar recognises some small healing wipes and rolls of dressings.
Grian raises the wipes to clean up the now-dried blood. He inspects the wound— Scar’s lucky his blade didn’t go too deep or hit a bone. It just falls shy of being too wide to go without being stitched up. It still looks nasty though. Grian winces, looking up at Scar with an apologetic look. As gently as he can, he starts to clean the wound.
“Sorry about this… by the way.”
“It's alright.”
Grian carefully cleans and bandages Scar’s wound, while Scar sits and tries to think of jokes and bizarre questions to ask the avian. They never make it past his lips, though— he isn’t sure it’s a good idea when Grian is looking more and more guilty as he works, Grian’s gaze occasionally drifting to the scars covering the right side of his companion’s body. It isn’t hard for him to guess why they’re there. Scar doesn’t want to push Grian too hard on the subject in case he closes off from him again, and it’s awkward enough as it is.
Instead, Scar settles on a different, more genuine approach.
“You know, I forgive you.”
Grian's discomfort is immediate. Scar is close enough to watch as his feathers pin back against his head. The avian avoids Scar’s gaze, instead focusing solely on his wound. He knows exactly what he’s referring to.
“You shouldn't. That's not fair, I barely know you.” He frowns, his hands pausing over Scar’s shoulder.
“I know that! But, well, you looked a lot worse back then,” Scar explains, admiring the brightly coloured feathers covering Grian’s face and ears. He remembers how dull and grimy they looked two and a half years ago.
There’s a waiver in Grian's voice, a lump growing in his throat. “And I left you looking dead-”
“But it was an accident!” Scar corrects.
Grian takes in a sharp breath. Scar watches his tail flicking at his feet.
“What can I do to make you stop bringing it up?” Grian asks quietly, pushing unnecessarily hard against the dressing of Scar’s wound. Scar hisses, and Grian removes his hand immediately as if he had burnt himself.
With a muttered apology, Grian sighs, resigned, finally looking back up at Scar.
“...Okay. If we're gonna be travelling together, I'll make a deal with you.”
Scar sits up straighter, intrigued.
“For almost killing you… twice,” Grian elaborates, “I'll be indebted to you and will protect you until we escape this game.”
“Game?” Scar repeats, confused. Is this a game?
“Urh- trap-” Grian stutters, trying to cover up his choice of words. “I’ll help you get home, off this planet. It mostly- depends on-” he waffles on.
“You won't kill me?” Scar clarifies, briefly dropping the cheerful disposition he had so carefully applied.
“I mean… third time’s the charm-” Grian grins foolishly. He coughs out a laugh when Scar doesn't return the sentiment, instead pulling a concerned expression. “...No, I won't kill you, that was a joke.”
Scar mulls the idea over. He gasps at a realization. “So you’ll be my sidekick?”
“...No.”
“Driver? Sofa?” Scar asks, trying to think of the word.
“Chauffeur, and no.” Grian sits back. “As I was saying- you not bringing up that night again is also part of the deal.” His tone is serious, expression hardened with no hint of amusement. He stares right at Scar, his void-like eyes boring into him. Scar feels like he might get cursed by looking into his eyes for too long.
So naturally, he tests that.
“And you'll let me use your gun?”
“Nope.” Grian replies without hesitation.
“Oh, I mean gun sword.”
“You're pushing it.” Grian acknowledges, glaring at him.
“Okay. okay, deal.”
“Good.”
They shake on it. Long, metal talons meeting worn, gloved hands.
“Can I say one thing about that day?” Scar asks, pulling his hand back.
Grian stares at Scar.
“It's just a little thing.” Scar holds his fingers millimetres apart to emphasize his point.
Grian maintains his steady glare at him. Scar attempts to pull a sad puppy-dog face, earning himself a snort from the avian.
“Fine.” Grian groans, rolling his eyes.
“If it’s any help, I'm glad you look better than you did back then. Cooler, even. Not all beat up and soggy.” Scar says sweetly.
“That doesn't really help at all- for any reason-”
“No, I mean, like- your wings, they look all- fuller? Fluffy.” Scar adds, for lack of a better word. He watches as Grian’s face turns bright red. He doesn’t normally get described as ‘fluffy’.
“I- They're not pin feathers anymore- you mean.” He stammers, completely flustered.
“Oh- pin feathers?” Scar asks, curiously. He’s not too familiar with avian biology.
“It's like a waxy sheath that covers new feathers when they grow-” He cuts himself off, waving his hand as he stops the tangent.
“Anyway! We agreed not to bring it up!" He pouts, annoyed at how quickly he forgot his own rule.
Grian hastily finishes folding all the unused bandages back into their box, leaving a small pile of bloody gauze behind in the sand.
Scar stares at them, blinking slowly as he fends off his own adrenaline crash. Grian looks back at the Vindicator sympathetically.
“So, rest.” He offers.
“Rest.” Scar confirms absently.
“I'll be first watch.”
“You sure?” Scar looks over him. It had been Grian who first brought up the idea of resting, hours ago.
Grian just shrugs in response, turning away. “Yeah, I got this. You're the injured one.”
Not wanting to argue, Scar complies, shuffling down until he's lying across the sand. Grian quietly settles into a more comfortable position too, pulling his wings out in front of him. He runs his talons through the feathers, quickly preening the particularly dishevelled spots.
After a while, Grian peers back over at Scar, who is quietly snoring. He fell asleep remarkably quickly. His jacket is rolled up as a pillow— it doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but it’s not like they have any alternatives. Grian watches and waits, double-checking that Scar is fully asleep, slowly making noise with his feathered tail to test him.
Once he’s confident he won’t wake Scar, he turns his back to him and pulls back out his healing supplies.
Cautiously, he slips his sleeve over his shoulder, unbuckling his armour slightly. He gets as good of a look at his shoulder as he can. Blood clots the thick fabric, but thankfully, it must have helped to temporarily bandage the wound, preventing most of it from bleeding through. Not that it would have been easy to spot on the red fabric if it had. Grian winces as he tugs on the dried blood slightly. The wound looks exactly like Scar’s, albeit with more congealed blood. It was a good idea to get a closer look at Scar's injury, he thinks. This confirms his suspicions.
He sighs, reaching for the wipes and dressing, tending to his own hidden wounds until he can clip his armour back in place, the bandages hidden underneath. He frequently checks Scar’s status, who lies completely still, fast asleep.
He leans back against the walls of the cavern, wrapping his wings around himself for comfort. It’s not freezing temperatures, but the air has definitely cooled significantly since the sun dipped below the horizon. Even now the sky refuses to turn fully black, a soft orange glow shining from where the sun had disappeared, basking the world in a reddish hue.
His gaze falls on the sad, broken remains of the phantoms from earlier. He’s got a feeling they’re not going to be the only challenge put in place for them here. He’ll wake Scar up in an hour or so, so he can get his own opportunity to sleep through the rest of this short night.
Let me introduce you to our cowboy, as he takes a trip
CW: injury and description of broken bones
Read below↓
Or AO3
A lonely cowboy trudges through the desert, bleary-eyed and hatless. His name is Jimmy.
He woke up not too long ago, face down in the sand and alone. The grains refuse to budge from their places buried between the colourful feathers on his face. With a sigh, he stops trying to scratch at the feathers to dislodge them, resigning himself to the permanent itch. It wouldn’t have helped for long anyways, the wind would soon blow more sand back into the gaps in his feathers, along with just about every other part of his lanky body. Jimmy coughs, dust coating the back of his throat. He pulls up his red bandana, from where it rests around his neck, to protect the lower half of his face. He’s not a stranger to waking up in the desert, it’s always been tempting for him to nap between the dunes, shielded from the winds and the distractions of Tumble Town. These are not those dunes. The land is flat, aside from a cracked layer of earth. The sun beats down on every surface, with next to no trees or bushes to offer much needed shade. Jimmy frowns, trying to recall the events that led him here. He must’ve fallen asleep on his horse and fallen off. He had been riding for a while… and it wouldn’t be the first time. Although, how he didn’t wake up when he fell is still a mystery to him. Maybe he fell head first. The horse must’ve wandered off while he was out… with all his belongings attached to their saddle.
And then there’s the beeping. It started off infrequently, only sounding every couple minutes. Jimmy thought he’d imagined it at first, that maybe he got heat stroke from sleeping under the sun for so long, but he reasoned that it’s far too consistent to be a hallucination. He’s not sure if that even makes sense, but it’s clearly speeding up and slowing down depending on the direction that he’s walking, so he’s sure that it’s leading him somewhere.
His running theory is that, somehow, the beeping is leading him to his horse, who, hopefully, has not managed to lose his stuff in the middle of this vast desert. Or, if not his horse, then whoever has found his belongings. If that’s the case, he hopes they’re friendly— he’s been robbed a few times and he’s not all that excited to add another experience to the list. Jimmy’s second, and just as unlikely, theory is that he’s being led towards water. That somehow he picked up some kind of water detector and managed to forget about it. He thinks this one might just be wishful thinking… or both of them may be.
There’s only one way to find out, and he’s familiar enough with this type of environment to know that meaningless wandering isn’t going to help him.
The beeping increases steadily the further he treks across the sands, dragging his sore, bird-like feet. The makeshift shoes he cut from an old pair of boots, so that they could fit, do a poor job of protecting him from the scorching earth. The more wiry trees and bushes cross his path, the more certain he becomes that he’s in a completely different desert than the one he calls home. He’s never been much of an expert in flora, but he knows he’s never seen these plants before. Their branches are thorny and muddy red, unlike the ones he’s used to. Hell, he doesn’t think he’s seen a single cactus. He probably would have tried to cut it down to see if it was edible if he had.
Despite the beeping leading Jimmy in a straight direction, he has to carefully wind his way through the desert, walking around the trenches that split the ground for miles. He almost broke his ankle in one of the shallower cracks earlier when he misjudged its depth. He pays more attention to them now, observing as they slowly grow deeper and wider, creating the chasms that lead on and on until into the dust clouds and heat waves.
Jimmy misses his hat. He will never again take its wide brim for granted, and how it blocked the harsh sun. His eyes hurt. He thought he’d have more time before the sun reached its peak, but the star moved much faster than expected. Jimmy is tempted to reason that the difference is because he’s on an entirely different planet, rather than just an unfamiliar part of the desert. A planet that rotates significantly faster than the one he calls home. But he’s not thinking that, because how could that even happen? How would he get back home? No, he lost track of time. He’s just been walking for longer than he thought. Jimmy has been living in the desert for years now, and has grown used to the heat— the feeling of feathers damp with sweat and covered in sand is a familiar sensation— but the temperature is starting to get to him. The lack of shade and water make it impossible to find a moment of relief.
The beeping grows faster, and he searches for a change in the landscape around him. The ground remains an empty plane, with nothing but the deep, wide fissures marking its surface. He’s starting to hope the beeping might be leading him to a settlement, rather than his horse. At least then he'll be able to get out of the sun.
Zoning back into the beeping, Jimmy realizes it’s slowed, a notable gap forming between each sound. Whatever he’s been walking towards must’ve changed directions, or maybe he just walked past it somehow. Looking around, nothing has changed. He hasn’t even seen animals skittering across the sand, no lizards— or alien lizard equivalents— basking under the hot sun. Trying to reorientate himself, Jimmy begins to test the beeps, listening for which directions make it speed up. But it keeps shifting. The beeping then speeds up to its fastest speed yet, the separate beeps bleeding into one sound before stopping completely, only for it to start up again a moment later. Maybe it’s leading him somewhere vertically? He looks up.
He starts walking, keeping his eyes on the sky, hoping it might reveal something new to him, but he foolishly loses track of the topography. Before he knows it, one foot sinks into unsteady ground, then the other finds nothing but air, and he’s falling.
Reflexively, he holds his arms in front of him, hoping helplessly that it will slow his plunge into the cavernous ravine.
An old reflex cries out. One long forgotten and useless. He tries to listen.
First there’s the hiss of sand, pattering over the surface below. Then a sickening crack as Jimmy lands on his outstretched arm. Pain shoots through his side.
He opens his mouth to yell, but he’s interrupted by another scream, next to him.
Scrambling to the wall and clutching his injured arm, Jimmy’s mind works on pure adrenaline as he tries to push through the pain, and wills his vision clear enough for him to see his new company.
The figure curled on the floor mirrors him, clutching their own arm to their chest.
Their body is covered in a light yellow fur, which darkens to a reddish brown at the tips of their limbs. Their fiery hair and tail flicker wildly with distress— a blazeborn. They’re wearing a torn sleeveless shirt, with a thick, dark coat tied around their waist. Why anyone would carry a coat like that out here, Jimmy cannot understand.
Their bright yellow eyes are wide like suns, shining right at Jimmy. They let out a quavery wheeze.
Jimmy shakes his head, fending off the delirium.
He coughs a pained, bitter laugh. His ribs ache. “...Hello?”
“Are you okay?” They manage back, looking and sounding like they’re in just as much pain as he is.
“Are you okay?” Jimmy nods pointedly to their broken arm. He can see its misshapen form from here. He doesn’t want to imagine what his own arm looks like.
The blazeborn shuffles tentatively towards him, making sure to not move their arm.
“I don't know- I don't know how it happened. You just fell and then I felt-”
Jimmy's eyes snap open with the realization. “Did I fall on you?! I’M SO SORRY!!”
“No no, you fell nowhere near me-” they shake their head, whining slightly, just as Jimmy feels a pulse of pain and bites back a wince himself.
With that, the look on their face morphs from concern to confusion. They shift closer to him, close enough that Jimmy can see the slight blue wisps in their warm flames. This might be the first time he’s been this close to a blazeborn. He always thought they’d give off more heat than this.
They don’t meet his gaze though, their attention directed elsewhere.
Gently, they pull their good arm from where it rests on their chest. Before Jimmy can question them, they tap his injured arm. A bolt of pain shoots through his body— he pulls back violently.
“OW!! THAT HURTS!” he yells, but his anger dissipates once he spots the blazeborn grimacing from their own pain. They blink rapidly, fighting through the daze. When it passes, they focus on Jimmy with an apologetic expression.
“This sounds crazy, but I think we're- connected.”
“What?! What are you on about?” Jimmy barks, confusion and pain leading easily into anger.
“Look, if I-”
Jimmy catches them by the wrist as they make another move to prod him.
“If you poke me one more time I swear-” Jimmy threatens in his best attempt at an authoritative tone, tightening his grip on their arm, challenging them.
They pause, considering him for a moment. Their eyes, without a trace of fear, flick down to Jimmy’s arm before returning to meet his gaze. They seem to be more intrigued than anything.
“Okay, okay, how about you poke me, then.” They direct his hand over to their injured arm.
"W-why?" Jimmy squawks, resisting.
“You'll feel the same thing. If my guess is right, at least.”
The way they laugh afterwards doesn't exactly fill Jimmy with much confidence. It reminds him of a mad scientist excited to test their hypothesis regardless of their questionable, painful methods. The logic makes his head spin; the stranger’s certainty is a jarring contrast. He feels like he’s out of the loop about something.
”....Okay. Are you sure?”
They grin wildly at him, their sharp teeth on full display.
“Go ahead, I'm giving you permission.”
“HM.” Jimmy hums with audible suspicion, baffled as to why someone would willingly feel that kind of pain. Stumped, he grants them their wish. As gently as he can, he pokes them.
His own arm blooms with pain. The same white hot pain. He pulls back, gasping, faint from the unexpected sting.
“What- WHAT THE HECK-'' Jimmy cries, hugging his arm closer to his chest. Nothing touched him, but that’s not how it felt. His poor arm pulses with pain, and he stares at the blazeborn.
They huff out a couple unsteady breaths, clearing their head before meeting Jimmy’s stricken look with another weak grin. How someone can smile in this situation is beyond Jimmy, and how this stranger’s grin grows wider with each passing second is completely unfathomable. Finally, they explode with laughter.
“AHAH- Welp, this is definitely a weird situation!”
“How-” Jimmy falters, his worry deepening. “Who are you?”
The blazeborn casually pushes themself up against the wall, sitting down next to him. They wipe the sand off their hand onto their coat.
“No idea, and the name’s Tango.”
He smiles up at Jimmy, more genuinely.
“…Jimmy.” He replies, finding the time to properly take in Tango’s appearance beyond the minimum.
Jimmy’s eyes flicker to something tied at the blazeborn’s waist. It was a pair of big, bulky boots. He watches Tango kick at the dust with his bare feet. No wonder he isn't wearing them. They look more suited to insulating the cold and snow, rather than the scorching heat of a desert.
An awkward silence falls over the two, both of them trying to process their situation, and grimacing internally from their pain. Jimmy rests his tail over his own feet, fanning the end towards him to battle the heat. He's not particularly sure what to say, especially to a stranger who is, by some unexplainable magic, connected to him. Fortunately for him, he doesn't have to go first.
“So, Jimmy… What got you here?” Tango breaks the silence.
“I fell.” He replies dumbly, not registering the question completely.
Tango spits out a laugh. “No, I mean- in this desert.”
Jimmy shrugs, recalling all he can. “I don't know… I don't remember.”
He’s beginning to accept that maybe his horse and all his belongings aren’t on this planet at all.
He yawns, “I was just following the beeps-”
His head slips against the wall behind him, neck lolling as a wave of exhaustion hits him.
“Hey, hey, buddy- stay awake for me.” Tango reaches over, snapping his good hand in front of Jimmy and chuckling nervously.
“Mmm… sorry.” Jimmy rubs his eyes, blinking blearily at the blazeborn. “What about you?”
“Pretty much the same.” Tango affirms. “I was following the beeps through the caves and ravines, and then I stumbled upon you- or more like, you stumbled and-” Tango gestures to the top of the ravine, reenacting Jimmy's fall with his hand, complete with cartoonish sound effects.
Jimmy, too worn down to feel insulted, just laughs.
“You think the beeping was leading us to the same thing?” He enquires.
“Probably- or probably to each other, actually. ‘cuz we're linked somehow!” Tango decides, seeming far more alert than Jimmy.
“Who… would do that? …why?” Jimmy asks hazily, stifling another yawn.
Tango lowers his gaze, brow furrowing. He doesn’t reply. Instead, he sinks deeper in thought, mumbling like he’s debating something in his mind.
Jimmy frowns as the moment stretches on, and opens his mouth to ask what's wrong, but Tango interrupts him.
“I think I might have an idea why I'm here.”
“Oh?” Jimmy tilts his head.
“You work with dodgy people, you get into dodgy situations.” He states bluntly, like it’s a matter of fact.
“You- you’re not a robber, are you? Or a murderer?!” Jimmy tenses, not-so-subtly shuffling away.
“Oh, no no- nothing scary,” Tango snorts, offering Jimmy a disarming wink.
Jimmy’s not convinced. He studies Tango wearily.
“I mean-” Tango elaborates, “I'm actually just an architect of sorts. That's not scary.”
“Could be!” Jimmy argues, “You could be making dungeons and torture chambers!”
Tango snaps his mouth shut with a squeak, a chuckle stuttering through his teeth.
"…yeeaah. Nothing like that." He assures vaguely, trying to emphasize his words carefully.
Jimmy squints at him, humming in agreement despite his suspicion. He goes to move so that he can face Tango straight on, but in the process, bumps his elbow into the stone wall.
Both Tango and Jimmy immediately curl into themselves. “Ah- ow ow ow ow.” They murmur in sync.
"Oh, yeah,” Tango wheezes breathlessly, “We should probably do something about these.”
Jimmy makes a small, sad noise to himself. He’s gone a long time without having to deal with a broken bone, and he had been hoping to keep it that way. He looks helplessly at his arm, and Tango follows his gaze.
“Can I see?” Tango asks, in the calmest voice he can muster, though the tension around his eyes betrays his own unease.
Jimmy just nods and moves closer, more carefully this time.
Tango leans over as Jimmy lifts his arm delicately.
“Hmm.” He ponders over the mangled limb. “Haha.” He concludes flatly, “It looks like we might have to set them.”
Jimmy pulls his arm back. “I don't want to do that. You know what, I always wanted a wonky arm, actually.”
“If it's any comfort, you won't be alone in the pain.” Tango tries with a weak smile.
Jimmy pouts. Conceding slightly, he asks “Are we going to do our arms at the same time?”
“Void, no.” Tango laughs dismissively. “That sounds like a horrible idea. The universe might just implode.”
“What?” Jimmy snaps, shooting Tango a concerned stare. Tango rolls his eyes.
“We'd most likely both feel twice as much pain, buddy. That's what I mean.”
Jimmy’s face tightens with anxiety, and he makes another move to scoot away.
“Hey, hey, wait.” Tango placates, looking around helplessly. Rummaging in his pocket, he pulls out two torn pieces of fabric. They look like they used to be the sleeves from his t-shirt.
Tango hands one to Jimmy. “Bite down on this?” He offers.
“Don't happen to have any form of painkillers, then?” Jimmy pipes uselessly.
Tango notices the way Jimmy eyes the dirty fabric. He shrugs apologetically.
“That's all I got, sorry.”
Jimmy sighs, willing himself to accept his fate, and clumsily folds the fabric with one hand. He tentatively places it in his mouth.
“So… who first?” He mumbles defeatedly through the fabric.
“Hmmm… you!”
Before Jimmy can process what’s happening, Tango snaps his arm back into place.
The heat is unbearable. Scar wakes, wheezing out a hot breath that circles in his sealed helmet, fogged by the last of his moisture. A building headache pulses behind his eyes. He reaches up to rub the soreness out, but his gloves clank uselessly against the visor. He blinks, squinting through the harsh light. His first instinct is to rip the helmet off for the relief of fresh air, but as his eyes adjust, he doubts it’ll make a difference.
He’s in a desert. The dusty and cracked ground stretches all the way to the horizon. Nothing about this place feels familiar, in fact, the bright orange gradients in the sand look alien. He has no way of telling if the air here is breathable, and though it’s tempting, testing it isn’t worth the risk. The sheer lack of life in the landscape certainly doesn’t bode well in that regard.
He tries to think back to how he got here, but there’s nothing. He doesn’t remember falling asleep outside. Definitely not here, and definitely not with his helmet still on.
Reflexively, he reaches for his communicator, but it’s not there. With rising anxiety, he pats down the rest of his person. His gun, enderchest and communicator are all gone. The only useful thing he still has left on him is the helmet on his head.
That’s concerning. He keeps those things on him at all times. It’s mandatory. As much as Scar would push the rules, he can’t deny the sense in keeping his gun, enderchest and communicator at all times. Even with his reputation, he wouldn’t just wander into the wilderness with none of his gear. He’s more competent than that at least, right?
There are no constructed landmarks nearby to use to figure out where he is, and he won’t be able to figure out the star system he’s in until the sun has set. At least whoever left him here had the decency to leave him with his helmet on. He can panic about being stranded, while puffing recycled air.
He thinks for a moment that maybe if he stays put the Vindicators will come looking for him, but that idea is quickly squashed by the realization that he’ll probably die of heatstroke before they realize he’s gone. His best bet is to walk until he finds some sign of intelligent life… or run out of oxygen in the process.
Not the most optimistic reality, but nevertheless Scar picks himself up, bushes the desert dust off his clothes, and scans the horizon for the most promising direction. Hoping, desperately, that he's not about to get himself even more lost than he already is.
With a sigh, he squints at the horizon with his hands on his hips. He finds cracks and grooves in the sand that open up beneath him to form long ravines. The gouges in front of him seem to open up into larger trenches that follow a relatively straight path, a much better scenario than splitting into maze-like passages. He nods approvingly. It’s his best bet to make his way down into the ravine. It’s depth is about double his height, which should still provide some shade from that glaring sun.
He spots a relatively safe way to get down— a sandy slope built up against the otherwise harsh stone. He walks tentatively towards it, but stops at the sound of a beep. Looking around for the cause of the noise, he sees a collection of rocks protruding from the sand, but no movement. He checks the soles of his boots too, in case he stepped on some kind of device hidden in the sand, or maybe a small creature, but he sees nothing there, either.
He’s probably just imagined it. Continuing on, he hurries down towards the slope, desperate to escape the heat. The sound of sand scrapes against his leg braces as he slides, and he keeps a hand pressed into the sand behind him to stay steady. He manages to avoid slipping as the sand shifts below his feet, but only barely.
The shade cuts the temperature in half, and Scar sags with relief. The ravine is just as lifeless and empty as the surface, albeit far more claustrophobic. The curving, orange walls hide the vastness of their expanse from view. Scar’s footfalls echo down the chasm. He’s not sure if he prefers the company of the extra sound or if it just makes him feel more exposed. Everything is so empty and open, and an almost perfect mirror to the clear sky. The entire atmosphere radiates with a yellow glow, as if the sun takes up the whole sky. Maybe it does. Out of the corner of his eye, Scar finally detects movement— a shadow across the dusty scenery, but he reacts too late, and looks up to see the shadow is gone, and the sun’s still bright.
He walks for at least five minutes before another beep is heard again, except this time it doesn’t stop there. Quickening, it takes about thirty seconds untill the next one, forcing Scar to accept he hadn’t imagined it.
He listens, face wrinkled with concentration. The beep isn’t coming from anywhere around him. It feels like it’s in the back of his head. Whatever it’s trying to tell him, he can’t figure it out.
He turns to his left, kicks a few stones, tests if the sound reacts. Maybe it’s something hidden in his jacket pocket. He rifles around in them, remembering they’re all empty, and goes back to struggling to understand the pattern of the beeps. It keeps slowing and quickening— even when Scar is walking in a straight direction, so it can’t possibly be leading him to a fixed place, and he tried waiting a few minutes after each beep, just for nothing to happen, so it can’t be warning him about anything.
Frustrated, Scar tunes it out eventually, and focuses instead on making his way through the desert. He'll be glad to find anything other than rocks, sand and the sourceless beeping at this point. At one point he sees movement again, another shadow darting across the ground. It looks almost like a bird, but Scar can’t be sure, the shape vanishing almost as soon as he notices it. It’s like it’s evading his view, like it’s trying to make him second guess himself.
Scar groans. It’s been a long trek through the winding canyon. The sweat drippin into his eyes taunts him— he wishes more than anything to be able to wipe it from his brow, but alas, Scar’s not quite desperate enough to risk removing the helmet.
Almost on autopilot, he trudges on, trying to think through the heat about what it could mean. He racks his melting brain for more things that might cause beeping in your head, or what it means. Scar’s so caught up in his thoughts that he almost misses the beeps getting faster, faster than they had gotten before. When he finally notices, he stops in his tracks, snapping to attention as it continues to speed up.
He doesn’t notice the winged figure swoop down until the impact pushes him to the ground.
Scar screams, head ringing as his visor smacks into the earth. He struggles, trying to roll over to face his assailant, but he’s immediately pinned to the ground by long, dark talons. The figure stares at him through their own helmet, like his except for the visor, which is split into two deep, dark, void-like eyes. They make no sound as their wings spread out, blocking out the sun with their feathers. A glowing blue knife held above their head.
"No wait- wait!"
The figure ignores his pleas, bringing the weapon down. Scar barely manages to deflect the stranger's aim, the knife sinking into his shoulder instead of his heart. Choking back a yell and instinctively shutting his eyes to the pain, he didn’t feel the blade being pulled out, nor see the figure grabbing their own shoulder in confusion.
"What?“ Head swiveling wildly, they balk. “Where?"
Scar shifts on reflex under the weight of the stranger, but this only brings the attacker’s attention back to him, their grip tightening. Without anything to defend himself with, his gun missing and this stanger holding a clear advantage, Scar scrambles for leverage.
He wasn't given time to collect himself as the stranger brings down the hilt of their weapon into his visor, shattering the thick glass.
Scar flinches back as the glass slashes into his cheek, but by some miracle misses his eye.
He pants, unable to catch his breath,helplessly expecting another hit— but the stranger stops. Scar is finally given a moment to reign in his panicking senses, and focuses on the vacant eyes of the stranger’s helmet. Thoughts swim in his slightly concussed mind, and he fishes one up at random.
"...Are we done fighting now?" Scar asks with a nervous laugh, trying to keep eye contact despite one eye now being exposed to the desert sun.
The stranger doesn’t answer.
They’re no longer putting all their weight on him, and eventually slides backwards to a stand, gaze still locked on Scar.
Grateful for the temporary relief, but still cautious, he shuffles slightly to check how the stranger will react. Once he’s sure he isn’t about to be whacked again, he shakily folds his legs under himself to stand, only slightly wobbly, wincing from his injured shoulder.
"So…” Scar tries again, “I think it’s fair to say the air is breathable here."
Scar coughs as he pulls off his helmet, doing his best to avoid the broken glass. The stranger, eerily quiet, considers Scar for a moment, then reaches to take off their own helmet, revealing eyes as deep and dark as their visor, with the same soulless look.
The person in front of Scar is painfully familiar, but he doesn’t skip formalities.
"Well, hello there!" He puts his hand out, but the stranger does not shake it. Their eyes remain locked onto his own, like they’re studying them.
Scar meets the gaze for a while, then his eyes wander to the blood on their face.
"Oh, your cheek-" he gasps, pointing towards it.
They do not move to check their face, pointing to Scar instead.
"Well, same." the stranger mumbles, their voice strained.
"Oh!- " Scar reaches for where the visor had cut him. He'd almost forgotten.
He looks back up at the stranger, to find him pulling a very uncomfortable face. And it clicks.
I found this old recording from about 2 years and a half ago
I feel like it might be important to the story to come.
CW: mild description of violence towards end
[this is the only episode in transcript. in the future we plan to turn this episode into a comic]
Read below↓
or AO3
The recording opened with the shot of a rainy, empty street at night. The view is from the perspective of The Coward, you can't see their features. They held a cloak over their head and shoulders, whilst stumbling unsteadily on feet like long, dark, bird-like claws. The clank of soft metal tapped on the hard damp ground.
They stopped at an alley and pushed themselves up against a vending machine, breathing heavily. Their clothes were torn and fraying. The red jumper they were wearing seemed to have a long tear down one side, and the sleeve had instead been tied at the shoulder, exposing a dark metal limb with long talons, just like their feet.
They sat for a moment, mumbling incoherently to themselves.
There was a noise from down the alleyway and The Coward shrank against the wall, holding their breath, blending into the shadows.
???: Hey! I saw you running down here.
A tall figure rounded the corner. They were wearing a uniform, a blue jacket that had to be a size too small for them, with the sleeves rolled up and the collar popped.
They had a holster around their shoulder, that held a gun far too big and awkward for their frame, that they kept having to adjust back onto their shoulder.
The dim light of the vending machine illuminated their face. They had short brown hair with two long, braided strands, which were tied up at the back of their head, loose from running.
Their eyes were a soft green, and at angles reflected a bright blue. They were very unique and kind eyes.
[Profile found and documented. Let's call him The Hero.]
He turned down the alleyway and looked around cautiously.
The Hero: Oh… they turned into a vending machine?
The Coward, clearly moments away from being spotted, stepped forward.
The Coward: Rude.
The Hero: AHHH OH OH OH- oh you're still a person!
The Coward: And what are you? A jester?
The Hero: What? No, I'm a vindicator.
He pulled at the front of his jacket, showing off his newly stitched ‘V’ patch.
The Coward: Yeah, I can clearly see that, do they have a clown rank now?
The Hero: No? Why would they-
The Hero: Oh- you’re messing with me.
The Coward giggled, but they stopped quickly, as The Hero raised his gun, quietening them.
The Hero (trying to be intimidating): You’re messing with me, when I have a gun to your head?
The Coward scoffed.
The Coward: I'm hardly worried about being shot intentionally, you’re not even holding it right.
There was a clank, a shuffle, as The Hero looked at the gun and how he held it.
He shrugged, lowering the gun.
The Hero: ... I'm better with a bow.
The Coward: You gonna arrest me or what? Done flexing your superiority?
The Hero: How do you know I was gonna arrest you? Can't we just be having a conversation?
The Coward: You followed me down an alley, I know how people act when there's a hit on me.
The Hero: I wouldn't call it a hit. More like-... you’re a person of interest.
The Coward (sarcastically): Oh, yeah.
The Hero: Yeah! Well, I think this is you.
The Hero pulled up a holographic screen and held it up to The Coward, who rolled their eyes.
The screen was flipped for them, but they could clearly make out a portrait of a young man with dirty blonde hair and muted green feathers on their face. They had a smirk and a cut lip in the mugshot.
The Coward coughed a laugh at the sight of it, as The Hero looked at them and raised a brow.
The Coward: They don't even have my name, come on. I'm sooo being hunted ‘dead or alive’, without the alive.
The Hero: I wouldn't- I'm not going to kill you-
The Hero scanned over the information, confused.
The Coward: You’re new?
The Hero: I started a week ago.
The Coward: Think of yourself as a Hero, then?
The Hero didn’t say anything, just looked confused.
The Coward: Well okay Hero, why don't you try and catch me?
The Hero: Ah well-
The Coward pushed him and made a run for it down the alleyway.
The Hero: Hey hey wait-
He chased after them.
The Hero: That's a dirty move.
The Coward: Oh yeah? Well, you’re not gonna like this-
The Coward pushed over a smaller vending machine, smashing it on the ground, small food bars scattering across the floor.
The Hero: That's wasteful!
The Coward laughed.
The Hero laughed too, jumping over the vending machine with ease.
The Hero: If that's how you’re gonna play-
There was a noise. A shot fired.
The Coward reflexively put their arms over their head, but the shot didn’t hit them. Instead, it pinged off a wall, errupting into a huge, almost firework level explosion, making The Coward stop abruptly to avoid running into it.
The Coward (quietly): Whoa.
The Hero: Cool, right?
The Coward: No, I was just amazed with your ability to miss me.
The Hero: Hey! No fair, I was intentionally missing you!
The Coward, now that the embers had faded, continued to run down the street, yelling back quips.
The Coward: So you are a jester then, if they gave you fireworks.
The Hero (yelling back): They didn't give me fireworks, I was allowed to choose any gun.
The Coward: And you chose a sparkler?
The Hero: I chose the biggest gun I was allowed, actually!
The Coward (laughing): And how's that working out for you?
The Hero: I look cool, don't I?
The Coward: Sure.
They slipped on the wet ground, but flexed their sharp claws into the surface, the added grip giving them an advantage. The Hero was not too far behind, but he was clearly finding it harder to run with his thick leather boots.
Up ahead, The Coward stopped at a deadend, its walls too high for them to possibly climb, even without the rain.
They ran up to the wall and looked up at it hopelessly. There was the sound of something shifting, close against their back, from a developing reflex, but it granted no satisfying whoosh. They turned their head to watch their bare, immature feathers catch no air between them.
The Coward shivered. Their breathing short and rapid.
Out of the corner of The Cowards view, they spotted an old, withering creeper, pushed up against a dumpster, leaning into it with empty eyes. It rested completely still aside from a very faint flicker of light under one of its shells.
The Hero (out of breath): You're cornered! Aha! You run fast.
The Coward: ...
The Hero: You’re not gonna trick me and reveal you could fly away this whole time, are you?
The Coward (quietly): ...I can't-
The Coward: you wouldn't happen to want to let me go?
The Hero stood up straighter, once he caught his breath.
The Hero: I- ...I have a job to do.
The Coward: Cheat day? Just a secret between me and you.
The Hero: I’m sorry, I can't.
The Coward (nervously): Ahah- aren't you guys supposed to be corrupt? Why couldn't that be useful for me, for once?
The Hero: I can't let you go, you’re dangerous.
The Coward: You don't even know my name, or what I did.
The Hero: ...
The Coward: Please, really, I can't afford getting caught at all- you don't understand how much danger I'm in.
The Coward swayed on their legs, hissing as their barely healed wounds leaked slowly.
The Hero: Are you hurt? You look hurt.
The Coward: ...yes.
The Hero: Okay, okay, well, I can help you.
He smiled nervously.
The Hero: Maybe If I help tend your wounds, you'll let me take you in?
He held his hands out tentatively. The Coward took a moment to contemplate, briefly glancing towards the out-of-order creeper.
The Coward: Okay.
The Hero: Okay, okay, good! I have supplies on me-
Just as The Hero was distracted with pulling his bag off his back, The Coward took a step towards the creeper, slowly placing their hand behind it.
The Coward: I'm so sorry.
They pushed the creeper, making it fall into The Hero, who had only just looked up from his bag.
The creeper suddenly hummed loudly, with a hot glow growing under each metal scale.
The explosion pushed back the coward, not expecting the old rusty machine to acutally blow up that much. It must have been tampered with. Charged. They breathed loudly, watching the fiery wisps light up the alleyway.
Unsteadily they stood up, turning in the other direction to make a move to run.
But they stopped, and glanced towards The Hero. They saw him laying on his side, embers and smoke billowing around him. Everything was covered in so much ashy black and red that it was hard to find his face. But those eyes looked up at them, half lidded and not blinking, the shine of blue flickering from the reflection of small flames left by the creeper.
I'll be your author, taking in all I see live and sculpting it into an entertaining story.
The story is planned to start soon, the contestants are ready.
But I think I'll give you something before we wake them up.
See I'll, with assurance, have a constant view into the happenings in this game. However, history, backstory- these character's past is a little harder for me to look into.
I'll find as much as I can to give context, but these logs may be more rough and unpolished compared to the live story.
I'll show you these logs occasionally, when context might be needed.
THIS SEASON SHOULD PROVE INTERESTING WITH NEW TWISTS AND CHALLENGES.
We bring you an interesting selection of candidates:
Follow them as they venture through this death game and watch as one claims to be the winner!!!
However, as some of you may be familiar with, our broadcast capability to transmit this show across the galaxy means we can only provide transcripts and images.
The End realms have a habit of digesting data.
DON'T worry, we'll tell what's going on like a story, to assure your entertainment!
