Chapter Text
The thick of it began on a dreary day—miserable with rain, skies filled with awful gray clouds of all shapes and sizes. If Grian stared at the ground and pleaded silently, with enough force, he felt like it might open and up and swallow him.
When he first caught sight of himself in the mirror, he figured that his eyes were playing tricks on him. He stared at himself in the mirror, his figure illuminated by the low morning light that escaped from nearby stained glass windows, and traced the offending lock of hair with his gaze. When he reached out with a gentle hand to brush fingers against the hair—which was soft against his hand, curling with the last vestiges of bedhead—he didn’t quite know what to think.
Because this was the truth: the hair that rested against his knuckles was white. There was no mistaking it. Even when Grian twisted, his wings flexing in order to study his hair more intently in the mirror, he couldn’t deny that the single lock of hair stood out against the rest of it. And it was braided, to boot, tight and intricate with a pattern that Grian couldn’t even begin to describe. To put it into words would do the whole thing injustice—there was something breathtaking about the way the plait looked… something magical. Otherworldly, even, if he felt like being poetic.
He ran his finger along the braid once, twice, three times, before the spell broke and Grian was left blinking at himself in the mirror. The lock would need further inspection, later—he was already running late, as it was, and Mumbo might wonder where Grian had wandered off to if he took too much longer.
So Grian tucked the white plait behind his ear and ducked through the front door, thoughts running a mile a minute. His wings flexed with the motions of flight as he took off, soaring towards Mumbo’s base with more than a little trepidation surging through his veins. His mind, most of all, was alight with question after question. He was curious, and the feeling seemed to eat at him slowly from the inside out.
“I thought you’d gotten lost,” Mumbo remarked, good-naturedly, when he opened his front door. His hands were covered in redstone dust; they glittered red, like slow-drying blood, and Grian’s throat seized up at the sight for some unnameable reason.
(Well. It wasn’t quite unnameable; it just suddenly felt like there were eyes on his back, thousands of them, creeping and crawling with scrutiny. The Watchers. Grian shivered, his teeth now set on edge, and ruffled his feathers in order to get rid of the feeling.)
“I lost track of the time,” he supplied lamely when he realized that the silence had stretched between them. Mumbo was staring at him in expectation. He ducked through the doorway, avoiding Mumbo’s gaze—void, why did he feel so shaken up? “Sorry.”
Mumbo brushed him off with a loose gesture. “‘S alright,” he said, in classic Mumbo fashion, as he shepherded Grian down the path towards his storage room. “You seem distracted.”
Grian didn't scoff outright, but it was a near thing. "You have no idea," he said, ducking through the doorway after Mumbo.
His friend shot him a look that Grian couldn't quite parse; after a moment or two of highly intense eye contact, he dropped his gaze and said, "Don't tell me. I'm sure I'll find out in the end."
"Don't tell you what?”
"Something's going on with you, Gri," Mumbo said, his voice dipping into what Grian usually liked to call serious territory. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Grian swallowed, and the motion of it traced slow fingers down the long length of his throat. When he glanced up, he didn't quite meet Mumbo's eyes. "Never been better, actually," he said, and it was a lie—of course it was a lie, and he hated lying straight to Mumbo's face like this, but how else was he going to find out the source of the plait in his hair!
The entire thing was a bit too embarrassing for his own comfort. He didn’t like the lapse in his memory—had they gone out last night? Had Grian blacked out or something? He was sure he'd remember something like that. Plus, Mumbo didn't seem any more unruffled today than he usually was. It had to be something else.
Mumbo hesitated, like there was something else he wanted to say, then dropped the subject nearly entirely. "Okay," he said. "But if you want to talk about it..."
"I'll come to you immediately," Grian filled in quickly. "Gosh, Mumbo, you big sap."
The insult seemed to do the trick—Mumbo flushed from head to toe and said, “Hey, now,” and the topic was abruptly dropped.
Grian was thankful when Mumbo said nothing about the white streak in his hair, even though he’d clearly noticed it. After they’d traded a few more bits and pieces of news, he sent Grian on his way with the redstone pieces he’d wanted and a cheery wave, albeit with a bit of a crease to his brow. But that was Mumbo for you: a worrier.
Hey. Grian appreciated the sentiment, if nothing else.
Once he’d returned home and put his things safely away in a spare shulker, he sat in front of his mirror and stared at the offending plait in his hair. Something about the intricate braid—a tightly-wrapped thing which pinned down every possible flyaway—had caught Grian in a state of awe. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger over the length of it, all the way down to where it had been tied off with a thin green ribbon, and considered his options long and hard.
Though he didn’t have to consider them for long—no sooner had he settled down to think than a series of knocks rang out against his front door. Muted, of course, but there was rapid-fire power behind them: Knock. Knock. KnockKnockKnock.
Grian leaped to his feet, feeling oddly unstable, and very nearly lost his balance on the ladder down to the front entryway. “Coming!” he called; his heart felt like it was fluttering in his throat. Once he reached the door, he leaned forward to pull it open…
Only to be met with a soaking wet Scar, of all people, bouncing on the balls of his feet and grinning cheerfully—like he hadn’t gotten the memo that today was supposed to be sad and introspective. It was pouring outside, for goodness’ sake!
Grian composed himself after a moment and managed, “Scar. You look a bit soggy.”
“Hi, Grian,” said Scar. He was smiling—a small, private thing that curled in Grian’s stomach like the warm heat of Jellie settling down in satisfaction. And speak of the devil: there she was. Jellie sat on top of Scar’s shoulders, licking her paw with a single-minded fascination that Grian envied. “Can I come in?”
Grian’s mouth felt suddenly dry. He hesitated in the doorway, his gaze roving over Scar’s familiar features. It felt as if there was something empty and gaping with him, like the hungry maw of some enormous beast waiting to strike. But seeing Scar seemed to sate the creature’s appetite… For now, at least. “I—yes.”
He stepped back from the door—an awkward, stilted movement—and waited for Scar to step inside.
“I brought you dinner,” Scar chirped, oblivious to the uncertainty currently churning in Grian’s gut. He made a beeline for Grian’s kitchen; helpless, Grian followed, trailing behind an awfully cheerful Scar. He whistled as he sauntered through the base, clutching a glowing shulker box close to his chest.
“Dinner?” Grian parroted, unsure.
“Dinner!” Scar set his precious shulker down on the counter and opened it to reveal the gorgeous scent of sharp spices, mouth-watering meat, and fresh-cut vegetables. Jellie meowed softly and leapt onto the spare surface, studying Grian with those piercing eyes of hers. “Soup. I wasn’t sure which kind you’d like—Mumbo was entirely unhelpful when I asked him—so I grabbed everything. Just in case.” He began to pull thermos after thermos from the box, narrating all the while: “I made tomato, French onion, broccoli and cheddar, chicken noodle—”
“Scar!” Grian exclaimed. He felt his cheeks flush, wholly against his will. Damn it. “This is—it’s too much.”
“Grian.” Scar’s tone was no-nonsense, like that of a chiding teacher or a parent. Grian couldn’t help but shrink underneath his gaze. To his thinly-veiled delight, Jellie strode closer and nudged his forearm with her soft head, purring all the while. He scratched underneath her chin as he met Scar’s eyes. “You deserve it. Don’t act like you don’t.”
Grian hadn’t realized that Scar could read him that easily. “But I—”
“Nope!” Scar said cheerfully, cutting him off in his tracks. “Now, are you going to eat this food or not?” He made purposeful eye contact with Grian, his lips curving into a mischievous sort of grin. “Sure would be a shame if it went wasted after I’d put so much effort in…”
“Stop,” Grian said, groaning as he let Scar take his hand and lead him forward to the soup in question. Jellie shot him a glare when his hand left her fur. “You’re awful, Scar.”
“Yeah,” Scar said as he reached for the nearest thermos, distracted, “but you love me, don't ‘cha?”
Grian froze in place. The words seemed to resound through his mind, once, twice, three times in a row. “Er—yeah,” he said finally, once the silence had stretched far too long for comfort. His thoughts felt like they were rocketing through his brain at high speed. “Is that—that’s tomato?”
“Yep,” Scar said. He provided Grian with the thermos and a spoon that he’d procured from nowhere, his gaze piercing. “Eat up.”
Grian sighed. “I suppose you’re not going to leave until I’ve eaten it all,” he said, testing the weight of the thermos in his hands.
“Nope.” Scar looked far too pleased with himself; he clasped his hands together and bounced forwards on the balls of his feet, like he had at the door earlier. “Eat it. Eat it, eat it, eat it—”
“Okay!” Grian said, laughing despite himself. He whacked Scar in the arm—earning himself a gratifying squeak of protest—and added, “Fine. I’m eating it. See?” As if to demonstrate, he brought a spoonful of Scar’s soup up to his mouth, blowing on it for good measure.
“You’re not eating yet,” Scar pointed out, because of course, he absolutely had to be contrary in every possible situation. “You’re blowing on it—you’re putting it to your lips—”
In an extremely measured and mature way, Grian stuck out his tongue at Scar and swallowed the first spoonful of soup. Flavors exploded in his mouth instantly as he did so—the sharp tang of the tomato and the accompanying taste of the spices. The creaminess of the broth. He didn’t know how to describe it properly, but it went down easy.
And Scar was looking at him like the fate of the world depended on Grian’s answer. “How is it?” he asked, worrying his lower lip between his teeth absentmindedly.
Grian’s brain short-circuited. “It’s good,” said Grian lamely. He didn’t quite have the words to describe the way that the food settled in his stomach like a warm hug, but he knew that Scar could see the sentiment in Grian’s eyes. There was a sudden tension in the air between them—it hadn’t been there before, or at least, he hadn’t noticed it before. It seemed like the most important thing in the world, all at once. “It’s—yeah. Thank you.”
Scar’s smile crinkled at the corners of his eyes. That was the thing about Scar, thought Grian—his smile was a full-body thing. His joy was always a full-body thing. It was like he couldn’t resist the way that the delight settled in his chest, as if it was a small, precious feeling that needed to be protected at all costs.
“You’re welcome,” he said genuinely.
And Grian got the feeling that anything he did or said in the next moment would lead them towards a dangerous precipice: a cliff edge of epic proportions. A moment between them that could not be reversed, even if they tried their absolute best to do so. He’d been holding his breath for far too long—he exhaled, now, all at once, and braced himself for the shatterpoint.
But before he could say anything, Scar’s gaze flicked to a spot right behind Grian’s left ear. He blanched, and all the blood seemed to drain out of his face. “Grian,” he said, his voice absurdly steady when compared to the look on his face. “Why does your hair look like that?”
Grian’s hand flew to the forgotten plait. “I—I don’t know,” he said truthfully. He didn’t say I don’t remember, but the words hung between them in midair nonetheless. “It just—I woke up with it like this. I’m not sure how…”
Scar was still staring. The tension between them had shattered in all the wrong ways, like a glass thrown against a wall. Grian got the strange sense that he was left to pick up the shards.
“Ah,” Scar said, very eloquently indeed. “I’m just—I’m gonna let—you enjoy the soup, okay?”
He was inching towards the door, with Jellie clutched tightly to his chest. She mewed in protest; Grian’s heart sank in his chest. “Scar…”
“Later, Grian!” Scar chirped, in a manner that Grian could only describe as panicked. “I’ll see you later.”
Grian moved towards him in a jerky, aborted fashion. “Scar…!”
But it was no use. The other man was already gone, leaving nothing but the stray feathers of his elytra and the lingering scent of his spices behind him. Grian swallowed thickly, his gaze pinned to the doorway which Scar had fled through. He had no explanation for Scar’s strange reaction—none at all.
Except… Scar had stared at Grian’s hair for a solid minute or two before he fled. Obviously, the white hair—the plait—had held weight to him. The question was why? Why had Scar reacted the way he did? Why was the braid so important to him?
Grian needed answers. Quickly. And he had a sneaking suspicion as to where those answers might lay.
“Come on, Bdubs!”
The other man gave him a furtive look. “Grian!” he hissed underneath his breath—though the hiss was so loud that Grian doubted it counted as a whisper anymore. “I told you to leave!”
Grian considered his options. Part of him wanted to pressure Bdubs until he caved and gave Grian the information he was looking for. Another part of him wanted to spread his wings, fly away, and find another hermit to bother. He figured he’d cut his losses later.
“I need information,” he said quickly, before Bdubs could cut him off with another sharp look. The other man huffed. “About the Elves.”
“Ask Scar!” Bdubs harrumphed. “He’s the Elf around here!”
“I can’t ask Scar.” Grian put weight on the second word, leaned closer so that Bdubs could see the genuine twist to his lips. “Come on. Please?” When Bdubs hesitated, he added, “At least tell me where I can find it.”
There was a beat of silence that stretched far too long for comfort. Grian just about resisted the urge to clear his throat. “Fine,” Bdubs said, after an immense amount of consideration. “Fine. If you can’t talk to Scar, then you should consult his library. There’s sure to be stuff in there about the Elves!” He leveled a single finger in Grian’s direction; it practically shook with the force of his words when he threatened, “But if he catches you, and you fall an’ break your legs—”
Grian swallowed back his laughter and spread his wings with a rustle of feathers. “I have wings, Bdubs, I don’t—”
“—then don’t come running back to me!” There was a pointed glint in Bdubs’ eye; Grian decided that he was having far too much fun with this whole situation. “And don’t bother me again. Capeesh?”
Grian made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat and backed away a step or two. “Thanks, Bdubs,” he called, accompanied by a lazy salute. “See you around!”
“Hopefully never!” Bdubs yelled after him, but it was too late—Grian had already taken to the sky, his wings spread in a glorious patchwork of color.
He had a single destination in mind: Scar’s base. Scar’s library, to boot, which he was meant to infiltrate without being noticed. Void save him. All this for answers?
Yes, said the voice in the back of Grian’s mind. Yes. All this for answers. You want to know, don’t you? Considering Grian knew nothing about Elves—or about their attachment to hair, as it seemed, since Scar was loath to even trim the dead ends of his long, luscious locks—he figured Scar’s library was the best place to start.
He just couldn’t let Scar catch him snooping.