Chapter Text
Mumbo’s first mistake was moving. After he’d finished his redstone paper for his redstone mastery, he had taken his shiny new designation and moved out of the big cities where redstoners were a dime a dozen.
He’d found a suitably rural area, with a small town a good walk away, and built a nice base in one of the clearings nearby. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything of the town and its residents, just glad that he would be able to work in peace. Or so he thought.
His second mistake was letting the strange avian who crashed into the side of his house stay the night.
The crash woke him up from where he was asleep over his notes. He jerked awake, blinking sleep out of his eyes in a hurry and scrambling out of his seat. Armed with the first thing he saw, he ventured out of his house and quickly found a figure groaning on the ground by the side of his house, wings being ruffled by the light breeze.
“Hello?” he asked uncertainly, holding up his redstone repeater like a shield.
“Hello,” the figure groaned back. They rolled over, wings flapping slightly, and looked up at him. Tousled brown hair and dark eyes stared up at him. “I’m Grian, he/him. So sorry for crashing into your house,” Grian said, the corners of his mouth tilting up into an abashed smile.
“How on earth did you manage that?” Mumbo let out, astonished. Grian got up, brushing dirt off of his clothes. He shook out his large russet wings, clumps of dirt falling out of them.
Grian inspected his wings with a frown. “Ugh, I just preened them,” he groaned. “But anyway, I didn’t realize there was a house here is all. Are you new here?”
“Well, I’ve been here a few months,” Mumbo hedged. “I suppose if you think that’s new…”
“Wow,” Grian exclaimed. “Have you met anyone here yet?”
“No, it’s just been me,” Mumbo denied. Grian gasped, looking scandalized.
"Well that simply won’t do, Mr… What was your name again?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Mumbo Jumbo, he/him. You can just call me Mumbo,” Mumbo introduced, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Apparently a few months alone was enough to make him forget how to socialize.
“Well, Mr. Mumbo Jumbo, it simply won’t do for you to stay out here alone without ever meeting anyone,” Grian declared. “I, Grian, will show you around the place-”
He was interrupted by an ominous rumble of thunder, and in startling synchrony, he turned his head up to look at the sky at the same time as Mumbo. The first drop of rain hit Mumbo right in the eye, and he blinked the water out of his eye quickly only for more droplets to hit his face in quick succession. In only a matter of moments, rain was pelting down at a steady speed, the water quickly soaking through Mumbo’s clothes.
Mumbo pushed Grian towards the door of his house, and the other man seemed to get the memo, running into the house with Mumbo not far behind.
Mumbo slammed the door behind him, and then they just stood there, both dripping wet despite only having been in the rain for a minute, tops.
“Let me get you a towel,” Mumbo offered belatedly, trudging down the hallway to get towels for the both of them.
When he returned with a stack of towels in his hands, Grian was peering down at some of Mumbo’s blueprints and notes. “Do these contraptions work?” Grian asked curiously, eyes still fixed on the blueprints.
Mumbo blinked in surprise, but then remembered that this was a rural town where redstone probably wasn’t common. “Yeah, I can make them work with redstone,” Mumbo explained.
He expected familiarity, at least, of the ore, but Grian looked befuddled. “Is that your magical focus?” Grian asked.
Mumbo blinked hard. “Er, no. It’s a mineral that helps send power to other places and then powers up the machinery to do its job,” he corrected.
Grian stared at him like he’d grown three heads. “That just sounds like magic to me,” he said. “Well, anyway, it’s raining super hard and it seems like it won’t let up anytime soon. Do you think I could stay the night?”
“Ah, sure, yeah. I’ll make up a bed for you,” Mumbo agreed awkwardly, dropping the subject of redstone. Maybe Grian didn’t understand it, but it seemed like he’d gotten the memo, at least.
Mumbo’s third mistake was letting Grian spread the word about him and doing the introductions, because that was when things really got confused.
Grian jetted off the next morning, waving goodbye to Mumbo. Mumbo smiled and waved back, and then returned back to his notes and research. He’d have to go mining soon, for more redstone.
Not even a day after he’d left, Grian returned, handing Mumbo a free elytra (a free elytra, one of the rarest items around) and thrusting a stack of rockets into his hand. “You ever used one of these before?” he asked.
Mumbo shook his head, still looking at the elytra in undisguised awe. He’d seen them on display before, but this was the first time he’d touched one. “Are you sure this is for me?” he asked again, hardly daring to blink.
“Yeah of course, we hand them out to anyone new in the area,” Grian waved off as if it was no big deal. Mumbo’s eyes nearly bugged out at the new information. “Anyway, it’s got Mending on it, so if the durability ever gets low you just have to hold it while gaining experience.”
“You… it’s enchanted?” Mumbo squeaked. Even forgetting the elytra, enchantments were expensive and difficult to obtain. Mending was an entirely different beast, and cost a fortune for even one copy of the enchantment.
“Yeah,” Grian nodded. “Put on the elytra and I’ll show you how to use it!” Mumbo blinked skeptically at Grian’s own, non-elytra wings, but strapped on the elytra anyway.
Grian gave him a once over when he was done, and then without fanfare, grabbed him and began flapping his wings, rising into the air. “WHAT- GRIAN PUT ME DOWN!” Mumbo yelled in panic.
“Okay, so when I drop you, the wings will open automatically!” Grian yelled above the rushing of the wind in Mumbo’s ears and his screeching. “If you want to close up your elytra, which trust me, you almost never do, pull the cord!”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN DROP ME-” Mumbo started, but the rest of his words dissolved into a high pitched scream as Grian’s arms disappeared.
He felt weightless for a split second before gravity pulled him down to the ground. Mumbo shrieked louder and shut his eyes, waiting for his doom. Instead, there was a feeling of being caught, and after a pause, Mumbo hesitantly cracked open an eye, and saw that the ground wasn’t coming down towards him that quickly.
“Wow… I’m not dead…” he marvelled.
“You sure aren’t,” Grian agreed, flapping up next to him with a grin.
Mumbo scowled at him. “You didn’t have to drop me from the sky,” he scolded.
Grian just smiled wider. “It worked though, didn’t it?”
“Do not do that again,” Mumbo sputtered after a moment of wondering if Grian was sane.
“Well, anyway, let’s go meet everyone,” Grian said, ignoring Mumbo’s very reasonable words. “Set off a rocket every time you need a speed boost,” the avian informed him before flying off, leaving Mumbo in the wind.
Mumbo spared a nervous glance towards the ground, took a deep breath, questioned all of his life decisions, and then reached for his rockets.
Mumbo, despite believing otherwise, did not become a splat on the ground, and made it to the town, where Grian yelled instructions about how to land from the ground.
“Now do a turn- NOT LIKE THAT,” Grian shouted.
“HOW ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO TURN, GRIAN,” Mumbo screamed back. He awkwardly twisted his body in the air, trying to change directions.
“JUST DO IT,” Grian returned unhelpfully. Mumbo shrieked as the wings of the elytra caught an unwanted wind current and sent him veering away from the area where he needed to land.
From the corner of his eye, he spotted a flash of bright red. There was a figure with bright red hair and green skin crossing over to where Grian was standing. He looked away just before he could accidentally flip over, and when he felt himself start to tip over, panicked and released another rocket.
The rocket did its job and rolled Mumbo back to the right position, but also elevated his height by several feet. Mumbo squinted down at Grian and distinctly saw the avian’s hand meet his forehead.
Mumbo couldn’t imagine why. After all, this situation was the avian’s fault for not offering a proper tutorial beforehand.
“MUMBO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Grian yelled at him. The figure from earlier was beside him, face craned upwards to look at him as well.
“YES,” Mumbo confirmed, his voice pitching up higher in slight panic at the end.
“NEW PLAN, JUST CRASH LAND AND CLEO WILL CATCH YOU!” Grian gestured at the figure next to him. Mumbo opened his mouth to loudly question this horrible plan, but before he could, there was a massive gust of wind that tipped his wings downwards.
Mumbo screamed as he was suddenly plunged into a nosedive. He saw the ground come rushing up to meet him and he squeezed his eyes closed and waited for death.
He slammed into something soft instead, and he bounced lightly before coming to a stop on something a bit spongy and dry. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around, gaping at the massive nest of plant matter and vines that held him.
Grian’s head popped over the side of the makeshift plant nest. “Wow, you really took a dive there,” he said, and then laughed.
Mumbo turned to complain at him, forgetting about the other bystander. “That’s your fault for not teaching me how to land properly!” He waved his hands at the avian, who at least had the sense to look a little embarrassed. “I have nearly died twice since I’ve met you! It’s been a single day!”
“Grian, you know you’re banned from giving flying tutorials,” another voice scolded, startling Mumbo.
The owner of the voice had to actually be magic, because Grian actually ducked his head and shuffled his feet. “Sorry Cleo, sorry Mumbo,” Grian apologized sheepishly. Mumbo just sighed and waved him off.
He crawled over to the edge of the nest and hopped down a few feet onto the ground. The sweet, sweet ground. He practically collapsed onto it, heaving a relieved breath. “I am not built for the elytra,” he said almost to himself.
“Me neither,” the mystery voice agreed, and Mumbo looked up. Bright red hair contrasted heavily with light green skin, framing dark green eyes. Broad shoulders were covered with a long green tunic, and a belt on their trousers secured two wicked looking daggers in their sheaths. “Cleo, she/they,” they introduced, holding out a hand.
Mumbo gratefully took the hand and let her haul him up. “Mumbo, he/him. So sorry if we disturbed you with all of the yelling,” he said awkwardly.
Cleo had flowers growing in her hair, braided into the long red strands. “It’s no problem,” she replied. “A new person is very exciting around here anyway. Most people don’t move so far out.”
Mumbo heard a noise behind him and looked over his shoulder to see the plant nest he’d landed in rapidly sinking back into the ground. “Huh?” he vocalized, confused.
“Cleo also does magic,” Grian cut in. “She’s got an affinity with nature, particularly plants.”
Mumbo nodded along to that, mulling the words over in his mind. Something about them sounded wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Thank you for saving Mumbo, Cleo,” Grian was saying when he tuned back into the conversation. “We’d better get going, I still have to introduce Mumbo to everyone else.”
“Of course,” Cleo waved off. “Remember to have someone who isn’t you give Mumbo elytra lessons!” she called, turning away to where her home presumably was. Grian tugged Mumbo in a different direction, thankfully on foot.
Grian proceeded to drag Mumbo all over the place to find people to introduce him to “properly”, in Grian’s words. It was a bit overwhelming, but the people were all very friendly and welcoming, even if sometimes Mumbo felt like he was missing something.
“Pearl’s a witch,” Grian provided helpfully as Mumbo watched Pearl wave to them from where she was being surrounded by an army of wolves larger than herself in a massive enclosure. “That’s Tilly, her familiar.” He pointed at the wolf waiting just outside the enclosure, a jade collar around its neck.
“Hello!” Pearl said enthusiastically as soon as she got close enough. “Pearl, she/her.” Mumbo shook her hand, a bit surprised at how firm her grip was.
“It’s been so long since someone else came to town. I focus on beast taming, and Grian said your focus was… redstone? You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. We can exchange notes,” Pearl said enthusiastically.
“Ah, yeah sure,” Mumbo nodded. He wasn’t sure what redstone and beast taming would have in common, but it would be fun to discuss, at least.
“I’m Skizzleman, he/him. Call me Skizz,” said Skizz, complete with a very enthusiastic handshake. Mumbo couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous of Skizz’s sleeveless suit; his own was starting to feel terribly hot and stuffy in the sun. “Grian mentioned you do some great magic with that redstone of yours! If you’re ever willing to do a demonstration, I’d love to see it!”
Mumbo blushed a little at how earnest Skizz looked as he complimented him. “If I ever get something up and running, I’ll let you see it,” he agreed.
“Wonderful,” Skizz said happily. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen new magic.”
That comment seemed very out of place. Mumbo opened his mouth to ask, but then Grian was grabbing his arm and dragging him off, waving goodbye to Skizz. Too busy questioning Grian’s sudden rush, Mumbo completely forgot about the comment.
“My expertise lies in smaller spells, but across many areas,” Lizzie explained to Mumbo as Grian careened past them with Joel hot on his heels, both of them yelling. “I think the most useful might be the colour changing spell,” she said thoughtfully, and then demonstrated by turning her soft pink hair bright orange with a wave of her wand. She turned it back after a moment.
“Wow,” Mumbo voiced in wonder. “That’s really impressive.”
Lizzie smiled. “I’m sure you have your own impressive talents, even if you don’t use a wand,” she said. “You use redstone, I heard?”
“I do,” Mumbo confirmed. Grian had apparently been thorough in distributing that information.
The phrase 'Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear' apparently applied to Grian, as the avian grabbed him around the middle and took flight, narrowly avoiding Joel’s grabby hands.
“THIS ISN’T OVER, GRIAN!” Joel yelled from below, shaking his fist at the sky as they rapidly gained altitude. The rest of his words were quickly lost, drowned under Mumbo’s screeching at being lifted into the sky, again .
(“What did you even do to Joel, anyway?” Mumbo asked Grian after they touched down again.
“Just a minor prank,” Grian replied evasively, before he quickly jogged away and began to shout, “Scar?” Mumbo was left to squint suspiciously at his retreating back.)
The first thing Mumbo heard from Scar was, “Would you like to see my magic crystals?”
Grian’s palm hit his face with a resounding smack as Scar immediately started digging through his pockets without waiting for an answer. Mumbo watched in bemusement as Scar made a triumphant noise and tipped some crystals into his hands.
Mumbo inspected them. They were quite shiny, and he said as much to Scar, who beamed. He wasn’t sure how they were magic, but it seemed rude to correct Scar, who most likely knew better than he did. “Actually,” Mumbo added on thoughtfully, “I think I have something similar…”
Mumbo grabbed the pouch of redstone he tended to keep with him, and carefully sifted through the red dust until he found what he was looking for: a solid chunk of redstone that had remained intact when he’d mined the ore.
He dug it out of the pouch, shook off some of the dust still clinging onto it, and handed it to Scar.
Scar looked down at it for a moment, wiping off some of the residue. “You really are the real deal,” he said suddenly, a grin breaking out over his face. He tried to hand the crystal back, but Mumbo held up his hand.
“You can keep it,” he said. Scar brightened even more.
“I like you, Mumbo,” he declared brazenly. “I’ll add you to my reputation board,” he nodded to himself. “Now, I have to go milk the bees, so I’ll see both of you later,” he said decisively, before spinning on his heel and disappearing into the trees abruptly.
Mumbo turned to Grian, who was staring off after Scar with an unreadable expression. There was a long pause as Grian just kept staring in the direction where Scar had disappeared from view.
Mumbo cleared his throat. “So where to next?”
Grian jumped a little, his head whipping around like he’d forgotten that Mumbo was there. “Hmm… Bdubs lives close by,” Grian decided, and walked off. Mumbo followed him.
Bdubs was inspecting the redstone dust in Mumbo’s cupped hand, making noises of wonder. “And you use this for magic?” Bdubs asked.
Mumbo… paused. “No,” he said slowly. “I use it to build machines. I’m an engineer.”
Bdubs blinked at him innocently. “A magic engineer? That’s super cool!” he exclaimed.
“No, no, just an engineer. I don’t have magic,” Mumbo said hurriedly.
“What are you talking about?” Mumbo turned to look at Grian, who looked very confused. “Your magical focus is redstone,” Grian said.
“No, it’s not-” Mumbo started. Bdubs patted him on the back and cut him off.
“You don’t need to deny it,” Bdubs said earnestly, and with such raw sincerity that Mumbo recoiled a bit. “I guess you’re used to hiding it to avoid prosecution, but half of us are magical here. I can sense the magical properties of your red dust, so there’s no use in hiding it anymore.”
“My redstone is what,” Mumbo said numbly. He quickly tried to get back on track. “I really am not magical, I don’t know where you got that impression.”
“If you really want to keep it a secret, no one outside the community will find out that you’re a witch,” Grian said sincerely. “If anyone gives you trouble, then we’ll take care of it.”
“That’s very nice of you both, but I do not have magic, so I don’t think that’s necessary,” Mumbo tried, but neither of them looked like they believed him.
Grian’s words caught up to him. “Wait- a witch? You think I’m a witch?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how specific the misunderstanding had gotten.
He had to stop and think, for a minute then, about the interactions he’d had with the townsfolk over the last day. “Hang on a minute,” he began slowly. “Grian, how many people did you tell about my being a witch?”
Grian blushed a bit and looked away from Mumbo sheepishly. “Well, I was just so excited,” he mumbled. “I mean, a witch with a discipline I’ve never heard of, it was just very exciting,” he explained.
There was only one thing that Mumbo could say when faced with the idea that everyone thought he was a witch because they’d apparently never heard of redstone before.
“Shit.”