#ottowritings

[grainscharacter]

Pearl would like to say (very loudly, for the people in the back) that she thinks she knows Grian pretty well. She’s been friends with him for, oh, over half of both of their lives. She would go to hell for him, and he’s already been to hell for her.

So she would like to know—and she’s not particularly upset, it’s just that, when you learn something completely new about your friend that someone definitely should have told you to save you a heart attack you’re going to experience some strong emotions—she would like to know why Grian is perched on top of Mumbo.

She did not sign up for this.

She signed up for—well. She’s not exactly sure, but not this. When Mumbo had asked, earlier, if anyone had any spare cobble they didn’t mind giving away, Pearl had said that she would bring some over. She had said this under the expectation she would be bringing it over to Mumbo. Not a Mumbo-and-Grian monster.

“Hey,” she says, and doesn’t bother to hide her stare. “Mumbo?”

They turn. It looks like a practiced move. Grian’s wings flare out a bit when Mumbo turns, but he does it slowly, nothing like the hyper, constant movement she’s used to seeing in him.

Maybe Grian’s like a weighted vest.

Maybe Pearl needs to spend a little less time hanging out with Gem and Tango. That’s not a normal thought to have.

“Oh!” says Mumbo. Grian’s hand is resting on his head, just barely not covering his eyes. “Hey! I wasn’t expecting you ‘till a little bit later—normally you’re asleep by now—but don’t worry i still have the. Well. I haven’t got the chests set up yet but I can do it really quickly, don’t worry.”

“Yeah,” says Pearl. Is she dreaming? She thinks she might be dreaming. “I can wait—I’ve not got anything else to do right now. Wanted to get you the cobble before you went to bed.”

Grian chirps a little, at that, a soft giggle that seems to catch him off guard. “Don’t worry. Mumbo’s very awake right now,” he says.

“Yes…” she drags out the e sound. Grian’s wings flare a bit. “About that.”

“What?” asks Grian. His head tilts, like a puppy. “Oh! He was troubleshooting redstone. I’m his rubber ducky.”

Pearl very carefully does not say that that explains nothing. Mumbo bends his knees to get into a chest, probably because he can’t lean over without knocking Grian off. Why on earth has he not pushed Grian off his shoulders?

Grian unlatches a shulker that’s at his eye level while Mumbo rummages in a chest. “Oh! Mumbo, in here,” he drops a few chests into Mumbo’s hands.

“Perfect! Here, I’ll let you put the cobble down here, I’m not going to steal your shulkers.”

“But you steal my shulkers all the time!” Grian says with mock-offense.

“I maintain it doesn’t count as stealing if you don’t realize it’s gone! Your chest monster is so large you didn’t notice I was stealing them until I told you!”

Right. Okay. This is just normal, then. Grian on Mumbo’s shoulders. It can’t be good for his back—Grian’s that is, he’s hunched over almost to an extreme, and his wings are flared out wide for balance. It doesn’t look comfortable. That being said, he looks completely at ease. Both of them do.

Pearl wonders about the mechanics of that. How did Grian get up? How did this start? When did this start? Grian had never done this before Hermitcraft!

…Grian must be really light or—oh gods, did Mumbo secretly have massive muscles under his suit?

Pearl does not want to think about that. She dumps all of the cobble in the chest Mumbo graciously provided, and then leaves. At speed.

She hears the combined call of their goodbyes for far longer than she thinks should be possible.

What in the world?

…

> PearlescentMoon -> Grian: How does it feel being tall for once?

> Grian -> PearlescentMoon: SHUT UP

[grainscharacter]

In the grand scheme of things, it could be worse. That’s what he’s telling himself. In his head, again and again, it could be worse.

He even gave himself a fake task! He’s set himself up for success!

It’s terrifying.

Etho isn’t sure why he chose Bdubs—well. That’s not quite true. But he’s regretting it. Bdubs, he has unfortunately learned, is quite committed to eye contact. Normally, this is fine. Sometimes it’s even a good thing.

Now, every time Bdubs looks at him, Etho has a split second of terror, a split second to stop what he is doing if it’s dangerous, before his limbs lock up and his muscles turn to cement and no matter how hard he wishes he could, he cannot move his body.

To be honest, he hasn’t tried that hard to. Look, he wants to win as much as the next person! It’s just—when the skeleton was shooting at him, he had a split second to put his shield up and then Bdubs was looking at him and he couldn’t even flinch.

All of this to say—Etho is avoiding people. It’s not—it’s not forever. He just. He needs a break. And he’s being helpful! Bdub’s bedroom could use some decorations! It didn’t have to be so drab! So he’s adding some moss bits, and just all around sprucing the place up. It’s fine. He’s fine.

He’s so fine that he doesn’t notice Grian has opened the door until he’s halfway to adjusting the blankets on Bdubs’ bed and his arms just. freeze.

For a second, he forgets. For a second, all he knows is that he was trying to be nice and helpful and suddenly he can’t move. For a second—

That’s not the point.

The door creaks as it shuts. Etho hears footsteps around the room, and then—

“Etho!”

Grian. It’s Grian—not a yellow name. Not a red name. He’s terrified of getting caught out by a red name. He’d be such an easy target, not even able to flinch, but no, it’s just Grian.

“Hey Grian!” Etho thinks that maybe the y in that word didn’t have to be so long. It’s fine. He’s fine.

“I was just checking in—I hadn’t heard from you in a while, no one’s seen you around recently. You alright man?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, I’m just—fixing up Bdubs’ bed. Y’know, so that when he comes back it’ll be… clean.”

Grian comes into his field of view, nodding, and for a moment Etho is so relieved that the Secret Keeper didn’t take away his ability to talk before reality sets in.

His arms are still frozen incriminatingly over Bdubs’ bed. He hasn’t moved them. Etho knows he and Grian are on the same side, but Grian is. Grian is Grian.

It’ll be fine.

“Okay, I’m just going to. Look, Etho, this desk shelving unit thing you’ve got is really cool looking, I’m just going to”—Grian doesn’t finish his sentence, but Etho’s arms unfreeze, and he’s so relieved he doesn’t even bother to wonder why Grian is looking at the unimpressive desk setup.

He shakes out his arms, sore and painful from where they’d been held up for so long, and then throws himself onto Bdubs’ bed. It’s comfortable, at least.

“Look, Grian. I appriciate that you’re here, and checking in on me and all that, but I’m fine so if you could just”—

“I’m not looking.”

What? “What?”

“I mean—I’m not. I’m not going to look. You can leave if you want. I won’t stop you.”

“But you’re not”—

“I’m not looking.”

Etho flounders for a second. “You know my task!”

“I do,” Grian tilts his head to the side. If he were looking, Etho knows, he’d have a sheepish expression, “I’m not going to—to sell you out or anything.”

Etho stares at him.

“You can. You can go, if you want.”

“When you say you won’t stop me…”

“I mean—yeah. I won’t. I won’t look at you.”

Etho considers this. Grian is still standing at the desk, staring at the wall. He sits up straighter.

“You can look.”

“What?”

“You can look,” Etho repeats, “Just for a second.”

Grian turns around, and there’s something open and vulnerable on his face Etho’s not quite sure how to read. He’s not sure he wants to, so he closes his eyes tight. The all consuming lack of movement doesn’t get to him as much when he can’t see what he should be running away from.

“I’m not going to—to force you to sit there all day.”

“No! No. I mean, you could. But you could also just, I don’t know, get comfortable. Somewhere you can’t see me. Lie down on the bed and look at the ceiling or something.”

Grian considers this. Etho can almost hear the idea tick in his mind.

“…Why?”

“Well,” Etho starts, and then realizes he doesn’t actually know why, “It would be nice to not have to worry, I guess. I won’t make you.”

“No,” Grian agrees, “It would be nice.”

He moves around the room until he’s lying at the door of the bed staring at the ceiling. Etho feels the discomfort of concrete in his veins.

Finally, the sounds of movement stop. Etho cracks his eyes open, watches as Grian closes his eyes and lets out a soft sigh.

“I’m not looking.”

[grainscharacter]

Grian has blood on his knuckles.

He can’t even be sure any of it is his. It’s mostly Scar’s, he thinks, the blood under his fingernails definitely is, but he must have split his knuckles in the fight.

Some of the blood might be his own. He doesn’t want to think about it.

Scar has blood on…

Well. Scar has blood everywhere.

Scar is—

Scar’s blood is on Grian’s hands. And all over his body. Scar’s blood is the only thing that Grian can see.

He’s holding Scar. He’s got Scar’s head in his lap, eyes closed, a horrible parody of late nights spent at the top of their little fortress in the desert.

When he first turned red, Scar’s skin had turned gray. He had looked dead. Grian didn’t know he could look more dead than that. His skin has somehow become grayer, and he’s no longer warm.

He’s supposed to be warm.

When they slept together, on the nights it was especially cold, or lonely, or—when they had slept together, Scar had been warm. It was nice. He had—

It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s cold now.

It’s not even the worst part. It’s not even—

The worst part had been how long it had taken. The worst part had been the cacti pricking him, the worst part was—

Neither of them are fighters. Scar is—was—a builder, just like Grian. They had builder’s callouses. They had rough skin from swinging a hammer, not a sword.

Now Grian has split knuckles and blood on his hands, cradling the body of a man he pledged his life to.

(The worst part had been how neither of them knew how to make it quick. Had been the tears turning red from blood and the sand in their eyes and the apologies in their mouths. The worst part had been trying so hard to be kind and only making it worse.)

Grian doesn’t want to think about what comes next. He won. He won a death game; what do you even do with that? What could possibly be a worse prize than an empty server with only the ghosts of the people you’ve killed to keep you company, and empty buildings covered in blood and gunpowder to explore.

He can’t hear the ghosts anymore. He doesn’t know if it’s a relief or a form of torture. They fell silent when Scar took his last breath. They stayed that way as the red faded from Grian eyes. Stayed quiet as he took in the body, and the blood, and the flowers that used to be braided into his hair on the ground in the sand, trampled.

He can’t even bury the body. The sand here is too shallow for a proper grave, and the body dissolving too quickly to be brought down the mountain in a place it can be done properly.

All Grian has is blood and the desert.

All Grian has is himself.

The sun is setting; Scar always looked best in golden light.

Grian sets the body down. He tucks Scar’s hair behind his ear, and kisses him, gently, on the forehead. He closes his eyes, turns around, and walks until there’s nothing left.

He doesn’t see the ground vanishing beneath him, but he feels the wind as he falls.

[grainscharacter]

working on smth 👀

slowly but surely

[grainscharacter]

short intro post!

i’m otto! you can you it/its or he/him pronouns for me.

you can find me on ao3 as otocyon

i mostly post writing and other people’s art, but i occasionally do fanart!

my tags: #ottowrites #ottodraws and #ottotalks

i mainly watch grian, pearl, and gem! but sometimes i’ll venture out to other creators.

url changes: ottoblock -> grainscharacter

follows and likes from Fennzer, my all-purpose blog; this blog is specifically for hermitcraft and life series stuff as well as occasional empires art, though i don’t watch it