One Shots and Swaps

Terrors of Silence

A/N: this is a Oneshot Swap fyi

-Mumbo's POV-

I was about to step through the portal that would lead me to then next season when Xisuma stopped me and motioned for me to stay for a moment.
"What's up?" I ask cheerily.
"There is going to be a new hermit this next season and he is really shy." X said looking concerned. "I want you to befriend him and make him feel comfortable."
"Ok!" I say smiling.
X smiled back gratefully.
"Thanks."

I jump into the portal and X follows soon after.

----

I land in a crouch to break my fall.
We are on the coast of an island.
I only know it's an island because X told us.
I look around and everyone is there.

Xisuma is messing around on a admin screen.
Another portal appears.
On the ground instead of 5 feet in the air this time.
Out steps a small parrot hybrid.
He has brown messy hair and warm brown eyes.
I recognize him.
He's my best friend.
Or was my best friend years ago.
He's changed a lot. He is now around 5'4" but the last time I saw him he was around 4'.

Everyone is looking and smiling at him.
He bites his lip and looks back into the portal. He glanced back at us and scanned the group.
His eyes landed on me. They widened.
I smiled at him.
He ran over and hugged me.

Everyone smiled and started walking over to talk to him to get to know him.
His eyes widened as he noticed everyone was coming over.
He buried his face into my suit.

I looked around confused for a moment.
When I saw nothing wrong I got worried.

"Hey. What's wrong?" I ask him mildly worried.
He chirps back at me burrowing further into my suit.
"Hey. It's alright." I say even more worried. "No one is going to hurt you."
He chirped again and hugged tighter.
Cub motions for everyone to back off for a bit and let me and him talk.

I type on my communicator.

I'll take Grian away from the area quick. Just to get used to the new environment. He was a little bit like this when we were younger.

The hermits go back to what they were doing before. But they would occasionally send worried glances our way.

Xisuma types a message back at me.

Mumbo you do what you need to. He seems comfortable with you.

Ok

I carefully lead Grian to a less crowded space.

I sit down and G is still hugging me.
He moves in closer like a scared cat. I'm
He looks at me with sad eyes and chirps.

"Are you okay? Can...can you talk?" I asked causiously.
He hesitated for a moment before shaking his head and chirping.
I sighed. He must have went through something really, really bad to become non-verbal.

"Are you tired? Do you need to rest?"
He nodded, before chirping and lightly pulling on my vest.
"Do you want my vest?"
Grian couuxisualy nodded and I pulled it off to give it to him.
He lightly walked to mumbos couch, grabbing some folded blankets and a few pillow.
I watched as he arranged them in a nest like shape and laid down in it.
I stepped towards him, but he seemed a little skittish, as all he probably saw was a looming figure.
I crouched down to him, and he relaxed slightly.
I sat down next to him and he lay down, curling up in a protective ball.
It must have been horrible, what he went through.

He chirps and gestures to his wings.
"You want me to stroke your wings?"
He shakes his head and runs his hands through the feathers on his wings
"You want me to... preen your wings?" Mumbo has slightly taken aback. Preening was a big thing with avians. They only let the most trusted people preen their wings.
He chirps, and further curls up.
"O-okay...? I don't really know how to do this..."
He carefully began to preen his wings, but as he started, Grian cried out and flinched.
I jumped back.
"I'm sorry!"
He shakes his head and chirps while gesturing for me to continue.
He must have trauma related to his wings.

I continued to preen, Grian flinching and crying out multiple times. I tried to soothe him each time. His wings were dirty and damaged, with numerous broken feathers and built-up dirt. It was like he hadn't preened in a while...
After a while, Grian fell asleep, but it didn't seem like he was resting well.
I sighed. I hate that something horrible enough to cause this happened.

...

Mumbo didn't know this at the time, but this was the start of the journey of untraumatizing his new birb.