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scarian week 2025: mercy / feathers
— prompt from here
How does one go about asking Davis a question? I don't have money for the tsams lives and I don't want to just show up in his own streams and be like "So about Tsams" cause that feels rude for some reason. I don't know what else to do. But I sooooo badly wanna ask about the Mimic arc. I have questionssss. What do I do. Guys 😭😭😭 I'm in distress
hhau mimic arc rambles - part V: avian, all alone (1/2)
(art by link // ramble ~7 k words // other parts & au masterpost here )
—
The ground no longer crunches with frost; the snow is slowly thawing, letting in a semblance of warmth that feels deceiving, like a trick. The wind is still ruthlessly cold; the slosh of melted snow turns rivers fast and greedy; the mud is almost as slippery as ice was.
But the blood sinks more discreetly into the soil than when it starkly marred the whiteness.
Grian’s breathing is slowly steadying back to normal as he turns away from the bodies of hunters that Scar is crouched over, claws dripping red, hands deftly searching through belongings that could be theirs now, if they’re even slightly useful.
Somehow, against all odds, they’re both still here. Still going.
They made it to spring, and they have a direction, and a plan.
The air is crisp, still tasting of winter. Grian scans their surroundings, double checking that they’re truly alone now, that the noise of the fight didn’t attract any further unwanted attention. His heart still beats a wild rhythm in his chest, a frantic, post-adrenaline melody.
It’s then that Grian catches sight of something.
The beat of his heart falters, tripping over itself.
He sucks in a breath, and then he’s moving. Forward. Away from Scar. Towards—
Somewhere further in the forest, a twig snaps.
Grian breaks into a run. “Wait!” he calls out.
Scar snaps to attention, startled, head whipping up and ears flicking. “Grian?!” His tone slips almost instinctively into a growl, preemptively trying to hold any threats at bay, even as his hands—clawed, bloodied, dangerous—linger on the coat of a man Grian helped him bring down just moments ago.
He sees no danger, but Grian is running away from him. Chasing something?
Someone?
Everything in Scar prickles in warning. Another presence is never a good sign. (Once upon a time, he thought there can be exceptions. He thought they could make it work. He thought they could make it good.) (He was proven wrong, in one of the worst ways possible.)
“Grian!” he calls again, scrambling to his own feet as he watches with alarm Grian dip between the trees, sprinting further and further away. He lets out a howl, one that reverberates and echoes, trying to tether Grian back and scare off anything that might want to harm them.
Grian chirps back, high pitched, frantic, desperate—but notably not afraid.
He can’t stop. He can’t let this go.
Not when he finally caught glimpse of feathers. Of a face with big, startled eyes, staring back at him for three seconds before the person—avian. avian avian avian—took a step back. Looking terrified but undoubtedly alive.
Every instinct in Grian tingles, urging him onwards. It’s been months, maybe even half a year by now, that he hasn’t seen anything winged live. (He tries not to think about th false mirror of his own wings. Just as he tries not to think about the blurred memories of the eclipse, the vague fragmented recollection of chirps rising only to be brutally silenced.)
There’s rustling behind Grian, one he recognises as Scar reliably following him. And as he keeps running after the avian, he wonders if they’re fleeing because of Scar. Because of a vex, freshly out of battle, bloodstained, and now chasing after them.
He wonders if the avian feels hunted.
(He couldn’t blame them.)
“Wait, please!” he tries again, almost tripping over some roots, his own wings unthinkingly flaring out for balance. “We won’t hurt you! Please stop!”
In the end, it isn’t Grian who trips; it’s the avian.
They land roughly, with a high pitched puppy-like yelp, rolling for a moment—but as soon as the momentum is gone, they’re whipping up, swallowing up a pained groan and scrambling to turn around to face their pursuers. Arms braced against the ground and breathing frenzied, their eyes are wild as they hook into Grian—as if the vex still catching up to them didn’t even exist.
Grian skids to a halt several steps away, hands flying up, trying to translate harmlessness. “Hi,” he greets breathlessly.
The avian shrinks, a small whimper the only sound given in return.
“Grian—” Scar comes to a stop, too, alert and confused. “What in the world, why did you—” His eyes jump from Grian to beyond, over Grian’s shoulder, to the small person sitting on the ground as if they wanted nothing more than to flee.
A winged person.
“Oh.”
The avian’s eyes snap to Scar. They shudder, pulling slightly back, making another distraught noise.
In an instant, Scar’s claws are gone. (But he can’t disappear the blood off his skin.)
Grian steps closer—just half a step, desperate but restrained, not wanting to crowd or scare. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He tries to keep his voice low, tries to make himself sound calm, even as his heart hammers a wild rhythm against his ribs. His wings rustle, unfolding slightly from where they were hidden underneath his cloak. Because maybe that’d help? Wings for wings. They’re the same. They’re the same. Please listen, please don’t be afraid, please don’t run.
The avian is rooted to the spot, breathing fast. Like a bird caught. Like a prey cornered.
Scar makes a soft inquisitive noise, glancing around briefly before settling his eyes back on the avian. Tension spills along his back, expecting a trick. Wondering through learned patterns if this is just another lure, something dangling in front of them looking shiny but being secretly attached to a maw with razor sharp teeth. (Juni crashed into their lives with a hunting party at his back, after all. And to run into an avian, surviving on their own? Surely Scar’s not wrong in wanting to be careful here.)
Grian’s slowly crouching down to the avian’s level, when Scar speaks:
“Are you alone?”
The avian’s eyes snap up to now-unobstructed view of Scar, only to find the vex stare back. There’s a sharp breath and a flinch, and they pull away, shifting as if they were going to scramble to figure out how to put their legs back underneath themselves.
“No, wait!” Grian twitches, itching to lunge forward and stop the avian from potentially running away. Nervous annoyance prickles along his spine, a misplaced frustration that keeps crashing into his desperation to anchor this moment, to make their little life raft stop feeling so rocky. He glances back over his shoulder, hissing: “Scar. You’re scaring him.”
Scar blinks, ears instantly pulling low. “I was— I was just— It was a reasonable question,” he defends himself.
Grian makes a frustrated noise, but there’s more pleading in his eyes than ire.
“I—” Scar starts again, but his gaze flicks back to the avian: small, grounded, shaking. Looking at him as if Scar truly was a monster from some foreboding fairytales. “... I’m not scary,” he counters, but it’s quiet, without a fight. Wavering.
He knows he has claws at his disposal.
He knows he’s covered in blood.
He knows he’s a vex.
And he just killed several men with Grian’s help.
He swallows hard and takes the smallest step away, hunching up. Moving slowly, the way one would in order to not spook a wild animal (or prey), he also lowers himself down to his knees, keeping himself small behind Grian.
Grian lets out a breath; it quivers as it leaves his lips, nerves frayed, stakes high. He regards the avian again, assessing. If the avian truly is alone, admitting it in front of strangers with unknown intentions must be terrifying. They need to start elsewhere.
His wings flare the slightest bit more; he doesn’t fail to notice the way the avian’s eyes snap to them, tracing his feathers. Slightly cleaner than they’d normally be, but still dishevelled and dirty. Grian exhales and lets them droop, wanting to communicate something. Relaxedness instead of protectiveness. He chirps quietly, earning another snap of the avian’s attention.
The avian’s eyes roam Grian’s face for a moment. He looks at Grian with an unreadable but undeniably raw expression; something hesitant and searching, unmistakable terror swirling in the depths—the kind Grian can’t decipher, but is determined to try to soothe anyway.
“I’m Grian,” he tells him. “And that guy behind me is Scar.” He hears a rustle behind him, and hopes that Scar will stay still. (He can just imagine Scar’s downward-pulled ears and an expression of a scolded puppy. It squeezes at his heart, knowing that Scar was just looking out for their safety, just trying to be involved and to understand the situation.) (He takes another breath, keeping himself together.) “Neither of us is going to hurt you,” he says softly. “Promise.”
Once again, the avian’s eyes flick past Grian’s shoulder to Scar.
He looks so distraught, Grian wants to bind his attention again, until he can be sure the avian won’t flee. He tries to be gentle with his question, coaxing: “What’s your name?”
The avian jolts on the spot, eyes wide as he looks back at Grian. His feathers puff up, and there’s a clear hesitation on his face.
Grian has no idea why this question would be a big deal. He tries not to frown about it.
“I, um—” The avian’s gaze shifts away, for the first time since his fall not settling on Grian nor Scar, instead flicking around. Nervous. Lost.
“It’s okay,” Grian tries softly.
The avian looks at him with misery so thick it temporarily coats his fear. He mumbles something.
Grian blinks and leans closer. “Sorry, what?”
“Um. A–Avi…?” replies a trembling voice.
Grian chirps, straightening back up (not even realising how naturally that bird sound slipped out of him this time), earwings fluttering. “Oh! Avi? Your name’s Avi?”
He gets a hesitant nod in reply.
Grian feels more pleased than he should at such a tiny win, but it’s something. It feels like maybe they’re getting somewhere. Now they have a name and a voice to attach to a face as they get tentatively familiar with each other.
He regards the avian in front of him with slightly more care, now that it seems like the danger of flight is not so imminent.
Avi is small. Startingly small—smaller than Grian. And amidst the fear in his features, it strikes Grian just how young he looks. Late teens, or early adulthood, but certainly several years short on Scar and Grian.
Rationally, he knows some hybrids grow up in this world. And that avians especially don’t have long life expectancy. But it still rings wrong, for someone so young and so afraid to be out here in this cruel world all by themselves.
Avi’s hair is dark brown, tousled from the fall, strands slipping free of a lousy bun. There are freckles mapped across his cheeks, more prominent but less of them than on Grian’s own skin. His wings are black, dishevelled; his clothes and hands stained by mud he’s sat in. And— There’s fabric wrapped up around his palms and wrists.
Grian pauses at the sight, heart kicking up a storm in his chest. Irrationally protective, just by the merit of being the same doomed species. “Avi,” he says slowly, eyes hanging on the bandages a moment longer before he looks up. “Are you hurt?”
“Wh—” The avian looks startled by the question. His eyes widen and he looks down, trailing to look at what Grian saw. “Oh.” He prickles up instantly, head kept down. He looks almost… ashamed? Avi’s fingers curl in tighter, skin stained by fresh mud where they’re bracing against the forest floor. “N–no.”
Grian blinks at the answer and looks down again. There’s no sign of blood on the bandages, but Avi’s knuckles look scraped and raw.
Not from a fight, or a fall.
From the cold.
Connecting the dots, Grian becomes suddenly aware of the small, incessant tremble of shivers running through the smaller avian. He’s got no coat. No cloak. Wings exposed. The winter barely just ended, still clinging onto the forest.
Grian shudders.
“Scar?” he calls out, turning to look over his shoulder. (Trying to ignore the way Avi’s breath sharply hitches at the attention switch to the vex.)
Scar meets Grian’s gaze readily, downward-turned ears perking slightly, flicking.
“Were there any good enough spare cloaks?” Grian asks.
Scat tilts his head slightly. “Maybe?”
There’s a sliver of hesitation, a hint of anxiety lapping at Grian, but his mind is on a single-track right now, thinking of a small bird that needs help. “Can you go check?”
Tension floods Scar instantly at the mere suggestion. Uneasy, he shuffles closer instead of away. His ears tug low again, his expression not only troubled, but scared. He protests in a strained tone: “Grian—”
Before he can say more, a bewildered third voice crashes in:
“You want to separate?”
Grian and Scar both flinch, whipping around to look at the avian. He shrinks under their gazes.
“You don’t… have to,” he stammers, a bit squeaky, but bravely plunging on. “Not bec— not for me.”
Grian barely registers the words. His heart hammers in his throat, a wild and captive thing in uproar. His feathers are puffing up, but his wings are slinking back, thoughtlessly tucking underneath the cloak as if seeking out safety, stability, anything.
The thought of Scar walking away and out of sight is suddenly unbearably terrifying.
Why did he even suggest that?
“Grian,” Scar says again, his anxiety and reluctance palpable.
“I—” Grian hesitates, his eyes finding Scar’s concerned, pleading gaze. Determination burns in the green shine of Scar’s irises, defiant, disobedient, the emotion softened only by the desire for this to be amicably mutual. For Grian to understand and to agree.
They will not separate.
Eyes darting back to the avian, Grian chances slowly standing up. “We go together,” he declares.
He hears a sigh of relief from behind him, can imagine the exhaling slump of Scar’s shoulders as the worst of the tension drains out, a battle won. (A battle that was never meant to find them again—especially not through friendly fire.) (Grian swallows down the bitterness and guilt, pushing past them with practiced familiarity.)
Avi keeps rooted to the spot, eyes following every movement.
“Come on,” Grian invites, trying to sound friendly and harmless. “You look cold. Let’s see what we can do.”
—
Together, they reach the patch of woods where the fight happened. Avi keeps further back, eyes nervously darting between the torn bodies and blood-drenched forest floor, and away. As if unused to the violence displayed. Or maybe just overly aware of its source standing still alive amidst the carnage, unfamiliar and dangerous.
Scar is sifting through the bodies, weaving in and out of the centre of it all. Out of the three of them, he’s the closest to the destruction he himself wrought with his bloodstained, clawed hands. He checks the bodies with practiced movements, no sheepishness left from those first days when he couldn’t look death in the face. There’s just cold indifference, a learned ruthlessness, the kind of practicality needed for survival.
Grian helps on the outskirts, unwilling to step too far from Avi’s orbit in case Avi would just slink away and disappear, given the chance. Grian isn’t entirely sure why that feels so important. Why his body is taut, ready to give chase, instead of letting this stranger go. Why he so abruptly and stubbornly needs to prove to this small, scared, lonely avian that he doesn’t have to run anymore. That he doesn’t have to be afraid.
Grian knows Scar is nervous about this. About another person allowed near them. About not knowing where Avi came from or where this will lead. How long of a presence this will be, and what mark it might leave on them this time. Of course he is anxious. So is Grian, in many ways.
But when Grian looks up and meets a brief flitting of Scar’s gaze and their eyes hold for a breath, he thinks Scar understands that Grian needs them to try here, despite that. Even if he might not be able to name a reason why they should. Why any of this would be a good idea. (They haven’t met any kindness in this world, and they were meant to be done giving it out themselves. It has only ever repaid them with hurt.)
Gratitude that he’s even entertained here—indulged, allowed—swells between Grian’s ribs. After Juni, to drag another person along with them is almost an unfathomable thought. Precarious. Toying with the line of unbearable. But—
Grian looks back at Avi.
He remembers how it feels, to be winged and scared and all alone in this world.
Of course this is a risk. A huge one. It tugs at Grian, anxiety nibbling and gnawing and tearing, endlessly warning him. But there’s something else alongside it, a different tug that just seems urgent enough to override everything else.
He wants this to be different. He wants their past experiences to be wrong—an outlier. He needs this to not be that. (They both do.) (Maybe all three of them.)
He looks back at Scar. “Is any of it good?”
Scar sighs from there he’s tugging at a cloak, assessing its side. “None small enough…”
Grian pauses. They can shorten the length if they need later, but it might give them trouble if they need to run and the cape gets stuck on thorns or trips Avi up or something. It is a hazard. Besides, with how small Avi is, they need to make sure it sits well enough on his shoulders, too.
Mulling things over, Grian bites the inside of his cheek.
He steps closer, crouching down to thumb at the material these cloaks are made of. Rougher than his current one. (His feathers bristle at the thought.) Less thick, too, but good enough to protect against elements at least.
It’ll have to do.
Hand lifting to the clasp of his own cloak—thick, wintery, fluff-lined, a good cloak—he asks: “What about for me?”
The vex meets his gaze, and understanding flickers to life almost instantly. “Oh.” Scar looks around again, then steps over a body. “Maybe,” he concludes as he starts tugging at one cloak, working to get it free from where it’s trapped underneath its previous owner.
Eventually, Scar manages to free a suitably-enough sized cloak, and he walks over to hand it to Grian. Their fingers brush and Grian offers a small smile, edges filled with trepidation and all the anxieties they share. Scar tries to return one back despite the nauseous pit in his stomach and all his nerves frayed and alight, awaiting the ruse, the danger, the trap.
When Grian turns to the smaller avian, Scar silently returns his attention back to the bodies, intending to finish the sweep and gather more things. Goodies, as well as any spare clothes and fabrics, will come useful later. And there’s no time to waste.
Avi watches Grian’s approach with unease that signifies he is still just a sharp movement away from spooking and fleeing. It’s discouraging, but despite the ache of knowing he can’t calm these fears on-the-spot, that they won’t rest so easily, Grian is determined to try.
There’s an unspoken expectation that Grian will hand over the cloak Scar’s just given him.
Instead, Grian unclasps his own and extends it over instead. “Here.”
Avi blinks, stilling completely. “What?”
“For you. It’ll keep you warm.” Grian tries to sound reassuring, tries to sound soft. The cloak is warmed by his own body, heavy with protection and somewhat frayed from wear. His wings shift on his back, feathers rustling slightly as he itches to have his hand free so he could replace their cover.
“You— You can’t give me this,” Avi stammers, eyes wide as they flit across Grian’s face.
“It’s not like you’re gonna run away with it,” Grian notes in a half-joke, though he knows the possibility could very well be real.
With a whispering crackle of shrubbery and twigs, Scar comes from behind, arms full of carefully balanced loot, slotting himself easily near Grian without having to be asked. He doesn’t crowd close enough to touch the wings, but he positions himself well enough to hide the violets from any unwanted sight from behind.
While Avi flinches slightly at his presence, Grian exhales, shoulders slumping in relief where nerve-wracking anxieties were starting to build up.
“N-no,” Avi stammers, even though he still looks every bit like he might bolt.
Maybe Grian hopes that something borrowed will bind him to them. Maybe he hopes the show of goodwill and trust will soothe the worst of the nerves, swaying the outcome here. He isn’t sure. He just wants Avi to warm up, mostly. He looks so small and miserable, and Grian wants to help, however unwise it might be.
After all this time in the wilderness, surrounded by the cruelty of the world, it surprises him to find that still somewhere within him. If there wasn’t some desperate, instinctual response burrowed into him, and a core-trait stubbornness needing to prove something to himself and to this world alike, he isn’t sure he’d be acting this foolish.
But as it is, Avi is an avian, alone, cold, hungry, and scared. And Grian knows how that feels far too well.
He can’t just turn his back and let this world take another one of them down without even trying.
“Then consider it safekeeping,” Grian offers to Avi, still holding the cloak out.
He’s still met with hesitation. But then slowly, carefully—almost miraculously—Avi’s hands reach forward, fingertips shy when they meet the fabric.
Grian relinquishes it easily, glad to free his own hands to be able to put the other, less warm cloak on. Eager to escape the creeping cold and, most importantly, cover up his own wings.
Scar doesn’t move forward to claim a spot by Grian’s side once they’re all done dressing up. He stands still a step back, gifting the little guy some space. Looking, perhaps a little bit, like a seasoned bodyguard. (And he is, in a way, isn’t he?)
Grian turns to him, their eyes meeting. There’s an offer of gratitude in Grian’s expression, something soft and still pleading, and Scar meets it head-on. A soothing smile, even if tight around the edges, and a tiny nod.
Grian’s hands reach to take over some of the bundled things Scar’s holding, help with carrying and mobility alike. They need to be ready for anything out there, and stumbling with a heap of things is not good. Relying on one person not to drop their entire loot is also not ideal, not if they need to run—they’ve learned their lessons.
Even if no loot is worth more than their lives.
Expectation crackles through the air, weighty and hovering. Grian almost feels like if he turns back, the avian will be gone. Or at least several steps further away. There’s something about Avi that makes it seem like he doesn’t know how to handle company.
Grian can’t really blame him.
Yet when he faces him again, Avi’s still there. Tugging the warm cloak tight against himself and shivering into its warmth, the inside blissfully warmed by Grian’s body heat despite how long it’s been hanging in offer between them. The avian shifts foot to foot, eyes still skittish and nervous, as if unsure what to expect here. Unfamiliar with the next steps.
“You don’t have to be alone anymore,” Grian tells him, soft and inviting. “Come with us.”
A complicated expression passes across Avi’s face. He searches Grian’s expression, eyes flitting timidly to Scar. It makes sense: they’re strangers to him. This could easily be a trap. There certainly exist hybrids out there that lure others to their doom. Caution is warranted.
But there is a pile of bodies, snow stained by bloodshed, firmly putting Scar and Grian on one side of this fight.
And so in the end, despite any lingering anxieties, Avi follows.
—
They walk through the cold of the forest for what feels like forever. Bodies worn and stomach hungry, they know better than to think they’re safe enough—far enough—to stop. There are things Grian’s learned to recognise, and the fact these hunters wore lighter cloaks despite the still-harsh weather tells him they didn’t come from very far. Which means they want to get as far as possible before darkness descends.
Still attuned to an extra set of footsteps following them, Grian takes note of Avi stumbling. Tired legs threatening to give out.
There is no point pushing ahead if one of them can’t run in case of danger.
They search, scanning their surroundings, but ultimately it’s Avi who finds the unassuming crack in the rocky wall leading into a dead-end cavern. Faint, dying light pools in feebly from the outside, just enough for them to take stock of what they have to work with and declare it enough. Things get dropped, and Grian and Scar move to secure the entrance and try to find anything remotely dry in case they would dare a campfire—the cave walls seem sheltered enough for the glow not to give them away, and if the night is dark enough, the smoke will also hide. (Just another set of things they have learned to take into account and think about automatically.)
Grian offers Avi some of their food, and tells him to just rest. Tells him, quietly, that he’s glad Avi’s there with them. (That he chose to follow. That he chose not to be alone. That he chose, however tentatively, to trust.)
Scar waits by the exit, vex ears flickering as they catch every syllable. His heart tugs in complicated ways, seeing Grian crouched over a small, stray avian with tired body and nothing to hold onto in this world. And… he’s proud of him.
But he’s also scared.
They’ve been through something like this. And no matter how much Scar tries to ignore it and push it away, the anxiety flares up, over and over; his trust is made of dry kindling, and it’s keen on catching aflame, threatening to burn back into ashes at slightest prod.
He doesn’t want to wait for that prod. For that last thing to push it over. They need to be prepared this time. Watchful.
He isn’t sure how watchful Grian is. More than anything, he seems wistful. A little hopeful, a little desperate. With the memory of eclipse hunt surely in the back of both of their minds, pained and terrified calls of avians plunging into harsh, cruel silence… Scar can’t blame him. He really can’t.
He hopes—not necessarily against all odds, but certainly against all experiences—that this will turn out to be okay. That this time, their kindness will finally be repaid, instead of punished. That maybe their bruised, doomed hearts can mend.
—
It’s difficult to see in the upcoming evening, leftover winter still quick to shroud them in darkness. They wade through the forest near their hideout, trying to be alert and quiet and never too far from each other, always within sight. Separating for tasks is no longer a possibility—not since weeks ago. Months? Time blurs.
But it’s especially not a possibility now. With a salvaged stranger curled up in what is meant to be their safe shelter for the night.
Grian’s looking towards the cave again. It’s silent, not a movement in sight. Avi is snugly put inside, presumably doing as he was told: resting. Restlessly, Grian chews at his lip, a small frown pulling at his brows, troubled.
Scar steps into his orbit with ease, shoulders lightly brushing.
Grian glances at him, half-distracted. But he leans into him, grateful for the anchor. For the attentiveness he’s given. He takes a breath, and slowly speaks what’s eating at him: “I worry he might run away.”
Scar looks at the rocky wall too, pensive. Tense. Rigid, yet secure in his place right by Grian’s side. “Then let him,” he suggests, tone falsely breezy.
“Scar—”
The gaze Scar throws Grian’s way is unreadable. “He’s not our prisoner, is he?” he points out.
He doesn’t add the loud nor our responsibility that persistently bounces in his head.
Grian’s lips purse. He can tell Scar is uneasy—unhappy even—about this arrangement. Grian himself feels off, but this feels important to him on a level he struggles to express. Though even he has to admit Scar’s right here. There is no point trying to prevent Avi from leaving if he truly wants to. They are not going to keep him against his will.
“No…” Grian breathes out eventually, on a sigh.
“Well then.” Scar leans in, pressing a brief kiss to Grian’s hair before he steps away, eyeing a stick on the ground ripe for picking. “Stop worrying so much about things you can’t control.”
The sound that leaves Grian is a defeated laugh, more a huff than anything. “Any easier advice up your sleeve?” he half teases, something fond tugging at his lips even if the troubled edge doesn’t leave his expression.
Scar hums, picking the stick up and dropping it almost instantly, once he feels how awfully damp it is. “Mm, well, what exactly do you wish to achieve here, Grian?” he questions, his own unease over the situation palpable as he turns to look back at his mate.
It’s a loaded question. What’s the end-goal? What are they trying to do?
Grian’s shoulders hunch up, both defensiveness and helplessness on clear display for Scar to read through. Things he doesn’t like to see, but is fairly familiar with. And this, they need to talk about.
“I just,” Grian stammers, heart picking up speed as he tries to tug at the knots of his own feelings. They don't give. “I…” His shoulders fall down, together with his gaze, lips downturned.
“Shh,” Scar is instantly stepping towards him, cradling the twigs he’s collected with one arm and reaching the other towards his mate. Fingers brush Grian’s shoulder, rub against it soothingly. “Just tell me anything. We can polish it later. I just— I need something here, G.”
Grian’s eyes jump to his, glistening with deep-set emotion. Something raw and alive and so horribly, indescribably cornered. “I just,” he repeats, his voice sounding even smaller for the lack of defensiveness that was in it before. “I don’t want him to end up like—” His voice cracks. Gives out.
They both know what he means. Death and blood and ripped wings. Screams of pain and pleas and nobody in this cruel world who’d listen or help.
“I need someone to survive, Scar,” Grian insists, determined despite the shakiness in his voice.
It’s not hard to read between the lines. To know Grian means someone winged beside himself. To prove that it’s possible. To go against everything this world demands. To resist, to rebel—this part of Grian is familiar, yet it’s drenched in such painful hues after what they’ve been through in the past months, Scar can barely stand to witness it.
“Okay,” Scar replies softly, tipping forward to let their foreheads meet. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Grian repeats, hope breaking his voice.
Scar pulls away to show Grian a lopsided, albeit a bit sorrowful smile. Sad for them. Sad for the fates of others. Sad for things they can’t control. But it’s a smile anyway, unrobbed of this part of himself, comforting and fond and devoted. The core of Scar’s heart that’s only survived thanks to Grian.
Maybe Grian can make more things survive. Maybe they can do some good, after all.
Maybe he just needs to trust a little. As long as they don’t let go of each other. As long as they stay vigilant through this. Together. It’ll be okay.
“I… Scar,” Grian’s voice is dipped low, still such a small thing. It reflects that same sorrow and fondness that’s written all over Scar’s expression. “We’ll show him that he doesn’t have to be afraid of you.”
He puts a name to the hurdle they have now: to make the avian feel safe.
Safe enough to stay.
And with the way he was looking at Scar, stumbling to stay at a distance from the vex, out of arm’s reach… This is clearly one of the first things that needs to be addressed.
And it’s the part that makes Scar feel weird. He isn’t used to be seen as scary by anyone who isn’t intent on putting him down or calling him a monster. This is a small creature, helpless and scared, and somehow Scar is finding himself on the big bad wolf side of this tale.
This is so unlike what happened with Juni. With the mimic, Scar was instantly put on a pedestal, a key to survival, a capable protector. Juni kept near him for Scar’s strength and for all the scary features, recognising them as assets instead of the nightmare they could turn out to be.
(And yet Scar remembers that flash of terror, right there, at the very end. When everything Juni clung to turned against him.) (When Scar almost took a life he’d regret taking. When Scar almost lost control, lost himself. When Scar almost lost everything.)
Despite everything, it’s still jarring to think of himself as scary. Grian never treats him as such, and sometimes he forgets.
“Yeah,” Scar agrees, this time with a crack in his own voice.
Grian’s eyes flood with shifting emotions, raw and deep and unspoken. He shifts his own pile of twigs to reach up, fingertips caressing and brushing Scar’s cheek so very gently.
Scar can’t help but purr helplessly, eyelashes fluttering shut as he leans into the touch with a pained line between his brows, starving for affection and reassurance in this new situation they’ve gotten themselves into.
“I’m sorry,” Grian speaks with ache in his voice, with all the doubts they both have, wrapping them in thorny thread of guilt directed inwards. Aware that this is happening because of him. For him. That if it was up to Scar, the decision might be different altogether. “Please, try with me,” he begs.
With a small whine upon hearing that tone, Scar’s eyes open again. Soft forest green spilling across Grian’s expression with the kind of pained fondness that’d make Scar follow Grian anywhere. “No, no, don’t be sorry,” he hushes, face tilting until his lips meet Grian’s palm. Scar’s fingers loop lightly around Grian’s wrist, keeping it near. Asking him not to retreat. “Of course, Grian,” he reassures quietly, private words meant just for them. “I wouldn’t take this away from you. I’m just a bit wary. It’s… hard to trust.”
Grian looks away as Scar voices what’s been troubling them both. The roadblock they’re facing. The one that’s staring them down right back, like a challenge.
“I know,” Grian mutters. “But he’s— Scar, he’s so small and scared.”
The point about how Avi is nothing to be afraid of dies on his tongue before it even forms. Both of them know better than that. There’s no reward in underestimating others. Especially when that is exactly what Scar thought about Juni, too.
Scar’s hold on Grian’s wrist tightens minisculely, and he dips to kiss Grian’s palm again, his devotion unfaltering. “Please be careful?”
Grian nods, heart thudding a painful rhythm against his ribs. He feels a little breathless there. It feels like they’re standing on a precipice, toes already hanging over the line, and they can’t see how deep the plunge is or what awaits at the bottom.
Grian’s wings itch.
Slowly, Scar lets Grian’s hand go. He readjusts the twigs that have started slipping his hold. His eyes never leave Grian’s. “You’re sure about this, right?” He checks again, just to hear it. Just to have their fate sealed.
Grian looks pained. But his answer doesn’t change. “Yes.”
Scar breathes out and leans in to press a forehead kiss on top of Grian’s head. “Okay. Just let me know what you need from me. I’m here.”
Eyes closing, Grian leans close, forehead coming to rest against the crook of Scar’s neck. Taking a moment of silence to recharge. Knowing they shouldn’t stay away too long, shouldn’t stay out here too long either. But just for a moment, just for a little bit… He wants things to still.
Just him and Scar. And whatever lies ahead.
He nuzzles slightly in, then pulls away. Gaze cast around to check their surroundings.
Everything remains still, except his stuttering heartbeat.
“I…” Grian starts, but falters. Still peering towards the dark, towering trees. The snow is thin underneath, whiteness and mud and dry pine needles gathering in patches. Three sets of footprints lead straight to their little cave, and they’re about to walk around a lot more.
Unease crawls up his neck. Trying to hide in winter, in flightless places, has been challenging. But he isn’t sure if the thaw of spring won’t bring with it more hunt parties, weather turning favourable to remain outdoors for prolonged hours.
“Mm?” Scar tries to grab his attention again, to steer it back wherever it’s fallen from.
Grian’s eyes find his, and the hesitation is still there, on clear display. His hold on the gathered twigs tightens, squeezing them to his chest. They poke and cling to his cloak, dirtying it further.
“G. What do you need?” Scar asks, his one free hand coming up to cup Grian’s face, thumb brushing over the sleepless bruising underneath Grian’s eye.
Grian takes a shaky breath, as if this idea itself took so much from him. His gaze searches Scar’s eyes, flitting like a skittish animal. But the thought is lodged, buzzing against his skin with instincts he never really listened to before he found himself empty-handed in this place. “... I want to make a… more proper nest. I think?” His eyes anchor and hold, part unsure, part pleading.
Making a nest here feels like an insurmountable feat. A needless luxury that he hasn’t allowed himself even back home where he had every means to make one. He knows that if he tries here, it won’t be much. He knows he might fumble through it all, unused to it. He knows that presenting a lacklustre nest to another avian who might know better might be a fool’s errand, but… There’s a part of him that thinks it might be comforting. That Avi of all people might appreciate it.
The extra clothes they looted earlier were always meant to be a cushion for sleep, for warmth. Strips of fabric are always needed for various things, all of it usable. But it’s not exactly enough for a real nest… Or so Grian thinks.
It’s not like he’d know.
He doesn’t dwell on it; the reality of how he’s never really done a lot of nest building, together with the reasons for it, slides right off him.
A soft intake of breath speaks magnitude of Scar’s reaction. Wide eyes reading something sensitive and fragile in between the lines. Perplexed a touch, but mostly awed.
Warmth blooms in Scar’s chest, but he’s unsure how much to let it. Is it hope, or are they walking down a road that won’t prove to be good? He can’t tell. He can’t tell, but—
Grian wants this. Grian, who finds it so hard to give in to any too-birdlike instincts, who has been running from this and avoiding it his whole life— He wants to try to make a nest. Deliberately. With intent.
This is huge.
Scar barely realises his tail has sprouted out, swishing behind him. Faint glow of hopeful, smitten magic pierces the falling dimness of the evening as he rushes to nod, to agree, to do anything it’d take for Grian not to lose this precious, thin, barely-there thread. “Okay! A nest it is! We can make one, we—” He looks around, a little stumped. “What do we need?”
Grian huffs a small laughter, endeared and a little lost. A whole-soul kind of glad to have Scar so seamlessly onboard, no questions asked. (Well, one question asked. But not like that.) “I don’t actually know,” he admits. Because he doesn’t.
“Oh.” Scar straightens, ears flicking wildly. “Do you… want to go ask our new friend?”
Grian chews at his lip, gaze flicking away. He shakes his head. He wants to do this for Avi. He wants to provide safety that crawls in on an instinctual level. But the doubts seep in, rising like a tide up from his ankles, threatening to rapidly climb higher. A flood.
Scar sees the line that forms between Grian’s eyebrows, troubled, worried. It’s an expression he recognises, just shy of a spiral. “Hey,” he speaks gently, bidding for attention. Looking to divert those wild waters away from underneath Grian’s feet. “We can dry the stuff we hauled in by the campfire! That we’ll also totally make. Fire-warmed clothes! Those will be nice to burrow into, right? A nice, fire-warmed nest.”
The word nest travels down Grian’s spine in a yearning shudder. He feels himself mesmerised, caught by it like moth by a candle flame, eyes wide and wanting. His heart flutters in its bony cage, feeling bruisable, so very unsure. “... What if I won’t know how to make one?” Anxiety bleeds out of his voice, syllables timid and tiny.
Scar offers him a smile, unfailing, ready to walk through a battlefield if that’s what it takes. “How hard can it be?”
Grian latches onto it with a strength of a heretic. Doubt whispers against his skin, his hands already feeling clumsy, even though all they are doing right now is carrying twigs for the flame.
What if he messes this up? What if he won’t know what to do?
But Scar’s looking straight at him, seeing him with all of his fraying nerves, and he’s remaining steady. He’s remaining solid and unflinching, and he’s going to be here with Grian through this no matter what.
“Besides,” Scar tacks on, his voice saccharine and just a notch salesmany, “no one can be scared of a man doing laundry, right?”
That elicits a smile from Grian, however weak. “Worth a try,” he replies.
And then he takes a breath, readying to walk onto this particular battlefield together with Scar.
—
[part two]
hhau mimic arc rambles - part V: avian, all alone (2/2)
hey guys turns out the intro rambles have two parts here you go ~5,7 k words // other parts & au masterpost here > cw: violence warning for a small section involving dreams —
The first time Grian builds a nest in this world, it’s by the soft crackle of fire in a tiny cavern, next to another avian. The first time Grian builds a nest here, it’s not for himself. The first time he builds it, he…
Grian’s heart beats a faltering rhythm, feeling an unfamiliar ache of yearning that threatens to split it in two. His hands are clumsy over fire-warmed fabric, making feeble but determined attempts to arrange it. Juggling the lack of resources, the rational sensibility of using things for cushioning and warmth rather than anything else, and… an incessant instinct that tugs at him while another avian watches.
Grian almost asks if Avi wants to help. Almost.
Avi sits still through it, bundled up in Grian’s winter cloak and pressed into the rocky cave corner, waiting. Looking as if all of this effort wasn’t for him. As if, by the end of this, he’d be exiled into this corner and not allowed in anyway. (After all, he isn’t one of them. Nests are a private thing. A safety thing.) (The way the vex glances at him makes Avi bristle, like he isn’t permitted to step too close. Like he is a threat to the tight-knit security they have between the two of them.)
When Grian finishes, he sits back on his heels with a coo that makes Avi’s earwings flutter.
There’s a distance between them. A whisper of ceaseless, uncrossable expectations that neither of them are eloquent enough to navigate just yet. A jarring crevice of differing anticipations, flowing over their respective cliffs to pour into the same ravine.
Grian is so desperate to show Avi he doesn’t have to be so scared. That nobody will hurt him here. But he doesn’t quite know how, in a world that’s constantly set Grian himself on the backfoot, wariness weaving itself into his bloodstream like a virus he’ll never get cured of. How can he expect someone else who has been through the same hell to give in with any kind of ease, when he well knows he himself would fight tooth and nail to keep all of his guards up?
Carefully, Grian exits the nest, leaving it empty. Unattended. A tightness pings through his chest that he ignores as he grabs his own dried meat strips for dinner, shuffling towards the back of the cavern where the avian huddles against the wall.
Grian’s movements are slow, trying not to spook. He doesn’t get too close, doesn’t stare too much—he sees the way Avi tenses up at the approach out of the corner of his eyes, and it’s enough to draw the line between them. Enough to know where to stop.
Taking one bite out of his food, Grian almost idly extends one strip over to Avi in offering. Just like the cloak earlier, it isn’t immediately taken.
“... You already gave me food,” Avi murmurs, confused as to why he’s being given more.
Grian hums, but doesn’t retract the offer. He wonders how long it’s been since the avian has last eaten before this evening. “Aren’t you still hungry?”
Like a traitor, Avi’s stomach replies for him. There’s a mortified whine, and then Avi is burying his flushed face in his hands and earwings alike.
It reminds Scar of Grian, and he can’t help but chuckle softly, endeared despite all the caution he still holds close.
Grian snickers too, and undeterred, he shuffles a little closer. Tapping Avi’s knee with the offering. “We got a bunch of food off those hunters earlier. It’s okay,” he soothes, figuring that Avi must be worried about their stock. Which is always a valid concern, and Grian knows he’s staking a lot on this bet, giving away what they have to someone they still don’t really know.
But Scar isn’t stopping him. And they do have a bag freshly filled with food, even if it arguably isn’t much. They can start figuring out the rations tomorrow. For now, they need the little guy to regain enough strength to reliably follow them. (Enough strength to run or fight, should they need to.)
With an embarrassed noise and only half of his face peeking out, Avi tentatively reaches for the food, mumbling a shy thanks. He’s curling tighter into himself, which is the opposite of what Grian wanted to achieve here, but at least he’s willing to indulge Grian and eat a bit more.
A little unsure of how to proceed, Grian looks to Scar only to see him already looking back. Gaze intent, tail swishing low, like a watchful cat. Alert.
It makes Grian feel better to know he’s not alone in this.
For the next few minutes, they eat in silence. Then Scar and Grian start talking quietly, about the weather they expect and the route further. About bundling the nest-clothes back up in a way that’d be easier to carry. Things to figure out in the morning.
Avi chimes in quietly after a moment, too late once the topic has passed, like he wanted to say this earlier but couldn’t bring himself to. He tells them, belatedly, that there might be more frost, that the weather will probably turn worse. That he sees it in the sky and smells it in the air.
Both Grian and Scar are impressed, and take this tidbit of knowledge reverently, not doubting it for a second. With a lopsided smile that’s meant to be encouraging, Grian leans towards Avi: “You gotta teach us how to do that.”
The avian looks a bit startled, and he half-nods before he’s even aware what kind of request he’s giving in to. Once he catches up to his body, he falters. “I… don’t really know how. It’s just always been like that?” His nose scrunches a bit, eyes flitting to the corner beyond which the cave opening lies.
“Well, describe it!” Scar prompts.
Avi jolts a little, eyes snapping to the vex. Looking like he forgot to breathe for a second. “Oh. Um. It’s,” he stammers, looking like his heart is racing something wild in his chest.
Grian feels an urge to jump in, knowing he feels safer to their guest, but… he waits.
If Grian knows something, it’s that Scar’s gentle. Scar knows softness and kindness and how to weave emotional cues, and… he always knows how to calm Grian. And Grian trusts him to be capable, even now. Even in this situation, with all the apprehensions. Because they are on the same battlefield here.
Trying to guide Avi to answer, Scar offers some options—some sensible, some silly. A small unrelated story tumbling out of him, rambling about this or that. Summer storms come into play, somehow, in a way so unexpected and barely-on-topic Avi actually releases a small laugh.
And then Scar notes how sometimes before really bad weather, his legs ache.
A confession of vulnerability—of weakness—freely given. Spoken into reality as if it cost nothing, as if it was barely anything.
They all notice.
They all pretend it’s not a big deal.
Grian notes the tense angles of Avi’s shoulders have begun lessening. Slumping down, as if breathing was easier. As if the tight band around his chest that screamed warnings has finally started to loosen.
Avi stumbles through a description of what the weather felt like today. Of how he’s noticed it year after year. How there are telling patterns everywhere, in everything. And timidly, he wraps it up with an offer to tell them more. To try and teach them, if there’s anything they don’t know.
It almost sounds like a promise of longer time together.
Through it all, Avi doesn’t ask where they’re from. He doesn’t ask why they don’t know.
Grian wonders, in the back of his mind, if he’s already met people who haven’t grown up here. He doesn’t point it out, doesn’t dig them a hole of having to explain, doesn’t steer them towards anything that’d make them talk of home. He swallows it all back, lets the thought be quiet in the deep recesses of his mind.
The conversation flows slightly easier after that, Avi a shy, reluctant participant.
An hour might’ve passed, talk sizzling out, when Scar turns to start putting their supplies away—gathering them into bags, ready for the morning. (Ready for if they need to run in the middle of the night.) Tending quietly to the fire to keep its warmth alive for them.
Grian notices Avi staring at the vex.
He wonders what he sees.
His curiosity is sated a moment later, when Avi tentatively shuffles closer, lowering his voice. When his eyes return to Grian, they snag on the scar that mars Grian’s face—something he’s been doing all evening, ever since the first moment—and then he’s whisper-asking, clearly nervous about the implications: “He’s— He’s wearing your feather.”
Grian follows his gaze to Scar. The feather earring dangles from Scar’s ear (that flicks in a way that makes Grian sure he heard, but Scar keeps his attention on the fire in a way Grian bets takes conscious effort), violet hues licked golden and bright by the flames.
A swell of warmth bubbles in Grian’s chest, and he confirms softly: “He is.”
But Avi is on a different page completely, as he shifts even closer and whispers even quieter, clearly worried: “... Did he take it from you?”
Both Grian and Scar visibly startle at the not-quite-accusation. Grian blinks, jarred out of his velvety fondness with a sharp abruptness, wings twitching to flare out. Scar’s head whips up, eyes wide, but he isn’t moving or saying anything. Ears pulled low, shoulders hunched, body frozen still.
Grian shoots Scar a quick look and notes how pained and panicked he seems by the sheer idea of it. It stabs at Grian’s heart, and he’s quick to turn back to Avi and instantly defend: “No. No! Nothing like that.”
With another breath, Grian notes how Avi pulled away from both of them, making himself smaller. And it’s then that the implications hit Grian: that Avi might think Scar is a hunter, after all. That Grian is an accomplice, trading his own safety for the lives of others. That this is all a big ruse they’re playing. That they’re luring him to a gruesome fate.
Grian’s heart hammers against his ribs.
He can’t have this. He can’t— He can’t have his connection to Scar, his heartfelt gesture that means the world to them both, be misconstrued into something terrifying.
“No,” he repeats again, quieter—less sharp, less scary, he hopes—voice cracking.
Avi, too young and in a world too cruel, not being able to experience those kinds of instinct himself yet and having no point of reference, doesn’t know what it means. All he’s seen is hunters taking feathers. Hunters adorning themselves with things that aren’t theirs. Hunters, taking wings apart—
He shudders, eyes wide at a memory that nauseatingly rakes through him. He’s pressing himself back against the wall, feeling cornered. Back against rock. (Wings against rock.) The worry that Scar took the feather from Grian slips out of his hands at Grian’s insistence, but it doesn’t placate him.
Grian can see where this’d take him. If it wasn’t forceful, if it doesn’t indicate some kind of ownership, then… Are they working together? Does Scar want more? Are they bringing Avi somewhere to take his own wings from him? Is he a bargaining chip? A merchandise?
They wouldn’t, right? They wouldn’t?
But how can Avi be sure?
“Hey,” Grian tries, softer. Heart breaking at the sight of a too-familiar fear. He shifts, crouched, thinking of shielding Scar from view so that Avi can focus on him and his words alone, but he thinks better of it. Restless, he keeps to where he is, leaving enough berth. Leaving the sight of the exit free, even if that path only leads to Scar right now. “He didn’t take it from me,” he repeats, urgent to be heard. “He— I gave it to him.”
Avi’s gaze anchors on Grian. There’s a myriad of thoughts that he doesn’t voice, but Grian can tell he’s thinking through something.
“I gave it to him,” Grian repeats again, hoping it’ll land. Hoping it’ll stick. “Because I wanted to.”
“You… gave it to him?” Avi repeats slowly, still not moving. “I thought—” He cuts himself off. Swallows. “Why?”
Grian’s unflinching here. “Because I love him.”
The word love might ring unfamiliar in this world, but Grian speaks it into existence anyway. Doesn’t shy away from admitting it. Lays it out in front of this avian plainly.
He hears a soft, emotional gasp behind him.
Grian turns to look at Scar, their eyes meeting. The green irises glisten, glowing in the wild, living flame light. “It was a gift,” Grian continues. “I wanted him to have it.”
“But you— don’t—?” Avi stammers, clearly struggling to follow.
With a soft sigh, Grian moves. Not towards the avian, but away. Giving him space. Drawn helplessly with a heart full of yearning towards Scar. Craving his closeness like he always does.
He stops near Scar, reaching out. Fingers meet Scar’s flushed cheek, brushing softly over the skin. Scar’s eyes flutter closed, and he nuzzles into Grian’s palm like a beast tamed, like a predator devoted to its prey.
“Scar has saved my life many times,” Grian says hushedly, speaking as much to the man in question as to Avi. “I trust him with all of myself.”
Scar’s eyes open, watery. “G—”
Grian leans in to press a soft kiss underneath Scar’s eye, gentle, then pulls back. “And he— We want the world to know.” He holds Scar’s gaze for a moment longer, then looks over his shoulder at Avi. “You can’t touch me without making him mad.”
Maybe the words were too harsh, bordering on threatening despite the soft tone. But Grian knows this soothes Scar’s anxieties. That having Grian declared off limits for harm is exactly what he desires.
Possessive hands snake around Grian’s waist and tug him back.
Grian squeals in surprise as he topples backwards towards Scar, and Avi jolts in place, flinching forwards as if he was already willing to put himself on the line and help, but— Grian’s noise melts into laughter. An unafraid giggle and eyes squinted fondly, twinkling at the man that holds him captive. “Scar!”
Scar whines in protest, but it’s also laced with tentative laughter, his own carrying undeniable tension in it still. “Well, you can’t be the only one to gush!” he protests.
“Nooo,” Grian starts squirming, but it’s clear he isn’t putting in much effort. “Please don’t gush.”
“But Grian,” Scar drawls, for once focusing on the one avian here, slinking into the moment, “You’re so good to me, you deserve to be appreciated too.”
Grian manages to shift sideways, only to bury his face in Scar’s chest. “No more. That’s enough,” he muffles into it, face heating, knowing the whole arsenal of words Scar could pull out here to make Grian a flustered mush.
Scar laughs quietly, fondly. “But Grian, I haven’t even started.”
“Enough,” Grian insists weakly.
“Alright, alright,” Scar relents, expression soft, lips tilted into an amused, adoring smile as he looks down at the bundle that’s now snuggled against him. Gently, he cards a hand through Grian’s hair, loosening his hold.
And then, tentatively, he glances up at Avi.
Avi jolts on the spot, still half leaned forward but rooted to the spot. Eyes hanging on them, wide, taking it all in.
“I won’t hurt you,” Scar tries, voice riding on a whine as he once again comes face to face with the reality of someone small and vulnerable being terrified of him. “Really, I won’t. I— Not unless you try to hurt us, but… You won’t, right?” It’s small, almost a plea.
Grian shifts in his light hold, peeking out. Looking up at Scar, not at the avian. Taking in the heartbreak and waver and all the fragile doubt in Scar’s expression that Scar isn’t trying to cover up right now. He’s opening up, letting Avi read through it, hoping that Avi finds whatever he needs to see here.
“I—” Avi sucks in a breath, his weight finally falling back down into a sit. “I won’t.” His own voice breaks as he says it. “I— I don’t want to.”
A smile spreads across Scar’s lips, sorrow still clinging to it, but it’s softer now. Placating. “Then we’re good, aren’t we?”
“We’re…” The words falter on Avi’s lips. His eyes tear away, dropping down as he wraps his arms around himself and tightens.
Scar doesn’t make him repeat it, doesn't make him verbally confirm it, doesn’t make him try to figure this out on the spot. He knows, more than anyone, that trust is hard-won. That it shouldn’t come easy. That they both have plenty of things to prove to each other first, before they get there.
He just wants Avi to know he’s willing to build. That this bridge can be constructed, if Avi puts in the effort too, shows that he wants it. As long as both sides understand the rules, and what happens if lines get crossed.
(As long as everyone stays safe.)
“The earring,” Scar speaks up, giving his own input, “is special.”
Avi’s eyes return to him. Nervous, timid, guilty, maybe. For questioning—and misunderstanding—something that feels so big and sacred to Scar and Grian, Scar guesses. Or maybe guilty for being unable to stifle his own fearfulness. For being unable to see Scar as anything more than a clawed, dangerous guard dog.
“And for the record,” Scar adds, a gentle lilt to his voice, “I’m as much Grian’s as he’s mine.”
Avi looks at the way Grian’s leaned into Scar, relaxed and willing. Then back at Scar.
There’s a question in his eyes. An unspoken, perplexed, troubled thing.
Then where do I fit in?
Silence blankets them, Avi unwilling to ask and find out. Knowing, maybe, that there’s no answer to that question just yet. He just has to settle for what they’re giving him. He just has to accept the slivers they’re willing to offer, amidst everything they have between each other.
He finds himself starved, but he’s pulling away from it, not allowing his hunger to be known. Not allowing it to make him act desperate. His knees pull to his chest quietly, as he forces himself to be okay with what is happening here. With the possibility that crackles through the air, and all the trepidation that follows like a much bigger weight.
Safety is an elusive concept to everyone tonight. Trust perhaps even more so.
But they are willing to try.
When the time for sleep hits, Grian climbs into the nest he’s made and sits at the center of it, looking a little lost. Scar hovers near the outskirts, and Avi keeps to the back corner still, as if that was his place to be.
It rings wrong to Grian, all of this. A confused, inviting trill works through him, but he holds it back. Gaze running across the makeshift, clumsy nest, he reaches to restlessly fix up some bits and pieces, then glances across his company.
“Sleep?” he questions, shy.
It’s a call for them, but neither seems to get it.
“In?” Scar hazards asking, eventually.
“In,” Grian demands with a nod, reaching to grab at Scar’s arm and tug him over the nest border.
Scar topples in easily, with a small laugh. Delighted to be dragged closer, to be included. To be allowed into whatever Grian’s bird instincts conjured up.
But Grian isn’t done. He isn’t satisfied.
He turns to Avi.
Avi looks back, not moving.
“It’s warmer here,” Grian notes.
Avi stays silent, his eyes on Grian. He doesn’t say anything, an unspoken I know hovering in the air between them as he still fails to take it as the invitation it was meant to be.
Grian’s heart trips up in his chest. Scar’s hand finds his waist. Grian pushes through: “... I saved you this bit,” he offers, more straightforwardly.
The nest isn’t a tight little circle, as much as Grian’s instincts’d like. It’s made to hold some shape, as much as was possible while also staying useful, and it’s more wide spread than it was meant to be.
Because there’s a shy bird here, defenceless and unfamiliar, and Grian figured that he might like some space.
“... For me?” Avi asks in a small voice, disbelieving.
“Come on,” Grian coaxes. “You can come in too.”
This was always meant to be for him in the first place, after all.
Slowly, hesitantly, Avi uncurls from the tight position he’s folded himself into. He pries his back from the cold rock, mercifully shielded by the soft underside of Grian’s winter cloak, and he makes his way over. It’s careful when he reaches the edge of the nest, like he understands the significance, but all he gets is an encouraging smile.
And so he climbs in.
He settles on the outskirts, an unmoored part of their little group, exactly where he thinks he ought to be. Apart.
And yet he isn’t. Not entirely.
He’s been included, every step of the way. He’s been given food and warmth and comfort. He’s been talked to, properly talked to, and… He sniffles quietly as he lowers himself down, curling up. The cushion of the fabric staves off cold further, and the campfire heat reaches him from here, too, and all of a sudden his gratitude topples into something too large, precarious and aching.
Grian and Scar are quiet, not drawing attention to the ways in which Avi is muffling his little cries. Leaving the space around him empty, not wanting to crowd in. Not wanting to scare him.
Scar is slotted behind Grian, a barrier between his wings and the cave entrance, a position that once seemed impossible but is now starting to feel familiar, secure. He rubs a hand over Grian’s waist, away from feathers, soothing in a way he knows Grian needs here. Figuring that Grian’s nerves might be fraying, that he might be on the precipice of overthinking, that maybe—maybe—seeing Avi cry in the nest is doing things to Grian’s instincts.
Eventually, into the descending quiet of the deepening night, Scar offers, quiet and careful: “... You’re safe here.”
Avi hiccups, peeking from his cocoon, big dark eyes wet. “You…?” he manages to say before his voice cracks, an unfinished sentence carrying emotion sized too close to grief.
“We, too,” Scar confirms softly, only guessing that’s what Avi needs to hear. “We’re all safe here.”
Avi curls up tighter, Grian’s winter cloak blanketing him as he nuzzles into the nest, fire crackling near him. It’s far more comfort than he’s gotten in a long time, and it’s chipping away at him, breaking him down.
Grian’s heart aches at the little muffled sounds; clearly, Avi is trying not to be heard, but also can’t help himself and stop. It makes protectiveness sear itself across Grian’s heart like a brand, wanting to pull him closer and try to offer more, anything, anything for it to stop hurting. For the fears to slink back and something good to last.
As it is, he doesn’t touch him. He can’t. It doesn’t seem right, nor welcome at this stage.
But he does extend a hand. A meagre offering, a silent message. Palm resting face-up, unassuming and ready for taking.
Through the blur of tears and sob-choked breaths, Avi stares at it.
He doesn’t take it.
“We’re here,” Grian murmurs, voice heavy with wishes and exhaustion.
Avi sniffles, looking up at him. As much as he can, through the canopy of wetness.
“And we’re still going to be here,” Grian adds softly, “in the morning.”
What he is trying to say is:
You’re not alone.
Not anymore.
The hand rests in the space between them. Even after Avi’s cries calm down, and the fire starts falling quieter. Even after Grian and Scar doze off, snuggled close. Even after the night encroaches into their space, dimming the glow of the embers.
Avi keeps staring at that hand for a long, sleepless time.
It remains untouched as sleep finally claims him.
—
During the night, both Scar and Grian have a dream. A similar one, of a sunless day and blood soaked snow. Of chirps falling into silence, of life being unbearably unreachable and also right there. Of violence and fear and soul-choking desperation.
Grian sees a black-winged avian, standing with his back to him.
He blinks, and he sees Avi tackled to the ground, screeching and chirping a terrified melody as some sharp metal swishes through the air. A guttural scream of pain, a cry, a plea for help Grian seems unable to provide.
He tries. He tries. He pounces on the attacker, but his weight is nothing. The arm keeps stabbing. Avi’s terrified, agonised voice fades into silence.
Grian’s thrown off. The ground is harsh. His head rings. The trees above him spin in the darkness. An endless cacophony of faraway chirps cut off midway through the sound keeps swelling around him.
He looks sideways, just to see a bodyless pair of wings dragged through the snow, trailing feathers and blood.
He chokes on despair so thick he doesn’t think he’ll be able to overcome it. He won’t be able to take another breath. He won’t be able to survive this moment.
He paws at the ground next to him, but Avi isn’t there. There’s no bleeding to staunch. No avian to save.
It strikes him then that Scar isn’t there either.
Sitting up in a sharp panic, he frantically looks around, quiet, ugly sobs wracking his body. Too afraid to be loud, knowing he’s next. Too scared to make a sound when he’s all alone. Knowing better than that. Remembering better than that.
His hand presses against his cheek, into the scar there. It bleeds, blood pooling fresh and warm in scarlet rivulets. Avi’s feathers are piled by Grian's knees, like a worship offering to a forgotten god, and Grian’s blood and tears drip over them. The forest echoes with vicious barks of hound dogs, ready to find their prey.
“Scar,” Grian whimpers, lost and helpless and torn apart. His voice barely makes it out his cry-scraped throat. “Scar.”
There are hands on him. Warm, steady hands that he flinches away from with a startled gasp and a sob.
“G. G, shhh, Grian—”
Grian sobs louder.
“Shh, G, hey, hey.” Large hands grasp at Grian’s cheeks. The wound doesn’t throb, doesn’t bleed anymore. The fingers are gentle as thumbs brush his skin, coaxing him to open his eyes to a different reality. “I’m here. I’m here, Grian, please look at me.”
Through the tears, Grian fights to blink his eyes open. He’s greeted by a blurry sight of a man, familiar brown spillage of hair with a white streak through it and green, green eyes. Grian’s hand flies up, instantly latching onto Scar’s sleeve with desperation of a man thinking what’s in front of him is merely a mirage, about to disappear any second.
“Grian,” Scar repeats, sounding shaken himself.
“Scar,” Grian’s voice breaks. Shatters into pieces that feel irreparable in the moment.
Scar pulls him closer, into his chest.
It occurs to Grian then that they’re sitting up. They’re—
When did he sit up?
How much of it was a dream?
He chokes on a warble, squirming, trying to look around in the faint dimness of the cave barely touched by the rising morning outside.
“He’s okay,” Scar tells him, reading his panic perfectly. “G, he’s okay. He’s— He’s here. He’s okay. And so are you. You’re— You’re both okay.” Scar’s voice cracks too, as if his reassuring rambles were meant for himself as much as they’re meant for Grian. His hold tightens, tucking Grian into the crook of his neck, desperate and protective. “You’re both okay,” he repeats, like a mantra.
Grian holds onto him as if he was everything, and he cries his bruised little heart out.
The morning is cold, but the nest is holding the worst of it at bay. Grian’s new cloak is thinner, and despite everything, with the fire dead, Grian finds himself shivering as Scar shushes and soothes him. He tucks himself close, and Scar obligingly keeps his arms tight around him, rocking them both gently.
There’s a rustle behind Grian.
With a sharp intake of breath, Grian brings his hands up and starts rubbing his eyes dry. He hides against Scar only for a moment longer, before chancing a glance past the arms around him to what lies beyond.
Despite the noise, Grian half expects the nest to be empty. As if it was all a dream. As if they’ve never met another avian in this horrendous world, the idea nothing but a fragile wishful thinking.
But Avi is there.
He’s there, bundled up, looking just as young and small as before. Eyes wide.
Grian sniffles, trying so hard to pull himself together on the spot. He rubs at his face again, shifting to turn around. Scar allows it easily, but he doesn’t retreat, keeping himself close. Letting Grian remain tucked into his side. Needing him close just as much as Grian needs him in this moment.
“I d— I didn’t m— mean to wake you up,” Grian barely manages to say, words horribly wobbly.
Scar nuzzles into Grian’s hair from the side, trying to offer a blanket of explanation for all three of them: “It was just a dream. A bad dream.”
Grian’s shaky hands move to clutch onto Scar’s hold, desperate to keep it in place and to give something back. To double the security.
The emotion in Avi’s eyes is unreadable, but underneath it lingers fear. He’s shrinking, curling up tighter. Making himself smaller, somehow, against the display of Grian’s and Scar’s pain. “Sorry,” he squeaks quietly into the collar of the cloak he’s drowning in.
Grian sniffles again, shakes his head. “It’s okay. It’s— It—” His breath catches. It keeps catching.
“It’s okay,” Scar repeats for him, buttery smooth, trying to force certainty into his voice despite his own distress.
Avi stares for a while longer, before he ducks down, hiding his face in the fabrics draped over him.
It helps Grian calm down, knowing he’s no longer watched. Feeling a little less like he’s failing, like he’s exposed. Less like he’s about to beg for the avian to stay, to be safe, to remain unharmed and alive and near. Scar murmurs soft reassurances against his hair, and bit by bit, Grian slumps into him, fatigue overtaking emotion.
They lay down again, none of them feeling rested enough to decide to stay up. Even though Grian’s terrified of having another violent dream. Even though the nightmare still lingers, too fresh, too close to skin.
Scar is nuzzling close, as if he was determined to be closer than any bad thoughts. Keeping everything bad at bay with body heat and sheer will alone. He’s here. He’s here, no matter what, never again leaving Grian alone.
He murmurs promises of it into the nape of Grian’s neck, over and over.
Grian still finds silent tears rolling down his cheeks, his hands tightly wound up against his own chest, pressed into the unsteady beat of his distressed heart. Stay, stay, stay, it begs against his ribs, with the kind of pain that tells Grian he has no control over this. He can’t make it hold true. He just has to trust that if he closes his eyes, he won’t lose everything by the time he opens them again.
Another rustle. Eyes settling on him again, peeking from their bundled hideout.
A hand, resting between them.
A quiet offering, a quieter question. Is this what you need? A soundless plea. Let me help.
The gesture presses at the bruising on Grian’s heart, and for a moment, he feels helplessly breathless. Overtaken by the smallest of things, and the attentiveness with which it was delivered. The kindness.
The kindness, extended back.
Tears overflowing, Grian uncurls fingers of one of his hands (the other still clutching tightly onto Scar) and reaches out across the space.
This time, their skin connects.
Fingers curl loosely into each other, timid and shy and needy on both accounts. Avi’s breath hitches, and he keeps himself still, despite the surging desire to get closer. To test how more of this closeness might feel like.
He stays in place, and so does Grian, pressed against Scar. But their hands connect, and that’s a start, isn’t it?
Grian squeezes lightly, letting it sink in that Avi is truly here. That he wasn’t dreamed up, and he wasn’t lost, and nothing bad happened. That they’re still all safe in their little cavern, tucked away and hidden from the outside world.
Clinging to this security, Grian’s strength drains out, bit by bit lured back under into sleep.
—
Morning stretches across the world lazily, painting it up in foggy frost. The temperature keeps low, as if the winter never ended, trailing them like a hound on a hunt. Fresh snowfall covers up the footsteps that were left behind last night, a small mercy extending their frail safety for a little longer.
When Grian stirs, it’s a slow affair. A heavy arm remains draped over him like dead weight, and he doesn’t try to dislodge it, feeling safer underneath it anyway. Scar’s breaths are light, calm, pressed to the back of Grian’s neck. Guarding over the mark that rests there at the crook, indents of teeth sunken permanently into vulnerable flesh.
There’s more, though.
With a languid blink, Grian looks ahead. He’s still half expecting to find the rest of the cavern empty, despite the warm touch of fingers tangled into his in a loose, sleep-heavy hold.
Grian’s heart flutters in his chest. A sound alike a chirp almost climbs up his throat on nothing but unfiltered instinct, but he pushes it down. He lets the moment build, quiet, sprawling wide until it fills every rocky nook of this cave.
An avian, alive. With them.
It’s still as unbelievable as it was last evening. But it feels real, Avi’s hand in his, soft breaths lifting the clothes draped over the small body.
Somewhere there, underneath a warm, fluffy cloak, are feathery wings.
Grian finds himself weak to this. Still just as askew as before, urgency sitting in his chest, telling him that he cannot lose this. That amidst everything in this world, this is the one thing besides Scar he needs to protect. Needs to make sure it survives, like a beacon of hope.
The morning is quiet, nobody awake but him.
He lies quietly, letting it all sink in. Gently, with all the trepidations and anxieties it still holds. With all the possible pitfalls ahead, all the doubts, all the torn holes in his and Scar’s trust. Everything that could go wrong, on so many parts.
Looking at the avian now, curled up underneath layers of fabric, face exhausted but finally relaxed under the weight of sleep—finally not looking so afraid—Grian hopes that this wasn’t a mistake.
hhau mimic arc rambles - part I
(~3k words)
One of the hybrid races is a mimic/changeling, a shapeshifter that can take the appearance of another person. They are the most likely to live in relative peace, as they can trick their way into looking human, but they live in constant fear, as one single slip-up can mean their death.
There is another fate for a found-out mimic, though, and that is being used by hunters, as a lure for other hybrids. If the mimics want to live, they have to do what the hunters say, and bring prey that dies in their stead.
At a time when Grian and Scar stumble upon a mimic, they’re already kind of notorious in this world – a vex with a kill count and a rare violet-winged avian, greatly desired by hunters for trophies and rewards. (There are wanted posters and everything.)
Now, our mimic for this story arc is one that is being used by hunters, and has been used by them for quite a while. But now he’s posed with the reality of Scar and Grian, two hybrids who have managed to escape hunters for so long, and— He thinks maybe, maybe he could swap his place with Grian. Maybe he could take that safe spot by Scar’s side, this vex who has killed his pursuers before, clearly capable of defending both himself and his avian. If the mimic could take Grian’s place, he could be protected. He could get away—
He is sent in as a lure, but he decides to take his fate into his own hands. (For better or worse.)
The mimic finds an opportunity when Scar and Grian are slightly separated, and ambushes Grian. Doses him with weakness potions (he needs him quiet and still), copies his look, and hides him in a ditch under a pile of leaves. He uses maybe one too many potions, because Grian wouldn’t stop trying to move (he’s so so so terrified), but he also makes sure to take the time to hide him properly. (He doesn’t really want to sacrifice anyone to the hunters anymore—but he also knows where to go looking if this fails and he needs to make a sacrifice anyway.)
The mimic finds Scar, and tries to lure him in a different direction. (Away from Grian. Away from the hunters.) Scar instantly knows something is wrong; he knows Grian’s face by heart, and this isn’t a perfect copy. It’s too clean. Freckles slightly wrong. There are no deep bruises under Grian’s eyes from sleepless nights, no wear from countless tears that Scar’s vigilantly brushed away.
But it does look like Grian. It sounds like Grian, afraid and pleading and vulnerable.
Scar’s so hopelessly weak to it, so lost, so conflicted.
So while Scar asks where the real Grian is, he has next to no cards in his hands for this bargain. He can’t threaten violence, because he isn’t capable of it, not against a Grian-lookalike. All he has is despereate pleas, hands trembling, heart panicking, and eyes filling with tears.
The mimic is reluctant to release answers, clinging to the charade. He needs Scar to believe he is Grian, to protect him. To take him safely away from here. (But that ship’s sailed.) (He screwed up.) But if Scar won’t take him away from here— well, then the hunters are going to kill him. He’s terrified, and it isn’t even an act.
Two different kinds of honest, open desperations clash, and a deal is made.
Scar promises he’ll protect the mimic. Not only until he has Grian back, but after that, too. (He recognises the mimic is just scared. He’s a hybrid in distress, just like them.) It’s a heavy promise, but worth it if the cost is Grian’s life.
They go back to Grian, barely conscious but safely buried under leaves, and Scar immediately gathers him in his arms, relieved and reassuring, holding on. Lifting him up (something he’s intimately familiar with now; carrying Grian’s weight is so easy and natural to him at this point), he notes that they need to go. They – all of them, including the mimic.
The mimic trails after them like a cleaner version of Grian, holding himself timidly and one step behind, like a lost puppy. He’s relieved he wasn’t left to die; that the promise really holds. That despite everything, Scar is still willing to help him.
The situation that follows is difficult for everyone involved.
Once the weakness wears off, Grian is very unhappy with the circumstances. He’s willing to deal with the situation, because Scar gave a promise, and Grian wants Scar to be able to keep his promises. They’re in it together. They’ll see it through.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t unnerved and uneasy about this whole thing. Mainly because the mimic still looks like Grian. He’s anxious at every little interaction Scar has with the mimic. Watching and waiting, for the moment when the line blurs. For the possibility of Scar not being able to tell them apart.
Scar can tell them apart, so innately and intuitively. There’s a difference to their words. To the way they hold their wings. To the way they reach for him, the way they apply pressure with their touch. The way they say his name. (Grian always puts so much in just Scar’s name.) (It’s more timid and unfamiliar on mimic’s tongue.) But he can still tell that Grian is uncomfortable with this arrangement. He sees the way Grian goes withdrawn and quiet. He doesn’t like it.
The mimic tries to understand their dynamic, and he finds himself jealous and confused, something in him aching. He sees the way Scar cares for Grian, the ease with which he provides reassurances and affection, and he hurts to have a sliver of that too.
But Scar is kind to him. He’s gentle and soft. The mimic doesn’t remember last time anyone came close to caring about him, and this staggers him to no end. Touch-starved and desperate, he quickly finds himself craving for more.
There is a lot of missteps that happen. And a handful of things that go right.
The mimic grew up in this world, and is much better at scavenging and recognising safe food and hidden cracks in terrain for possible shelter. He helps out whenever he can, eager to please, wishing so much to be able to at least somehow return the favour.
And yet when Grian and Scar curl up for the night, he’s still alone, on the sidelines. He looks on with so much painful yearning, but also knows that it’s not his place. It will never be his place. He’ll never get to know how that feels like.
He can’t slot into that place that Grian gets to have. He knows, viscerally, that if push came to shove, he wouldn’t be the one Scar’d save, between him and Grian. They are letting him stay, but he’s disposable.
He understands.
Or— he thinks he understands, anyway.
(He really wishes to be Grian.) (He isn’t, he can’t be.) (He— who is he, though?)
Over time, as he realises they aren’t going to chase him away at any second, he grows bolder and more curious. He’s more at ease with his wings than Grian is, not having the burden of associated trauma. They’re clean and brilliant, and they brush against Scar so very easily. He seeks out his presence often, feeling the safest when he’s next to Scar’s side—a spot that was never meant to be his.
Grian watches, and he wonders. He wonders if this other version of him isn’t better for Scar. Without panic attacks and inaccessible wings and soul torn-apart by wounds that bleed through so easily. This version of him capable of getting them dinner and recognising hunters’ traps from a distance.
He wants to ask Scar again, if he wouldn’t be better off without him.
He asked him once, all the way at the start, back when they found each other in this horrible world. He told Scar to leave. And Scar said, never.
And yet. Here Grian is, wondering again.
On top of all of this, there’s also a ribbon incident, one which I will write separate rambles about. Or maybe a oneshot fic. We’ll see which way my hand slips. What you need to know about it, though, is that it results in the mimic adjusting his appearance.
And oh boy. Does that open a whole another can of worms.
The mimic can’t change his appearance completely at will. He can borrow, and steal, and, well, adjust, to a degree.
The adjustments he makes, when asked to stop looking like Grian’s exact copy, are—
Make his hair slightly darker than Grian’s.
And—
Make his wings dull brown.
(you can see how that looks like here)
This is a big deal, in a world where Grian’s wings are a beacon and a burden and his greatest source of fears and insecurities. To see his look-alike take that vulnerability and overwrite it so easily, strip it down and turn it into something muted and unassuming. Take the cursed wings and twist them into something much more safer, when he himself can’t do a damn thing about them— He isn’t sure how to deal with it. How to bear having this display rubbed into his face every day. How to swallow down the building nausea and the ever-increasing doubts.
This mimic is a better version of him.
Scar would be so much safer with him, instead of with Grian. Grian and his wings that attract trouble and enemies and—surely, inevitably—death.
He has a front-row seat to what it could look like, if only his feathers were different. But he’s powerless to change them. He just grows more upset with them, with himself, with what he is. (A burden a burden a burden.) (Going to get Scar killed.)
So, quietly, Grian withdraws further.
This all amounts to: the mimic grows attached to Scar, and craves some form of love and safety, in a world that was only ever scary and hurtful to him. But through this all, him and Grian never really build a bond. That’s not to say there aren’t good moments between them. But the missteps outweigh them. It’s all too complicated. Too stifling. There’s no easy way to untangle it or fix it.
They carry on like this for a while, but it’s clear this isn’t working. It’s clear to Scar, because he can see that this hurts Grian. And he feels helpless, because he doesn’t quite know how to fix this. All he knows is he needs Grian to be okay. And his gentle reassurances and soft affection and tight hold at night? They aren’t enough.
So one night, they talk.
Scar asks if it isn’t working. And Grian shakes his head to dismiss it, even though clearly it isn’t working. He’s reluctant to say he wants it to be just the two of them again. That he can’t bear the sight of this other version of himself, interacting with Scar with such ease, earning softness from him. Imagining what it would be like to be replaced. He just doesn’t want it to be like this. He can’t stand it. But he doesn’t want to forsake another hybrid. He knows how scared the mimic is. How harsh this world is. How unforgiving. So how can he say any of it?
Scar doesn’t force him to explain any of it. He takes the scraps Grian gives him, and lets them be enough.
Quietly, in the depth of night, they throw around a tentative suggestion. Maybe they could leave the mimic somewhere safe? Maybe that would be the best course of action? To keep Scar’s promise and to stop them from falling apart? It feels like it might be something to consider. But it’s late and they’re tired, and maybe they should think on it some more. They leave it hanging on a fragmented, bitter hope with a maybe.
The mimic, curled up on the floor with his back to them, wide awake, hears all of this.
He can’t go back to being alone, fending for himself. He’ll get captured again. He’ll get killed. But more than that, he can’t stand the idea of losing that gentleness Scar steadily provides. He doubts he’d be able to survive on his own in a cold, cruel world without anyone looking out for him, and he doesn’t know how to live without that scrap of kind softness. Shared evening meals and sprinkled laughter and fleeting touches. Someone to talk to. A hand to hold when afraid.
He doesn’t know how to be without those things anymore.
So he makes a plan. Terrified and desperate and sick to his stomach, but finding himself cornered and at a dead end. He’s grasping at straws. He’s—
He’s going to make this work.
He won’t be abandoned. He won’t be discarded. He won’t be left to die.
Once they fall asleep, the mimic copies Grian’s look. Properly copies it. Every bruise and scratch. Every freckle and misaligned feather. And he tucks it away for later. Waits for his chance, for Grian to be out of sight.
He still has a couple of weakness potions on hand.
All it takes is one moment. One moment of Grian being on his own.
The mimic drops weakness on Grian—a lot of it. He incapacitates him properly, hastily steals the ribbon and the cloak, and then he sneaks up on Scar and uses another weakness. This time just one, before ducking away.
His little plan whirring to life, the mimic shifts to his perfect Grian copy and approaches from a different side. He drops to his knees, frantically asking Scar if he’s okay. Convincing him that the mimic tried to ditch them, he saw him running away and they need to move in case he went to snitch to the hunters. He sounds terrified. Playing the perfect role of Grian in distress.
He’s using everything he learned from watching Grian—all the things Scar used to so easily, so naturally tell them apart. Voice inflections and touch pressure and the way Grian holds his wings, all of it. Pushing fear and urgency into his voice, constantly calling Scar’s name, checking on him, asking if he is okay, if he can walk, insisting in a panic-pitch that they need to go.
He sounds so so afraid. (He sounds Grian-afraid—Grian is terrified of hunters.) He’s begging Scar to move. He knows it’s hard, he knows, but please please Scar, try anyway.
Scar is dizzy and sick and confused from the potion, head foggy, too sluggish to think. He’s correct in a guilt-riddled realisation that the mimic betrayed them, but completely wrong as to how the mimic betrayed them. (He tells “Grian” that he’s glad he’s safe. He’s sorry for trusting the mimic. He’s sorry this happened. He trails off. Everything’s spinning.)(Grian is panicking and Scar is so weak to seeing him like this. He listens. He does his best to stand up. To reassure. To help. To go, go, go.)
The mimic swallows the guilt, the raw, bitter awfulness of what he’s doing. And, desperate to put enough distance between them and the real Grian, so that Grian could never trace them, never find their way back to them, to never shatter his lie, he leads Scar deeper and deeper into the forest.
And oh, he’s doing such a good job of pretending to be Grian. Even if Scar is dazed, perception hazy and thoughts unstable. The mimic is stellar in his performance this time, not leaving space for doubt. (Grian’d hate that he has him copied so awfully well.) (And oh, wasn’t he always afraid this would happen? Wasn’t he terrified that one day, Scar won’t be able to tell them apart—?)
Grian didn’t get the courtesy of being pulled into a ditch and covered up by leaves this time. He was left lying in the open, bright wings helplessly sprawled, unable to do anything. (There was no time—) He’s scared for Scar, not knowing if he’s okay. He’s terrified of the forest and his own utter defencelessness. He’s lowkey having a panic attack, but his body is too numb to do anything about it.
The potions don’t wear off completely yet when he’s found and attacked.
Weak and sluggish and stumbling, and so very alone, he scrambles to fight for his life.
--
On the mimic’s side, a week or two pass, filled with him sneaking diluted weakness into Scar’s water supply, to keep him slightly dazed just enough so that Scar doesn’t look at him too closely. And they keep going, further and further away. Scar doesn’t know why he’s still feeling so weak and off. He isn’t sure where they’re going, either. He thinks Grian seems anxious, as if they were possibly being pursued (not an outlandish idea at all, in this world), and Scar doesn’t quite know how to unknot his own guilt about this whole situation. (Oh if only he knew, right?) So he goes, because going is all they’ve done these months anyway. Constantly on the run. Constantly hiding.
But the weakness runs out.
Scar is finally feeling clearheaded again, and he’s so relieved. He will be able to pull his weight now, take some of the burden off Grian. They’re okay. They’re okay and—
One wrong reaction. One misunderstood question. One anxious, scared, paranoia-riddled heart jumping too fast. That’s all it takes.
One wretched apology.
One pause.
One small, shaky, uncertain “... Grian?” Begging to be wrong.
The possibility is snaking its way into Scar’s brain and he's terrified.
It’s been days. It’s been days since they ran away from the mimic. It— Surely, Scar is wrong here?
Scar’s fingers brush over Grian’s earwings. He’s not allowed to touch them. Grian wouldn’t let him. Grian—his Grian—would spiral into panic at the lightest touch against any of his feathers. And—
And this isn’t his Grian.
Anger, fear, hopelessness. Pointless apologies. Questions Scar isn’t sure he wants to know the answer to. (He needs to know.) (He needs to—) (Where is Grian?)
“We left him behind.”
We.
Scar wants to argue there’s no we, but… It’s true, isn’t it? They both did.
They left Grian behind. Days ago. Alone and without supplies. In a world that desires nothing more than to slaughter him.
Anger topples into despair. Scar feels like he’s losing himself, vex magic thrumming through his veins, wild and uncontrollable. Nails shift into claws. He’s ready to tear this wretched world apart if it’d mean Grian is safe—if it’d mean Grian is alive.
Reaching out, Scar yanks the stolen ribbon off mimic’s wrist. He grabs the cloak and pulls it off of him. (He needs to return them.) (Where is Grian where is Grian where is Grian)
Not knowing which direction to go, Scar goes anyway.
The mimic doesn’t follow.
--------------
find more in the hhau au masterpost>> here
hhau mimic arc rambles part I bonus: mimic's name [part I main rambles] [au masterpost]
the mimic has a complicated relationship with identity.
this comes from being what he is—a mimicry, a copy, he’s meant to take and assimilate features that do not belong to him, to constantly shift and change and be someone else. when we’re talking about big changes, those always come either from his immediate surroundings, or from things he knows by heart.
you’d expect him to know his original form by heart.
he doesn’t.
he isn’t sure he has one. he doesn’t know how to be himself. he doesn’t know how to shape himself into something that’d be purely his, without belonging to anyone else.
the reason why he can’t easily shift out of his grian form when he’s with scar and grian is— well, he doesn’t want to, because it gets him more of scar’s attention, more gentleness and kindness and protection (or at least, that’s what he thinks; he considers those to be conditional) (in some ways, he’s right; scar’s weak to seeing any kind of distress on grian’s face, and the mimic is currently wearing that very face). but it’s more than that. it’s that he’s not familiar enough with any of his previous forms to know how to shift back into them.
he was forced to work for the hunters, in return for being spared and kept alive. his missions were usually quick little tricks. he never acquainted himself with any form the way he did with grian’s; never quite made any of them his home. each time, he was itching to shed them, to move on, to forget. (luring hybrids as helpless as you to a horrible death does that to you—)
he doesn’t remember his own name.
he isn’t sure he has one. out in the wilderness, struggling for survival, he didn’t need one. (there was no one to use it anyway.) the hunters always called him by what he was, instead of who he was. (the line is so blurred; he thinks it’d amount to the same thing anyway.) and the rest was a blur of stolen names that he’s taken as his own, grabbed and discarded, never permanent. (nothing about him ever was.)
now he’s with scar and grian. and they tell him he can’t look exactly like grian, but he doesn’t know any other way to be. (he tries. he tries, shifting around colours, even as most of him remains something that doesn’t belong to him. something that never was his to take. something that will be his, briefly, in a haze of lies and weakness potions and betrayals—)
he doesn’t have a name. he reacts to one that belongs to his shape, but they tell him he isn’t grian. they tell him he shouldn’t listen to that name.
he doesn’t know who else to be.
he never really thought about it. what does it mean, to be his own person? how does he separate himself from all of these fragments, all of these stolen things? how can he dig up something that’d belong solely to him?
he tells them he’s lost. and they say, it’s okay. it’s okay, they can give him a new name. what would he like to be called?
he doesn’t know.
he doesn’t know, but he keeps listening to them talking about things he never knew. about birds and flowers and happiness. about kinder places. they tell him he can take any name he wants. anything he likes. anything that feels right.
quietly, he lets that sink in.
at some point before they met the mimic, grian looted a leatherbound journal off a hunter. he gifted it to scar, because he knew scar loved to sketch. except neither of them could bring themselves to as much as touch the quill that came with the little book. (they were sure it didn’t come from a bird.) instead, they learned how to make charcoal sticks, through trial and error.
scar started filling the jounral, turning it into a sketchbook. in idle little moments, few and far in between, it proved to be a source of tentative calm. somewhere to channel all the crowding memories; somewhere to draw the lines of everything he never wanted to lose, everything he doesn’t want to forget.
there are drawings of boatem, littered across the pages.
the mimic sees the sketched landscapes and beloved builds and cherished places. and scar talks about making life out of nothing, flowers and trees, cliffs and hills, everything just the way it should be for it all to thrive. listening to him talk, the mimic thinks about trees, roots deep in the soil, growing tiny bit by tiny bit until they’re able to withstand any weather, and— the trees here in this world? the ones he knows? they aren't pretty. but the trees scar draws and describes seem different. ready to live.
he looks at the sketches again. he points. he asks.
he gets his answer.
it’s three more days until he says quietly, one evening as they’re settling for sleep (scar and grian huddled together, and him slightly off the side), that he’d like that to be his name.
juniper.
juni.
(yoinked this from google, but: "The strength of the junipers tree is seen in it's capacity to survive in harsh and bare climates, growing out of rocks, and surviving in areas with very little water." aLSO “Junipers have the capacity to self-prune, shedding branches for survival, and its sap is rot resistant.”)
he spends the rest of the time with them with grian’s face but dull-brown wings and matchingly brown hair, and he calls himself juniper.
he calls himself juni, until it’s time to become grian again.
and once that is all said and done, he—
he doesn’t think he wants to be juni again. being juni hurts. (juni isn’t someone who deserves to be loved. not after what he’s done.)(he doesn’t think he’ll ever be loved again, anyway.) (he wasn’t meant to be loved in the first place, either. it was grian. it was always grian, not him. never him.)
he decides not to be juni anymore. and he decides not to go after scar. and he decides—
the forest is big and looming and unfriendly, promising nothing but fear and solitude and death. there’s no good direction to go.
he stays still for the longest time, his back against a tree that scar’s pushed him into.
he stays, and he breathes, and he shivers, and he curls up, and he cries.
and then he moves, arbitrarily, randomly. moving forwards, lacking direction, letting go of the identity he so carefully worked to craft, to love, to make his.
he’s left with nothing and he can only blame himself.
(it hurts it hurts it hurts)
(it terrifies him)
and then— what happens to him after that? we’ll learn once i compile the remaining main parts of mimic arc rambles jxknbkj
I’m still very upset over what Juni did, but reading what happened to him hurt so much. He definitely deserves some kind of comeuppance but everything that happened to him? It’s just so horrible.
Him keeping the wings also hurt, because it’s putting him in danger but it only seems fair to him. To put himself fully into the fate he befell Grian (or the fate he thinks Grian befell, anyways). I do love the solidarity of it, in a way. He’s not taking the easy way out, putting himself in this situation because it’s unfair if he doesn’t. It’s still very sad though :(
I do hope he has a chance to recover at some point and maybe repay what he’s done and help some hybrids out. Maybe even see Scar and Grian again to know they’re okay… from a distance. Meeting probably wouldn’t go well for them, but Juni knowing that they’re alive would be nice, that he didn’t get them killed.
dw juni's also still upset over what he did too! :D
... ok, on a serious note now though. it is perfectly fair to be upset about what he did. 'coz what he did was awful! objectively awful. and he screwed up so hard. and it'd be great if he never did that, but... he did, and so here we are <3 just because he realised how shitty it was doesn't automatically make it forgivable. sadly. so yep!
he kept the wings 🥺 even after getting attacked so horribly. he could've taken the easy way out, but... i don't think he'd know how to live with himself anymore. this is the only way he can cope. the only way to keep on going, even if it's so fear-heavy. (grian didn't have a choice, and so he doesn't deserve one either.)
mmm... juni getting to see that grian and scar are alive... it'd be nice if he got that chance, yeah.
i think you're right in saying that if they met again, it probably wouldn't go well for them. but i also feel like we're forgetting something important here... :3c
