Resurfaced

Chapter 8

Yoooo! Look who has risen from the dead to give you another chapter!

The chains weren't the worst part, and that was saying a lot. Made of roughly cast metal, they radiated cold that bit into Grians raw and chafing skin. He sat, slumped over and trying not to move his hands if only to avoid the jolt of pain every movement sent through his body. His wings lay splayed out behind him, feathers half torn out, and one of them was defiantly broken. But all of this was manageable, was nothing really, when he thought of his inevitable permadeath. Alone. Probably to an executioner's enchanted ax or a pit to the void.

He didn't really know what he had expected, really, breaking into a well-guarded castle with hardly any plan. He hadn't been thinking. He had acted on pure desperation, and now he would pay for that foolishness. He would never see the hermits; they would never even know how close he was to reaching them. That he wasn't dead or taken by the watchers as they almost definitely thought. In a way, that was better, though. His friends would also never see him like this, defeated and rotting in a cell, every drop of personality sucked out of him.

From his spot on the damp stone bricks, he could hear rats running along the edges of the hall, the drip-drip-dripping of water from who knows where, and the echoing thump of footsteps coming down the steps. Wait- footsteps? That can't be good. The first person to visit him had been a pig hybrid his mind had vaguely identified as "Prince Technoblade". The ex-watcher still had the strenth to maintain his usual energetic personality. It was a characteristic that earned him nothing more than an angry growl and a broken wing.

The next time anyone came, it was Technoblade again. This time he was accompanied by a younger boy whose chaotic energy would rival Grain's own on the best of days. After about an hour of listening to the child scream at him to "give up and tell us who you are and why you tried to attack Philza f*cking Minecraft," they finally left him alone while they discussed what the younger called 'advanced interrogation techniques.'

Now it seemed they were back for more, at least four sets of footsteps marching steadily closer. Grian just sighed. He had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but he had feeling weapons were about to get involved. Realy why did they care so much? He kept his head pointed at the ground and his aching body still as he awaited his fate.

The footsteps stopped outside his cell—one blurry, gruff voice speaking with two painfully familiar ones. Who were they? His thoughts faded in and out as he tried to make out who they could be until-

Yelling. A loud, angry voice filled the air, and the injured hermit flinched back. Running footsteps echoed in his ears, fading out as the person retreated back up the stairs. The yelling continued, and he could hear a sward leave its sheath. Someone was angry. Dangerously angry. Two people were yelling now, probably at him. Probably at him and all the things he had done, and all the people he had hurt and the lives he had made worse, and he would never get to apologize because he would permanently die here, in this dungeon.

Tears streamed down his cheeks as he pulled his good wing in front of him like a feeble shield. Fighting through the pain that shot up his arms, he shoved his hands over his ears and prayed it would all be over soon. The cell doors screeched open, and he flinched backward, all dignity forgot as he coward in front of the heavily armored figure in front of him.

"Grian? Grian are you ok?" The voice pulled at something in his memory, draging up images of laughing faces, eggs flying at bewildered hermits, of home. But no, Grian knew he would never hear from anyone he knew again. It couldn't be no matter how much he wanted to see them again.

"Grain, it's ok. It's me, Xisuma. Rember me? I was your admin back in hermit craft. I don't know what happened to you, but you are safe now. I promise."

"What's going on? I was told there was something important and to come here of all places-" A new voice, even more painfully familiar, called out. Finally, finally, Grian dared to look up.

"Mumbo?"

"Oh my word! Grian?!" The mustached man starred at him for a solid thirty seconds before running through the open cell door and over to his injured friend.

"I- how are you here? How did you find me?"

"I could ask you the same question, mate. Grian, everyone thinks you are dead."

"You can't get rid of me that easily." Grian teased, attempting to find the usual happy town that in any other circumstances would accompany that sentence. He was well aware he was falling short.

Mumbo stilled, his gaze shifting away from the fallen Watcher's face and to the shimmering wings that lay limply across his back. Grian shifted uncomfortably when he noticed.

Grian, are those your wings on your back? No, stupid question. Its problay a sore subeject anyway Im such a spoon"

"No, no, its ok." Grian cut the redstoner off. "I'd be surprised if you weren't curious."

"It's just- how long have you had them? Can you use them yet?" Much to the Ex-watcher's surprise, his friend's eyes were full of awe, not anger or pity. He let out a small laugh.

"What you think I'd own a pair of wings for years and not learn to use them? You know I love to fly Mumbo!"

The redstoners face went from awestruck light to confusion in seconds. "Years? Grian haven't been gone nearly that long- what are you talking about?"

Grian stiffened, wincing as he pulled his watcher-gifted wings around himself like a blanket. Mumbo shuffled back at the unexpected motion.

"Grian, Mumbo has a point; you didn't show any signs of hybrid traits in your scans. Did the watch- did they do anything to you?" It was Xisuma who spoke this time. Grian had almost forgotten he was still here.

He avoided both men's eyes as he contemplated his response "Yes- no- it's complicated. It happened a long time ago, when the watchers first, um- took me in. Along with the watcher form, everyone who is turned gains a pair of wings that reflect the power held in their watcher form. Mine are dull because I'm entirely out of magic. When I ran, I hid them in the void and used more of my magic to shield my presence from them."

He fell silent as a whole host of voices and footsteps echoed down the hall. Familiar voices. The other Hermits. He scrambled to the edge of his cell, wanting, no, needing to see if they were ok.

At least ten hermits crowded the corridor between the cells, lead by Joe, who must have been the first set of footsteps to leave. He had been going to find the others.

More yelling broke out the moment the first hermit, ren dog, saw him. What felt like every hermit poured into his cramped cell. All of them jostled to unlock his chains and lift him to his feet; to hug him and reassure themselves he was real. Grain felt like he was living in a dream. The most overwhelming, happiest dream in the world. It took all his energy just to let them, and yet he wouldn't have it any other way.