Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A man yawned, sat up, and opened his eyes.

…Hm. Well. This was awkward.

He didn’t know where he was. He scrubbed sleep out of his eyes with one hand as he glanced around the room, hoping for any clues that would shed light on the situation. It was a nice room, for sure! All warm colors and fun steampunk decor, even if he didn’t- recognize some of the materials… huh.

He also, he realized belatedly as he climbed out of bed, seemed to be missing his name. Well! That was a problem. However, it was, at least, a problem that could wait until he was dressed. On the upside, he didn’t have any trouble navigating the bedroom; everything seemed to be where he expected it to be, where he would put it if he was building this place.

Huh. Maybe he had built this place? It didn’t feel unfamiliar, was the thing. He knew where the ladders were, where to find his dresser. But at the same time, he thought he would remember a build this nice! Especially if he’d made it!

It occurred to him to check his inventory for any clues, but that was no help- it was totally empty, and he couldn’t spot any chests nearby where he would have stored his things before going to sleep. Maybe he’d died? He’d probably died. He was fairly sure that was pretty common for him.

He didn’t feel particularly alarmed about the whole situation, he realized, and he wasn’t sure why he didn’t. Maybe this had happened before? Unfortunately, his amnesia was not being very enlightening on the question of whether he had suffered from amnesia before.

There was a window right above his bed, fortunately, and as soon as he was dressed he pushed it open and stuck his head out to see-

Hermitcraft?

There were huge, beautifully terraformed mountains rising against the horizon, with other, more colorful builds sitting on and all around them. A sprawling factory sat adjacent, so large he couldn’t even see the whole thing, and on the other side was some sort of ornate palace, all reds and greys and blacks. Countless smaller creations were scattered across the greenspace between them, too small for him to make out from this distance.

Yep, this was definitely Hermitcraft. Or, at the very least, it looked perfectly like a place that could exist on Hermitcraft. He’d never seen another server with quite such impressive landscapes- but he didn’t remember any of these builds. There was no way this was just an area he’d never happened to see before, either; they’d only just started the season-

Right?

He blinked a few times, feeling suddenly a little dizzy, and tightened his grip on the windowsill to steady himself. Okay, that was a thought he could pin down: they’d only just recently started a new season of Hermitcraft. He felt rather sure that that was the last things he remembered, or one of the last, but at the same time, the thought didn’t have the natural sort of certainty that was there when he navigated his room.

He sighed. This was annoying. And it was giving him a headache.

More importantly, though- as he stared out the window, frowning, he caught a glimpse of movement, drawing his eyes down to the paths snaking between the builds. People! There were people here! Thank goodness. Hopefully one of them would be able to tell him where (and who, that was also important) he was. He moved towards the ladder, but hesitated at the trap door, raking a hand through his hair.

Huh. Wasn’t he supposed to have a hat?

He glanced back, giving the bedroom a final once-over, but there were no hats to be seen, aside from the creeper head resting on a nearby armor stand, which was most certainly not what he was looking for.

He shrugged to himself, and started down the ladder. Maybe it would turn up. It wasn’t like it was that important, anyways, compared to everything else he was currently missing. It was just a hat.

Fortunately, the first person he saw after reaching the bottom of the ladder was someone he actually recognized. Everything was going his way! Well, aside from everything that wasn’t.

“Impulse!” he called, dropping the final few feet to the ground and waving to catch the other man’s attention.

Impulse glanced up and grinned, tucking the shulker box he’d been rifling through under his arm and standing. “Hey, Scar! What’s up?”

Scar! That was his name! Okay, okay, good. He was getting somewhere. “So, this is a tiny bit embarrassing,” he confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Can you tell me where I am?”

Impulse blinked, eyebrows going up. “…Is this some kind of scam?”

“Nope! Nope, uh, no joke, I just, seem to have gotten a little tiny bit mixed up in the headspace,” he said sheepishly. “Not sure where I am! Or who I am, for that matter, besides my name, thank you for that, by the way.”

“…Riiiight,” Impulse said. “Did you, uh. Hit your head? Or something? I’ve got… healing potions…”

Scar frowned, considering. His head didn’t hurt- nor did any part of him, for that matter. It was just kind of… annoyingly empty. “I mean, I feel fine? I don’t think I’m hurt. If you think it’ll help, though, I’m all for it!”

Impulse frowned. “Yeah… maybe we’ll leave off on that for now, then. Uh… okay, jeez. To start with, this is Boatem. You live here with me, Grian, Mumbo, and Pearl.” He paused, gave Scar an uncertain look. “What do you remember? I mean, you knew my name, so there must be something, right?”

“Yes!” Scar confirmed. “I know this is Hermitcraft- or, I’m like, eighty percent sure. Right?” Impulse nodded, and he continued with renewed enthusiasm. “Right! I’m- having some trouble with names, I think? But if I saw people I’m pretty sure I’d recognize them! Like, you mentioned Mumbo just now, and I know who he is. He’s got the mustache.”

“Okay! Okay, that’s- good, I think,” Impulse said, rubbing at his temples for a moment. “Okay. I’m gonna… call everybody else for a meeting, because this is definitely above my pay grade, and we’ll… see if we can figure this out from there.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Scar agreed easily, reaching up habitually to straighten his- oh, no, wait, right, he didn’t have a hat. It was bothering him more than he thought it would. “Hey, Impulse, I usually have a hat, right?”

“Oh, yeah, I actually wondered about that,” Impulse said, glancing up from where he was tapping a message out. “It’s like, as big as your head, it’s kind of ridiculous.”

“Yeah, have you seen it? I’m missing it,” Scar said, scratching his head.

Impulse shook his head. “Nope, sorry. Never see it anywhere other than on your head.”

“Dang it.”

Impulse typed another message, then nodded to himself, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Alright, everybody else is gonna meet us in the Boatem Hole. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Alright!” Scar agreed, falling into step behind him towards the center of the town. “…Sorry, in the what?”

Chapter Text

The Boatem Hole, as it turned out, was a completely terrifying hole blasted all the way down to bedrock and then out the other side, a square of empty void sitting open for just anybody to fall into. Impulse seemed very proud of it. Scar was very afraid of it.

Mumbo was already there and waiting when they reached the cavern at the very bottom of the pit, sitting on a crag of bedrock and fiddling anxiously with his fingers.

“Impulse! Scar! Hello,” he said. “Er- what’s the emergency? You mentioned an emergency.”

“Scar’s got amnesia,” Impulse said bluntly. Scar waved.

Mumbo’s eyes flicked between the two of them. “…Ah! That’s. That’s not good.”

“It’s very frustrating,” Scar agreed. “My head’s all empty. I don’t like it! I couldn’t even remember my name until Impulse told me, can you believe that, Mumbo?”

“That does sound very unpleasant,” Mumbo agreed cautiously. “Impulse, are you sure this isn’t a scam?”

“Why does everybody think that?” Scar complained. “I’ve never scammed anyone in my life.”

“Pretty sure,” Impulse said, ignoring him. “I don’t think Scar is this good of an actor.”

“Hey,” Scar objected. He could be a fine actor! They didn’t know! Neither did he, admittedly, but still.

Impulse quickly caught Mumbo up on the situation; as he did so, Scar found himself wandering over to the hole in the bedrock. He wasn’t really sure why he did, although that was turning out to be a trend for the day anyways. There was just a little tug in the back of his head, a nagging whispery sort of feeling. He crouched down at the lip of the void, squinted into the darkness.

He almost thought he could see something blue-

And then there was a flap of wings, and something heavy slammed directly into his shoulders.

He yelped, frantically throwing himself backwards to avoid the thoroughly unappealing alternative of getting pitched forwards directly into the abyss. He hit the bedrock hard enough to send a jolt up his spine, but he did not fall into the bottomless pit, so he was willing to call it a win regardless.

Also, there was still something perched on his shoulders. And he was pretty sure it was laughing at him.

“Mumbo,” he stage-whispered to the nearest man. “Why is there a giant bird on my shoulder.”

“Hey,” the bird in question said, sounding offended.

“Oh, it talks!”

“Hey!”

Scar tipped his head back, and met a pair of eyes frowning down at him, attached to an unexpectedly human face. Okay, so, not a bird? If it was a bird, it was a very humany one. Or maybe it was a very birdy human. Who was he to say, really?

“Scar,” the bird said, “where is your hat?”

“Haven’t been able to find it,” Scar said automatically. “Sorry, have we met?”

“…Yes?” the bird said, sounding fully baffled. Which was, in Scar’s opinion, not very fair. He was pretty sure if anyone had a right to be confused by this situation, it was him.

“Wait, do you not know Grian?” Mumbo said. “How could you remember me and not Grian?”

Oh! “Oh, you’re Grian!” Scar said. “No, yeah, I’ve heard of you! We’re neighbors! Nice to finally meetcha!”

“We are… neighbors,” Grian confirmed slowly, not sounding any less confused. “We’ve been neighbors for three seasons, Scar, what-“

Ah.

“Ah,” Scar said, very calmly. “Well! I seem to be missing some time.”

Really, it wasn’t that surprising. His first thought on seeing the builds in Boatem had been that they must have taken a lot of time, after all, and yet he’d never heard so much of a whisper about any of them. He’d known, on some level, that there had to be some gap of time he must have been missing between what he last remembered and now.

Three seasons, though! That was. That was a lot!

“So that makes this… season eight? Or nine?” Scar asked after a moment.

“Eight,” Impulse said. “Yikes. I didn’t know it was this bad. What’s the last season you do remember?”

“Six. I think,” Scar tacked on after a moment, because everything was still frustratingly vague.

“Early season six, too, right?” Grian asked. He’d still made absolutely no move to remove himself from Scar’s shoulder. “It must be, if you don’t remember meeting me.”

“I think so?” Scar guessed. “Even the stuff I do know is kind of fuzzy, guys, I’m not gonna lie.”

A fifth person took that moment to spiral down into the pit, a woman in a hoodie and shorts, sneakers scuffing against bedrock as she landed. “Hey guys! What’s the crisis?”

“Scar has amnesia,” Mumbo informed her, managing to sound somehow more distressed than Scar himself felt about the fact. “He doesn’t remember anything past season six. Apparently.”

“Yup!” Scar confirmed, pushing himself to his feet, finally, because it was a little awkward to be sitting on the ground when everybody else was standing, or at least when three other people were standing and the fourth was sitting on your shoulder. “And I’m terribly sorry, but I’m pretty sure I don’t know your name. A reminder would be much appreciated.”

“You’re being much more polite to Pearl than you were to me,” Grian complained.

“…I see!” the woman- Pearl, apparently, well, that solved that- said brightly, seeming to take the whole thing entirely in stride. “Well, I’m Pearl. Pleasure to… meet you? Re-meet you?”

“Pleasure to re-meet you too, Pearl!” Scar said with a grin and a little bow.

“Well, that’s everyone here,” Grian said after a moment. “I’m a little irritated that as Head of Meetings I wasn’t given advance notice of this one so I could come up with something fun, but-“

“I think we’ll all live,” Pearl said drily.

“For once,” Impulse added.

“Killjoys, the lot of you,” Grian muttered.

“So, Scar,” Pearl said. “Care to run us through what you do remember of today, then?”

“I certainly can, but I’m afraid there’s not much to tell!” Scar said apologetically. “I woke up in my bed- I’m assuming it was my bed, at least!- and I didn’t know where I was, or who I was, or how I got there. I saw there were people outside, and I figured they could help me jog my memory, and I talked to Impulse, aaaand now we’re here.”

“I wonder if it’s a bug in the respawn?” Mumbo wondered aloud. “Have you- I mean, I guess you wouldn’t know if you’d died recently, but, balance of probability and all-”

“Oh, we can check!” Impulse said, pulling out his phone and presumably navigating over to the gamechat menu. After a moment of scrolling, he reported, “Yeah, it says you fell out of the world a few hours ago, which probably means you fell in the Boatem Hole.”

“Oh, god, the Boatem Hole ate Scar’s brain,” Mumbo said, giving the hole in question an alarmed look. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted it.”

“Hey!” Scar objected. “My brain is just fine, thank you very much. It’s just a little emptier than usual.”

“…Right,” Grian said slowly. “But that happens like, twice daily at least- Scar falling in the Boatem Hole, that is. And I’ve never heard of a respawn glitch doing this. Don’t they normally just do stuff like make you fall forever?”

Scar edged a step further away from the Boatem Hole.

“Yeah, that’s a point,” Impulse agreed. “If this is a respawn bug, it’s definitely a really weird one.”

“Weird stuff happens on this server all the time, though,” Mumbo pointed out. “Have you seen the moon lately?”

“What I don’t get,” Pearl said, tapping on her chin, “is why season six?”

“How do you mean?” Grian asked.

“Well, it’s just interesting, isn’t it? Why would he only remember from then specifically?” Pearl shrugged. “I wasn’t there, so I don’t really know what was going on, but there must’ve been something, right?”

She gave Scar a questioning look, but he could only shrug; specific events in general were not being very forthcoming for him.

“That’s true,” Impulse said, looking thoughtful. “I mean, I don’t really know what you were up to during season six, other than all the ConCorp stuff. Mumbo? Grian?”

ConCorp. That was- something. That was important. He was pretty sure that was important. He- worked for ConCorp?

“I mean, we were business rivals eventually, but that was way later in the season,” Grian said. “I’ve no real idea what he was up to before that besides terraforming.”

“Me either, but I can think of who would,” Mumbo said.

“Oh?” Pearl asked, leaning forwards.

Mumbo shrugged. “Well, I mean, Cub is still right next door, isn’t he?”

Scar brightened in immediate recognition. “Oh! Cub! I know Cub! He’s my buddy! Yeah, let’s go see him!”

Another certainty had been unearthed inside his head, fitting itself neatly in among the very few he currently had: when he really, really needed it, he could always go to Cub for help.

He paused, then glanced up at the circle of sky alarmingly high above. “…Hey, how do you get out of here?”

Chapter Text

Scar was still admiring the frankly gorgeous terraforming of the sprawling custom biome just adjacent to Boatem when Grian finally managed to lead them to a half-hidden cave entrance, and a youngish man with black hair and a lab coat who Scar didn’t remotely recognize stuck his head out, squinting against the sunlight. “What?”

“Cub!” Mumbo said. “Hello! Er. We’ve got a problem.”

Scar blinked a few times, hard. “Cub? Cubfan?” Okay, so, his memory was absolutely shot right now, that had been thoroughly established, but he was pretty sure- “Okay, weren’t you old last time I saw you?”

Cub- younger Cub? Cub Junior?-‘s gaze flicked over to him, and his eyes narrowed slightly, and then, just briefly, flickered electric blue.

“Where’s Scar?” Cub said, voice not quite flat enough to hide an undercurrent of concern.

Everybody looked at Scar. Pearl pointed at him helpfully.

Cub rolled his eyes and shook his head. “No, I mean, where’s the rest of him?”

Scar blinked, alarmed, and glanced down at himself. “Am I missing any pieces? Did nobody tell me?”

“Cuuub,” Impulse said, drawing out the name anxiously. “You, uh. You wanna elaborate on that one, buddy?”

Cub pinched the bridge of his nose for a long moment. “Oh, man. None of you-? I’m gonna kick his ass. This is why we make contingency plans.”

“Uh, who’s he?” Pearl asked.

“Scar,” Cub said, turning back into his cave base and waving them in after him without looking back. “This is a mess. Come inside.”

…Scar was very confused.

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Mumbo said to nobody in particular as they filed inside. Scar could relate. “I mean. I mean, Scar’s forgotten some stuff- well, a lot of stuff- but he’s still Scar, right?” He paused, and then, when no answer was forthcoming- “How did you even know we were here about Scar, anyways?”

Cub sighed again, dropping down to sit on a nearby chest and crossing his arms. “What you’ve got there,” he said, waving in Scar’s direction, “is, like, twenty percent of Scar? Maximum. That’s his body and base personality and whatever stray thoughts rattle around in his head when he’s not in it, and that’s basically it.”

Grian squinted, leaning forward from his perch on Mumbo’s shoulder. “What do you mean, ‘when he’s not in it’?”

“I mean- ugh, I could demonstrate, but I really don’t want to,” Cub said. “Just- okay, it’s like this. Scar?”

“Are the air quotes around my name really unnecessary?” Scar asked, frowning a little.

“Yeah,” Cub said. “So, I’m gonna make a guess, okay? I’m gonna guess that the last thing you remember clearly is from the start of season six. You and I saw something flying overhead and went to investigate where it crashed into the jungle.”

Scar smacked a fist into his free hand. “That’s right! I do remember that! There was a lot of diamonds and gold scattered around, and… a cage?” He frowned, the surprisingly vivid memory hitting a by-now familiar blank well. “And then… I don’t remember that happened.”

“Yup. Figured,” Cub said, sitting back. “Basically, Scar, as in, the vex that’s supposed to be up here-“ he tapped on his temple- “is missing.”

“Wait,” Pearl said. “The vex?”

“Yeah, you know, Scar and I are vexes?” Cub said, sounding like it was obvious. “Well, I guess you might not know, Pearl, you’re new, but for the rest of you- it’s really not like we’ve been subtle about it.” He paused. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

Grian, Mumbo, and Impulse all looked variously embarrassed.

“I thought that was just branding!” Grian said.

Impulse rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, uh, I figured it was just a bit you guys eventually got tired of.”

“Oh my god,” Cub muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. “Fine. Scar and I are vexes, we’re possessing our own bodies, most of the time it doesn’t really come up now that we’re not doing the ConVex thing anymore, unless something stupid happens and we get knocked loose somehow.”

Pearl frowned. “So you’re saying there’s a vex out around somewhere that’s- Scar?”

“Yup,” Cub said. “And unfortunately, this hasn’t happened in seasons, so I’ve got no idea where he could be. D’you know what happened to him?”

“Well, we figured the whole amnesia thing probably had something to do with his last death, which was in the Boatem Hole,” Mumbo said, shifting. “But, um, that happens all the time? And normally it doesn’t result in… this.”

“Hm,” Cub said. “How’s the lag been around there lately?”

There was a round of winces.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Cub said. “So I’d guess he probably got lagged out of his body down there, respawned in two pieces. That guy ended up in whatever bed where he’d set his spawn… so the only question is, where did the vex end up?”

“Please don’t tell me he’s in a woodland mansion twenty thousand blocks out or something,” Impulse said, looking distressed at the thought.

“I’m really hoping not,” Cub said, evidently having had the same thought. “I wouldn’t say it’s likely, though. We’re not from this world originally, there shouldn’t be any reason for our spawns to reset to structures here. It’s more likely he’s- uh, either at worldspawn, or he set some sort of vessel to fall back to in situations like this and forgot it somewhere because he’s an idiot. So I’d say we check the first one first, then start looking for the second if he’s not there.”

“Okay. Okay!” Impulse said, clapping his hands. “Plan. Awesome. Let’s do that.”

Grian fluttered feathers in Scar’s face. “Scaaaar? You’ve been very quiet.”

Scar blinked. “Huh? Oh! I’m fine, just, thinking. I was trying to remember if I knew anything that might be helpful, but… it’s all a big nope.” He sighed. “I’m getting really tired of this, guys.”

“I know, buddy. We’ll get you all fixed up again,” Cub said, pushing himself to his feet and patting Scar on the shoulder. “Let’s go check spawn.”

Scar (the other Scar? the original Scar? was he the original?) was not, unfortunately, anywhere to be found around spawn.

“Does he just look like, y’know, a regular vex? Little and blue and floaty?” Grian asked.

“I dunno, probably?” Cub said, and then, when several alarmed stares immediately turned to him, “Look, I haven’t seen him outside of his body for a long time! So yeah, probably is the best you’re gonna get. Maybe he’s gotten his soul a stupid hat, I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Scar said, offended. “My hat isn’t stupid! It’s very important.”

“Well, it’s definitely tall,” Mumbo said. “I don’t know if that equates to importance, though?”

“For example, Mumbo’s tall, and he’s so irrelevant we’ve been running an entire business without him even needing to be present!” Grian added cheerfully.

“I told you, I was busy-“

“No, it’s definitely important,” Scar repeated to himself, propping his chin on a hand and frowning into it as bickering commenced in the background. “It’s important because... I know it’s important because….”

“Scar, are you alright?” Pearl asked, leaning into his field of view. “I mean, besides the everything?”

Scar snapped his fingers. “We need to find my hat!”

Chapter Text

“Come on, come on- it has to be somewhere around here,” Scar muttered, opening chest after chest. They were scattered all around the part of Boatem that was apparently his, but so far he’d only found nothing, nothing, building materials, junk, junk- where was his hat?

“I don’t know that you’re going to have much luck with this,” Grian observed, prying open a barrel on the back of one of the parked wagons with his talons and peering inside. “It probably fell in the Boatem Hole with all the rest of your stuff. Gone forever. I guess you could try and make a new one?”

“No, that won’t work,” Scar muttered. He didn’t know why he was so sure of that fact, but he was. “It’s gotta be in one of these chests. It’s gotta-”

Wait.

He wheeled around to stare.

Grian stared back. “What?”

After a moment of stunned silence, Scar pointed at the open barrel. “Those open?”

Grian blinked, looking visibly bemused. “…Yes? What did you think they were for?”

“I don’t know! I figured they were decorative! I don’t know anything about all these new blocks!” Scar said, already hurrying back to the ladder that hung down from the bedroom where he’d woken up.

Pearl stuck her head out from the garage. “Where are you going?”

Scar didn’t answer, busy pulling himself back up the ladder into the belly of the wagon and scrambling up to the bedroom. He’d woken up, looked around for chests, not seen any, gotten dressed and left the room. But if there were new container blocks-

There was a barrel resting on-end right next to his bed, and now that he knew to look for it, it drew him in like a magnet. After a few seconds of fumbling, he managed to lever the top of it open and reach inside, and his fingers met velvety fabric and a shock of electricity.

Footsteps clattered up behind him, and he looked around, hat in hands, to see the rest of Boatem crowding into the doorway. He grinned at them and, without any further fanfare, dropped the hat onto his head.

The whole world flashed electric blue, and feeling flooded through his nerves with a jolt, and then-

---

Scar huffed out a frustrated breath into the pitch blackness, reclining against the velvet-lined interior of his hat and folding his arms irritably. Really, this was getting absurd.

Once he was back in his body, he promised, there were a few things he wouldn’t take for granted ever again. Things like being more than six inches tall, and being able to open barrels, and being able to use a phone. But, unfortunately, his phone was with his body, which was either passed out on whatever bed he’d last set his spawn at or, worse, wandering around getting into goodness knows what-

He’d thought it was a solid plan. He really had! Bind himself to something he always had with him and could hold onto spares of, and then even in the unlikely circumstance that he did get knocked out of his body, he’d reset right back to it. It should’ve been foolproof!

But nooooo, his old hat had fallen into the Boatem Hole, and he’d been bounced back to his backup, which was not in a conveniently accessible place, and now he was stuck. Because the world didn’t want him to have anything good, apparently.

“If I get out of here,” he started hopefully, “I promise I’ll never scam anybody ever- well. I promise I’ll scam people slightly less. And whoever lets me out will get off the hook completely. In fact! In fact, whoever lets me out can have a free pass to all my shops for the rest of the season-”

There were voices outside, faint but getting closer, muffled through the wood and velvet, and he perked up immediately, ears twitching up. Someone fumbled with the barrel, light flooding in, and then-

---

“Oh, thank goodness,” Scar said, hastily patting himself down to reassure himself that he was finally back in possession of all the muscles and bones he was supposed to have. Face, yes, arms, legs, hair-

He was breathing again! Breathing was nice, even though this body’s lungs tended to go faulty now and then. He’d missed that. And warm! Honestly, the things you started taking for granted when you hadn’t been out of your body in a couple years. He blew out a sigh of relief, savored the feeling of it.

“Scar?” someone said, sounding uncertain, and he startled, one of his ears flicking automatically toward the sound on instinct. He scowled, reached up to push them back down into more human rounded points as he turned.

It was always such a pain, settling back into his body again after repossessing it too suddenly.

He swiveled around on his heel, flashed his most charming smile. “None other! Thank you all so much for the help,” he said. “Freak accident, terribly inconvenient, certainly won’t happen again if I have anything to say about it.”

“What even did happen?” Pearl said, leaning around Impulse’s shoulder. “I still don’t get it.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Scar said, taking his hat off and twirling it around his hand. “Sometimes one thing leads to another, you forget your backup hat somewhere and can’t get back into your own head, it’s a whole ordeal.”

“You’ve got wings,” Mumbo observed. “Did you always-?”

…Ah, he certainly did. Scar waved the question off. “It happens. Once I’m settled back in properly I’ll be able to hide them again. They get in the way, honestly.”

“You better be more careful about that stupid bottomless pit from now on,” Cub said flatly. “Or at least plan better for next time.”


“I will, I will,” Scar promised, moving to shoo the gaggle of observers out. “Now, all of you, I’ve been stuck in a barrel all day, which means I haven’t gotten anything done and Jellie hasn’t been fed, so- out!”