Lilies of the Valley {Grumbo}

Chapter 4 : Wizard

It was so peaceful and serene outside, the flowers had just started blooming for the year, and the sun beamed down on the tall man, he could feel his head laying in someone's lap, a soft touch running through his curly hair. This was bliss, he could almost, no, he could fall asleep like this.

"I love you, Mumbo" was said in a soft English accent.

His eyes snapped wide open and the raven haired man rubbed his eyes, looking out into the early morning sky, pink just barely dusting the edge of the world. He tried his best to shake what he just woke up from, but it was hard to do even that when there was so much backed up, like a iron farm without a big enough storage system. He chuckled to himself before remembering he was coughing up blood last night, and the stupid flower petals but ironically he was more concentrated on the coughing up blood part.

Who would I even go to?

He pondered for a while, and shortly realized there were really only two hermits he could think of that would even be remotely medical in nature. There was Doc and then there was Scar. Doc would definitely be very logical about everything, but at the same time the guys mad. Doc is like an evil genius while Scar was more hippie and "crystal healing". He scrunched his eyebrows and made a decision.

I mean, if this doesn't go well, I can always go to the other.

-

Scar heard some rockets shoot off above him, "God, who is up this early." He looked up at the early morning sky and before he could even make out anything Mumbo had landed gracefully in front of him.

The wizard was actually delighted to see the hermit that he hadn't seen in quite a while, "Hey Mumbo, how have you been? I haven't see-"

"I need your help."

Scar was caught off guard but showed a look of concern on his face. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm just sick and I don't know what's going on."

Scar put a hand on his shoulder and ushered him into one of the villager houses he had built nearby.

"This looks rather lovely." Mumbo said with a nervous smile.

Scar gave him a serious look and told him to sit down, the taller hermit did as ordered.

"You seem fine. What makes you think you're sick?" the shorter man pondered. It wasn't that he didn't believe him. He just needed to know the symptoms.

"Well it doesn't happen all the time but the last few days I've had like a sore throat, nausea, coughing, and well... " Mumbo paused knowing he was leaving out the flower petal part, "And last night I started coughing up blood"

Scars eyes flashed a look of worry, "Oh gosh! That's definitely not good. Is there anything else you are experiencing?"

"No, " he lied, I mean surely the flowers had nothing to do with this.

The shorter hermit paused for a moment, "This is way out of my expertise personally, but let me do a quick check up with what I do have. Worse comes to worse I can always get Doc."

The other smiled rather weakly.

"Just, here, one second."

Mumbo watched as Scar pulled out a small contraption out of his shulker box. The wizard put a hand on his back and the scope thing in the front.

"Breathe in slowly."

The man did as he said, and continued as Scar moved the tool around different areas, his brows furrowing.

"Well something's definitely in there, I've only heard sounds like that one other time."

Mumbo looked at him with curiosity.

"Have you coughed up anything?"

Mumbo looked away and replied softly, "no."

"Are you in love?"

His eyes widened in shock and his mind drifted to the lovely builder, his sparkling blue eyes and his dainty looking hands. Mumbo lunged over and spiraled into another coughing fit. Scar nudged a trashcan in front of him and took note, giving the hermit a moment to regain his composure.

Mumbo wanted so desperately to hide the flower petals and reverse this vulnerability, but Scar had seen it, and he couldn't take this back, "I'm not in love."

Scar noted the white flower petals as a rather grim look appeared on his face, "Well, there was one other hermit who had this, it's an unmistakable disease."

Mumbo looked up with curiosity.

"Hanahaki disease."

"What's that?"

"Well, it only happens when a person suffers from a one-sided love, or at least when they believe they do." Scar paused, noticing Mumbo was looking away again, "flowers start to fill up your lungs and if left alone for too long the roots will grow and pierce your lungs, killing you."

Mumbo looked at him terrified, "What happened to the other hermit?"

"I won't name names but they've recovered."

"How?"

"Well, you can either get the roots surgically removed, there's some medicinal and general tips to manage it, or you can confess." He took a pause, "but it varies from case to case and if you confess and it's still unrequited the stress can kill you. You could risk losing them as a friend so your feelings can wither away, and the surgery doesn't prevent new petals from growing."

Mumbo had a contorted look on his face, "You really think it's that?"

"Only disease I know of that makes you cough flower petals."

"What about the blood?"

"Your throat isn't designed to throw up flower petals, it's just rubbed raw."

Mumbo placed his head in his hands, and Scar placed a comforting hand on the shoulder of his grieving friend.

"You can stay here in my village until we decide on the best course of action. Unless you know what you want to do?"

The response was just a weak shaking of the head.

"I'll take that as a no then, I don't want you to feel like you're a burden to me, I just want to help."

There was an awkward pause between the two.

Scar sighed, "I'd suggest you at least take some time to reflect on who is making you feel this strongly and in the mean time get some rest. I'll be checking up on you and bringing you food and stuff."

Mumbo, though still in utter shock attempted to smile at Scar, "Thank you."

Scar smiled back warmly, "No worries, we'll get this thing more manageable."

Mumbo just laid down on the bed, empty in thought, as Scar closed the door gently behind him. Whatever just happened could not be reversed whether it's for better or worse.

Scar twiddled one of the flower petals between his thumb and pointer finger; knowing exactly what flower it was. He wasn't a detail oriented terraformer for no reason

Lily of the Valley, huh?

Now it's just to find out who.

The wizard had a gut feeling, but for now he was going to work on his area until Grian would come over to discuss plans for the head hunt.