Hawk's Drabble/Fic Game #12!
This one is cracked and was hard to write. I think #9 and #11 built up to this one lmao.
Grian, and Jimmy were street kids who sometimes ran out to the wilderness. One day, Jimmy got kidnapped by desert nomads and his brother came out to find him. He happened to accidentally end up in an area where Winter King Ren was warring with said desert nomads. Even after freeing Jimmy, they had a hard time. also stealing cuz the desert nomads weren't sharing resources.
Grian does not know the Hand(Martyn's) name, only reason he knows of King Ren's is bc Ren's da king.
The desert people are cruel jerks, Dogwarts has a moral code and stuff, plus they do know that the thieves that aren't of the desert clans are only stealing because the desert clans are hoardy people and mean.
ALSO TECHNOBLADE NEVER DIES. HE IS HERE.
This one got really long, and ONCE AGAIN centric to Grian, Martyn, and Grian.
Grian is 12, Jimmy is 10.
Grian hadn't intended to get caught. Hadn't meant to get dragged out of hiding in the stores. But he was.
And now the King's Hand, himself was in front of him .Grian didn't know the Hand's name, only that he was a blonde-haired, black-feathered raven avian and the king's close friend.
Grian flashed back to the days before. Grian and his little brother Jimmy's parents were… bad. Most of the older scars they hid were from them. They ran away wen they were 5 and 3.
Ever since running away, they'd been a pair of inseparable strays. Running away from adults together, protecting each other together, living out in the woods staring at the night sky together, and learning to fly together. You'd think they wouldn't fly well, as even their flight feathers came in late and awkwardly, but they did.
Jimmy was why he had come out here in the first place- Grian had turned his back once, and some desert raiding party had snatched Tim. He'd come out here trying to find him and wasn't leaving without his little brother. It wasn't Jimmy's fault.
Eventually, He'd found the right camp and well. A fellow sneaker, Scar, had found some TnT.
But the route back to the city areas was overrun with the nomads by now, so Grian and Jimmy were staying out here hiding out in the cliff caves.
Grian had come to steal alone this time because Jimmy was still weak from the treatment in the camps. And how he was caught.
Not the dangerous kind of quiet, either. Just... still.
Grian kept his eyes fixed stubbornly on the floorboards, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. If he looked up, he might give something away. Fear, maybe. Or worse—hope.
The Hand’s grip loosened slightly around his wrist.
A clawed finger brushed the side of Grian’s neck.
Grian flinched hard. The touch paused.
Then slowly, carefully, one talon traced the small sun-shaped birthmark just beneath his fluffy ear feathers.
Silence stretched. Too long.
Grian’s breathing turned uneven. His wings trembled harder against his back, down feathers puffing instinctively in distress.
The Hand exhaled softly through his nose.
That was all he said at first. Grian risked a glance upward.
Blue eyes stared back at him through the dark raven-skull mask. Sharp eyes. Intelligent ones.
Familiar ones. Something in Grian’s chest twisted unpleasantly.
The Hand finally let go of his wrist.
Grian immediately looked away again. He wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly who he meant.
The Hand crouched in front of him, black wings folding neatly behind his back.
“The smaller avian,” he clarified mildly. “Your little partner in crime.”
Grian pressed his lips together.
Jimmy could still get away if Grian kept his mouth shut. Jimmy was fast when he needed to be, even weak and half-starved. He knew how to hide. Knew how to disappear into cliffs and caves and narrow spaces adults couldn’t fit through, even with his bright yellow wings.
“The dogs will track him eventually.”
Cold flooded Grian’s stomach. His head snapped up before he could stop himself.
The Hand tilted his head slightly, observing him.
There it was again—that awful feeling of familiarity.
Not in appearance. In mannerisms. In the sound of his voice.
“You should be more careful with your reactions, little bird,” the Hand said quietly.
The tips of Grian’s ears burned. He looked away again immediately.
The Hand stood. For a second Grian thought this was it. Thought maybe he’d be dragged outside, or thrown into some dungeon pit, or—
The command wasn’t barked. Just flat. Then the footsteps retreated.
The room fell silent again.
Grian sat frozen on the cot long after the sound disappeared.
The Hand came back with food.
Actual food. Not scraps. Bread still warm enough to steam slightly in the cold air. Dried meat. A bowl of stew.
Grian stared suspiciously.
The Hand set everything down on a crate near the cot.
“You look half-dead,” he said.
The Hand crossed his arms.
Still nothing. A long pause.
Then—
“If I wanted you dead, little thief, you’d already be dead.”
Grian eyed the food. His stomach cramped painfully.
The Hand noticed. Of course he noticed.
Grian hesitated another few seconds before finally grabbing the bread. He ate fast at first out of instinct, then slowed when his empty stomach threatened mutiny.
The Hand remained near the door the entire time.
And every now and then, his gaze flicked to the birthmark on Grian’s neck.
Jimmy got caught the next day.
Grian nearly launched himself at the soldiers bringing him in before he realized Jimmy wasn’t hurt.
Scared, yes. Filthy, absolutely. But alive.
“G!” Jimmy yelped the second he spotted him.
Grian was off the cot instantly.
Jimmy crashed into him hard enough to nearly knock them both over, small tawny yellow wings flaring wide before wrapping tightly around Grian’s middle.
Grian buried his face into Jimmy’s messy hair with a shaky breath.
“You idiot,” he whispered fiercely. “You were supposed to run.”
“Well, now we’re both caught!”
Jimmy huffed against his chest.
The soldiers exchanged amused looks. The Hand, standing behind them, said nothing.
But Grian caught him staring again.
Not at the masks. Not at the ragged clothes.
At them.
Like he knew them.
It made Grian’s skin itch.
Dogwarts was not what Grian expected.
For starters, they weren’t thrown into cells.
Instead, after several deeply confusing conversations involving lectures about theft, survival, desert clan politics, and “reckless self-endangerment,” they were marched toward what looked disturbingly like a dormitory.
Grian stopped dead in the doorway.
There were children inside.
Several looked up at once.
A lanky piglin cub that looked familiar sprawled across one bunk, snorted. “Oh good, more fellow criminals.”
A blaze-demon hybrid sitting cross-legged on the floor waved cheerfully with a soot-smudged hand, fiery tail wagging.
A pale vex hybrid hanging upside down from the rafters grinned way too wide.
Jimmy pointed immediately. “You blew up a supply cart.”
Scar looked delighted. “I did!”
“You nearly blew us up too!”
The piglin hybrid barked out a laugh.
The guard escorting them sighed heavily.
“As I was saying,” he droned, “you lot are here pending reassignment.”
“Meaning?” Grian asked cautiously.
“Meaning,” the guard said, “you’ll be working off your punishment doing odd jobs for the fortress for the next month.”
The piglin perked up helpfully. “Weapon polishing day is actually kinda fun.”
“It absolutely is not,” muttered the blaze hybrid.
“You get to wear gloves.”
The guard continued like no one spoke.
“Afterward, you’ll be transferred to one of the kingdom’s trusted outer orphanages.”
Instantly, Grian and Jimmy went rigid.
No.
Absolutely not.
They had spent too many years avoiding adults, deciding where they belonged.
Grian and Jimmy exchanged one quick glance.
They had to run the second they got the chance on the way to that orphanage. Obviously.
The Hand stood silently near the back wall while the others talked.
And when his eyes landed on the two brothers, something unreadable flickered behind the raven mask.
Something heavy. Like recognition.
By the second week, Grian knew for a fact something was wrong with the Hand.
Not dangerous wrong. Familiar wrong.
The Hand watched him too much.
Not just him, either. Jimmy too. Always subtle. Always from a distance.
During meals. During chores. During training drills in the courtyard where the older soldiers taught the 'juvenile delinquents' how to properly sharpen and hold and swing blades without slicing fingers off.
The Hand never hovered. Never spoke much.
But every single time Jimmy laughed too loudly or Grian instinctively stepped between Jimmy and a stranger, Grian could feel those sharp blue eyes tracking them.
Like he was remembering something.
It crawled under Grian’s skin.
The shoes appeared overnight.
Grian noticed them immediately when he climbed down from his bunk before dawn.
Two pairs. One neatly set beside his bedroll. One beside, a bit smaller.
Grian froze.
Jimmy blinked sleepily down from the top bunk where he and Grian had slept curled against each other. “Huh?”
Slowly, cautiously, Grian picked one up.
Leather. Soft-lined.
Not new-new, but well-made. Sturdy enough for travel. And they fit perfectly.
Exactly perfectly.
Jimmy hopped down excitedly and shoved his own feet into the smaller pair.
“Grian,” he whispered, awed. “They fit.”
That was the problem. Grian’s stomach twisted.
Nobody here should know their sizes. Nobody.
Across the room, Scar poked his head upside-down off the side of his bunk.
“Ooooh,” he sing-songed. “Someone likes you.”
“I hate this place,” Grian muttered.
Technoblade glanced over from where he sat cross-legged sharpening a dagger.
“Those are not that cheap.”
That made it worse somehow.
Jimmy wriggled his toes happily.
Grian looked around the dorm slowly.
“Who put these here?”
Scar whistled innocently.
Techno kept sharpening the dagger.
Jimmy looked guilty for existing.
Then he noticed Techno avoiding eye contact.
The piglin hybrid sighed dramatically.
“What.”
“You know something.”
“No I don’t.”
“You absolutely do.”
“The Hand came by after curfew.”
Jimmy straightened immediately.
Grian’s feathers puffed instinctively.
Techno kept his voice casual while scraping the whetstone down the blade.
“He thought everyone was asleep.”
“You were awake?” Grian said suspiciously.
Techno finally glanced at him.
“He stood over your bunk for a while.”
Cold prickled down Grian’s spine.
“He fixed your blanket because one of you’d kicked it off.”
“And then he put the shoes down and left.”
Jimmy looked deeply confused.
Scar looked delighted by the drama.
Tango mouthed what in the world at nobody in particular.
Gem, who'd joined them a day ago, looked just as worried as Grian felt.
Techno shrugged. His big ears flicked.
“He looked weird about it too.”
That hit harder than it should have.
Grian immediately hated that too.
Techno started sneaking out regularly after that.
Not that he’d exactly been subtle before.
The piglin hybrid had the unsettling ability to move through Dogwarts like he belonged there. Half the guards barely reacted anymore when he appeared out of nowhere carrying stolen bread and gossip.
One night, Grian caught him climbing back through the dorm window.
“You’re gonna get executed someday,” Grian whispered from his bunk.
Techno landed lightly on the floor.
“You literally disappeared into the king’s war room yesterday.”
“That does not make it better!”
Techno looked unbearably smug.
Jimmy sleepily poked his head up from beside Grian. “Did you hear anything useful?”
Techno’s expression shifted oddly.
Grian sat up immediately.
The piglin glanced toward the dorm door before lowering his voice.
“The Hand’s been asking questions about you two.”
Every muscle in Grian’s body tensed.
“What kind of questions?”
“Where you came from. How long you’ve been on your own. Whether either of you remembers your parents.”
The air vanished from Grian’s lungs.
Jimmy went very still beside him.
Techno watched them carefully.
“He’s hiding something,” the piglin hybrid said quietly.
Grian already knew that.
The problem was—
Some terrible instinct deep in his chest whispered that whatever the Hand was hiding…
Had something to do with them.
The last night before reassignment was chaos. Quiet chaos, but chaos nonetheless.
Everyone in the dorm was pretending not to plan escapes from the orphanage.
Scar had somehow acquired three maps, two lockpicks, an entire cooked chicken, and a rocket from unknown sources.
Tango was trying to calculate guard rotations using charcoal marks on the floorboards.
Squid was stuffing extra bread into every available pocket.
And Grian sat cross-legged on his bunk mentally mapping the fastest routes out of Dogwarts once the transport wagons stopped for the night.
“Okay,” Jimmy whispered seriously, “what if we jump off the wagon while it’s moving?”
“That is not reassuring.”
Techno, sitting nearby sharpening yet another stolen knife, snorted quietly.
“You two are terrible at escape planning.”
Grian looked offended. “We escaped being arrested for years.”
“And then immediately got arrested.”
Scar raised a hand from the rafters. “Personally, I think setting something on fire creates excellent distractions.”
“Even I say no more arson plans,” Tango said immediately.
“One arson plan,” Scar bargained.
“You people hate innovation.”
Grian almost smiled. Almost.
It was weird.
A month ago he'd expected Dogwarts to be torture.
Instead, somehow, they’d ended up here.
Large dorm room.
Stolen blankets.
Too many children crammed into one place.
And for the first time in years…
Grian didn’t sleep with one eye open every single night.
Not fully, anyway.
........Which was probably why Techno managed to scare years off his life when the piglin hybrid violently shook his shoulder sometime deep into the night.
Grian jerked upright instantly, knife already in hand before his brain caught up.
Jimmy startled awake beside him with an alarmed chirp.
Techno looked terrified.
Actually terrified.
That alone made Grian’s stomach drop.
“What happened?” he hissed.
Techno glanced toward the dorm door. “Keep your voice down.”
The room around them remained dark and mostly asleep, though Scar cracked one glowing eye open upside-down from his hammock.
“You’re being dramatic again,” the vex hybrid mumbled sleepily.
That woke Grian fully. Techno never looked like this.
The piglin hybrid usually acted like he feared absolutely nothing.
Now his ears were pinned flat against his head.
“The king. The Hand. Some guards.”
Cold prickled down Grian’s spine. Jimmy grabbed the edge of Grian’s sleeve instinctively.
“What about?” Grian asked carefully.
“You’re not leaving with us tomorrow.”
Jimmy blinked rapidly. “...what?”
Techno swallowed. “I heard the guard captain asking where to place you two for transport.”
Grian’s pulse started hammering.
“And the Hand told him there would be no transport assignments for either of you.”
Jimmy’s grip tightened painfully.
Grian forced his voice steady.
Techno looked deeply unsettled.
“It means,” he said slowly, “they’re keeping you here for some reason.”
Every instinct in Grian’s body screamed danger. Jimmy made a tiny frightened noise beside him.
“They lied,” he whispered. "Or changed their minds."
Grian’s mind raced violently.
Why keep them? Had they figured something out? Was this punishment? Were they being sold off to another clan? Experimented on?
The Hand’s strange stares flashed through his head.
The shoes. The blanket. The questions.
The awful, awful familiarity.
The dorm dissolved into panic almost immediately.
Not loud panic. The quiet kind. The terrified kind.
The kind their kind of kids learned early—the kind where everyone keeps their voices low because danger gets worse if adults hear it coming.
Jimmy looked pale beneath his feathers. Scar had stopped joking entirely. Even Tango’s flames dimmed nervously. Gem's ears were pinned flat.
“What do we do?” Jimmy whispered.
Grian’s mind spun uselessly.
Run. They had to run.
Except suddenly every plan they’d made over the past month felt childish and flimsy and impossible.
Because this wasn’t normal reassignment anymore. This was being singled out.
Techno crouched beside Grian’s bunk, voice sharp and low.
“They're keeping you for a reason.”
“We know that,” Grian snapped.
“No, you don’t understand.” Techno grabbed his arm hard enough to make him look up. “The Hand already knows you’re going to try.”
That made the room freeze. Grian’s stomach dropped violently.
Techno’s ears flattened. “I heard guards talking after the meeting. They’ve doubled patrols around the west wall and sealed the lower holes we used sometimes..”
Those had been Grian’s routes. All of them. Jimmy made a tiny frightened sound.
“They know,” he whispered.
Scar swore softly from the rafters. Tango looked horrified.
“How would they know?” Jimmy asked.
Grian knew immediately.
Because the Hand watched them too closely.
Too carefully. Like he could predict them.
The realization made his skin crawl.
"Is there even a way out, then?" Gem whispered. "If- I don't know, guys. Dogwarts, the whole Winter Kingdom doesn't hurt kids. That's like, a huge law. King Ren executes bad parents sometimes."
Grian shuddered. That was true. There wasn't any legal way they'd be hurt.
But Gem was right. There was no way out.
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ANND its your turn!!!! You guys can decide who Martyn really is and what he wants with the boys. I had a few ideas but i thought it'd be fun to give you guys freedom here. One thing's for sure, Grian and Jimmy ain't getting away!