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2022-05-24
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A Bird of Many Colors

Summary:

The first time Mumbo sees Grian's wings, it's at the start of Season 6 and they've just come out of the portal. His feathers are pearlescent with bright blue at the edges, flecks of purple hidden within them that he can only see when he's close.

(He brings this up one time at Sahara, and Grian merely gives him a thoughtful look before shrugging and returning to building.)

The first time Mumbo sees Grian in Season 7, his wings are a completely different color. It wouldn't be so strange, he supposes, if Scar saw the same thing as he did. But he doesn't.

 

 

Inspired by a post from driftbit on Tumblr:
"the bird wings grian has/is drawn having are just other hermits' interpretation of his wings. they can't actually see his watcher wings because they're beyond human comprehension."

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

It's not too far into Season 7 when Mumbo notices it. He lives near Grian, second-closest actually when you count Scar, so it's no surprise he would end up seeing his winged friend soon enough. Both he and Grian had built hobbit holes into separate hillsides (by complete coincidence) and though Mumbo had seen his friend's comfortable little starter base he hadn't actually seen Grian in person since watching his name appear on the list of members not long after arriving. But here, now, where he had been planning on organizing his chests in his own starter base, he's been stalled temporarily by the strange appearance of a chest in a minecart that has shown up, inexplicably, in the center of his storage room. It's clearly from Grian - the slip of paper that reads "A gift from the other Hobbit" gives that away immediately - but the set of enchanted diamond armor is an absolutely lovely surprise.

It wouldn't be so questionable if Mumbo wasn't so baffled about how and when it got into his base to begin with, or why it's in a minecart of all things.

But then he hears the breaking of a dirt block and sees the flash of a red sweater out of the corner of his eye. He looks around, confused, and when his eyes lock on a familiar face on the other side of his nether portal it takes him longer than he'd like to admit to register that it's Grian he's starting at. He gapes, jolts, and by the time he starts moving Grian has already plugged up the hole in the dirt wall behind his portal with a cackle of muffled laughter.

"What?! Grian!" Mumbo bolts, dropping the gifted armor back in the chest, and he's got a shovel in hand in an instant. He busts his way through the dirt wall, clambering through the purple glow of his portal - steadfastly ignoring the familiar pull of the Nether that lingers until he steps free of the obsidian frame - and once he's on the other side he can hear Grian's joyous giggles more clearly.

The first thing he notices, of course, is the existence of another hobbit hole that Grian seems to have built inside the existing one, its round entrance set into a fake hillside that Grian must have built by hand. When Mumbo opens the door and steps inside, he barely has time to register that it leads down into a seemingly endless tunnel of spruce wood. Because the second thing he notices is Grian, who has clambered into a minecart just in time to wave at Mumbo as he rockets away down the tunnel he must have built himself. And the third - well, the third thing is the sight of Grian's wings, which seem to have changed colors since the previous season.

The wings are the main reason Mumbo doesn't immediately craft up a new minecart to follow his friend down the tunnel, which, according to a few signs Grian left behind, connects both of their start bases together.

Last season, Grian's wings had been more pearlescent, a brilliant white with accents of cyan and turquoise feathers that matched the coloring of his base and the rest of the Modern District of Season 6. There had also been the occasional purple feather hidden among the rest, and when Mumbo had once pointed it out, Grian had merely given Mumbo a thoughtful look before shrugging and returning to his work on Sahara.

But just now...well. It's a new season, and this is Mumbo's first time seeing Grian since leaving the last one, and his wings look completely different. They've taken on darker, more natural tones, a mix of browns and creams and warm stony grays with the occasional accents of bright greens and teals freckled in between. The new feathers match the jungle Mumbo and Grian have both taken up residence in, which seems rather fitting, though Mumbo hadn't been aware Grian's feathers even changed colors at all. Perhaps it's part of why Mumbo hasn't seen him face-to-face for a while? Perhaps Grian had been molting or something and wanted to keep to himself until it was over?

Regardless, it's fascinating, and in Mumbo's opinion the new look fits Grian fairly well. Without much more thought on the matter, he ducks back through his Nether portal to snatch up some iron for a minecart. He's itching to investigate the new rail system Grian had taken the time to build between their bases and not even new feathers could stop his curiosity.

 

 

It's only a few days later when Mumbo sees Scar, seeing as the man (or wizard?) in question had come to visit at Mumbo's request so he could show Scar the K.G.O.O.M.R. he had designed. Keeping Grian Out Of My (their) Resources certainly sounded like something both he and Scar would need to deal with this season, seeing as their mischievous neighbor was wont to sneak into places he didn't belong. The chickens in Mumbo's base last season were a testament to that. So was the potato that had gummed up the redstone at Sahara.

Somewhere between laughing over Scar's mispronunciation of Mumbo's most recent nickname ("Bumbo BIG Baggins? That's a new one, dude...I'm feeling a bit personally attacked!"), explaining how the K.G.O.O.M.R. worked ("So...it's a fifty-fifty chance you'll either get your items, or lose your hand?") and Scar attempting to sell Mumbo some sort of magic crystals (which Mumbo is certain are really just chunks of colored glass with wishful thinking attached to them), they turn the conversation toward their rapscallious mischief-maker of a neighbor for whom the K.G.O.O.M.R. was designed in the first place.

"Have you noticed Grian's wings are a different color now?" Mumbo mentions, holding one of the crystals Scar had given him up to the sunlight now that they were outside his hobbit hole. "They're completely different from last season."

"Oh, yeah!" Scar grins. "I noticed that when he pranked me with that zombie spawner! They're so much more colorful now, and way brighter too."

"Brighter?" Mumbo stares at him, bemused. He chuckles a bit. "Mate, I dunno what your definition of 'brighter' is, but I don't think brown and gray fits into that category. An' even if it did, I think - if anything - they're darker than before."

"What are you talking about?"

"They're - what do you mean what am I talking about?" Mumbo blusters, the red "crystal" he'd been examining now tucked away in his inventory so he can give Scar his full attention. "They're darker. Last season they were white, remember? And now they're all - you know - natural-looking. Forest colors. Mossy logs and stone and such."

Now it's Scar staring at him, his brow furrowed and a puzzled look in his eyes.

"That's what they look like to you?" he asks, and something about the way he says it makes Mumbo think that maybe, just maybe, Scar is understanding something that Mumbo can't quite see yet.

"...they...what do you think they look like?"

"Well, last season they were sorta sandy-brown, which I thought was kinda funny since he built his starter base at the bottom of the ocean and then you guys all made Sahara. And there were little brown flecks in them too, but I don't think I even noticed that until near the end. I wasn't around him all the time like I am now."

"Right, right..." Mumbo nods, absolutely at a loss. "And, uh...what do they look like now?"

"Well, like parrot wings, actually." Scar smirks then. "Like a pesky bird. That's what he calls them, right?"

"Parrot wings?"

...okay. That...that is definitely a far ways off from brown and mossy.

"Hang on - I'm gonna ask Ren what he sees," Scar mutters, pulling out his communicator, and when Mumbo gives him an inquisitive look Scar explains: "Ren said Grian's been sneaking into his base to trade with his villagers. He's gotta have seen Grian's wings, right?"

A few seconds pass before Scar's communicator buzzes in his hands. His eyebrows fly skyward and Mumbo leans in to see the response.

"Purplish-gray?" he reads off. "A bit like mycelium? What in the world-"

"So everyone sees Grian's wings differently," Scar muses. That in itself is a baffling and intriguing concept, but the next thing Scar asks sends Mumbo's thoughts reeling in a different direction. "Hey, wait...you knew Grian before he joined Hermitcraft, right?"

"Uh - yeah, a bit," Mumbo shrugs. "We met on a BuildSwap server, and we used to hang out once in a while beyond that. But uh - he became admin of some other server after that, and he sort of went out of contact for a while. Until last season, anyway. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering - what did his wings look like back then?"

Mumbo ponders this. Then he freezes, as a thought occurs to him. In all fairness, he hasn't really had a reason to even question it anymore because after spending a year and a half in the last server, seeing Grian with his pearly-white wings had become so commonplace. But as he thinks about it, something inexplicable occurs to him, and Mumbo turns to Scar with raised eyebrows and a bewildered expression.

"He...he didn't have any wings at all."

Notes:

This was a fun little concept to write about! If anyone has headcanons about what they think the other Hermits might see Grian's wings as, feel free to share! I'd love to know your thoughts on it!

I put some thought behind why Scar and Mumbo see the colors they do, and Ren's view of them - mycelium - is a very pointed reference to the Mycelium Resistance, which hasn't even happened at this point in the season. Technically it would have made sense for Scar to see that too, but Ren was the only person who actively took on mycelium traits during the Turf War so it seemed quite fitting for him specifically. Plus the whole Pesky Bird thing started between Scar and Grian, so isn't that just the perfect color palette for Scar to see? ^^