Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For an indeterminate amount of time, Scar’s world exists in blurry flashes of awareness. He slips in and out of consciousness like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake, there and gone again, never quite strong enough to fully hold his head above water. 

He is aware, momentarily, of strong arms keeping him from hitting the ground. He blinks, and he feels weightless, the ground gone from beneath his feet, wind ruffling at his hair and limp wings. In the next moment there is darkness, and muffled voices speaking in frantic, worried tones. The magic of the Watcher Realm slithers across his skin, and he is vaguely aware of shivering, of trying to open his eyes, of trying to open his mouth to tell these people that they’re not safe here, they have to get out, they have to leave— Scar only manages a slight fluttering of eyelids and a quiet sound of distress, and then there are soft murmurs and the brief touch of a comforting hand on his forehead before he loses the fight with consciousness once more.

The next thing he feels is the telltale sensation of going through a portal, a cold wash of numbness dancing across his exposed skin, and then a bright white light that assaults even his closed eyes. They pass through another portal soon after, and immediately a tidal wave of relief and familiarity washes through his mind, a peace so sudden and overwhelming that it almost hurts. He doesn’t understand any of it, barely awake and quickly slipping further under. Again, he fights the loss of consciousness, but his body has finally had enough of all the fighting, surrendering instead into the always-open arms of oblivion. 

And for a while, that is all he knows.

When awareness returns to him — slinking in slowly, like a predator stalking its prey — the first thing Scar notices is the warmth. It strikes an odd chord in his mind, and a feeling like a stone sinking in his stomach nudges uncomfortably at the blurry edges of his mind. Something is… wrong. Something must be wrong.

Alarm has his brow furrowing and his eyelids fluttering, dragging himself slowly but surely out of sleep. His thoughts clash together clumsily, barely coherent. There’s something soft and warm on top of him, there’s— Where is he?

His heart beats faster and faster as he fights his exhaustion, a quiet, frustrated sound rumbling uncertainly at the back of his throat. He tries to move, limbs slow to respond—

Pain explodes throughout his body, as immediate and all encompassing as a lightning strike, and Scar’s eyes fly open with a strangled gasp. 

Instinctively, he jolts upwards, arms jerking as he tries to get them beneath him, blinking rapidly as he struggles to make sense of his surroundings. A wooden ceiling, dim lanterns, windows with half-closed curtains. It’s— He doesn’t recognize it, where did they put him this time—

“Whoa! Hey, it’s okay—”

The sudden exclamation from his left causes him to jolt, heart leaping into his throat as his aching arms refuse to hold him up. He drops back to the bed — bed? — beneath him, wings jolting as they hit the mattress, pain flaring out across his muscles as his injured body protests the movement. A pained noise tears itself from his throat, and he jerks his head to the left, pulse racing beneath his skin. 

The blindspot caused by his damaged left eye had caused him to miss the presence of the person next to him, and when his vision lands on the figure now standing half-over him, his heart drops through the floor. 

Grian. But it— it can’t be, right? Just another trick. He’d been fighting Third, hadn’t he? But then— Something had happened. What had happened? He can’t—

He opens his mouth to speak, to beg for answers, but all that escapes is a confused, harsh noise that scrapes across his dry throat. Grian — Not Grian? — makes as if to move closer, and Scar jolts away, breath hitching. He doesn’t know—

It’s instinctual now, the way he reaches for his magic. He needs a shield. He needs a weapon. His magic responds sluggishly, and it aches like a particularly bad bruise as it surfaces from its own slumber. It’s as tired and injured as he is, but still it answers his call; a thin, wavering shield appears in the air in front of him. 

The figure at his bedside halts in their tracks, something like heartbreak flitting across their face, and Scar screws his eyes shut tightly so that he doesn’t have to see it. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He wracks his brain, he can’t remember—

“Scar,” says a voice. It trembles. “Hey, it’s okay, you’re– you’re safe. I promise.”

Scar shakes his head, moisture pressing insistently against the backs of his closed eyelids. He can’t. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t.

“Please,” says the voice, soft and breaking. 

Scar holds still. Refuses to look. Any second now, he’ll be back in the snow. The cold will come back. Things will make sense again.

A long moment passes, silent and thick with tension. 

Then, a gentle, familiar presence brushes up against his own magic. It wraps itself around Scar’s power, slow and careful, sure and comforting. Another’s magic embracing his own, soothing it, dulling the hurt. It feels like warmth, like safety. He recognizes it. He knows it, even with his eyes closed. He lets out a trembling breath.

“Scar,” Grian says softly. “Can you open your eyes, please?”

It’s Grian. 

The flimsy shield drops, recovering magic going dormant once more. 

Scar opens his eyes. 

Grian is standing next to him, wings held in a relaxed position, clothes rumpled and hair unbrushed. His eyes are pleading, watery and sad. A small smile splits his face when Scar meets his gaze, fragile and soft. Scar blinks at him, chest rising and falling unevenly. 

“There you are,” Grian says, voice trembling with emotion. 

“...You’re here,” Scar replies. His throat hurts. He’s been screaming recently, he remembers. 

Grian’s head tilts, just a bit. He lets out a little laugh, almost a sob. “Where else would I be?”

A lump forms in his throat, then, and Scar swallows reflexively, emotion burning at his eyes as he blinks. There’s a window on the wall parallel to them, the setting sun casting golden beams of light around the room, catching specks of dust dancing in the air. The light lands on the skin of his arms and face, warm. Warm. He glances down, finally registering the bed he’s laying in, the blankets covering him. He hasn’t slept in a bed in… a long time. He hasn’t felt anything but cold or numb for just as long. 

And now, suddenly, he’s here. He’s here, and everything around him is soft; the bed, the blanket, the light. And Grian, looking at him like he might not ever look away again. 

It’s such a complete change from the horror of the past few weeks that he’s not sure what to do with himself. He’s not even sure how he got here. He’s not wholly convinced it’s not some cruel dream. 

“Wh… What—” Scar begins to speak, but breaks off into a weak cough. Pain ripples across his body, and he closes his eyes with a grimace.

A featherlight touch lands on his arm, and Scar tenses. Memories of violence and desperation and agony flash behind his eyelids, but Scar blinks them away, opening his eyes. His gaze lands on Grian, looking down at him with nothing but patience and understanding. 

“Can I help you sit up?” Grian asks. 

Scar nods. 

There’s nowhere Grian could touch that wouldn’t hurt him, and the way Grian’s hands shake as they make contact with his shoulders means he knows it. He’s as gentle as is possible, though, and Scar gets through it in much the same way he’s gotten through everything else. (Pain fits him like a well-worn jacket. He’d grown into it at a young age and never quite grown out of it.)

Grian lets go of him once he’s mostly upright, and instead sets to arranging the pillows against the headboard to give him something soft to lean against. Scar sits there and watches him silently, afraid to blink. The air is heavy with the unspoken weight of everything that’s happened. The peace of the moment is almost suffocating. This sense of calm is something that he’s been desperately craving for months now, and even now that he has it, he can’t shake the lingering dread that has carved itself into his bones. He’s spent so long living just to dodge the next blow that he doesn’t know what to do now that the hits have stopped coming. 

Grian fusses over the pillows for a fair bit longer than Scar feels is necessary, but eventually he seems to deem it good enough. He helps Scar lay back, careful to adjust his injured wing to the best position. Then, he leans back. 

“Are you… How are you feeling?” Grian asks, eyes flickering between the many bandages Scar can feel across his skin.

“I don’t—” Scar is interrupted by a coughing fit, ribs protesting sharply, and Grian’s wings puff up in alarm.

“Hold on, let me—” Grian reaches for something out of Scar’s range of sight, and then a glass of water is being placed in his hand. “Here.”

Scar drinks it greedily, hands shaking before Grian reaches out to help steady them. The coolness of the water sliding down his throat grounds him, a little. Grian is here. 

Scar sits back, breathing heavily, and Grian sits the glass of water back on the side table. 

“What happened?” Scar asks, voice hoarse and quiet. 

Grian falters, wings pressing closer to his back as his eyes momentarily go distant. There’s a bandage poking out beneath the collar of his sweater. He’s got bruises on his arms. A bruise on his forehead. Scar’s brow furrows, worry pinching at his heart. Grian had been there, hadn’t he? At the end? 

“Grian?” Scar prompts.

Grian seems to snap out of whatever he’d been thinking about, eyes clearing as he looks back at him. 

“What do you remember?” he asks.

(Third walks up to him, staring down at him with its head tilted. Scar rolls over onto his back and tries to breathe through the pain, tries to steady his heartbeat. 

“ I had hoped for longer ,” Third says, a mild disappointment in its tone.)

“Scar?”

Scar flinches, breath hitching. He doesn’t look at Grian right away. Can’t. 

“I was… sparring with one of them,” Scar says, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “It was pretty much over, and then…”

(When his ears stop ringing, all Scar can hear is the shrieking. The pained shouts of hundreds of Watchers fills the air around them, a cacophony of terrible sound, and Scar forces himself to open his eyes. 

Blearily, he turns his head, and locks eyes with a ghost.)

“You were there,” Scar realizes, heart speeding up as the pieces start to fall into place. “You were there. Cub was— Everyone was—”

He remembers Cub pulling the knife out of his wing, being pulled to his feet, arguing with Cub and Grian. Running, flashes of light, meeting up with everyone else. Their worried, angry eyes. Their love and relief like a lighthouse in a storm. 

Then, fighting. Back to back with Grian and Mumbo, until Mumbo was gone. Until the dust cleared and all that remained were the victors and their counterparts. The ache in his body as he pushed through the pain and exhaustion to give the Secret Keeper everything he had. Grian, appearing out of nowhere, landing a blow that broke the mask. 

“The dragon,” Scar says, voice breaking. He finally looks at Grian, both of them teary-eyed and raw. “It had you.”

(Everyone is shouting, screaming , their terror echoing in Scar’s ears and piercing through his heart. 

Briefly, Grian meets his eyes, managing a small smile despite the fear Scar can see on his face. He’s going to die. Grian is going to die for real, for good , and there is nothing that’s going to stop it. Nothing that—)

And then Scar had…

“You saved me,” Grian tells him. 

He’d been falling in the wake of a dying god. Someone had come after him.

“You caught me,” Scar replies.

Grian smiles, trembling and joyful, eyes shining with emotion. Scar blinks back at him, a lump in his throat as he processes it all. His bandaged hands shake. It’s over. It’s over. What’s he supposed to do now? 

A soft noise pierces the silence between them, and Scar jolts a bit, turning his head towards it, towards the closed door near the foot of his bed.

The sound comes again. The faint scratching of claws on a wooden door. Soon after, a plaintive, demanding meow.

Scar is out of the bed before Grian has the chance to react, injuries be damned. His ankle protests sharply as it hits the floor, but by now Scar is used to ignoring it, stumbling the few feet to the door without so much as a cry of pain, heart beating fast in his chest as he is filled with sudden desperation. Behind him, Grian makes a noise of concerned protest, which Scar promptly ignores. 

He crashes into the door at first, unable to slow his momentum fast enough. He leans back only just enough to scramble frantically for the doorknob. It’s difficult to grip with his bandaged hands, slipping through his fingers on the first few tries, but eventually it turns. The click echoes in his head like a gunshot, and the door swings outwards with the force of his weight. He just barely manages to hold himself upright, his socked feet capturing the moisture of the grass beneath him as he steps forward. He hasn’t seen grass in weeks, but he hardly has time to dwell on it. 

There’s something else here that he hasn’t seen in much, much longer. 

It’s through watery eyes that Scar spots her. 

Jellie stands a few feet away. Her fur is puffed up a bit, having been startled by the commotion of the door opening, and her ears are turned slightly to the sides. She looks good, fur soft and belly full. Someone has been taking very good care of her.

Scar falls to his knees, breath caught in his throat. He reaches a trembling hand out across the grass towards her, shoulder aching at the movement. Jellie’s ears turn towards him, fur laying back down slowly, tail rising into the air like a question mark. Her green eyes watch him closely as she comes towards him, stretching her neck out until her nose touches his knuckle. Scar inhales sharply, blinking tears out of his eyes. 

After a moment, she pushes into his hand, head tilting, purring loud enough to hear it over his own heartbeat. She crawls into his lap, tail brushing his nose before she settles down, head tucked into his arm, her purring sending vibrations throughout Scar’s chest. 

Scar reaches down and puts his arms around her. She’s soft. She’s warm. She remembers him. 

A sob tears itself from his throat before he can stop it, ugly and raw. Tears streak down his face at a steady pace, and more sobs follow on the tail of the first one, bursting out of him as if a dam has finally broken beneath the pressure of the flood. All the emotion of the past few months comes pouring out of him in anguished noises and gasps for air, hunched on the grass, curled around his cat, wearing clothes that feel too big for him in a world that feels too small. 

Jellie doesn’t run away in the face of him falling apart, instead curling closer, tail wrapped loosely around his arm. Scar squeezes his eyes shut tightly, wings dropping behind him like he doesn’t have the strength to hold them up. 

A hand rests lightly on his shoulder, and Scar glances up to see Grian, also crying, eyes sad and hesitant and questioning. 

Grian had never given up on him. Had come to get him. Had brought him home. 

Scar reaches for him with a trembling hand, grabs a fistful of his sweater, and pulls him down. 

Grian goes easily, wrapping an arm around Scar’s shoulders like he’d barely been holding himself back from doing it before, pulling him close and wrapping his wings around them both, a barrier from the world. Scar tucks his head against Grian’s shoulder and closes his eyes, letting the warmth seep into his bones. He listens to their heartbeats. Pulls Jellie closer. 

“I’ve got you,” Grian says softly. 

Scar starts to remember what it feels like to be home.

It’s not long before the emotional release tips over into exhaustion, and for all that he’s only been awake for ten minutes, sleep is nipping insistently at his heels once more. It washes over him like a wave, muffling his senses. He has hazy memories of Grian helping him back to bed — arranging the blankets meticulously until Jellie jumps up and settles in against Scar’s side — but he sees it happen through the lens of someone half-asleep and falling further. It feels like a dream. He’s afraid, still, that it might be.

But Jellie is pressed against his ribs, warm and purring, and right now it’s enough. Grian’s hand is on his forehead, and Scar drifts off into another dreamless sleep.

He wakes up in the same place, which is reason enough to believe that he’s truly escaped it. Them. They’d always loved to move him around at random. Kept him on his toes, he supposes. Kept him from getting too comfortable. As if that had been a possibility. 

But the ceiling he opens his eyes to is the same one as before. Dark wood, still carrying the scent of a freshly chopped tree. A recent build, then. There’s a lantern in the center, providing light. The candle inside is burning low. It’ll need to be replaced soon. 

Scar blinks sluggishly, eyes dry and scratchy from sleep, gaze dragging down until he finds the window, curtains half-drawn, foggy with condensation from the rain. It’s raining. That’s the noise he’s hearing. 

It’s nice. It’s not snow. He doesn’t want snow. 

A faint snuffling sound comes from his left, causing him to jump a bit. He turns his head against the pillow, searching, and his gaze lands on Grian. He’s laying on a cot a few feet away from him, fast asleep, his arm hanging off the edge; almost like he’s reaching for him. Scar wants to reach back, but Jellie is laying across his arm. She’s heavy against some of his bruises, but he can’t bring himself to want her to move. Her presence is grounding. Always has been. 

Scar raises his right hand and reaches across his torso to pet her, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder as he does so. Her ears twitch as he strokes between them, and her eyes slide open, glinting in the dim light as she looks at him. She nudges against his hand, blinking slowly. Scar laughs quietly, and pretends to himself that he’s not tearing up. 

“I missed you,” he says softly, barely audible in the silent room. “I’m sorry I left. I know I promised I wouldn’t do that.”

He had promised. He’d been twelve, he guesses, and she’d been so little, half-drowned in a storm but otherwise untouched by the zombie hoards that roamed around. She had been all alone. And maybe Scar had technically saved her life, but he always preferred to think about it as them saving each other. 

Because Scar had been all alone, too. So he’d promised that he would never leave her behind. 

“I didn’t want to,” he tells her. “I’m sorry.”

Jellie narrows her eyes slightly, bites him gently on the hand, and then starts licking his wrist. Scar laughs again, watery and soft. “Okay,” he says.

For a while, he sits like that, watching the rain and petting his cat, listening to Grian’s soft snoring just a few feet away. It gives him time to piece his thoughts together, once again sorting through his jumbled memories until he’s got a pretty clear picture in his mind of what happened. He remembers killing the dragon. Grian catching him. The dizziness of exhaustion and relief overtaking him before he passed out. 

Really, the Watchers had orchestrated their own downfall by working him so hard. They’d underestimated him. Underestimated all of them. Although Scar had sort of done the same thing. Guilt tugs at his gut, and he sighs, watching the candle flame in the lantern above dance. It’ll burn itself out, soon. There’s not much of it left. 

Abruptly, the doorknob rattles, and Scar flinches, heart rate picking up as his gaze darts towards the door. He has the sudden urge to run, to hide, a confusing torrent of instinctual fear flooding his body — but he doesn’t have time to act on it before the door opens. 

It’s Cub, dripping a little from the rain as he shuffles in, quickly closing it behind him. Scar relaxes slowly, shaking slightly from adrenaline that suddenly has nowhere to go. Cub turns around, and his brow furrows. 

“It’s just me, man,” he says, and Scar stops himself from replying, because Cub’s not looking at him. 

Scar turns his head and finds Grian, sitting ramrod straight on the cot, wings flared outward as much as he can manage, the inner circle of his eyes glowing a faint purple. His expression is intense. Ready to fight. 

Grian meets Cub’s eyes for a moment, and then sweeps his gaze across the room, assessing. His focus lands on Scar, who is staring back at him, and finally his shoulders relax. He nods at Cub — a bit sheepish, maybe, but not apologetic. 

Cub moves on from this as if it’s a casual, everyday experience, simply smiling wryly and turning towards Scar, eyes going soft and relieved. 

“It’s good to see you awake, Scar,” Cub says, coming closer. He sets a bag of stuff down next to the bed, reaching out to pet Jellie when she stands and stretches. 

Grian shuffles into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the edge of his cot, and Scar glances between the two of them, having to turn his head to look at Grian. 

“How long’s it been?” Scar asks, a little nervous.

“A few days,” Cub says, eyes moving slowly from injury to injury, assessing. 

“Three,” Grian says. “It’s been three days.”

“Oh.”

“You were in and out a little bit,” Cub explains, laying a gentle hand on his forehead for a moment. “You had a fever. It’s gone now.”

“Cub’s the one that bandaged you up,” Grian says, eyes sad and dark as he looks at one of the aforementioned bandages. There’s a furrow between his brows that makes Scar’s chest ache. “He’s been keeping an eye on ‘em.”

“Been giving you regen,” Cub says, pulling a bottle of the stuff out of the bag at his feet. He’s frowning, a little. “It won’t heal injuries from the Watcher realm, but it should be helping with the pain a little. You can have one every four hours, if you need it.”

Scar reaches for the bottle, and Cub hands it to him. He pops the cork off and drinks it, grimacing a little at the taste, giving the empty bottle back to Cub with a small smile. “Thanks, Cub,” he says. 

“No problem, man,” Cub says. He reaches out slowly. Takes Scar’s hand. His eyes are shiny, and his voice shakes as he continues. “I’m real glad you’re back, Scar. Real glad.”

Scar swallows hard against the knot in his throat, and jerks his head in a nod, not trusting his voice. Cub smiles at him, unguarded, and it’s— Cub was the first person that had ever smiled at him. His very first friend. Scar tips his head forward until it rests against Cub’s side, closing his eyes as he catches his breath. Cub’s hand settles lightly on his shoulder, squeezing gently. They don’t need words.

When he feels a bit steadier, he pulls back from Cub, wings shifting against his back. He turns to Grian, chest full to overflowing with some unnameable emotion, unsure how to put anything into words. 

He’s home. He didn’t think that would ever happen again.  

“You came to get me,” Scar says, voice wavering. 

Grian lets out a shaky laugh, more a sob than anything, but his expression is one of a relief so profound that only a poet could describe it. He reaches out and takes the hand that Cub’s not already holding. 

“I said I would, didn’t I?” Grian says, impossibly soft. Then, with a bit more of a teasing lilt: “Now we’re both Watcher School dropouts.”

Scar laughs, eyes wet. Hands held. He gets to have this. He can have this again. His family. 

“I think— killing the teacher should count as graduating,” Scar says.

A giggle bursts out of Grian, as if he’d been taken by surprise, and Cub lets out a soft huff of amusement. 

“Scar,” Grian says, sounding hopelessly fond, “that makes zero sense.”

“No, no,” Cub jumps in, crooked grin splitting his face. “I think he’s got a point.”

Scar smiles up at him, his entire body alight with joy. Warm from the inside out. 

“We could get you a diploma,” Grian says sarcastically.

Scar hums, watching Jellie jump up on the windowsill. Watching the rain. “And then I could burn it.”

“Fine by me.”

They let the silence take over for a while. Cub stays standing, still holding his hand. Grian pulls a chair over next to his bed and sits, leaning against the mattress. Jellie lays in the window and cleans her fur. The rain continues, steady and constant. Scar is warm. 

There is something strange about surviving something that should have killed you. Nothing quite looks the same, afterward. 

“Can I ask you something?” Cub eventually breaks the silence, and Scar glances at him.

“Sure,” Scar says, a little hesitant. Cub looks… unsure, and it’s making him nervous. 

Cub’s gaze flickers just slightly to the left side of his face, and suddenly Scar knows. 

“Your eye,” Cub starts, and then abruptly stops. He seems to lose whatever he’d been planning to ask next, mouth pressing into a thin line. 

“Oh,” Scar says. His hand unconsciously drifts upward, fingertips just barely brushing the scarring beneath it. “That.”

There’s a lot of his days spent in the arena that he can’t remember very well, overlaid with a haze of desperation and exhaustion. The injury to his eye, though? That part is crystal clear. 

“I can’t… see out of it, if that’s what you were wondering,” Scar says softly, staring down at a loose thread on his blanket. He shrugs. Winces a little. “I could probably— With my magic, maybe I could, but it’s— it’s pretty much done for, I think.”

“I’m sorry, Scar.” Grian’s voice is soft and fragile. 

Scar looks at him, sitting at his bedside with dark circles beneath his eyes, a quietly devastated expression pinching at his face. He gets a sudden flash of a memory — Grian, standing on the edge of the tower as Scar draws his bow. The moment of realization. The sound the arrow had made when it hit him. 

“I’m sorry, too,” Scar says. “I’m— I’m sorry.”

Grian captures his hand again, and Scar can’t be sure which of them is shaking. Both, maybe. Grian shifts closer to him, eyes shining, and lets out a short, clipped laugh.

“I’m so angry with you,” Grian confesses, though his eyes are soft and sad. “You went somewhere that I couldn’t follow.”

“I wanted you all to be safe,” Scar says. “I could— I was the only bargaining chip we had. I thought it would be— be selfish to not do it.”

“I wish you’d been selfish,” Grian says quietly. “The games ending, it— it wasn’t worth losing you, Scar. It wouldn’t be worth losing any of us. It’s only home if all of us get to come back to it.”

His aching chest twists again, some tangled amalgamation of love and guilt. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

Grian shakes his head, lightly squeezing his hand. “I don’t blame you,” he says. He offers a crooked smile, eyes watery. “I just missed you.”

“We all did,” Cub adds, and Scar turns to find him grinning down at him. “It was an epidemic, man. Spread like wildfire.”

Scar laughs, a little choked from the lump of emotion lodged in his throat. “I missed you, too,” he says. “All the time.”

“Well, you’re never getting rid of us again, I’m afraid,” Cub teases lightly. “I don’t think Grian’s left your side. Not to mention he keeps scaring away your visitors.”

Grian lets out an indignant noise, face flushing a little in embarrassment. “Well excuse me for caring, I guess,” Grian grumbles, wings puffing up as he sighs. “My instincts have been screaming at me.”

Scar laughs softly, chest filling with warmth. He understands what Grian’s saying. He feels… settled, somehow, when the other is nearby. After everything, it’s difficult not to feel a little bit clingy.

“Luckily for you, I don’t think anyone’s taken it personally,” Cub says, chuckling. “Scar hasn’t been a very good conversationalist the past few days, anyway.”

“I was unconscious!” Scar exclaims, playfully offended. 

“Sleeping when you have guests,” Grian tuts, eyes sparkling with mirth. “Shame on you, Scar.”

“I’ve been through a trauma,” Scar says, pouting. “Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me?”

“We’ve been holding hands for half an hour,” Cub says. 

Scar huffs, but can’t quite help the smile pulling at his mouth. Above them, the candle finally goes out, burnt to nothing. The sun takes its place, shining in golden beams through the window as it parts the clouds. The rain has stopped. Jellie’s eyes are big and green as she blinks at him from her place on the windowsill. He feels fragile, maybe, but knows that nothing here will break him. He’s safe. 

“Is everyone okay?” Scar asks, suddenly worried. Everyone else had been fighting, too. Most of them had been tied up, last he remembers. 

“A few scrapes and bruises,” Grian says gently. “Nothing too serious. I think Martyn needed a few stitches, but that was about the worst of it.”

Scar’s persisting worry must be plain on his face, because he sees Grian and Cub exchange a look out of the corner of his eye. 

“Hey,” Grian says after a moment, tugging on his hand to get his attention. He smiles, soft and encouraging. “Want to see for yourself?”

Scar blinks at him, then flicks his gaze back towards the window. There’s a whole world out there. He’s afraid it won’t feel as safe as it does in this room. He is afraid to pop the bubble that they’ve created. Afraid to leave the bed.

But then, he has done much, much scarier things.

Scar looks up at Cub, unable to articulate what he’s thinking, and Cub — just as Scar knew he would — reads the answer in his eyes.

Cub’s expression softens, and he nods a little, still smiling. “Let’s go for a walk, yeah?”

Grian supports him as they make their way across the room, and Cub opens the door. Cool air rushes in, bringing with it the lingering smell of rain. He can hear birds singing, and a gentle breeze shaking the trees. Jellie rubs against his leg as she leads the way into the outside world, tail and head held high. Grian’s wing brushes gently against his back. With a deep breath, Scar steps outside.

He hadn’t really had the chance to take anything in the last time he was out here, fully focused on Jellie as he was. Now, though, he’s in a clearer state of mind. His eyes widen in curious awe, gaze roving around the area before him. 

There are several buildings spread out around them, mainly composed of wood and stone. It is clear that they all serve a specific purpose, though some are less obvious than others. In the farther distance, there is a build that stands out, tall and big and rounded, a dome roof rising above the tops of all the others. Everything is blanketed by drops of water, shining in the sun. 

“Where are we?” Scar asks, a little bewildered. 

“Home base,” Cub says, sounding amused. “We needed a place for everyone to stay while we worked on getting you back, so we built one.”

Distantly, he can hear voices. Laughter. Cleo, he thinks. He’s always loved her laugh. 

“Everyone?” he asks. 

“And then some,” Grian confirms, eyes crinkling as he smiles. “I’d say not to let it go to your head, but honestly I’d rather it did.”

Cub chuckles, leading the way down the path with his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Scar quietly processes the implications of what they’d just told him. He looks at the ground beneath his feet, the well-worn path with countless overlapping footprints, evidence that people come and go regularly. He can smell wood burning. Can see the smoke drifting gently from various chimneys. None of the builds are particularly outstanding, but it might just be the most beautiful thing Scar has ever seen anyway. It’s a village. People live here. His family lives here. They did this for him. 

“I don’t know if I deserve all this,” Scar admits.

“We don’t love you on accident, Scar,” Grian responds, soft but stern. “You deserve to be saved.”

“Everyone here believes it,” Cub adds. “Enough that we pulled off something that should have been impossible.”

(Do you know in how many universes they give up on you?

Not one.)

“You guys are crazy,” Scar says, pretending he’s not getting choked up. “Com—completely nuts.”

Grian and Cub both laugh, the sun catching on the lens of Cub’s glasses, Grian’s shoulders shaking beneath Scar’s arm. It all feels so… crisp. Alive. 

“Stubborn, too,” Grian says, grinning. 

They round the corner, and Scar can’t help the smile that spreads across his face, joy blooming in his chest. There’s a small clearing in front of them, a central point to the little village they’ve created, and there’s a group of people standing loosely around a fire, a big pot of something that smells amazing hanging above the flames. Pearl is stirring, and Gem is adding mushrooms as Impulse throws another log on the fire. Nearby, Etho and Bdubs are standing beneath a tree, staring up at the leaves as Bdubs points out the way the branches were built.

Before they can get any closer, Mumbo turns a corner on the other side of the clearing, and his eyes go wide as he sees them. “Scar!” 

Everyone in the vicinity jolts, whipping their heads around to face them, agonizing hope shining in their eyes. Scar raises his hand in a wave, smile turning a little sheepish. “Hi,” he says. 

There’s a moment where they all just stare at each other. Then Pearl drops the ladle into the soup, Mumbo trips over his own feet, and Bdubs nearly bowls Etho over in his haste to get closer. Scar flinches a little, unable to help his jumpiness, but is quickly distracted from his scare by Bdubs tugging him unceremoniously into a hug. 

“You idiot, I’m gonna kill you,” Bdubs grumbles loudly, but his arms are careful as they fall across his back, and Scar laughs wetly as the moss of the other’s cloak tickles at his nose. 

“After you went to all that trouble to save me?” Scar asks teasingly.

Bdubs squeezes him a little harder. “Count your days.”

Pearl gets there next, eyes shining as she joins the hug without a word, her skin warm from the fire as she wraps her arms around him. Jellie’s fur lingers on her coat.

“You took care of her for me,” Scar tells her, voice wobbling. “I— Thank you.”

She just nods, smiling, and Scar watches over her shoulder as Gem and Impulse approach, all joyful expressions and wobbly grins. Gem wiggles her way in between Pearl and Bdubs, laughing when Bdubs grumbles about it. Scar chuckles, feeling tears of overwhelmed happiness start to trail down his cheeks. Impulse walks up with a soft grin and teary eyes, slotting himself in on Bdubs other side, his steady arms making Scar feel even safer. 

“We missed you, man,” Impulse says, words thick with relief. 

“Like a lot,” Gem adds. “The vibes were horrible around here.”

Scar laughs again, grin widening when he meets Mumbo’s eyes over Gem’s head. The redstoner shuffles closer, eyes darting around their huddle as if calculating the best place to join in, but Pearl simply reaches up and hauls him in by the suit jacket, making the decision for him. Mumbo yelps before chuckling, joining in on their near-hysterical giggling as the tidal wave of emotion washes over them. Scar meets Mumbo’s eyes, face aching from how much he’s smiling. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Scar says lightly. 

“Is it?” Mumbo asks cheekily, laughing lightly. His eyes crinkle at the corners. “It’s good to see you, Scar.”

“Can’t be that good,” Scar quips. “I’m pretty sure I look like a mummy. A dead mummy.”

“Mummies are already dead, Scar,” Gem says. 

“Then why are they always walkin’ around chasin’ people?”

“For fun, I think.”

Etho approaches slower, hands in the pockets of his vest as he comes to a stop beside Cub. He doesn’t move to join their little huddle, but his eyes are bright and happy, a soft expression on his face. Scar zeroes in on his left eye, dark red with a scar through it. 

“We match,” Scar says, a morbid amusement in his tone

Etho’s eyes pinch as he smiles, head tilting a little bit. “I’m flattered,” he replies. “Although you’re kind of stealing my brand.”

“Ah, get in touch with my lawyer.”

Etho chuckles, and Scar directs his attention to Grian, now standing a few feet away from the impromptu group hug. When Scar meets his gaze, Grian raises an eyebrow, eyes suspiciously shiny as he makes the sublest of nods towards the situation. Like he’s just proved something. 

We don’t love you on accident, he’d said. 

Scar blinks rapidly, vision blurred from the tears that insist on falling. He ducks his head into Mumbo’s shoulder, chin resting between Bdubs’ and Gem’s heads, Impulse and Pearl pressed against his sides. His wings are still too small to embrace them all, but he gives it a valiant effort, anyway. One day it’ll work. He has… time. He has time. 

His lingering aches and pains are secondary to the warmth he feels surrounding him — and to the presence of Grian’s magic nearby, a bright point of familiarity in the back of his mind.  

No, he thinks, closing his eyes. Nothing about this feels accidental at all. 

It’s not long after that his eyes start drooping, his body protesting all the activity. Grian drags him back to his temporary home, the others waving goodbye as they promise to visit him soon. They look a little anxious as they watch him go. Scar can’t help but look back at them until they turn the corner. He hadn’t thought he’d ever get to see them again. It feels a little unreal. He’s afraid to let them out of his sight. 

Grian wordlessly hands him a regen potion when they get back to the room, and Scar sits cross legged on the bed as he drinks it. He’s handed a bowl of soup, next, taken from the pot that Impulse, Gem, and Pearl had been gathered around. It’s simple, almost bland — but given that Scar has just spent weeks eating scraps, it’s probably for the best. The first sip of broth has him tearing up, the warmth tracing its way into his stomach and settling there. He has to take a minute to get his emotions in check, during which Grian sits across from him on the bed, eating his own bowl of soup. He doesn’t say anything, but encouragement isn’t what Scar needs right now, anyway. He just needs time. 

Eventually, he feels steady enough to keep eating, and finally the soup is gone. The sun is setting, and Grian stands on the foot of the bed to reach up and put a new candle in the lantern. The golden sunbeams filter through his wings — an interesting mix of red, white, and black in this world. It highlights the feathers that are out of place, and Scar’s fingers twitch. 

“Can I give you a hand with that?” Scar asks.

Grian looks down at him quizzically, flint and steel in hand as he lights the wick. “With the candle?”

“With those disasters you call wings.”

Grian raises his eyebrows incredulously, dropping back down to sit on the bed. “You’re calling mine a disaster?” he asks. “I’m not the one with a stab wound!”

“I— Okay, you might have a point.”

“Mmhm.”

“Offer still stands.”

“...You sure you’re not too tired?”

Scar shakes his head. “I want to.”

Grian sighs and smiles, and his eyes drift from Scar’s face to his wings, expression going soft — and a little sad. He nods, gaze flicking back to Scar’s. “Long as you let me return the favor.”

Scar’s shoulders drop in something akin to relief. “Deal.”

Grian turns his back to him, and Scar gets to work. It settles something deep in his chest, to do this. He combs his fingers through the feathers, gently removing the few that are damaged, dislodging any lingering dust and debris along the way. It’s comforting to know that his hands, stained with blood, can still be gentle. They didn’t take that from him. Not completely.

Grian is quiet, letting Scar preen his messy wings, and Scar feels guilt burn low in his stomach. Everyone has suffered because of what he did. They’d all traded out armor and weapons for dark circles and sad eyes. Crooked feathers. And for what?

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Scar says, about halfway through the second wing. “I thought it would just— I thought it would be worth it, in the long run, you know?”

“...I know,” Grian says, sounding resigned. “I can’t— I can’t be too mad at you, otherwise I’d be a hypocrite. I might have done the same thing, if I’d thought of it. If I thought they’d go for it.” He pauses. Scar pulls another feather. Watches it drift to the floor. Grian continues. “Any of us might have done it. You said it yourself.”

For a moment, Scar doesn’t remember. Then, he does. 

(“The deal,” Scar chokes out, bowstring digging into his fingers. “Any of us would do it.” The Secret Keeper looms in his peripherals. Everything is broken. “I’m just— I’m just the one who can.” )

“I didn’t want you to find out like that,” Scar says. It’s easier to say, when Grian’s not facing him. “I didn’t, uh, want you to find out at all.”

“I think they wanted me to know. The Watchers,” Grian replies, tension in his voice. “They wanted me to know and not be able to do anything about it.”

Scar straightens the last feather, and sits back, thinking. “You did, though,” he says. “Do something about it.”

“And you really did save everyone,” Grian says, folding his wings up and turning around. 

“Really?” Scar raises an eyebrow and flashes a crooked smile. “All I remember is getting my ass kicked.”

“What about the other guy? I seem to recall something about them exploding into a million tiny pieces.”

“That did feel pretty good. Really, uh, cathartic. Emotionally.” 

“Yeah, I don’t think any of us were sad about it.”

Scar laughs, and Grian grins. His clean wings go a long way in making him look a bit more put together. Scar feels a satisfied sort of pride at knowing he helped with that.

“It’s because of you that there won’t be any more games,” Grian says eventually, absently petting Jellie as she walks by to get to Scar. “And you wouldn’t have been able to do that if you hadn’t— if you hadn’t done what you did. Stayed. They gave you all the tools you needed to stop them.”

“I can appreciate the irony, I guess,” Scar says, morbid amusement coloring his tone. 

“They’re dead,” Grian says. “You won.”

Scar shivers, a memory and an echo slipping quietly through his mind. He ignores it best he can, meeting Grian’s eyes with a sad smile.

“It doesn’t really feel like winning,” Scar says.

Grian laughs without humor, his expression soft and understanding. “It never does,” he replies. “Now turn around.”

Scar turns his back, spreading his wings as much as he can manage, and Grian starts. The first touch makes Scar jolt, but he quickly relaxes as Grian rakes his fingers through. That familiar feeling of safety and belonging washes over him, forgotten in the weeks he’d been alone, and tears spring to his eyes in spite of himself. He takes a shaky breath, petting Jellie where she’s purring in his lap. Grian hums to himself while he works, and Scar smiles, closing his eyes. 

Grian’s hands falter when they get to the stitches on his right wing, lightly tracing around the wound. He makes a quiet noise that sounds almost pained, and Scar winces, wing twitching. 

“I wish we’d gotten there sooner,” Grian says, no small amount of agony in his tone.

“That happened after you got there,” Scar says, shaking his head. “I, uh, might have inga— instigated them. A little bit.”

“Maybe one day you can teach me how you killed it,” Grian grumbles, hands gentle as he continues down his wing. “There’s a rampage I want to go on.”

Scar laughs, ducking his head. “I don’t recommend it,” he says lightly. “It kind of hurt. A lot.”

“You have scars on your arms from it,” Grian tells him. “They look like lightning, sort of.”

He vaguely remembers feeling like his skin was cracking apart. 

“I mean, hey, that’s pretty cool,” Scar jokes. “I’ll never stop living up to my name, I guess.”

Grian sighs. “You’re going to give me grey hair.”

“Hey now, mister!” Scar exclaims, playfully scandalized, tugging at the white section at the front of his hair. “What’s wrong with gray hair?”

Grian flicks him on the back of the head, and Scar yelps, amusement blooming in his chest as Grian giggles. It’s easy. It’s been a while since anything felt easy.

It’s not long after that that Grian declares his wings to be in tip-top shape, and Scar cranes his neck to look. They look different here than they did before. Different from the stark black and white of his wings in the game world, different from the bright, poisonous purple of his wings in the Watcher Realm. They’re an orange color at the base, fading quickly into grey, and then into black at the very ends, decorated with black dots throughout. The underside is a lighter grey, with the same black markings. They’re past his fingertips, now. He wonders how much longer it’ll be until he can fly. 

The sun has long set, only a dim light still in the sky, and Grian draws the curtains closed over the windows, blocking the stars from view. Scar can’t complain. The bed creaks as Grian stands on it, going to snuff out the candle for the night. Scar’s heart rate picks up, his mouth going dry, his entire body tensing. It’ll be dark. It’ll be like—

“Wait,” Scar blurts out, and whatever is in his voice has Grian freezing in his tracks, looking down at him with concern. 

“What’s wrong?” Grian asks, lowering from his standing position to sit. The lantern is still glowing, and Scar relaxes slightly.

He has to answer. 

“I, uh, can— Can we keep the lantern going?”

Grian’s brow furrows, concern plain on his face. “If you want,” he says. “Of course, I— Are you alright?”

Scar swallows, thinking. He looks up at the lantern, flame dancing within. Absent-mindedly touches the skin around his eyes, just to feel that there’s nothing there.

“The dark,” he says eventually. “It reminds me of— When they were trying to teach me to open my eyes. I— I wasn’t getting it, I couldn’t— So the Secret Keeper made it so I would have to.” Scar lets out a deep breath, unable to meet Grian’s eyes, annoyed at his own racing heart. “Blindfold,” he spits out eventually. “They put a blindfold on me. For… twelve days, I think. Kept dropping me in the middle of a bunch of mobs or in caves and I would—”

He clicks his mouth shut, wincing at the torrent of words that has just escaped. He hadn’t quite meant to say that much, but once he’d started he had found it hard to stop.

“It worked,” Scar adds flatly. He can’t think of anything else to say.

“Oh.” Grian’s voice is tense and shaking. Scar glances at him, and finds a face carved by horror and unyielding anger, his eyes sparking dangerously, jaw tight. His hands and wings twitch and tense. Scar watches, and hates how it makes him feel a little bit wary. Grian’s not Third, and they’re not in a desert. He has no reason to be afraid.

“Grian?” Scar prompts hesitantly. 

“I’m trying to think of ways to kill something that’s already dead,” Grian says, strained. 

“Well, you’re talking to the expert of that.”

Some of Grian’s anger is replaced by confusion, eyes flicking over to meet Scar’s questioningly. “What?”

“Childhood trauma,” Scar says lightly, waving a hand dismissively. “Now is not the time to get into it.”

Grian barks a quick laugh — probably at the abrupt absurdity of it — and then his shoulders slump, fury overtaken by exhaustion. Scar smiles at him, and Grian huffs, lips twitching upwards in spite of himself. 

“I’ll leave the light on,” Grian says. And that’s that.

Reassured, Scar slumps back into his pillows, burrowing beneath the blankets as Jellie settles in against his head. Grian flops down next to him on the bed, extending a wing to cover him, careful to avoid any of his injuries. The lantern glows softly. Scar drifts off to sleep. 

He’s home. He’ll never have to go back.

“We have to go back,” Scar says. 

Grian trips over his own feet, and Scar chuckles, even as nerves twist in his gut. It’s been a few days since he’d woken up, now, and they’ve since started a tradition of walking around the village at least once a day. Most of the time, various others will join them — and Scar basks in that familiar chaos — but right now it’s just him and Grian. It’s colder today, and Scar is bundled up in a warm jacket, tailored to fit around his wings. It makes him feel a little braver. Brave enough to start a conversation about something that has been weighing on his mind.

“Back where, Scar?” Grian asks, although the wary, shocked look in his eyes suggests he already knows the answer.

“Back there,” Scar clarifies. 

“Back there.” Grian stares at him, stopped dead in the middle of the path. He looks a little distressed. “Why?”

“Oh, you know.” Scar laughs nervously, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I— forgot something.”

“...You forgot something.”

“I didn’t really have time to pack,” Scar quips, and Grian huffs, throwing his hands in the air.

“What could you have possibly forgotten?” Grian asks, looking genuinely baffled. “There’s nothing there.”

“I made a friend,” Scar says, shrugging. “I can’t leave her there.”

“You made a friend,” Grian says haltingly, “in an empty death world.” 

“Don’t be jealous,” Scar teases. “Just because she takes better care of her wings than you do, doesn’t mean she’s my favorite.”

Grian pulls an expression that rivals the one that he’d worn when confronted with the confusing reality of BigB’s hole. He looks seconds away from pulling his hair out, and Scar laughs, deciding to take mercy on him.

“You remember that chicken that you took care of for one of your tasks?” he asks. 

“Uh-huh.” Grian nods, eyes narrowing slightly.

“We kind of bonded in your absence,” Scar says, flashing a crooked grin, a bit sheepish. “She might’ve kept me— kept me sane, a little bit. Kept me company, at least.” He pauses, smile fading, worried that it all sounds silly from the outside. “I don’t want to… leave her there.”

Grian studies his face for a moment, and Scar squirms under the scrutiny. He pulls his wings in closer. Does his best to stay calm. Eventually, Grian sighs lightly, shoulders dropping. 

“Alright,” Grian says, voice riding the line between tense and soft. “But you’re not going. I can get her.”

Scar shakes his head immediately. “No,” he says. 

“Scar—”

“I want to go, Grian,” Scar says, tone dropping into something serious. “Or I— I want to leave. I want to be there and make the decision to leave. I need it to be my choice.”

He’s been having nightmares every night. He wakes up screaming, crying, fighting. He’s still getting used to waking up in a bed. 

Grian knows this. Has sat up with him after every bad dream. Has had a few of his own.

He’s not sure what kind of bird longs to return to its cage. Really, he just wants the peace of knowing that it’s not a cage at all, anymore. 

“I’m coming with you,” Grian says finally, giving in.

Scar gives a shaky smile. “I know.”

They go the next day, a small group of their friends anxiously seeing them off. Most of them had volunteered to come along, but it really wasn’t the type of thing that needed a whole group. It would be easier with just the two of them. 

They step through the portal in the Dome — as Scar learned it was called — and into the bright white of the middle dimension. Scar takes it in with wide eyes, squinting slightly. He’d been unconscious the last time he’d come through here. 

Martyn meets them at the barrier, standing near the portal to the Watcher Realm, casually leaning against the wall beside it. He looks up as they approach, raising his hand in a lazy wave. His pointed ears twitch in their direction. 

“Heard us coming?” Scar jokes, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants. 

Martyn grins. “I always hear you coming.”

“That’s scandalous.”

Martyn barks a loud laugh, and Scar yelps as Grian elbows him. (Gently, still. His ribs haven’t quite recovered yet.)

“Sorry, sorry, jeez!” Scar laughs anxiously, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I make jokes when I’m nervous!”

Although, nervous might be an understatement. He’s been able to hear his own heartbeat since he woke up this morning. Everything in his body is begging him to turn around.

“You can still go back, Scar,” Grian says with quiet understanding. “I can go get her.”

Scar just shakes his head. Grian nods, accepting this — though he does move a bit closer, wing hovering close to Scar’s back. He can feel the other’s magic rolling anxiously. Knows his own is doing the same. 

“If it helps, the Listeners say the Watchers have been very quiet,” Martyn says, offering a comforting look. “They think they’ve retreated way back in their territory. I doubt you’ll run into any of them.”

Scar’s brow furrows. “That’s weird.”

“Not really,” Martyn says lightly, raising an eyebrow. “You kind of killed god the other day, dude. I’d say you made an impression.”

“I— Come on, that’s— that’s an exaggeration,” Scar says.

“Barely,” Martyn refutes. “Look, I’m only going to say this once.” He points a finger at Scar, eyes serious. “That was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s going to piss me off if you think it’s no big deal.”

Scar laughs in spite of himself, pushing through the embarrassment. “Fine,” he says, sighing. “You win.”

“Good,” Martyn says, easy smile back on his face. “Glad we got that sorted. Good luck in there!”

Grian turns to him, a lingering question in his eyes, and Scar nods back at him. 

Together, they step through the portal.

The terror that washes through him is instinctive, and he’s pushing magic into his blind eye before he even has time to think about it, unwilling to be at any sort of disadvantage. He just barely holds himself back from his usual halo of eyes, standing with his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, staring into the abyss. There are no stars, here. It’s almost unsettling, despite the way he’s thankful for it. 

Memories flash behind his eyelids every time he blinks, snapshots of blood and terror. His breathing is loud in his own ears, echoing endlessly in his panicked mind. Cold sweat breaks out across his skin, and he shivers, struggling to stay grounded. He hears a voice, muffled and distorted through his fear, but it’s not until Grian grabs his hand that he’s able to focus on it. 

“Hey, I’m right here,” Grian is saying, voice thick with concern. “We can go back any time we want.”

Scar takes a long, shaky breath, flexing his hand in Grian’s. He feels lightheaded, almost. Small. Like a prey animal. A bird on the ground with a broken wing. 

But not alone, this time. 

“Sorry,” Scar says, voice trembling. He turns to look at Grian, single eye still glowing purple. “I don’t…”

Grian gives him a small smile, though his eyes carry a certain sorrow. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Scar,” Grian says. “It doesn’t even have to be today.”

It’s tempting. Every part of him is screaming to turn around and go home, but this is something that he feels he has to do. Really, he’s just as stubborn as the rest of his friends. 

“Let’s get it over with,” Scar says roughly. He pastes on a trembling smile. “Lead the way.”

Grian does lead the way, but he doesn’t let go of Scar’s hand. He’s embarrassingly thankful for it, though the tense set of Grian’s shoulders and defensive flare of his wings suggests he’s not unaffected by their surroundings, either. For both of them, he supposes, this is the equivalent of a haunted house. Memories around every corner. The place where they were born screaming. 

There’s a jagged hole in the floor, glowing purple at the edges as it slowly heals itself. They come to a stop beside it, peering down at the snowy world below. It’s a long way down.

“Wow,” Scar says. 

“Uh-huh,” Grian replies. 

They stare down for a long moment, silent. There are still no stars in the sky, which Scar takes to mean that Martyn was right. The Watchers had retreated further back. He’d scared them. 

“Ready?” Grian asks finally, stretching his wings out in anticipation. 

“Sure am,” Scar replies, swallowing his nerves. “This should be less dramatic than last time.”

Thankfully, it is. Grian holds on to him as he flies them down, and they land gently before the destroyed statue of the Secret Keeper, large chunks still floating ominously in the air. The chill settles over his skin like a familiar cloak, and he pulls his jacket tighter around himself. The sky is bright blue and cloudless, hanging above the pristine blanket of snow laying across the world. 

Wordlessly, Scar turns away from the statue and starts walking home. He can hear the snow crunching behind him as Grian follows, a somber silence overtaking them as they walk. The tower where Scar had killed Grian casts a shadow across their path, a momentary barrier from the sun, but they don’t stop. They pass the ruins of the Mounders base, the broken world. They pass by Lizzie’s empty grave, and Scar absentmindedly brushes snow off the top of it. A habit. Finally, Scar leads the way into his old base, the boarded-up courthouse next to the ruins of his trading post. He walks up the stairs. The door is cracked. He’d always left it that way when he was gone, so that Dishwasher could come and go. He pushes open the door, ignoring the familiar creak as he steps through into the room.

Grian’s sharp intake of breath is loud in the silence. Scar stands still in the middle of the room, looking around, taking it in. The bloodstains on the floor. The pile of threadbare blankets in one corner. The remnants of the campfire that had always burned to nothing before he could wake up. The bowl of water he’d used to clean his wounds, frozen over into ice. The journal he’d kept, sitting next to his meager supply of food. His shuffling footsteps bounce off the walls as he crosses the room, and he leans down to pick up the journal, thumb tracing over the worn leather. 

“I tried to keep track of the days,” Scar says, voice carefully blank, staring down at the book in his hands. “I think I missed a few.”

Grian is silent, and Scar glances over at him. He looks lost, standing in the middle of Scar’s nightmare, looking quietly devastated. His eyes are glassy, fixed hazily on one of the bloodstains on the stone floor. He looks up, finally, meeting Scar’s gaze, eyes so full of heartbreak that Scar’s sad smile trembles at the edges. He feels fragile, standing whole and healing in the place that saw him almost broken beyond repair. Watching Grian take it all in, adding pieces to the puzzle in his head. Painting a horrid picture. 

Scar puts the journal in the leather bag hanging at his side. He’s not sure what he’s going to do with it. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to leave it here.

A noise sounds from the rafters above — a quiet clucking that quickly grows louder. Scar looks up, watching as Dishwasher flaps her way down, landing at his feet and staring up at him accusingly, neck bobbing as she walks closer. She lets out a loud squawk, and Scar laughs hoarsely, crouching down to pick her up, feathers cold beneath his hands.

“Hey, Dishy,” Scar says fondly, swiping a bit of ash from her back. “Sorry I was gone so long.”

“Dishy?” Grian repeats, recovered enough to speak. “You didn’t change her name?”

“I never really thought about it,” Scar replies honestly, tilting his head. He’d had a lot going on at the time, but now he feels like maybe he should give her a real name. She’d more than earned it, really, and Dishwasher didn’t exactly roll off the tongue. “Hm.”

He squints at her, trying to think of something that suits her. He’s not usually very good at coming up with names, but he wants to get this right. He wracks his brain. Looks down at the bits of snow they’d tracked in with their boots. They both hate the snow, he’s pretty sure, so he can’t name her Snowy. Maybe…

“How ‘bout Sunny?” Scar asks the chicken. She clucks loudly, and Scar winces. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Is Sunny ready to go?” Grian asks dryly, though his eyes are fond when Scar turns to look at him. “If we’re gone for too long, I think they’ll send the cavalry.”

“Yeah, I think we’re ready.” Scar tucks Sunny against his chest. And then, half-jokingly: “How about you? Anything you want to grab while we’re here?”

“Nope,” Grian says lightly, holding the door open as they leave the courthouse. “I already got what I came for.”

Scar closes the door behind them, and they set back out across the empty field, barren and sparkling in the sunlight, buried in a foot of snow. There were sunflowers, once. Maybe one day they’ll grow back. Scar will never know if they do. He finds he’s fine with that.

The cage is not a cage anymore.

Scar goes home.

As the weeks pass, their off-world friends slowly go back to their respective homes, all of them being sure to say goodbye to Scar before they go. Skizz and Joel leave with big smiles on their faces, telling him they’ll see him when they start a new world, having been asked to join. Scar can’t wait. 

Eventually, his injuries heal, leaving only the occasional ache behind. The nightmares linger, but so does Grian, so he’s almost never alone. He goes back to Scarland, works on the castle, mediates the cartoonish rivalry between Sunny and Jellie. His friends visit often, bringing him resources to help with his builds, often sticking around to chat. They get into the habit of standing on his right side, knowing he can’t see them if they stand on his left. He laughs a lot. Cries often. Has panic attacks. Plants flowers.

There are days where everything is hard, but even those he is thankful for. 

His wings grow twice their size.

Spring comes.

Grian keeps his promise, and teaches him to fly.

He’s standing on the bridge between Grian and Mumbo’s bases, Grian and Mumbo themselves standing on either side of him, the two of them practically vibrating with giddy anticipation. Scar leans over the edge slightly, eyeing the long drop with suspicion.

“What if I just fall?” 

“Then I’ll do what I always do,” Grian answers.

Scar grins cheekily. “What, laugh?”

Grian shoves him, and Scar stumbles into Mumbo, who joins in on his giggling.

“Catch you,” Grian says, rolling his eyes.

“You’ve been gliding, haven’t you?” Mumbo asks.

“A little,” Scar says, watching a pebble tumble over the side of the drop. “Not from this high up.”

“We’ll all go together,” Grian says, smiling encouragingly. “Mumbo’s got his elytra on. Either one of us could catch you.”

“Fine,” Scar says. “Any last advice?”

“Don’t overthink it,” Grian says, and then he claps his hands together, eyes sparkling with excitement. “We’ll go on three?”

There’s only a light breeze today, and all the wildflowers are blooming. The sun is high in the sky, warm without being overwhelming. A few clouds drift lazily across the sky, fluffy and white. There are birds, flying. Scar flexes his wings, and feels a hopeful determination well up in his chest, his magic singing. 

Unceremoniously, Scar grabs Grian and Mumbo’s hands in each of his own, shouting wildly as he pulls them all off the side of the bridge. Their startled yelps fade into the wind as gravity overtakes them, and Scar lets go of their hands, letting himself give in to instinct. Air rushes past his face, catching at his feathers as he slowly spreads his wings, and for a moment time seems to stand still. The ground rushes towards him, and Scar is very suddenly not afraid at all. 

His wings catch the wind, flapping strongly once, twice — propelling him upwards. He lets out a gleeful laugh, happy tears prickling at his eyes as he spins higher and higher into the sky. He can hear Grian and Mumbo cheering loudly behind him, and he turns to dive between them, grinning wildly as he sees the ecstatic smiles on their faces, Grian’s eyes shining proudly. 

“Show off,” Grian says, entire face glowing with joy, hair ruffled from the wind, one of Scar’s feathers hanging around his neck to match the one on Scar’s ear. 

“What happened to ‘we’ll go on three’?” Mumbos shouts, laughing breathlessly, elytra glinting in the sun. 

“I counted in my head!” Scar says brightly.

Mumbo shouts incredulously, and Grian does corkscrews around them, giggling the whole way. The world is far below them, and the sky is endless.

“Race you to the shopping district?” Grian suggests, grinning back at him. 

Scar’s face splits in a wide smile. “You’re on.”

They take off towards the shopping district, laughing and bickering the whole way, none of them taking it too seriously. 

It’s only a game, after all, and it’ll never matter again who wins it.