Archive of Our Own ^beta

One of the nicest things about Hermitcraft, Grian had found, was that no one ever expected you to divulge your history.

"The backstory rule," Mumbo told him when he was first whitelisted, "means that none of us ask each other about where we came from before Hermitcraft. You can share if you want, but only if you want, and you can make it as secret or well-known as you're comfortable with."

"Oh," Grian had responded, barely even trying to conceal the bone-deep relief that swept through him on hearing that. "That's, uh. That seems like a good rule."

Then Mumbo had dragged him off to show Grian where he was going to build his base, and they'd left the discussion of pasts behind them.

Mumbo and Xisuma knew the most about him, as far as Grian was aware, and even that knowledge was extremely limited by what he'd actually shared compared to what they'd inferred.

"I don't want to pry," Xisuma said when they were speaking before his official invitation to join. "And not answering won't change whether or not you get whitelisted. We admins just prefer to have a heads up if anything's likely to come trying to dig you up, so we can keep you and everyone else safe."

Grian thought back to obsidian and endstone and blood, to tattered wings and torn robes and so so many unseeable eyes, and swallowed hard.

"No," he said, his voice shaky. "No, I don't think anyone will come looking for me."

"Okay," Xisuma answered, and that was that.

And it had served Grian well, the backstory rule. He'd mentioned some vague things about having been alone for a long time, of not clearly remembering a lot of things that had come before the period where he met Mumbo, and left the rest to himself. It wasn't even a lie, those things, even if they weren't the whole truth. That was the point of the backstory rule, though: that he didn't have to give the whole truth.

Until they invited two new people to the server.

Now, it had been put to a vote, obviously. Apparently it always was, they'd put Grian's invitation to a vote as well, and it had to be a unanimous yes for someone to be whitelisted. And at the time, Grian had voted yes simply because he was excited by the possibility of new people to get up to mischief with. Something about one of them had niggled at his mind, but he honestly couldn't think of why that might be or what harm could possibly come from whitelisting them.

Until they actually arrived.

"I'm so sorry," Xisuma was telling the two newbies as he and Joe helped them climb out of the small crevice they'd spawned into. "I have no idea why the server would drop you down there."

Grian snickered good-naturedly at the admin's flustered tone, even as the first newbie, a red-headed faun, laughed brightly when Xisuma helped get her hooves on the ground.

"It's fine," she reassured him with a bright grin. "At least it was still at spawn and not the middle of nowhere!"

The other newbie grunted with a bit more effort climbing out, waving off Joe's hand and brushing dirt off her pants.

"Yeah, no worries, mate," she said lightly, and Grian felt something in his chest tighten instantly. Her voice was familiar in a way that sent ice through his limbs. "A little dirt never hurt anyone," she continued, and straightened, pushing her hair out of her face.

Oh. Oh no. Grian stumbled back a few steps, though thankfully only Scar and Impulse seemed to notice, and then turned tail and ran, leaving spawn behind as he ducked into the woods, running away from the backstory that seemed to have caught up to him after all.

Mumbo found him about half an hour later, as Grian was sitting on a low cliff watching the ocean waves below his feet, his wings splayed to gather as much warmth from the sun as he could soak up. It wasn't helping dispel that chill as well as he'd hoped, but it still warmed him a bit.

"Well," Mumbo exhaled, dropping down to sit next to Grian in what seemed like an unreasonable collection of long limbs, especially for a man wearing shorts and a tropical-print shirt. "Scar still knows exactly how to find any of us if it comes down to it, for the record. He said you'd be off this way. When I left, he was busy explaining to Xisuma how you'd left first to find the perfect spot for us to build together, so apparently we're basing next to Scar and Impulse this season."

Grian hummed absently, frowning down at the sea.

Mumbo didn't say anything for a long minute, then sighed softly and bumped his arm against Grian's shoulder. "Listen, Grian... you know I won't pry, but... Impulse said you looked like you'd seen a ghost. Everything all right?"

Grian loved his friend so much, in that moment, the feeling welling up like blood from a wound, hot and spilling out of him and overwhelmingly vulnerable to experience. He wanted to tell Mumbo everything, to trust that he would be understood and accepted.

He couldn't afford to lose this, though. This server, this family, they were all he had. He couldn't tell Mumbo everything.

He could tell him enough to explain this satisfactorily, though.

"The, um. The new player, I don't know which one is..."

"Gem's the faun, Pearl's the..." Mumbo frowned slightly. "Well honestly I'm not sure what she's got going on. Pretty sure she's not fully human, with those wings of hers, but that's not my business."

Grian huffed a laugh. Of course, of course now he recognized the name. "Pearl," he clarified. "She... I didn't recognize her name in the meetings, but when she spoke, I..." he trailed off, gesturing vaguely. "I don't know. I don't know her, but she's... familiar."

Mumbo's eyes widened slightly. "You think you knew her before?" Before Mumbo, before Hermitcraft, before whatever backstory had left Grian so alone, all of that went unsaid, and Grian was grateful.

"Something like that," he replied with a wry smile. "It... kind of spooked me. And then I just didn't... I didn't want her to see me, because I don't... I don't know her. But she knows me. Or she did, once, I think."

"Ah," Mumbo said, and simply sat there, pressed up against Grian's side, while Grian tried to get his thoughts in order.

He couldn't, in the end, as jumbled and complicated and contradictory as they were, but at the very least Mumbo's presence was soothing enough that they stopped racing in circles around each other. He finally slumped over slightly to rest more of his weight against Mumbo's side, and Mumbo obligingly slung an arm across his shoulders.

"D'you want to talk to Xisuma about it?" Mumbo asked.

"No," Grian admitted. "I wish I could just avoid Pearl and never deal with it at all."

"Well, that seems a bit unlikely," Mumbo responded mildly.

"I know." Grian huffed, then ruffled his feathers to re-settle them and pushed himself to his feet. "I should probably find her sooner than later, if I want to have even a modicum of privacy for this quasi-reunion." It wasn't, after all, like the other hermits wouldn't give them privacy to have a conversation, but Grian didn't want a large audience for Pearl seeing him for the first time.

"Want me to come with you?" Mumbo offered. "You'd have to stick to the ground, but you'd have my impeccable emotional support." He struck a pose that looked more comical than supportive, and Grian snorted.

"Well, you're impeccably something, that's for sure," he teased. "But... yeah, I'd like that."

"All right, then!" Mumbo unfolded from the ground. "I heard her talking about heading north, before Scar sent me off looking for you, so let's start with that."

By the time Mumbo and Grian had picked up both Scar and Impulse, made it to the north end of the continent, and started building a precarious tower of boats, beds, and crafting tables, Grian had all but forgotten the looming terror of having to face Pearl. After all, it was hard to remember fear of a barely-recalled piece of his Untold Backstory when he had friends here, getting into scrapes and making him laugh so hard his ribs ached.

They had finally managed to get themselves wedged into four of the five boats balanced on the little tower when Grian heard the soft fluttering of moth wings and an all-too-familiar laugh at the base of the tower.

"What's all this then?" she asked, amused, until her eyes met Grian's on a skim over the occupants. Grian froze.

"We built a tower, Pearl!" Impulse crowed as Pearl's expression stilled, not looking away from Grian.

Not looking away, but not saying anything, either. Grian shivered a little with nerves but forced a smile on his face. Maybe she didn't remember him. That would be better for both of them, right?

"Pearl, get up in the top boat!" he called on a sudden whim, and the sound of his voice seemed to shock her out of her stillness. She laughed again, and though it seemed like she was laughing despite wanting to do something else, it seemed sincere enough to not be too out of place.

"Uh, all right I guess?" she agreed, and with a flutter of her wings lifted herself up, carefully lowering into the top boat.

The boys all held their breath as wood creaked, and then cheered raucously when nothing shifted, broke, or toppled. Grian tipped his head back to peer up at Pearl where she was peeking over the edge of her boat, laughing almost as hard as they were.

She stilled again, looked at him pointedly in a way that promised they'd be having A Conversation at a later point, but then simply turned her attention to laughing at something Scar was saying as he tried with little success to actually get down.

After christening the tower the "Boatem Pole" and declaring that such an experience bonded people for life and they would clearly all have to base together (a conversation during which Mumbo shot concerned glances at Grian and Grian gritted his teeth and ignored them), they ended up holing up together in a shallow cave to sleep. There were no proper beds yet, but there was wool and moss and leaves, enough that they could get by, used enough to roughing it at the start of a new season. Dinner was uneventful and upbeat, and as everyone settled down to sleep, Grian found himself grateful that Mumbo had managed to position himself so that Grian would be between him and the cave wall.

Unfortunately, as the banked fire dimmed and the night stretched on (and Impulse's snoring started in earnest), Grian found that he couldn't sleep. After lying awake for a good couple of hours, judging by how the moonlight shifted, Grian gave up and wiggled out from under Mumbo and slipped outside the mouth of the cave with light footsteps.

Once he was out of earshot of the cave mouth, he let out a gusty sigh, his shoulders slumping under the weight of everything that had happened, and not happened, that day. Maybe he should just change his mind and go find somewhere else to build his base, further away from Pearl and everything she represented. Or he could just leave Hermitcraft behind, get settled on a single player world, maybe--

"I can't tell if you forgot that I'm a night owl, in which case how could you, or if you remembered and came to talk to me while we could have some privacy," Pearl's voice came from behind and slightly above him, and Grian jumped, his wings mantling on instinct as he whipped around.

"I... Pearl..." he stammered. She tilted her head from her perch on a tree branch, frowning slightly.

"I wasn't gonna ask earlier, and I know the hermits have the backstory rule and all, but..." she dropped out of the tree and stepped closer, her eyes searching Grian's face. He wasn't sure if he wanted her to find what she was looking for or not. "What happened to you?" she asked desperately, her voice cracking. "We went to fight the dragon and you didn't come through the portal and then you just... never came back, and we got errors if we tried to message you, and we-- We thought you'd died, Griba," she said, her voice wobbling. "Had a funeral and everything. But then I find you here, and you spend hours avoiding me and then I catch up to you and you act like you don't even know me--"

"I don't," Grian blurted out, then grimaced. Well, there were better ways he could've done that, but at least he'd done it. "I mean... you're familiar, but I don't. I don't really remember you," he clarified. "I don't remember any of that, I have a lot of gaps like that from before I met Mumbo, but um... I don't... I didn't-- it wasn't intentional," he finished weakly, awkwardly scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean to leave."

He was even pretty confident that was true.

"Oh," she breathed, her expression crumpling and her hands twitching like she wanted to reach out to him. Grian wanted to tell her she could hold him, that honestly he usually did better when someone was holding him, when he was anxious, but that would mean lying to her more, that would mean making her think he deserved her comfort and compassion, so he said nothing.

She grasped at nothing for a moment, then forced a smile.

"Well," she said, "I can't exactly blame you for not knowing things you have no way of knowing, can I?" And it hurt her, Grian could see it was hurting her, but he couldn't bring himself to stop her from trying to give him a place in her world anyway. "We'll just build something new, yeah? That sound good?"

"Uh," Grian responded uncertainly. "I... yeah? Yeah," he repeated, slightly more sure of himself. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Good," Pearl declared with a nod. "You should go to sleep, though. If Impulse stops snoring long enough for you to fall asleep," she added with a mischievous grin. Trying to include him in her attempts to make a home on the server. Trying to include him in her life, as though he deserved it.

"I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway," he admitted softly, and Pearl nodded in understanding sympathy. After a moment they sat not quite next to each other, both resting their backs against the same tree, her fragile moth-like wings brushing against his feathers, and she told him stories.

Grian should tell her the truth. He knew he should. But he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. Instead, he leaned into her voice, softly telling him about a small adventure she got herself caught up in a year or so ago, bright and light-hearted, and instead of protecting the people he worried about, Grian found himself falling asleep.

And found himself waking up well-rested, considering everything.

The next time Grian couldn't sleep, a few nights later and after they'd all built the bare bones of their starter bases, he went outside and looked up at the highest points in Boatem, searching for an increasingly familiar hoodie and flash of false stars in fluttering wings. He was grateful for his own wings when he spotted her on top of Scar's base, saving him the need to climb up the remarkably large build or to call her down, and he landed lightly on the little platform next to her.

"Couldn't sleep again?" she asked with a faint smile.

"No," he admitted. "Must've had too much tea this evening or something." That was a lie - his mind had been spinning in circles about her again.

"Well, you're welcome to keep me company while I soak up some moonlight," she said, and they fell into companionable silence.

It was nice, to sit here like this. To pretend that everything was normal. That he was the person she thought he was, or that she was just a new friend.

"You didn't used to have wings," she said almost absently, breaking both the silence and the illusion.

"No, I didn't," he agreed. Truth.

"Do... do you mind telling me what happened?" Pearl asked cautiously. "If you remember."

Grian hummed softly, acknowledging her question without answering it. He could tell her the truth. He could tell her what she wants to hear. He didn't want to lose her, as strange as their new-old friendship was. He didn't want to lose his home. Telling her anything could lead to him losing everything.

"I'm honestly not completely sure," he said finally. Lie. "I wish I could tell you more." Lie. "You deserve to know, after everything."

Truth.

"It's all right," Pearl said, gently bumping their shoulders together. "I'm just glad you're not really dead, honestly. Everything else, even the stuff you remember, it doesn't matter."

It does, though, he thinks, and doesn't look at her. It matters so much more than you realize.

They sit and stare at the moon in silence until it slips below the horizon, and Pearl goes to her base to sleep. Grian promises he'll do the same.

He's lied enough to her already that one more won't make a difference.

They get a solid few weeks into the season, their bases and first shops up and running, and Grian thought that maybe everything would be okay, when he overheard Pearl and Impulse chatting after an afternoon of exploring old End cities.

"--didn't know things like that even existed," Pearl was saying with clear surprise, and Grian couldn't help but listen in out of curiosity. He was a nosy, pesky little bird, after all, and he liked knowing things, like what Pearl and Impulse could possibly be discussing that had Pearl so baffled.

"Yeah, they're pretty rare," Impulse agreed. "I don't know if they're native to the End or if that's just the place they're most noticeable, since there's so little out there, but they're pretty scary."

"And they can be literally anything?" Pearl asked, and Grian's mood dropped from curiosity to concern.

"Well, not anything," Impulse allowed. "They can't copy living things. I mean, I've heard rumors of them impersonating players, but I'm pretty sure that's just an urban legend."

Grian dropped the wood he'd been carrying, and both Pearl and Impulse's heads snapped up to where he was perched.

"Hey, Grian!" Impulse called with a grin and a wave.

"Hi!" Grian called back. "Sorry if I startled you, I fumbled a bit of my materials there," he added with what he hoped was a believably self-deprecating laugh.

"No worries," Pearl replied, her smile wide and sincere and skittering like static along the inside of Grian's ribs. "All good?"

"Yeah, that's probably just a sign I need to take a break," he replied, and dropped down to the ground near them, willing his wings to stay smooth and not puff up with anxiety. "What are you two up to?"

"We were getting shulker shells and spare elytra for everyone unfortunate enough not to have wings," Pearl said.

"We ran into a mimic in one of the End ships," Impulse added, and Pearl shuddered slightly.

The crackling static feeling spread to Grian's fingertips.

"A mimic?" he asked, tilting his head slightly with a confused frown. Maybe they were talking about something different than he was thinking.

"I've also heard them called cuckoos, I think?" Impulse clarified. "Most of the stories of them impersonating actual people call them that, but they're the same thing. Some kind of rare mob from out in the End that can disguise itself as things to hunt."

"Oh," Grian said. "I've never heard of a mob like that."

(Lie.)

"Like I said, they're pretty rare," Impulse said, seeming to be trying to reassure both Grian and Pearl. "Plus the urban legends about them impersonating players is nonsense, they're not intelligent enough for it."

"I don't know, the one we ran into seemed pretty tactically minded," Pearl said, looking worried.

"Well, okay, fair," Impulse allowed. "But I've never heard of one speaking or communicating, and as far as I've heard of research on them, they can only imitate inanimate objects, not living people."

"Well, that's still unsettling, and a fair bit weird," Pearl decided, seeming soothed anyway.

"Yeah," Grian agreed, not soothed in the least. "Weird."

Once, there was a creature who had no home, no name, and no face that could truly be called its own.

They were few, the cuckoos, for many reasons. There had never been many of them to begin with, of course, needing to keep their populations small and widespread. The Enderians had been partners to them, or so the legend went, granting them homes and forms and names. Until the war, when they had refused to fight or act as spies, and they'd been cast out.

Most of them had fled, to the Overworld, to the nether, and when the war was over those who hadn't fled were left with nothing but the shattered remains of their home and no way to find those who had escaped.

When the Players first arrived, the cuckoo was told when it was young, they had hoped to find new allies. But when they had revealed themselves, they were slaughtered, and the survivors of that encounter fled deeper into the End, and scattered.

The cuckoo who had no home, no name, and no face to call its own was raised by the only surviving member of its family, and then by itself when its guardian died to a shulker's misplaced shot. It was lonely, so lonely, but that was how it always was, for its kind. That's what it was raised to expect. It was told that if he ever found a dragon's portal full of stars, it should try to slip through it into the Overworld, if it could. It may be killed on sight, if the Players saw it, but if it could flee their spawning into the wild, it would have a better chance at something more than bare stone and dead cities and loneliness. Perhaps even find the descendants of those who'd fled, so long ago. So it searched, for years upon years, until it found something that would change everything.

The cuckoo did not find a dragon's portal full of stars. The cuckoo found a Watcher.

It hadn't heard of Watchers yet, didn't know that's what lay crumpled and bloody on the end stone at the base of an obsidian tower, but it saw the winged thing - looking both unlike and yet so very like a Player - and felt pity. The winged thing wheezed, struggling to breathe as the blood seeped into the porous stone beneath it, wings twisted and broken, its mask shattered.

The cuckoo could see the winged thing's face. It seemed... scared.

It was more scared, for a moment, when the cuckoo shifted from the innocent block of end stone it was hiding as and into the nearly formless inbetween thing cuckoos were when they were not hidden, and had not been granted a form. (No cuckoo had been granted a form, as far as its family knew, since the End War. It wondered what a form would be like.)

"I won't hurt you," it warbled in Old Enderian, and the winged thing frowned.

"I don't..." its breath stuttered, and the cuckoo recognized the Player language in its words. The cuckoo had learned enough of the Player language over the years, it thought, to understand and speak, so it tried again.

"No hurt you," it whispered, reaching out with a limb to gently touch the side of the winged thing's face. The winged thing's expression loosened, then crumpled, something wet forming in the corners of its eyes.

"Th... Thanks," the winged thing stuttered, its breath coming rough and painful. "But I'm... I think I'm already... pretty hurt."

The cuckoo made a wordless mournful sound. Yes, the winged thing was dying. Painfully, it seemed. And alone. It wasn't fair - only the cuckoos and the dragons were meant to be so alone.

"Family?" the cuckoo asked. "I find?"

More wetness in the winged thing's eyes, this time slipping down its cheeks, over the remnants of the mask.

"No," it rasped. "Not... not anymore."

"Sorry," the cuckoo whispered, even softer than before. The winged thing was as alone as the cuckoo was, without anyone to mourn it. "Sorry. Me also."

"Oh," the winged thing said sadly. "That... that sucks."

The cuckoo didn't know what that meant in Player language, but it could understand the intent. It was sadness. Comfort.

"No leave," the cuckoo said, reaching out to touch the winged thing again, as softly as it could so it would not hurt. "Not alone."

"Thank... thank you," the winged thing murmured, its eyes fluttering closed. It still breathed, though, so the cuckoo did not move. "You're... a cuckoo?" it asked after a moment.

"Yes," the cuckoo responded.

"I... I read.... about cuckoos," the winged thing breathed. "The... Enderians used to... used to give..."

"Yes," the cuckoo responded quickly, as the winged thing struggled to get enough air and strength to finish its thought. That should not be the last thing it had the strength to say, when it was ancient knowledge and didn't matter. "Form. Gift. No more."

"No more," the winged thing echoed sadly. Its breath rattled in its chest. Not long now, the cuckoo knew. Poor thing. "Cuckoo," the winged thing continued, seeming to summon all its strength, "I... grant you form. As... they did."

The cuckoo froze in disbelief, then gently pressed against the winged thing.

"No pay for I be kind," it warbled uncertainly, unable to remember how to string the words together in the unfamiliar tongue.

"I know," the winged thing whispered. "But... to thank... thank you. For not... leaving me alone."

"Kind," the cuckoo whispered, overcome. "Kind. I thank. I stay. Kind."

The winged thing smiled, a weak uptick of lips, and exhaled.

It did not breathe in again.

The cuckoo warbled softly, an old song of grief and gratitude, for the gift it had been given and would not take for granted. It had only been sung in grief and memory for generation upon generation, but they had not forgotten. They had not forgotten. It would honor the winged thing's gift as the winged thing had honored it by gifting it.

Only once it had finished the soft song did it take the gift it had been given.

The form of the winged thing was not meant to be shattered and bloody, and so it was not when the cuckoo took it on, growing taller, wings stretching from its back, shattered mask and tattered robes falling around it. It knelt next to the winged thing as its mind filtered in with bits and pieces.

Cuckoos were never meant to replace those whose forms they were granted, but part of their memories and self would always come with the form. The winged thing had been a Watcher, though it-- he had not wanted to be. He had been a Player, once. He had been alone in heart, if not in body, for so long he couldn't remember. He'd had a family, once, but that family had been stolen from him, destroyed along with his home by the people who'd taken him. It was a sad tale, that the cuckoo could put together.

When it had finished letting the memories settle, even if it could not sort through them all now, it resigned itself to leaving the Watcher-who-wasn't where he lay, crumpled and shattered as he was. If his captors found his body cared for, they would perhaps search for the one who cared for it, and they would find the cuckoo. It pained the cuckoo to do, after such a gift, but it was the only thing to be done.

It thought, given the ferocity with which he had fought back and fled, the Watcher-who-wasn't would understand, and would approve despite the disrespect the action suggested.

The cuckoo took to the skies in search of a star-filled portal. It flew long and far, before it found its destination, weary and grieving for the Player who had once worn this form. It discarded the shattered mask and the tattered robes into the void, leaving only the loose undergarments that had been beneath the robe, sandy hair falling into its eyes.

It breathed slowly, steeling itself to fall through the starry portal and into the Overworld. It had a form. It had memories of the Player tongue that would let it communicate with ease. It would not be known for what it was. It was in no danger.

It sucked in a last deep breath and fell forwards into stars.

It landed on a vast expanse of something that was both like and unlike endstone, the sky above it bright and blue, the light almost blinding compared to the dimness of the End, and the cuckoo simply stood and took it in for a long moment.

"Oh," a voice came from behind it. "Ah, sorry, how did you... how did you get here? I could've sworn I closed the world to visitors after last time I had someone over..."

The cuckoo turned slowly, squinting against the brightness of the light (the sun, its-not-its memories provided) and taking in the Player whose world it'd arrived in. Wearing some sort of outfit of black and white (suit), with a well-groomed bit of hair on his upper lip (moustache). He was also quite tall, built like a small Enderian in most of his proportions.

"Um," the cuckoo said. "Sorry. I... was lost in the End. Took the first portal back I could find." Its words tripped out with a slight stilted quality, but it wasn't a lie. Certainly he'd never been able to solve being lost before, but it wasn't as if he'd known where he was at any point.

"Oh!" the Player exclaimed, looking surprised. "Well, uh, guess it's a good thing you landed here, then, since I was about to head back to the hub. Wouldn't have been back for ages, probably, and a redstone world isn't exactly the best place to be stranded."

"No, probably not," the cuckoo said, memories not precisely providing context for all of that. But the hub was probably where he'd need to go, at least initially, right?

"I'm Mumbo, by the way," the Player said, holding out his hand for what the cuckoo guessed was a handshake.

The cuckoo froze for a moment, regretting that it hadn't spent time thinking of a name, but it had felt disrespectful when it hadn't given the Watcher-who-wasn't or his family a chance to name it as was traditional. Its name had to show respect, and gratitude, and understanding of the form it was given. But perhaps, in this case, it could do that by giving the form back something that had been taken?

"Grian," it-- he said, almost blurting it out as he awkwardly took Mumbo's hand. It felt good, it felt like the right choice, and something settled in his chest. "My name's Grian."

Grian was not ashamed to admit that after the conversation with Impulse and Pearl about mimics and cuckoos, he decided to avoid them a bit.

It maybe wasn't the most long term solution, avoiding them (and the rest of Boatem, and the rest of the server), but it was all he could think to do when faced with a discussion of his... his people as if they were as mindless and hostile as zombies or shulkers. Something to be feared.

He could understand, after the years he'd spent hopping around single player worlds and being befriended by Mumbo, by his years with the Hermits, that his people's tradition of taking the forms of the dead could be potentially upsetting or unsettling. Players found that sort of thing distasteful, even disrespectful. They'd see it as dishonesty, even if he'd never once actually lied.

Except that he had. He had, since Pearl had arrived, he'd lied to her again and again, because he couldn't think of a way to explain that he wasn't the person she thought he was without her hating him. He wasn't the Grian she'd known, but he remembered how he'd felt about her (increasingly so as time went on and the relevant memories filtered up to the surface), and it felt like his own memory. It was part of him, now. So just as Grian-the-Watcher-who-wasn't loved Pearl like family, so too did Grian-the-cuckoo-given-Form, both from Before and now, getting to know her in Boatem.

But even Pearl hating him wasn't the worst possible outcome. Because while Hermitcraft was a haven for the odd and outcast, for hybrids and strange beings hiding in the guises of normal players (because don't tell him there wasn't something going on with Joe, he just wasn't sure what), there was a difference between that and something that was considered entirely hostile. Something that was dangerous. Something that had stolen (by their standards) a dead man's face and identity.

Never mind that he never tried to reconnect with the people of Grian's past specifically because he wasn't trying to steal his identity. Never mind he had been granted permission in the old traditions, and that if it hadn't been freely given the Taboo would have prevented him from taking the form. They had no way of knowing that, and no reason to believe him if he told them.

And who would want something they feared to stay on the server?

So, naturally, Grian did what any reasonable, mature being of adult age would do in his situation:

He shut off his comm and went down into his strip mine for over a week.

It would be fine, he thought. Xisuma or any of the deputy admins could easily locate him, and while everyone might get a bit worried, he could pass it off as desperately needing alone time, and Pearl and Impulse would've forgotten about the conversation about mimics that he'd caught the tail end of. It was a perfect plan.

He honestly wasn't sure, when Xisuma showed up in his mine, why he'd thought that stupid plan would work.

"Hey, Grian," Xisuma said, his tone light and casual. Grian tried not to wince at the sound of his (his-not-his) name, and stubbornly kept his eyes on the stone in front of him that he was mining.

"Hi, Xisuma," he said, trying to force some lightness into his voice, ignoring how his voice felt rough and wobbly from not being used since he got down here. (Ignoring how much it felt like the winged thing's in his last moments - how silent he'd been for so so long--)

"You've, uh. Been down here for a while," Xisuma started, a bit awkwardly. "We were starting to get worried."

"Yeah." Grian stopped mining with a sigh, though he didn't turn around. "Sorry. Just... needed some alone time, you know?" Never mind that Grian rarely wanted actual alone time, he always just wanted quiet time with someone else nearby. Xisuma hummed and Grian knew that the admin didn't believe him, at least not entirely.

"Look, Grian, I don't want to pry," Xisuma started.

"Then don't," Grian snapped, whirling on him with a scowl before remembering--

Don't be a threat. Don't give them a reason to think you're dangerous.

Grian paled, and stepped back as much as he could, his back pressed against stone. "I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

"It's all right," Xisuma assured him, and Grian couldn't be sure he was sincere, but... well, he had to believe it or he'd go spare with anxiety and paranoia. As if he weren't halfway there already. "I was just going to offer to listen if you needed to talk, but if you don't want to, I won't make you. All good?"

"Yeah," Grian agreed softly, looking away. "Yeah, all good."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Xisuma said gently. "You might want to turn your comm back on, though. Maybe message Impulse at least? He's the one who reached out to me, he was afraid something he'd said to you the last time you talked might have upset you."

Grian frowned. "What? Wh-- why would he think that?"

"Well, according to him," Xisuma explained, "He'd been telling you and Pearl about mimics, and you'd gotten very tense, and then you disappeared and weren't answering your comms for a week and a half." And, well, yes all right, Grian could see why maybe Impulse would've been worried about that. He'd have to message Impulse and (lie to him) tell him the talk about mimics hadn't upset him.

"Right," Grian said. "Thanks, Xisuma."

"Not a problem, Grian. And remember I'm always here to listen if you need me."

Grian couldn't help but smile faintly. "Yeah, I know, boss. Thanks."

Xisuma turned to walk back down the (really ridiculously long) stretch of strip mine, and Grian's heart clenched.

"I--" he called out, then cut himself off. Xisuma stopped and turned back, even though Grian couldn't bring himself to look directly at him. "Do... do you think mimics can steal people's faces?" he asked, the words tumbling out in a rush. Hopefully Xisuma would think he was afraid of the mimics, not the answer.

"No," Xisuma said immediately and firmly, though Grian was disappointed to find that he wasn't much reassured by that certainty.

"Oh. Oka--"

"The cuckoos didn't steal anything," Xisuma continued, and Grian's head snapped up to look at him. He couldn't see Xisuma's face from this angle, but his helmet was turned towards the wall, and Grian could imagine him staring at nothing. "There were rituals, and taboos. They could take on the appearance of other people, but only with permission, and only when the person had died."

"You... sound awfully sure of that," Grian said, far too quietly to brush off as normal.

Xisuma turned to face Grian, and Grian could see the telltale signs of Xisuma smiling behind his faceplate. "Backstory rule," he said ruefully. "But believe me, you don't have anything to fear from them, all right?"

"Right." Grian blinked a few times, his eyes burning slightly. "Okay."

"Okay," Xisuma echoed.

And then he left, and Grian suddenly had a whole new decision to make.

His communicator didn't stop pinging with messages for a good three minutes after turning it back on, between all the members of Boatem and Xisuma all trying to get hold of him for over a week. He ignored all of the message threads but one, not quite ready to actually face the rest of them.

Grian --> ImpulseSV: it wasn't your fault

Grian --> ImpulseSV: i was upset

Grian --> ImpulseSV: but not by you

ImpulseSV --> Grian: grian!! are you sure?

Grian couldn't help but smile at the nigh-immediate response his messages got. Impulse must've set a special alert for their conversation so he wouldn't miss anything, which was so like his friend that it made his heart ache.

Grian --> ImpulseSV: yeah

Grian --> ImpulseSV: sorry for ghosting you

ImpulseSV --> Grian: ok. I'm sorry anyway.

Grian --> ImpulseSV: don't worry about it

Grian --> ImpulseSV: i'll be back in a few days ok?

ImpulseSV --> Grian: ok g see you then

ImpulseSV --> Grian: we miss you

Grian --> ImpulseSV: miss you too

Grian closed the conversation, and found himself hovering over Pearl's name. He wasn't ready to talk about anything with her, not yet, but... after what had happened to her friend, he couldn't just leave her hanging. Not like this. It already made him sick to his stomach to think about how she might've been feeling.

He tapped her name, ignoring the increasingly anxious messages she'd sent him over the last week and a half.

Grian --> PearlescentMoon: i'm alive

Grian --> PearlescentMoon: not coming back up yet but sorry for ghosting

Grian --> PearlescentMoon: you deserve better than that

Grian --> PearlescentMoon: i'll see you soon

He closed the conversation and silenced his comm before he could see her response, and took a deep, shaky breath. He had a lot of things to consider and a lot of conversations to plan, but at the very least he was going to keep his hands busy with mining while he did it.

Grian --> XisumaVoid: does anyone else know what you do about mimics?

Grian had only messaged Xisuma about five minutes ago, but he was already pacing back and forth in his narrow mineshaft waiting for an answer. He'd given himself three days to steel himself and make his decisions, and now he had to wait for Xisuma to notice his message. He was a bit busy sometimes keeping an eye on Ex, admittedly, which was fair enough and entirely why Grian wasn't spamming him to try to get his attention. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that Grian almost didn't want Xisuma to notice the message.

His comm dinged. Noticed, then. He took a deep breath and opened the message.

XisumaVoid --> Grian: I think Joe does, and possibly also Doc? But I'm not 100% certain.

XisumaVoid --> Grian: The only one I know for sure does is TFC.

TFC and Xisuma, then. That was probably good - not too many people to talk to first, two respected and trusted Hermits to back him up if Pearl....

Well.

Grian --> XisumaVoid: i need to talk to you both

Grian --> XisumaVoid: soon

Grian --> XisumaVoid: please

XisumaVoid --> Grian: Okay, I'll tell him and message you where to meet us.

Grian --> XisumaVoid: thanks

That was that. Grian exhaled slowly. Even if he backed out in a panic, Xisuma knew something was up, so there wasn't any point in him actually backing out anyway. It was a strange sort of motivation, but if it got him there, he'd take it.

Xisuma's response came quickly.

XisumaVoid --> Grian: TFC's base behind Boatem in an hour?

Grian --> XisumaVoid: see you there

Grian grabbed his pickaxe and started heading out of the mine.

TFC's bases were never particularly fancy, compared to some of the things the other Hermits built, but Grian had always rather appreciated the simplicity. TFC Liked mining, and that's what he put the majority of his energy into, and Grian could respect that, especially given how impressively sprawling his strip mines tended to be.

And crucially on this occasion, his base being small, out of the way, and not being a particularly interesting spot to visit just yet meant that Grian probably didn't have to worry about someone not TFC or Xisuma showing up unannounced. Which was good. Even though it was also a little stressful, because it meant there was no chance he could get a timely interruption if this all ended up going pear-shaped.

"Good to see you, Grian," Xisuma said when he landed lightly on the ground near the little tree farm TFC had built. Grian wasn't sure if it was just him reading his own nerves onto others, but he could swear Xisuma was tense.

"Yeah," he answered automatically. "You, too."

They stood there for a long moment before TFC cleared his throat and gestured to the door down to his mine. "Probably easier to have a conversation like this with some walls around us," he said, and Grian couldn't quite put to words why that made him relax a little, but he did. TFC led the way down into the entryway of his mines, where his chests and smelters lined the walls, and then took a seat on an anvil. Xisuma leaned against a wall in a very unsuccessful bid to look casual, and Grian started pacing before he even started speaking.

"All right," he started, twisting his fingers together anxiously, "there's some things... well, I suppose I don't have to disclose them, that's the whole point of the backstory rule, but I feel like I should. Not because I feel I'm being pressured," he adds quickly. "It's just... well, some people deserve to know some things. And Impulse was talking about mimics, and that wasn't precisely the reason I ended up disappearing into my mines, but it's not unrelated--"

"Grian?" Xisuma tried to interject gently. Grian didn't really process it, too caught up in the chain of words that was tumbling out of his mouth without ever actually saying anything.

"--even if I maybe told Impulse that it was for now just so he wouldn't beat himself up, it's just that it wasn't his fault in any way, so--"

"Grian."

"--and really it's about Pearl more than anything, and it's not even relevant to Hermitcraft itself, per se--"

"Grian!" Xisuma finally raised his voice sharply, cutting Grian off. "You haven't said what's wrong," he added, voice gentler now that he wasn't trying to stop Grian's steam train of a ramble.

"Ah," Grian said as he stopped pacing, voice trembling slightly. He looked from Xisuma to TFC, both of them watching him intently, but without judgement or malice. They would understand. Xisuma said they knew about cuckoos. They would understand. "I'm a cuckoo," Grian blurted. "I'm a cuckoo and I've been lying to Pearl about it and it's making me feel awful."

The lingering tension in Xisuma's shoulders, bizarrely, loosened, and the admin let out a deep breath.

"Well," Xisuma said calmly, "that certainly explains a few things." He stepped forward and put a hand on Grian's shoulder. "I've known cuckoos, Grian. I know however you got this form, it was a gift. You can't be faulted for that, or for not feeling comfortable being open about it. Most people don't know the first thing about you or your people."

Grian laughed shakily, leaning into Xisuma's hand just a bit and noting TFC's quiet nod from the corner, where he'd politely busied himself with repairing some of his kit in lieu of watching Grian while he talked. "Well... well, that's true," he admitted.

"You don't have to answer," Xisuma said slowly, seeming to pick his words carefully, "But if you're comfortable sharing... how long ago were you given this form?"

Grian blinked for a moment, uncertain as to why Xisuma was being quite so cautious about the question, when it was no more sensitive than the rest of his backstory now that Xisuma knew what he was. Unless--

"Oh!" Grian laughed, a little giddy with adrenaline. "Before I met Mumbo. He- he was the first person I'd met." He smiled wryly. "Asked my name and I realized I hadn't even gotten one, so..."

"So you used the name of the person who'd given you the gift," Xisuma finished, nodding with understanding.

"Yeah," Grian agreed. "Well before Hermitcraft, though, so... never fear on that front." His smile wobbled a bit. "It... Pearl's the only one I've lied to. I skirted the truth with everyone else, but Pearl, I-- well," he finished weakly.

"You remember her," TFC offered, still not looking up from his work. "So you want to comfort her. But you can't without lying. That about right?"

"Yeah," Grian admits. "I need to tell her, I just... wanted to make sure I'd still..." he trailed off, not sure how to finish that thought. Still have a place to stay? Still have a family in the rest of the Hermits? Still be welcome on the server? Still something even he couldn't put to words, maybe.

"Whatever her response, this is your home, Grian," Xisuma said firmly. "As long as you want it."

"And there's more'n just me and Xisuma who'll understand your predicament," TFC added. "Some better than others, but all who know how cuckoos work well enough to know you're not out to hurt anybody."

"Thank you," Grian said, hating how small his voice sounded even to himself. "I really. I really appreciate it."

"It's not a problem at all," Xisuma assured him. "Though... have you thought about telling any of the others?" he continued. "I don't know if you'd want that, and maybe it wouldn't be necessary, but if Pearl responds badly... Well. None of us really know what she's like if she's angry, to be honest," he finished a bit uncertainly.

"Stubborn and single-minded," Grian said immediately, with a faint, fond smile. Even knowing that would be leveled against himself, he could see why the man whose form he took had loved her so dearly. Then he sighs. "If she thinks I'm a danger to anyone on the server, which she might if she's too upset to properly listen, she'll talk about it even if it's unfair to me. I need to tell... everyone, really." And wasn't that frustrating? This place that had been so comforting because he didn't have to tell anyone anything, and now in order to stay he'd need to tell everyone everything. Or enough of everything, at least.

"I could tell them, if you wanted," Xisuma offered quietly. "It's a bit impersonal, but I don't think anyone would blame you for choosing impersonal for something like this."

Grian nodded. "Please," he agreed. "Just... let me tell Pearl first, and then you can tell everyone else."

"I'll organize a server meeting for tomorrow night," Xisuma answered. "You can come or not, whatever you want. Is that enough time?"

It was almost evening now. Was a day enough time to figure out how to tell one of his best friends that he's not actually the person she thinks he is, and he's in fact wearing her dead friend's face?

"Yeah," Grian answered. (Lie, but one he would turn into truth by force if he had to.) "I'm... I won't come to the meeting."

"Okay," Xisuma agreed, already pulling up windows on his communicator as he stepped back. "I'll go start reaching out to people. Let me know if you need anything."

"I will," Grian agreed, and he was almost surprised to find that he meant it.

TFC hummed from his spot on the anvil when Grian turned to leave, and Grian looked back to meet TFC's eyes for the first time since they came down into the mine. Grian swallowed hard as TFC seemed to examine him, staring him down for reasons Grian couldn't begin to work out.

"Next time you need to disappear underground for a bit," TFC said eventually, his voice firm, "you come to me. Nobody'll bother you down in my mine, but I can tell 'em you're alive, make sure you're eatin' and sleepin', and all that. Understand?"

"I understand," Grian said, restraining the inexplicable urge to say yes, sir or something equally embarrassing. "Thanks."

"No trouble," TFC replied. "You go talk to Pearl."

He could've waited until the morning to tell her. He probably should've waited until morning to tell her, Grian told himself as he landed on the side of Pearl's mountain where she was basking in the moonlight. Her eyes had been closed when he spotted her, but she heard the sound of his wings as he came in to land, and her face lit up when she saw him.

It should've helped, knowing she was glad to see him. It made him want to be sick. Waiting was only going to make it harder to tell her.

"There you are!" she said, pulling him into a tight hug as soon as his feet touched the ground. "We were worried about you, Impulse thought he'd traumatized you or something, you just disappeared like that!"

"Yeah," Grian said quietly, burying his face in Pearl's shoulder for a moment. If he was going to lose her friendship tonight, which seemed plausible, he at least wanted one last moment of this closeness to remember her by. "Sorry."

"Hey, it's all right," she replied, her voice softening as she hugged him back. "Whatever happened, as long as you're all right we can work it out, yeah?"

Grian laughed shakily, and forced himself to pull out of Pearl's arms. "Well, I'm not entirely sure about that." Pearl frowned, but silently sat down and patted the grass next to her. Grian forced himself to sit instead of pacing.

"What's going on, Griba?" she asked quietly once he'd settled.

"I..." Grian hesitated, trying to decide where to begin. There was so much, at this point, that he'd lied to her about, and knowing where to start felt almost beyond him. "I've been lying to you," he said finally. "About how much I remember from before. About Evo and the dragon fight and-- after."

"Oh," Pearl responded, and Grian couldn't bring himself to look up at her to see if the hurt tone in her voice was reflected in her expression. It would be, of course it would be, but if he didn't see it, he could pretend. (Lie.) "Why would you do that?"

"It wasn't-- I just didn't know how to tell you," Grian answered. "And some of what I've remembered has come to the surface since the season started, that's part of it, but the rest is just. I didn't know how to tell you what happened." Grian curled in on himself a bit, hugging his knees to his chest as if he were cold. Pearl moved to wrap an arm around his shoulder, then seemed to think better of it before simply scooting closer and pressing her shoulder against his. The warmth of her against his side was not the comfort it should've been.

"Will you tell me now, at least?" Pearl asked.

"Yeah." Grian nodded. "Just, um. Just let me get through all of it before you say anything, okay?"

"Sure," Pearl agreed, and mimed zipping and locking her lips. Grian didn't laugh, just swallowed hard against his anxiety, and began.

"I only remember bits and pieces," Grian said, rubbing his fingers absently against the fabric of his trousers where they stretched over his knees. "The important thing is that I remember going through the portal to fight the dragon. I remember coming out the other side and being completely alone. I remember fighting the dragon, and winning, despite everything," he chuckled a little, a small, hollow sound. What came after the win made the victory rather bitter, at least to Grian's recollection.

"The Watchers," he continued slowly, and felt Pearl tense next to him, "they were interested by that, apparently. By everything that had been happening on the server, and by the dragon fight. I remember..." he had to phrase this all correctly. He may remember it, but he didn't live it, and that was important to why he's telling Pearl this in the first place. "I remember them taking me, and telling me I had promise, that they'd make me one of them. They're not... kind, generally, the Watchers. I'm not sure why. I think--"

Grian cut himself off, inhaling sharply. Pearl pressed against his side harder, trying to comfort what she probably saw as trauma overwhelming him, instead of the sudden surge of fear as he caught himself not being specific enough in his wording. "From what I remember," he started again, more cautiously, "I think they considered emotions as something only lesser, lower lifeforms have. Or maybe just weakness they didn't need. Whatever the reason, I remember being miserable. I remember hating it so much, hating them and what they'd done to me, and-- I remember they told me they'd destroyed Evo," he says quietly.

"Oh, Grian," Pearl murmurs, and she cracks, trying to sling an arm around his shoulders, but that's the last thing he deserves right now, so he tips out of the attempted embrace and pushes himself to his feet so he can pace nervously.

"That's important to all this," he says, his words starting to tumble out over themselves. "I remember them telling me they'd destroyed the server and everyone on it. It must've been a lie, but that's what I remember. So I thought you were dead." That's the first thing in this conversation that was solely his - the man whose face he wore had thought that too, of course, but that's less important right now. The thing was that Grian, this Grian, had thought that the people closest to the Watcher-not-Watcher were dead, and that knowledge had shaped the decisions he made while wearing the man's face.

"Grian, if this is about not looking for me--" Pearl started, but Grian shook his head sharply.

"It's not. Just-- please let me finish." Grian glanced at Pearl, who nodded mutely in agreement. "I remember eventually, everything to do with the Watchers got to be too much. I remember running away from them, and it was so difficult because it was in the Void, and they were trying to stop me, and--" his breath caught in his throat for a moment.

"I don't know what happened, to be honest," he said quietly. "But something did. I remember being badly injured, and still pushing onward, and then I remember my wings finally giving out over a stretch of obsidian in the end, and..." He trailed off with a grimace. This was the part he didn't really want to tell. "That's where I found him," Grian finished, voice trembling. "Crumpled in a bloody heap of broken limbs at the base of an obsidian tower, struggling to keep breathing."

"Who?" Pearl whispered. The cuckoo who called himself Grian looked up to meet her eyes, and forced the words out.

"Grian," he said, his stomach twisting into knots. "That's where I found Grian."

Pearl stilled, her eyes narrowing with confusion and suspicion as her gaze flicked over him like something about him would provide an answer to her questions. It was too much, and Grian looked away to start pacing again as he tried to get the rest of the story out before she could jump to conclusions.

"I-- There wasn't anything I could do. I wasn't skilled in any sort of first aid, and I didn't have any potions or healing items," he said. "I'm not sure why he didn't respawn - I think he hadn't been tied to a server, was the problem? Or maybe Watchers are different, I don't know. But he was there and he was dying, and he-- he knew what I was, and he was so kind to me, and--"

"You're not really Grian," Pearl's voice was steady and hard, and stopped Grian in his tracks. He swallowed hard, unable to look at her even as he could hear her push to her feet.

"I'm. I'm not the Grian you knew, no," he says slowly. "But I'm--"

"A mimic," Pearl said sharply. "You're a mimic, aren't you. That's why you reacted so badly to Impulse and I discussing them."

"Yes," Grian whispered, unsure how to salvage this conversation. Unsure if it could be salvaged. "But it's not--"

"It's not what?" Pearl snapped, stepping towards him menacingly, and Grian whipped around on instinct, keeping his eyes on her and trying to back away. "It's not what I think?" she continued, fury blazing in her eyes. "You have no right to that face and that name! How dare you!"

"That's not-- it was a gift--"

"You stole it from a dead man!" she shouted. "That's not a gift, that's grave robbing. That's... that's sick!"

Grian tried to step back again, but found his back pressed against the side of the mountain as Pearl closed the distance between them to get into his face. "Pearl, please just listen--"

"I won't listen to someone try to excuse stealing my friend's identity off of his dead body," she snapped, tears welling up in her eyes despite the steel in her voice. Grian's mouth snapped shut. "I'm going to Xisuma, and I'm going to tell him exactly what you are and what you've done. And after that I'm telling everyone else. I'm not letting you steal this from any of them."

She stepped back then, just far enough to get lift into the air before darting off in the direction of Xisuma's base at a furious pace. Grian stood there for a long moment, then shakily began to climb down the mountain, not trusting his wings at the moment with how much he was trembling.

That... could have gone better. In fact, Grian was pretty sure there was no way it could've gone worse. So Grian made his way to one of the unfinished facades in his alleyway, found a ledge tucked in a corner, and curled into a ball to wait for the inevitable fallout.

No matter what Xisuma said, there were some things that wouldn't be forgiven, even by the hermits.

Grian was still on the ledge when Mumbo climbed up the next morning, placing a ladder against the wall and pulling himself up so as not to have to make a precision landing with an elytra.

"Well, Xisuma wasn't kidding when he said you were having a rough day, huh?" Mumbo said as he settled next to Grian. Grian curled his wings a little closer around himself, hiding him almost entirely from view, and waited for the questions to come. What was wrong, why had Xisuma told him to come, maybe even why had Pearl been so angry.

But instead, they just sat there in silence, the only noise closer than the ambient sounds of the world around them being the familiar, tell-tale sounds of Mumbo working on some small, fiddly bit of circuitry, like he often did to keep his hands busy. Grian cautiously dropped one wing to peek out at Mumbo, and sure enough the man was absently taking apart a repeater.

He wasn't completely unbothered, of course, Grian could see the little crease between his eyebrows where he was trying not to frown with concern; but he asked nothing of Grian, simply sat there and existed. After Grian's time alone in the mines, followed by emotionally turbulent conversations with Xisuma and TFC and Pearl, it was nice. It was really nice to just have someone exist with him, like spending time with him was enough, offering support without requiring details.

Despite everything Xisuma and TFC had said (or silently nodded along with, in TFC's case), Grian couldn't get Pearl's fury out of his head. He didn't deserve this quiet support, not when he'd been lying to Pearl for weeks, lying by omission to everyone on the server for years. He couldn't stomach the idea of accepting any more kindness that wasn't really meant for him.

"I'm not really Grian," he said softly, forcing himself not to hide in his wings again. In the corner of his eye, he saw Mumbo look up at him briefly, frowning. Then he deliberately returned his focus to the repeater with a thoughtful hum.

"Who are you, then?" Mumbo asked, his voice gentle and nonjudgmental. Grian almost laughs at how unbothered Mumbo seems to be by his confession.

"I'm... have you ever heard of a cuckoo?" Grian asked. "Or a-- a mimic?"

"Yeah, I've booked it away from a mimic or two, out in the End," Mumbo says with a nod.

"Well, that's... that's me." Grian looked away, down at the ground below them, still faintly grassy dirt despite being technically inside. "The real Grian... he wasn't me. I just look like him."

Mumbo was quiet for a long moment, and Grian could only hope he wasn't silently seething and waiting for the words to rip Grian to shreds. (Like Pearl had done.)

"Is this a... new development?" Mumbo asked cautiously, and Grian looked up sharply with wide eyes to find Mumbo looking uncertain and concerned, maybe a bit upset.

"No," Grian said quickly, shaking his head. "No, it-- I looked like this before I ever met you, I-- you were the first friend I made, actually." he added, a little pathetically, but it was worth it to see Mumbo relax and press a hand over his heart.

"Goodness, you gave me a fright," he said with a faint laugh. "I thought you were going to say you'd had Grian locked in a basement for the past two months or some nonsense."

"Mumbo you are a spoon," Grian said immediately, a fondly exasperated smile tugging at his lips for a moment before falling away again. "No, it's... I'm still the person you've always known, it's just that I'm not really Grian."

"I don't know about that," Mumbo said. "You're the only Grian I've ever known. That seems pretty real to me."

They fell silent again, though it felt more comforting to Grian this time, less like something he was stealing and didn't deserve. He folded one of his wings back after a few minutes so he could comfortably lean against Mumbo's side, curving his wing slightly around both of them instead.

"I told Pearl," Grian said finally. "She's pretty mad."

"I'm sorry," Mumbo said quietly. "I know you care about her a lot." Grian hummed softly but didn't respond. "We'll work through it," Mumbo added after a moment.

"You sound awfully confident about that," Grian murmured with a nearly imperceptible smile.

"Because I am," Mumbo said firmly. "We'll work through it and be okay eventually, because we're a family. Even if some of us weren't always the people we think of them as now. Pearl will come around."

"If you say so," Grian allowed.

They fell back into comfortable silence for a little while before Mumbo started up a quiet monologue about his redstone builds and his plans for his main base, and Grian realized eventually that between not sleeping all night and all the emotional upheaval, he was frankly exhausted.

He fell asleep to the comforting sound of Mumbo losing his place in his redstone explanations and having to start over.

Grian slept straight through until Mumbo left for the server meeting, and for a few minutes after Mumbo left, he considered simply moving to his house and bundling himself up for the rest of the evening. After all, Xisuma had said he wouldn't need to be there and wasn't expecting him, and between Xisuma, TFC, and Mumbo, he was sure there would be a clear enough picture of the situation to be passed on to the other Hermits. Not to mention Pearl was almost certainly going to have quite a lot to say at the meeting, and did he really need to know right now if any of his friends were going to agree with her?

But ultimately, he was overtaken with the need to know, to hear what was said about him and know who did or didn't trust him. (He wondered, sometimes, if the insatiable curiosity was something inherent in him, if he got it from the real Grian, or if it had to do with the Watchers. He wasn't sure which option he preferred.) Grian took to the skies above Boatem, keeping his altitude high to give him the least chance of going spotted by the others, and headed toward the meeting house someone had set up at spawn.

The meeting was just getting started by the time he arrived, and he perched on an overhang above a window just close enough to hear discussion through, peering over the edge to take everyone in, even if they were upside down.

"If everyone could please settle down?" Xisuma asked plaintively, clearly not for the first time.

"Aren't we waiting for Grian?" Stress asked even as everyone quieted.

"Not tonight, no," Xisuma said. "Grian's already aware of what we're going to be talking about, and he gave me permission to speak on his behalf, and I told him he didn't need to come tonight."

"Why not?" Cub asked with a slight tilt of his head. Grian caught sight of Pearl sitting at the edge of everything, scowling darkly.

"I was just wondering the same. Thing," she bit out, and Grian could see a few of the others look taken aback by how angry the usually easygoing woman was.

Xisuma sighed. "Because this meeting is about Grian," he said, "and about a rather sensitive subject at that. I didn't think it was necessary for him to be here when all it would've done was make him and potentially others uncomfortable."

Pearl scoffed, but said nothing further, to Grian's relief.

"We should get on with it, then," Doc said, his voice as low and serious. That wasn't much of an indication of what he was thinking, unfortunately, as he usually sounded that way and Grian couldn't see Doc's face from his chosen perch. There didn't seem to be much of a hiss to his words, though, and that boded well for the moment, at least.

"Right," Xisuma said, with a soft nervous laugh. Xisuma may have been acting lead admin for all intents and purposes, and Grian knew he took a fair amount of responsibility for them all that no one asked or expected of him, but he was still ultimately Xisuma, which meant a little oblivious, a little goofy, and a little nervous when expected to behave like someone with any authority. It was one of the things they all loved about him - he was more than happy to reach out to them individually and help when they needed it, but once he was talking to them all, as an admin, he turned into a bit of an awkward mess.

Grian felt his chest swell, hearing that nervous laugh, knowing that Xisuma had actively chosen to put himself in this position on Grian's behalf, so Grian himself wouldn't have to do it.

"I know some of you are aware, more or less, of a species often called 'mimics'," Xisuma started. "But many of you have inaccurate information, or don't know about them at all, so I'm going to start the meeting by explaining their history and culture to you all for context. If that's all right with everyone." There was a chorus of confused and curious agreement. Grian was watching Pearl; she didn't respond at all, but she did sit forward slightly in her seat. Grian took that as a good sign, because if he took it as a bad one he might lose his composure and alert everyone to his eavesdropping.

"The beings often called 'mimics' by Players are more accurately called cuckoos," Xisuma said, slipping into an awkward stilted description that sounded like it could be coming directly from a stuffy academic text. "They were never a huge population, and they're extremely rare now, but before the End Wars, they were found all throughout Ender civilization as equal citizens with the beings who became the Endermen. There was a sort of culturally symbiotic relationship between them. The cuckoos were shapeshifters, of a sort, and when they were young could shift into various inanimate objects to defend themselves. But when they were older, they'd be gifted a living form to take on, which they would then bear for the rest of their life, as they would no longer be able to shapeshift at will." There was a ripple of murmurs across the group, and Grian heard someone - maybe Zedaph? - start to ask a question, only to be shushed by someone else. Xisuma seemed relieved that he wasn't being interrupted, if the grateful smile he shot at Stress was any indication. "This was done by an Enderian giving a cuckoo permission to take on their form when they died. There was a magic to it - they couldn't take the form of a still-living creature, but they also couldn't take the form of a dead one without that permission. They called it the Taboo, and the very idea of taking a form without permission was basically the greatest heresy imaginable, even though it couldn't even be done."

Xisuma paused, and Grian found himself wondering just how Xisuma had gained all this knowledge about cuckoo culture. Grian barely knew it, only because it had been reiterated over and over as he was growing up. But then, the backstory rule meant that Xisuma could've had any number of ways of knowing about cuckoos, and they'd never know unless he told them.

"For the Enderians, this was a... sort of sacred way of preserving the memory of beloved friends and family. Not everyone offered themselves as a gift of form, but those that did were considered generous, and the resulting cuckoo was often considered more or less part of the family the deceased had left behind." He let out a deep breath, not quite a sigh but only just shy of it. "Part of taking a form meant that the cuckoo would get memories, emotions, sometimes personality traits from the being who granted them their form. They were never the same person precisely, but they were very similar. In Enderian culture this was normal, and generally either the deceased or the deceased's family would grant the cuckoo a name when they took their new form."

"This is a really cool history lesson, Xisuma, don't get me wrong," Ren piped up, "But what does any of this have to do with us?"

Xisuma grimaced slightly. "I wanted to provide context for... what it means, when a cuckoo takes on someone's face. That it means the cuckoo was willingly granted permission, and that there are still memories and emotions that get passed on, and that a cuckoo both can't and wouldn't take someone's form without permission."

"Okay?" Ren questioned. "That still doesn't--" Doc hissed softly, quieting Ren's questions for the time being, as everyone watched Xisuma intently. Grian could see, on the faces in his line of sight, that some of the Hermits were confused, but others were starting to put everything together.

"I needed you to have the context," Xisuma continued, "so that you understand a bit what I mean when I tell you that Grian is a cuckoo."

The room almost immediately erupted into mild chaos, though the clearest voices Grian could make out were Cleo and Iskall both shouting something about the backstory rule, indignant and defensive, and clearly having forgotten that Xisuma already told them all that Grian had given his permission. The only voice Grian couldn't hear was Pearl's, but that might've been because she looked like she was saving up her shouting for whenever everyone else quieted down and she could be heard.

"Guys, please!" Xisuma called plaintively, "Can we do this one at a time?"

A sharp whistle pierced through the room, and everyone fell silent. "Oh, good, that worked," Scar said from out of Grian's line of sight, sounding pleased with himself. "I think we should take turns so this doesn't get too out of control. Does anyone have something we can use as a Talking Stick?"

"I've got a femur," Cleo offered. There was an awkward pause, then she huffed and added, "It's not mine," and a few people chuckled awkwardly as they all collectively agreed to using her femur as a talking stick. Grian thought, from the distant look he got at it, that it had been carved with designs, but he couldn't be sure. "Right, since I'm holding it, am I the only person worried about the backstory rule being broken?"

Xisuma made a little protesting noise, but Tango raised his hand and Cleo nodded to him. "Xisuma said at the start that he had Grian's permission to talk on his behalf, right? So I assume Grian gave Xisuma permission to share his backstory?" he glanced to Xisuma for verification, Cleo following suit.

"He did," Xisuma agreed. "He thought getting it over with all at once would be easier, and he wanted to tell all of you."

"Right, well that's my question answered," Cleo said easily, holding the femur aloft. "Next speaker, I suppose?"

Pearl stood and stalked over to Cleo snatched it it before anyone else had a chance.

"You want me to believe that my friend just decided he was fine with some random... thing he didn't know stealing his face and everything about him?" she snapped at Xisuma, pointing the femur at him accusingly.

"No," Xisuma said. "I think that for whatever reason, he gave a creature the gift of his face. As for why, you'd have to ask Grian. The one we know probably has some ideas, even if he doesn't remember that precise decision."

"He's not Grian," Pearl protested. "Stop calling him that!"

"It's the only name we have to call him," Xisuma pointed out. "It's probably the only name he has, too. Unformed cuckoos weren't given names, just... descriptive nicknames at most. And I don't think we should just deny the personhood and identity of someone on a whim."

Pearl narrowed her eyes, but seemed to begrudgingly accept that for the time being, as she put the femur down and moved back to her seat. Scar took the talking femur next, asking Cub to toss it to him and (judging by the clattering and distressed noises) not catching it particularly skillfully.

"So, if you have permission to pass this on," Scar asked, "can you tell us if the Grian we have now is new or if we've known him a while, or...?"

"Except for Pearl, the Grian all of us first met was already a cuckoo," Xisuma confirmed, and a number of people's postures relaxed. Grian would've felt comforted by the fact that at least some of his friends only cared that the friend they'd met and grown to care for hadn't died and been replaced without them realizing, but he was still too focused on Pearl's anger.

The talking femur got passed again.

"Did you know, Xisuma?" Doc rumbled. Xisuma shook his head, and Doc hummed thoughtfully. "I don't know if I like that," he admitted. "This sounds like the sort of thing that should have been disclosed to you or another admin before he was whitelisted."

A hand went up just on the edge of where Grian could see, and the femur was passed over to the hand's owner.

"Xisuma always asks for what we need to know," Hypno said. "I know, he puts that info in the admin files, even if he keeps some details to himself for someone's privacy. He asks if there's anything from a new Hermit's past that might come back to bite us. Grian said no, and other than being a nasty shock for Pearl, that seems to be true. This isn't really going to impact the safety of the server at all if what Xisuma says about cuckoos is true."

"Yeah, if," Pearl interjected, then fell silent when Hypno waggled the talking femur at her. He held it for a moment longer, then put it down, and Pearl raised her hand as if the necessity was actively paining her. The femur was passed. She stood up, clutching it like a weapon. "Like I said. If. Xisuma's speaking with a hell of a lot of authority on this thing none of the rest of us know anything about, and I don't want to break the backstory rule or anything, but I'd sure like to know how you can be so sure this is all true."

"Pearl, if you'd rather not be on a server with him, we are not forcing you to stay," Xisuma snapped, his calm apparently pushed to the breaking point. "This is his home and has been for years. Your discomfort with him is not justification for taking that away."

"Maybe I'd feel less discomfort if you told us how you can be so sure you're right," Pearl shot back.

An uneasy silence fell over the group for a long moment as Xisuma and Pearl stared each other down, and Grian felt tension building and twisting in his chest until at last, someone cleared their throat and spoke up.

"May I?" Joe asked, raising his hand. Pearl hesitated, then broke eye contact with Xisuma and nodded shortly, though she retained her grip on the femur for now. "I can't speak to how Xisuma knows what he knows, and I think he probably knows more'n I do about it, but I am not without my own breadth of knowledge on the subject of cuckoos, and everything he said lines up with that, or is supported by what I know. I'm not really comfortable at this time saying how I know, but maybe corroboration might help put you a bit more at ease?"

Pearl pursed her lips, clearly unconvinced. There was a rustle somewhere out of Grian's sight, and a nod from Pearl, and TFC's voice rumbled out.

"I've known my fair share of cuckoos," TFC said matter-of-factly. "I've been around longer than any of the rest of you, and I was around when cuckoos were fleein' the End due to the Ender Wars. They were a peaceful sort of folk. Don't know if they did well in the Overworld or not, haven't run into any in quite a long time, but I knew 'em, and I'll vouch for everything Xisuma's said. And I'll vouch for Grian if it comes down to it. That boy didn't mean any harm, he just didn't know how to handle remembering Pearl like he did."

Grian sat back so he was no longer looking into the window and sighed, wrapping his wings around himself anxiously. He really shouldn't have come. This was all just getting so overwhelming.

"I mean, does it really matter if he stole the face or not?" Ren's voice filtered out. "No, no, hear me out!" he insisted when a number of people made vague sounds of protestation. Grian, however, didn't hear what Ren's logic was on that, not because he wasn't interested, but because it was at that point he found himself with a lap full of a familiar, purring form.

"What are you doing here?" Grian murmured to Jellie as he stroked her fur, knowing she would loudly make her protests known if he didn't show her some affection. The last thing Grian needed was everyone knowing he'd been eavesdropping on the meeting he purportedly hadn't wanted to attend because of a loud cat.

Jellie did not deign to answer, simply purring harder, rubbing her head against his wrist with single-minded intensity.

Grian let out a tiny whisper of a laugh, and shifted his attention back to the discussion drifting up from the open windows--

Only for the sound to cut off so suddenly Grian thought for a moment he'd gone deaf.

"Oh Jeeellie!"

Ah. That was Scar's 'I've never done anything wrong in my life, ever' voice, and probably whatever sound-blocking magic was happening was his doing as well. Grian sighed deeply and looked down at Jellie with pursed lips.

"Traitor," he told her. Jellie flopped over onto her back, exposing her oh-so-fluffy tummy that she would only ever allow Scar to touch despite how much she seemed to be begging for tummy rubs.

"Oh, Jellie, there you are!" Scar crooned. "And what a crazy coincidence, you found your Uncle Grian when you went wandering around totally of your own accord!"

"You're not subtle," Grian pointed out.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Scar said blithely. "But now that I have you, I was thinking that this meeting has already gone on long enough and I'm in the mood for pancake dinner. You coming?"

Grian huffed. "Do I have a choice?"

"Well, no, not really," Scar admitted with an unrepentant grin. "Come ooon, Grian, making a big pancake breakfast for yourself isn't half as fun as making a big pancake breakfast for your friend!"

"I'm coming, I just want it on record that I'm coming under duress," Grian said, a faint smile betraying the lie. At least this one didn't have to be believable.

"I think you'd look good in a dress," Scar replied cheerfully.

Scar, naturally, went above and beyond with the offerings, making a full fry-up in addition to waffles and pancakes. He had gadgets that all but automated about half of it, though they seemed to only work about 85% of the time. Grian couldn't help but laugh - maybe a bit harder than was warranted - when the pancake flipper flipped a half-raw pancake directly into Scar's face. It was a wonderful break from everything else, and when they finally got to eating, the food was actually shockingly good on top of everything.

"It's hard to hear people be so casually wrong about who you are, huh?" Scar asked after they finished eating. They were tucked up in a room off the kitchen in the Swaggon, an oddly-shaped area that somehow managed to be large enough to accommodate Scar's wheelchair on days he needed it, but also small enough that without Scar's impeccable eye for design, it would feel downright claustrophobic.

Grian sighed softly and fiddled with his mug of tea. He'd been hoping to bask in the feeling of being warm and full of good food for a little while before they actually talked about important things, but apparently he wasn't that lucky.

"I don't really want to talk about this, Scar," he said quietly.

"Oh, I know," Scar replied, his voice softening. "But it helps to talk to someone about it. Believe me, I've got years of experience." He sat back, lightly tapping his cane against the floor. "Vex hybrids like me and Cub get pretty misunderstood, too. People think we're con artists, thieves, evil magicians, all sorts of things."

"Yeah, but Scar, you are a con artist," Grian pointed out with a tiny, fond smile.

"Well, sure, but that's 'cause I'm me, not 'cause I'm a vex," Scar replied with melodramatic indignation.

"Believe me, I'm well aware," Grian said with a snort. The amusement fades back into anxiety quickly, though. "I just... this is why I never told anybody, you know?"

"Yeah," Scar agrees. "I do. It's kinda scary, huh?"

"That's putting it quite mildly," Grian said with a humorless laugh. "I know Xisuma said he'd have my back, but Hermitcraft is a community, you know? What if they decide they don't want me here after all?"

"Well, first of all, that's not going to happen, so just go ahead and jot that down," Scar said firmly. "Xisuma isn't the only one who has your back, G. I do, too, and so do TFC and Joe, bare minimum."

"But Pearl--"

"Pearl is grieving and not being rational about all of this," Scar interrupted. "And that's okay right now, she's gotta have her emotions and all. But you're one of us, and we have your back. Pearl will come around once she's had time to process everything, you just watch."

"You're awfully optimistic," Grian grumbled. Scar patted his shoulder comfortingly.

"Well, one of us has to be."

In the wake of the meeting, Grian was expecting to be swarmed by hermits with varying opinions on his right to his name, to his face, and to be a Hermit at all, but instead he was... largely left alone. People waved if they passed him going to and from the shops in Boatem, and seemed friendly enough, and two mornings later when he sleepily forgot that he was living up to his title and was avoiding things like the server-wide chat, his dumb little joke at Bdubs' expense had gotten a very normal response of some laughs from other Hermits while Bdubs went on an impassioned rant about something ultimately unimportant.

Which wasn't to say that everything was back to normal - there were less people coming by Boatem than before, and Pearl had, from what he could glean from chat, gone for an extended stay with Gem, False, and Stress down south. But it was surprising nonetheless, and Grian wasn't sure what to make of it. Was everyone just pretending everything was normal until a decision was reached? Had they reached a decision at the meeting and Grian just wasn't aware of it? Was everyone trying to be nice by pretending nothing had changed? Grian couldn't tell, and he was too nervous about what the answer might be to bring himself to ask anyone.

But Scar and Mumbo, at least, had definitely decided to carry on as if everything was normal, because as far as they were concerned, it was, and Grian was deeply appreciative of their efforts to keep him occupied.

The thing that probably bothered him the most, at least as far as immediate concerns went, wasn't the lack of Pearl. He'd expected that from the moment he'd told her, given the situation. No, what bothered him was the fact that Impulse also appeared to be avoiding him. It made sense, though, Grian thought. Obviously Impulse was worried about retribution for having killed other mimics, or maybe just freaked out by one living around him, and he was avoiding Grian for what he perceived to be his own safety.

It still hurt, though, that Impulse would think that of him.

"Surely he knows I wouldn't hurt him, right?" Grian asked miserably as Mumbo fought with the redstone in his giant automatic door, trying to get the timing on its opening and shutting correct.

"I think you're doing a lot of assuming about what Impulse is thinking," Mumbo told him. "And you know what they say about making assumptions."

"It makes an ass out of you and me?" Grian mumbled half-heartedly. Mumbo stopped his work and sat back on his heels, looking thoughtful.

"Ah... no, I was going to say they say you shouldn't do that," he admitted, "but your way is catchier."

"Spoon," Grian said, his melancholy broken by a fond smile.

"It does appear that way," Mumbo agreed with a long-suffering sigh. "Look, I'm sure Impulse is just caught up in something. I can talk to him if you want, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about." Mumbo tossed a rag stained with redstone dust at Grian's head. "So stop worrying."

"Fine," Grian shot back, mimicking Mumbo's tone and lobbing the rag back at him. "But when I'm right, I get to mope about your base and say I told you so."

"If you're right, you're perfectly welcome to do so," Mumbo retorted, and then he was squeezing his ridiculously lanky frame into small gaps between slime blocks and the conversation moved on.

The next day brought Grian new plans and ideas for his build, new items that needed stocking at his shop, but most importantly, the next day brought Grian Impulse.

Specifically it brought Impulse carrying a plate of what may, at one point, have been cookies.

"So, I completely ruined these," Impulse started, as soon as he'd tracked Grian down near the G-Train. "But I brought them anyway because I think it's the thought that counts. Probably." He shoved the plate at Grian, holding it out until Grian took it, eyeing the contents dubiously.

"I mean, I think it probably depends on what these are and what the thought is," Grian pointed out.

"They were supposed to be cookies," Impulse said mournfully. "But I forgot I rigged my furnace to function as a blast furnace the other day to help with smelting overflow, and so when I put the cookies in... yeah."

"Uh-huh," Grian said, holding the plate gingerly. "And... the thought behind them?"

"I... I felt awful for everything, after Xisuma told us what was going on the other night," Impulse said, tugging at the hem of his t-shirt. "I know you said you hadn't gone MIA because of me, but... that wasn't true, was it?" he asked, sounding more than a little despondent.

"Well... no, technically," Grian admitted with reluctance. "But you didn't know, so I didn't want you to beat yourself up for upsetting me."

"Right. Well. I feel bad anyway. And for killing some of your... your faaamily?" Impulse guessed cautiously.

Grian snorted a little. "I guarantee I'd never met them before in my life." Grian looked down at the plate of charcoal disks that were once cookies, and felt a lump growing in his throat. Far from being frightened or wary, Impulse felt bad about having ever killed a mimic, or underestimating them, or disparaging them in front of Grian. Grian was pretty sure he'd never done anything remotely worth the support and love he was receiving, but he was grateful for it. Beyond grateful.

"Hey, uh. Everything okay there, G?" Impulse asked, and Grian realized he'd been staring at the burnt cookies in silence for far too long to be normal.

"Thank you for the cookies," he said, pouring as much sincerity into it as he could without bursting into tears. "Even if they could probably fuel my furnace now," he added without a change in tone.

Impulse's face split in a relieved grin. "So, we cool?"

"Of course we are, you ridiculous man," Grian told him, and then scrambled to put the plate down before he was scooped up in a tight hug, his feet dangling a good couple of inches off the ground.

"Thanks for not hating me," Impulse murmured next to his ear. Grian huffed a soft laugh and wiggled until he could wrap his arms around Impulse's neck in return.

"That's my line," he protested.

"Nuh-uh," Impulse responded with a bright grin. "There is nothing about you that's even remotely hateable."

"Oh, I'll make you eat those words, ImpulseSV," Grian retorted, and got Impulse's panicked begging not to follow through in response. He laughed, feeling lighter than he had in weeks.

Pearl might still hate him, might always hate him, but whatever else happened, he had his friends, the ones that were just his, and not any other Grian's, and they were apparently determined to stick around.

The consensus of the meeting, apparently, had been that for now Grian would not be asked to leave Hermitcraft, and those Hermits that had concerns or issues with him remaining on the server could speak to Xisuma privately, and they would see what could be done to address their concerns, and discuss anything further as a group after everyone had been given a chance to speak to Xisuma privately.

It wasn't really a solution, per se, more a way for Xisuma to smooth feathers and ease fears than to actually solve the issue, but hopefully, hopefully by the end of it the hermits would agree that he deserved to stay. Hopefully. The only real potential problem, Grian hoped, was Pearl. He felt guilty thinking it, but it would be much easier for everyone to agree to let Grian stay and anyone who didn't want to be on a server with him to leave if the only voice against him was from someone who'd only barely joined.

(He'd prefer that she didn't speak against him either. He'd prefer that they could try to mend things between them and have a friendship again, but he wasn't going to hold his breath about that, no matter how many times the other Boatem members told him she'd come around. They didn't know what Pearl and Grian had gone through together. They didn't know how much of a betrayal his lies were.)

The important thing, though, was that Grian was still allowed to remain on the server, for now, and he kept himself from worrying too much about if Xisuma would really put his foot down about Grian's right to remain by throwing himself into building his alleyway. And he was making great progress, honestly, five whole facades in and trying to pin down the palette of the sixth when he heard someone land near the mouth of the alley. Grian didn't look up at first, assuming they'd call out to him if they were here to speak with him, but after a long moment where there was no sound of rockets, or footsteps towards him or away from the alley, Grian looked up from his test palettes to see who'd arrived.

Evil Xisuma was standing at the mouth of the alley. Which, given that it was Evil Xisuma, you'd think would be menacing, or at least ominous. But really, as Grian blinked at him in confusion and Ex failed to do anything other than stand there looking stiff and out of place, it was just... awkward.

"Uuuh, hey, Ex," Grian said slowly. "How's it going?"

"Evilly," Ex responded stiffly. He did not move. He did not elaborate.

"...Cool," Grian said eventually. "Well, I'm gonna just--"

"You didn't do anything wrong," Ex said abruptly. Grian stared at him in blatant confusion, and Ex shifted slightly, almost like he was uncomfortable. "With the cuckoo stuff. Taking that face and everything. You didn't do anything wrong, and you shouldn't worry about Xisuma letting anyone take it out on you."

"O...kay?" Grian ventured. "Who told you I was--"

"No one told me, idiot," Ex sneered, though he didn't seem to be putting much effort into it. "It's obvious you think he'll back down eventually. He's just so ridiculously pliable like that. But if there's one thing I know about this situation, it's that Xisuma might be a weak little pushover most of the time, but he won't back down about this. So don't worry about it."

"I... okay," Grian said, mostly for lack of anything else to say. Despite the attitude, Ex appeared to be... attempting to reassure him, which was quite possibly the weirdest thing to happen all season. "Thank you?"

"If anyone tells you that you did something wrong, let me know," Ex said, stepping closer and somewhat looming over Grian. "I'll take care of it."

They stood there for a breath, unmoving, and then Ex turned sharply on his heel and stalked away until he had the space to take off and glide away. Grian stood frozen - less out of fear and more out of absolute befuddlement.

"What in the world?" he asked his empty build. Sadly, the universe did not provide an answer.

Zedaph was, out of all the Hermits, one of the oddest, and that was saying something considering the Hermits boasted such unique individuals as Joe Hills, BdoubleO100, and Cubfan135. Zedaph was an inventor of absolutely useless machines, a researcher of absolutely nonsense science, and a pursuer of absolutely bizarre achievements. Grian thought he was delightful.

And, all things considered, Grian wasn't particularly surprised to find Zedaph cheerfully sitting on the edge of the G-Train platform waiting for him, seeming unbothered by all the drama and revelations that had occurred. Frankly, it was a relief, and Grian could kiss the man for it. (Metaphorically, at least. It paid to be specific when Zedaph was involved, sometimes he'd take you extremely literally. Grian still wasn't sure if it was sincere or because he thought it was funny.)

"Grian, just the man I wanted to see!" Zedaph called as soon as he was in earshot, waving. Grian waved back, and came in for a landing just behind where he was sat.

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not," Grian commented with a laugh. "What can I do for you, Zed?"

"Well, I wanted to give it a few days so as not to be too insensitive, but I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about cuckoos." His eyes sparkled with anticipation and curiosity. "Only if you're up for it, of course, I just wanted to hear everything from the horse's mouth, as it were."

"...You know what, sure," Grian said, dropping down to sit next to Zedaph with his legs dangling over the edge of the platform, wings flared behind him to catch the sunlight. "Honestly I don't think anyone else has felt like they're allowed to ask anything, they've all just been avoiding me."

"Giving you space, more like," Zedaph said lightly. "I'll let them know if you're up for being social, though, I know Bdubs, at least, wanted to come check on you, but he wasn't sure if the fledgling Big Eyes/Boatem feud was on hold for this or not."

"Oh," Grian said, a bit startled by the revelation that people were avoiding him out of an effort to be considerate. "I... yeah, you can tell Bdubs he can swing by if he wants. Long as he leaves the Big Eyes merch at home," he added with a grin.

"Will do, will do," Zedaph laughed, then pulled a clipboard and pen out from his inventory, scribbling something at the top before looking back up at Grian eagerly. "Right. Right right right, first question - are you allergic to water?"

Grian laughed. "Zed, you've seen me swimming!"

"Oh, I know I know I know!" Zedaph insisted. "But your form now is not allergic to water. What about your original form, that you had before you took this one?"

And it could've been accusatory, or invasive, but... it was Zedaph. Grian knew, he knew that there wasn't any sort of secondary objective Zed was pursuing by asking, he just legitimately wanted to know. And that's why Grian was willing to answer.

"I honestly don't know," Grian told him. "I never encountered it before I was immune to it."

"Darn, okay," Zedaph muttered to himself, clearly disappointed, to Grian's amusement. "Well, all right, all right, what forms can you take, then?"

Grian frowned. "Like... what can I shapeshift into?"

"Exactly!" Zed grinned. "I mean, I know Xisuma said you can't do it anymore, but I want to be thorough. Please include anything you could shift into at one point but can no longer shift into."

Grian exhaled slowly, turning that over in his head. "So... the thing about being gifted a form, is that once we take on a living being's--" Grian stopped with a frown. "Well, okay, one we take on the form of someone that used to be a living being," he corrected, "we lose the ability to shapeshift."

"Well that's boring," Zedaph said, sounding deeply insulted. "I am so sorry that your genetics have locked that away from you. I can try to unlock it again if you like?"

"Uh, no thanks," Grian said. "It's... that's not how it worked, I don't think."

"Oh!" Zedaph leaned forward eagerly. "Then please, enlighten me!"

"It was... shapeshifting at will, into non-living things, it was to keep us safe," Grian said. "Or, I think it was. Because once we had a form that was gifted to us, we lost the ability to do it."

"Interesting," Zedaph said, scribbling something in his notebook. "So it's not a mechanism to allow for ease of hunting or anything, it's a safety mechanism."

"I mean... sure, I guess," Grian agreed.

"That's amazing. Right, next question: If someone gave you permission to use their face when they died, and they stayed dead for a few seconds before respawning, could you have shifted into that form before they respawned and kept it after?" Zedaph looked up at Grian eagerly, curiosity shining in his eyes. That was... definitely not a question Grian had anticipated.

"I have no idea, honestly," Grian said. "I never really thought about it. Endermen don't respawn, so... maybe?"

Zedaph frowned at whatever data he had written in the sheet, but eventually responded with, "Well, that's fine. Is there anything else of note you'd like to pass on to me?"

"Um," Grian replied, considering. "I guess... What I remember from what I was taught, we were only really meant to have one form." He took a deep breath, settling his nerves. He wasn't supposed to talk about this, but if he couldn't confide in the Hermits, who could he trust? "That was the... the goal, I guess. I think the shapeshifting we could do before that, to inanimate things, was only ever supposed to protect us," Grian said. Zedaph nodded encouragingly. "Cuckoos who don't have gifted forms are-- well they're small. They're fragile. Being able to hide by turning into a block of obsidian or something is just common sense, I think, when you're that little."

"Sure sure sure, and how little is little, precisely?" Zedaph asked, pen poised over his clipboard.

"About the size of a shulker?" Grian estimated. "Not as wide, but a little taller, and kind of... blobby."

"Fascinating," Zedaph breathed. "And yet you could fully take on the form of a being with much higher mass than you."

"Don't ask me how, I have absolutely no idea," Grian said. "There's some magic involved. Like, proper magic, not just enchanting and potions type of magic. If we weren't given permission, we literally physically couldn't take the form of a living creature, even if they were dead. So I assume whatever magic controlled that probably controlled the rest of it, too."

"Ah, true true true!" Zedaph nodded scribbling it down. "That's a very good observation, very astute." He looked over his notes for a moment, then nodded. "Right, right right right, well I've gotten everything I can for the moment, I think."

"That's all you wanted to know?" Grian asked, amused. He'd been preparing himself to sit for an hour or more, but he wasn't going to complain if Zedaph wasn't going to tease out the entirety of his sparse knowledge about his own people.

"Well, no, but I don't want to overwhelm you," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Plus, I figure I'll get better data if I give you the chance to, ah- ruminate on yourself a bit. Yeah?"

"Probably," Grian agreed. "Admittedly, I'm not sure how much of my experience is a broader cuckoo thing and how much is just me, but I'll do my best."

"That's all I ask, that's all I ask!" Zedaph assured him. He paused, then looked down at Grian with a small smile and a tilt of his head. "Listen, I know things have been a little topsy-turvy lately, for you especially, but I just wanted to say that it truly truly truly does not matter to me where you came from. You're my friend, that's what matters in the end, right?"

"Right," Grian echoed, something bright and warm filling his chest. "Thanks, Zed."

"Of course, of course!" Zedaph said, grinning. "Can't have you thinking you're not our friend just because you're a bit strange by Player standards. I rather think we all are, so it'd be quite hypocritical of us!"

"Well, you're not wrong," Grian said with a small laugh.

Zedaph checked the buckles on his elytra harness and pulled out his rockets. "Right right right, have I got everything?" he patted himself down briefly and scanned the area where he'd been sitting, then nodded to himself. "Good. Good good good, well Grian," he turned back to Grian briefly, "thank you ever so much for your contributions to science, and have a lovely day."

"You too, Zed!" Grian called over the whizzing of the rocket as Zedaph took to the sky without waiting for a response. Grian chuckled and pushed himself to his feet.

That was an unexpected sort of conversation. Surprisingly pleasant, though, which frankly summed up quite a lot of interactions with Zedaph.

Grian stared up into the sky, watching the small smoke trail of Zedaph and his rockets disappearing into the distance. Xisuma and TFC had his back. The rest of Boatem (excepting Pearl) had accepted and supported him. Ex had gone as far as to attempt something Grian thought was reassurance. Zedaph didn't care about his origins beyond getting to learn more about something he didn't know about, and apparently Bdubs at least, of the others, had been giving him space but wanted to make sure he was okay.

Things weren't fixed yet, and there was still a palpable tension on the server, but for the first time in a long time, he thought that maybe everything might work out after all.

The knock at the door of Grian's house well after midnight was unexpected, but not unwelcome. He couldn't sleep, again, and was reading probably one of the driest and hardest-to-follow redstone manual he'd ever encountered in an attempt to induce unconsciousness, but... well, possibly it was a bit too dry, because he couldn't make himself focus on the redstone instead of the thoughts that were keeping him up.

"Hey, Mumbo," he said as he opened the door, expecting to see the only friend in the area who he expected to bother him unprovoked so late at night even if he was obviously awake.

"Nah," Pearl said with a half-hearted smile. "Haven't got the facial hair for it."

"Pearl," he breathed, not quite believing his eyes. She was here and, against all odds, not angry? Or maybe she was covering it really well, for the first time since he could remember, which actually made it unlikely now that he was thinking about it.

"Hey, Gr--" she stopped herself with a grimace and looked down. "Hey. I... wanted to talk to you a bit. More civilly this time."

"Sure, of course," Grian replied, nodding. "I-- do you want to come in, or..."

"I was thinking maybe outside?" Pearl offered cautiously. "Moon's full tonight."

"Yeah, absolutely, of course," Grian said, pulling his shoes on and stepping outside. "Just, uh. Lead the way, I guess?"

Pearl huffed, a sound that was almost-not-quite a laugh, and spread her moth-like wings, lifting gently straight up in a way Grian with his more avian-structured wings could only dream of, and perching on his roof.

"Well," she called down, "you coming?"

"Yeah, one sec!" Grian called back, ducking back inside the house and simply climbing out an upstairs window to join her.

"Psh, boring," she commented.

"Well, my wings aren't made for ethereally rising into the sky like it's nothing," Grian shot back with a wry smile. "Didn't feel like making the effort."

Pearl laughed, then seemed to remember what had happened and grew solemn again, tucking her feet up underneath her. Neither of them spoke for a long, tense moment.

"I wanted to apologize," they both said at almost the same time, the overlapping of their words startling them into meeting each other's eyes. "No sorry, you go," Pearl said, just as Grian insisted, "Sorry, you first."

They both laughed despite themselves at that point, Grian sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck and Pearl trying to hide her smile behind a hand.

"Well, do you want to go first or should I?" Grian asked, amused.

"I'll go," Pearl responded, sitting up like she was preparing to give a speech. "I wanted to apologize for the way I reacted to everything. I'm still not happy you lied to me," she clarified firmly. "I think that was a real crap thing to do. But I guess I can understand why you did, and you stepped up to tell me the truth and that was real good of you. I don't... I don't think you're a bad person for having Grian's face, even if it's hard for me to accept."

"I'm sorry, too," Grian said once she fell silent. "You deserved better than me letting you think your friend was still alive. I just... I'm just so sorry." He sighed. "He was so sure you were all dead, so it never even occurred to me I needed to be sure to differentiate myself somehow, or to be prepared to avoid people who might've known him well enough to be upset by it all. Not an excuse for lying, obviously," he added with a small, wry smile. "Just... I wish I could redo the whole thing."

Pearl considered him for a long moment, her eyes tracing his features like she was looking for some sort of answer in them. He restrained the urge to duck his head and hide his face. He owed her that much, so she could try to find whoever she was looking for.

"All right," she said with a decisive nod.

"All right?" Grian asked.

"All right, let's redo the whole thing." She closed her eyes, rolled her shoulders a bit, exhaled deeply, then opened her eyes and grinned at him. "Grian! Oh my lord, I thought you were dead, it's so good to see you!" She sounded like she was reading from a script, and badly at that, and Grian just gaped at her for a moment.

"Wh--" Grian let out a little disbelieving laugh. She was taking him at his word, apparently, and being so very Pearl about it all that Grian couldn't help the warm fondness that flooded him. "Right, okay, I guess we're doing this." He cleared his throat. "Hi, Pearl," he replied in a similar script-reading tone. They were going to sound like a poorly-produced school play, apparently. "I'm... uh, actually not the Grian you knew before. I'm sorry to have to tell you that he passed away. But I did what I could to make sure he was at least not alone when it happened, and in gratitude he granted me permission to use his form, as I did not have a proper one of my own before."

It was so awkward, Grian thought he might combust from the embarrassment, how he was casually explaining how her friend had died. What made him think this was a good idea?

But she was still listening with a faint smile on her face, so he had to be doing something right, didn't he?

"He thought you were dead," Grian continued, "so I did not expect to see you, but it's nice to get to meet you. I have some of his memories, and he loved you very much. I go by Grian, too. I'm sorry for your loss."

"I am very sad about this," Pearl said, sounding not at all like she was upset, let alone 'very sad'. "But if he gave you permission, that's his right. It's nice to meet you, other-Grian. Would you like to be my friend?"

"I would," Grian replied softly and sincerely, his voice wobbling just a little bit despite himself. It was a terrifying, raw thing, this sincerity. It felt as vulnerable as baring his fragile little form to the fallen Watcher-who-wasn't had been. He did it anyway. "I would very much like to be your friend, Pearl. If you'll have me."

Pearl's expression softened. "Well, I'm hardly gonna say no to an offer like that," she replied. Her own smile was crooked but honest. She turned her face up to the sky, basking in the moonlight for a moment like a cat in a sunbeam, and then smiled to herself. "I think we'll be okay, in the end," she said.

"Yeah?" Grian asked hopefully.

"Yeah," Pearl confirmed. She pushed herself to her feet, brushed off her pants, and held a hand out to help pull Grian up. "Will you come for a fly with me, Grian?"

"It would be my absolute pleasure," he told her.

And it was the truth.