#dadmin

A ping sounded from the other end of the call, and Xisuma watched the lighting shift in TFC’s video. He must have received Xisuma’s messages. There was a pause, then TFC let out a thoughtful hum with a furrowed brow.

“I’m seein’ why this was givin’ you so much trouble,” he muttered. “You’re right about one thing. Most of it’s in galactic, and it looks like it’s been manipulated by force in some places. The boy’s code didn’t end up like this naturally. But some bits - that third one you sent me? That’s his server list, right?”

“It is.”

TFC let out a low whistle.

“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day. That isn’t just galactic. That’s ancient galactic, the kind of thing gods and voidborns used to use.”

“Ancient?” Joe’s eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “Well I’ll be. I’ll have to check an’ see if I even have a book that can help translate that.”

“I doubt you would,” TFC mused. He scratched at the edge of his jaw, at the gray beard that tickled against his skin. “I know enough, but I’m a bit rusty. It might take a bit longer to figure out those parts.”

“You mentioned gods and voidborns,” Xisuma spoke up, his words tense, more than a little aware of his own relation to the void…and to someone else who was also born in it. “You don’t think–”

“No, I doubt your brother had anything to do with this,” TFC waved the worry away. “Whatever got ahold of this new kid is older, much older, and powerful…”

Xisuma listened to him trail off, waiting patiently to see if he had any more thoughts to add. The man was ancient, older than anyone would have suspected, and though his past was something of a mystery to most, Xisuma knew TFC used to be what one would consider a god. Even if he had all but retired - preferring to spend his days mining on the Hermitcraft server and enjoying the pleasant company of the little family that had been forged there over the years - X was fairly certain that title was one the elder Hermit still held. TFC had seen more of the known universe than all of the players here combined, so if anyone were to know anything about an ancient power that had the ability to directly manipulate a player’s code to the extent that Grian’s had been, TFC would be the one to know it.

Something shifted in the old man’s eyes, his expression darkening, and Xisuma took note of it.

“You have a suspicion,” he told him, not even bothering with a question. TFC hummed out a muted confirmation.

“I have a theory, sure,” he conceded, “though it’d be a bit out of character for them if I’m right. I’m not sayin’ anything until I’m more certain about it.”

“Understood.”

“I’ll make a few calls an’ see what I can dredge up.”

“D’you want my help with anything right now?” Joe asked, having been listening closely to the conversation without contributing for a few minutes.

“Well, you can translate the parts in normal galactic while I work on the ancient, if you want. Now that I’ve gotta get in touch with a few people it’d save us all some time.”

“I’d be happy to!” Joe smiled, already getting up from his seat, most likely to dig through his chests for books if the sound of shifting items was anything to go by. He called back over his shoulder toward his communicator, his voice slightly muffled by the distance. “Hey, X - I meant to ask. How’s he doin’? Our feathered friend, I mean. He looked pretty banged up at spawn.”

Xisuma sighed and swiped the admin screen out of sight. This, at least, he could answer without pouring over pages of distorted player code.

“From what Stress tells me, he’s healing up pretty well, thank goodness,” X told them both. He strolled away from his communicator a step or two to drop onto the corner of a nearby chest, propping one foot up on the edge of his seat and resting an arm across his knee. “False had to go over to help wrap one of his wings, but otherwise he’s improving nicely. Plus Mumbo sent me a message about an hour ago to let me know Grian was awake, which is a good sign.”

“I’m sure you’ve been checkin’ in on the main chat from time to time, so you probably already know that basically the entire server’s been chompin’ at the bit to meet the newest Hermit.” Joe chuckled, his smile audible. “I reckon it was about the same when Stress an’ Zed joined last time. People get excited when somethin’ new happens on the server.”

Xisuma chuckled.

“You say that as if we don’t have enough excitement each season as it is!” he joked. “Last season alone there was a revolution and everything.”

Joe’s face poked back into view on the screen with a vibrant grin.

“But Grian’s a mystery, isn’t he? Folks love a good mystery, or a good story. We have a new player that’s a conundrum and a puzzle and a potential friend all wrapped into one plum-feathered package. Who wouldn’t be enthralled by a new Hermit with that kind of potential?”

Xisuma blinked at him, amused.

“You know, I’m beginning to think this season is going to be a very interesting one.”

Very, very interesting indeed.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

By the time Stress had arrived at Mumbo’s starter base with Xisuma in tow, Mumbo was halfway through scrounging up some semblance of breakfast for himself a Grian. Living on an island meant constant access to water, so fish was on the menu. That, and a few slices of bread from the barebones wheat farm he had set up to distract himself from worrying his way through yesterday evening.

“Mornin’ love!” Stress greeted him, stepping into the little starter home without preamble and with a bright smile on her face. “How’s our patient doing?”

“Morning Stress,” Mumbo returned, throwing a soft smile over his shoulder from where he was crouched in front of the furnace. “Morning X. Uh - he’s alright, I think. He’s been awake for a few hours now, and we talked a bit. He was back to preening his wings last I checked.”

“Ah, poor guy,” Stress frowned, glancing toward the bedroom door. “Must be hard to do wif’ one of ‘em bein’ injured and all. Though False said his feathers looked really rough when she was here last night, so I imagine he needs it.”

“It looked like it, yeah,” Mumbo agreed. He turned back to the furnace. “I thought about offering to help, but - well. It’s been a few years since I’ve done that for him. I wasn’t sure if he’d be okay with me touching his wings right now with everything he’s been through.”

“Has he told you much?” It was Xisuma who spoke up this time, a gentle concern evident in his voice. “Where he came from, what happened to him?”

Mumbo stiffened, his focus on cooking wavering. He swallowed.

“...a bit,” he admitted, his eyes not leaving the flames in front of him. “Not a lot, but I’m not sure what he’d be okay with me sharing, so…I’d like to check with Grian before saying anything at all.”

“Of course,” Xisuma agreed, quick to nod. “Do you think he’d be alright with me asking him about it?”

At that, Mumbo went quiet, pondering the question. Would he? Grian seemed to be fairly upbeat despite the darker implications of what had happened to him. Not even a whole day in and Mumbo was already well aware that Grian was trying to hide behind a mask half the time, but more often than not Grian’s teasing and jokes and laughter were still genuine. Whatever he had gone through, he was still Grian when he came out on the other side, and Mumbo was more than a little grateful for that.

But all the same…it was in those moments when Mumbo asked about those missing years that it became most apparent that Grian hadn’t come out of his mysterious ordeal unscathed. He gained a wary and paranoid sort of sheen in his eyes in those moments, his movements more jumpy and his words more strained, and even though he had admitted to a few things - the implications of which had Mumbo dreading the full context - he had thus far shied away from having to talk about anything in depth. “Void-adjacent…it’s not the most pleasant of places” and “Time passes differently in the void” and “A decade at least? It had to’ve been.” and “It was just a bad memory”...the fact that it was a memory, not just a nightmare, that had sent Grian into a panicked fit in his sleep was something that left dread pooling in Mumbo’s chest. And then there was that moment, maybe a half-hour later, where Grian had moved his injured leg and hissed in pain and Mumbo had asked what had happened to give him such awful bruising and abrasions - and Grian had smiled this grim, lifeless smile and muttered something about “They didn’t exactly like it the last time I tried to leave” before instantly switching gears to ask Mumbo more questions about what he had been up to while Grian was gone.

Mumbo finally sucked in a shaking breath and pulled the fish from the furnace, slipping them into his inventory and standing to lean on his palms against the chest beside it.

“You can try,” he said at last, glancing up at Xisuma’s visor-covered eyes with a pained grimace. “You’ve got a knack for keeping people calm in a stressful situation. I reckon if you’re careful, he’d open up to you about it.”

Xisuma nodded, his eyes turning sad at Mumbo’s words.

“I can check on his bandages while you do that, if you want,” Stress chimed in. Her tone was softer than it had been when she first arrived, clearly following the mood shift in the room. “It’d probably distract ‘im a bit. And I never did finish treating his burns.”

“I helped him with the ones on his face earlier,” Mumbo told her. “I just - put some of that fire res on them, like you said to. But it seemed a bit awkward to ask him to undress for me for the rest.”

Stress stifled a laugh, and Mumbo heard X hide a quiet chuckle across the room. His lips curled into a small smile and he shook his head.

“Well, go on in if you want,” he told them, pushing away from the makeshift kitchen and slipping past Stress toward the door. “I’m gonna grab a few potatoes from the garden then I’ll meet you in there.”

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Grian tugged out yet another loose feather with a grimace, huffing irritably. His wings were in even rougher shape than he’d first assumed. To be fair, he had sort of stopped caring about his wings as much while trapped in the Watchers’ realm, and the lack of sunlight hadn’t been friendly to him. For one, a majority of his feathers were dry and itchy. He would need to oil them soon when it wasn’t so difficult to reach a majority of his right wing thanks to the bandages and aching muscles. But on top of that he had lost more feathers than he had realized. There were small patches of missing down that he could feel near his back, and a few handfuls of bent and broken coverts had needed to be pulled, but - thank the Void - only a few of his flight feathers were beyond saving. They would grow back in, they all would, though Grian had a sinking feeling that his escape would not have been nearly so successful if he had waited too much longer.

The thought made him shudder, his back and jaw going tense, but he forced himself to breathe.

He was out. He was safe. He was with a friend, on a server that had been kind to him thus far. He wasn’t with them anymore. What-if’s wouldn’t get him anywhere, especially if he started stressing over less favorable what-could-have-been’s that would never come to pass.

He was free. He just needed to keep reminding himself of that until it sank in.

The rattle of a door handle drew his attention and he raised his eyes, thinking perhaps Mumbo had finally come back with food. But it wasn’t Mumbo who appeared in the doorway. Instead, the helmet-covered head of the admin Grian had spoken to after he first arrived on the server came into view, his eyes seeming to smile behind the visor.

“Hello again!” he greeted, and Grian had to wrack his brain for a moment to remember the man’s name. X…X-something. Xelqua, his memories whispered, and he shoved it away with gritted teeth.

“Hi,” Grian returned the greeting with a forced half-smile. “You’re–” Half the time we just call him ‘X’, Mumbo had told him. “–you’re X, right?”

“Yup! That’s me.” X let the door open wider to fully step into the space, and a flash of bright pink appeared behind him.

“Oh, budge over, Xisuma, you’re blockin’ the doorway!” a second voice chimed in, her tone bright and friendly.

Xisuma. Right. That was his name.

With a sheepish chuckle, Xisuma did as he was told, stepping aside so the player behind him could join them in the room. The space was small, and with both of them blocking the door, Grian couldn’t really help the way his wings tensed and curled in around his shoulders. But he took a slow breath. Safe. He was safe. These were friends of Mumbo’s, and Xisuma was kind, and they wouldn’t hurt him.

Instead of letting himself get swept away by long-engrained paranoia, Grian opted to take in the newcomer with curious eyes. She looked familiar, Grian noticed, tilting his head to the side and squinting at her. A pink cardigan, short brown hair, a friendly smile - he had a vague memory of seeing her at the portal with everyone else when he first arrived on the server.

“Mornin’ love!” the woman smiled brightly at him. “I’m Stress! I dunno what Mumbo told you, but I was here last night helpin’ wif’ your bandages an’ such.”

Stress. Grian nodded, recognition lighting up his eyes.

“Oh, right! Yeah. Yeah, he mentioned that.” He glanced down at his chest, tugging at some of the wrappings, then smiled weakly up at her. “Thank you. I really appreciate the help.”

“Oh, it’s no problem!” Stress waved it away. “I’m actually here to see how you’re comin’ along. D’you mind if I take a look?”

“Er…” He glanced sideways at Xisuma, but the admin seemed to have his focus elsewhere. He was tapping out a quick message on his communicator, how brow furrowed, though he seemed to feel Grian’s eyes on him and looked up with a soft smile. (Or Grian assumed it was a smile. It was hard to tell with the helmet.)

“We can wait until Mumbo comes back if you’d rather,” X told him. “He just went out to fetch a few things from the garden, but he’ll be back soon.”

“I…no, no it’s fine,” Grian shook his head quickly, though anyone who knew how to read avian body language would have been able to know how tense he was from his puffed feathers alone. He swallowed and took a breath. “What…what do you need to do?”

“Well, I’d like to apply a few more potions to your burns, if that’s alright,” Stress told him, moving further into the room so she could begin placing potion bottles and cloths and bandages on the table beside the bed. The proximity set Grian’s nerves on edge but he refused to give into his rubbish fear. Stress was a player. She wasn’t one of them. She was a healer, too, if Mumbo was to be believed, which meant she was here to help. “Some o’ those burns you got on your shoulder and your hands looked right painful. A few blisters, too, though now you’re awake I fink a healin’ potion would help with that.”

“You, uh…” Grian cleared his throat, swallowing back some of the wavering notes in his words. “...you didn’t give me any last night?”

“Oh, lord, no!” Stress shook her head immediately, meeting his wary gaze with wide and compassionate eyes. “Not while you weren’t awake to give consent. I did some topical treatment to help speed things along an’ keep you comfy so you could sleep, but I wanted to wait for anythin’ more ‘til you were aware of what I was doin’.”

Grian stared at her, some of the tension draining from his wings and his feathers going lax. She wanted his permission. She wanted to ask first. She wanted to make sure that whatever she was doing to him was okay with him before doing it. And though she didn’t say it, if Grian asked her to, he was sure she would listen to him if he said no. It was so different than what he had become accustomed to for the past probably-a-decade, and something of how much it was affecting him must have shown on his face because Stress’ expression immediately softened.

“Oh, sweetheart…” Stress reached a hand toward him, slow and gentle so he had a chance to pull away, and when he didn’t she gently cupped the unburned side of his face. Grian’s response was almost automatic. He didn’t actively choose to lean into her touch, but he did it all the same, his eyes falling shut and a warbled cooing slipping past his lips. Stress ran a thumb over his cheek with a soft sigh. “Grian, you’re safe here, I promise. I won’t do nofin’ you don’t want me to. Alright? We Hermits might be a nutty bunch, but we’re good people.”

“That’s true,” Xisuma spoke up. Grian had almost forgotten he was still in the room and he pulled away from Stress’ touch to look over at the admin. Xisuma had taken up the seat Mumbo had been in earlier, a glowing admin screen hovering in front of his eyes, and though Grian couldn’t read the backwards text from here it looked a lot like X was tabbing through players statistics for all the server members. When Grian seeked him out he seemed to smile. “I’m still not quite sure how you ended up on our server, but I’m glad you did. That’s one lucky accident if you ask me.”

“Honestly I’ve been telling myself the same thing,” Grian agreed, and most of the paranoia that had built up since their arrival faded to the back of his mind. “Void knows I didn’t plan to end up here. I just…did. And - well–” He ducked his head slightly, plucking at a feather that had managed to get left behind on the bed during his preening session. “–so far I’ve been fairly grateful for that.”

He heard Xisuma shift in his seat, the noise mixed with that of Stress stepping back to organize the bottles on the table.

“Grian…if it’s alright with you,” Xisuma spoke up, his tone even and perhaps a little cautious, “do you mind if I ask you some questions while Stress redresses your injuries?”

Grian snapped his eyes up from the bed in an instant, staring at the admin and silently running the question through his mind. It wasn’t as if Grian hadn’t sort of been expecting this. Xisuma was an admin, first and foremost, which meant his duty was to his players and his server. Sure, he was kind enough to worry over Grian’s wellbeing as well, but Grian had also come crashing through the server wall that had been meant to keep non-whitelisted players out. Of course X wanted to know how it had happened. Grian had been an admin once himself, and if he were in Xisuma’s shoes he would be wondering the same thing.

That didn’t make Grian any less hesitant to talk about where he had come from. He barely wanted to think about them, let alone retell his story to someone else.

But hadn’t Stress just said they wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want them to?

“...can I choose not to answer some of them?” he asked warily, to which Xisuma tilted his head to the side as if thinking it over.

“If you’d like,” he shrugged, his tone turning amused and lighthearted. “I don’t make a habit out of forcefully interrogating new members, so I certainly won’t do that to a guest.”

Grian took a breath and stared at the opposite wall. He mulled it over for a tick or two, then steeled his nerves and nodded sharply.

“Alright. Alright, yeah, go ahead.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[A/N: So two new faces have joined our cast of characters. I've gotta say, I love Joe, but lord knows I won't be able to do him justice because the things that come out of that man's mouth are impossible to replicate unless you are, in fact, Joe Hills. On a secondary note, Stress is absolutely Mom Friend and I love her for it. She can also be a chaos gremlin if the mood strikes! But Mom Friend Stress is literally the sweetest thing ever.]