Wings (a Grian hermitcraft story)

Caged bird

Grian pov 

It had been nearly 6 weeks since we talked to anyone other than each other. Sure every day a guard would come in and deliver our meagre rations. But we never talked to them it, just didn't seem safe. Every third day we'd deliver an elytra, we'd rarely had extra time but, at least we were never late.

I don't know if I could handle watching something like that happen to Mumbo and Scar again. Watching it happen to them. Every time I lie down to sleep it's all I can hear their screams flooding my mind, a reminder of my failure.

It's not been great the last few weeks but it's not as bad as it could have been. We haven't seen the bone king in forever or any of those cursed advisors. Scars leg was healing quite well, we had managed to avoid infection and the wound was almost Closed up. I even thought we'd be able to take out the stitches in a couple of days.

On the other hand our brands hadn't much improved luckily so far we had avoided infection. But with us being unable to cover the wound access any herbs or medicine or even have a proper amount of food, the chances of it staying that way weren't high. 

We had done some good making sure to wash them twice a day but they were barely improving. They had some small scabs forming on the edges and the welts and blisters had gone down considerably, but they were still bright red and prone to bleeding.

We had a Fairly good set up for the elytra now. While Scar was shaping the branches, Mumbo would start on the redstone and I would prepare the feathers smoothing them out and removing the broken ones. If I finished with that I would preen my wings to help them shed any of the loose ones. 

That last one didn't really count as a job but last time I tried to help Mumbo with the redstone part he had to start over. When I told him that he should just have been happy it didn't blow up he exiled me from the redstone work bench. Which all in all while fair just made me more tempted to mess with his machines.

Every now and again we'd see the guards practicing with the elytra, it was actually pretty funny to watch. They were all really uncoordinated and kept flying into things may it be spikes towers or each other. We always had a good laugh watching them, although if anyone ever saw us laughing we wouldn't get any food for a couple days.

Which while not being as bad as a whipping or any other form of torture, still wasn't fun. While we were already malnourished. Eating nothing for three days made it way worse, at least we'd still get water.

Recently I had even seen patrols of guards flying out with the elytra only one every couple of days and they'd be back by nightfall. I never knew what they were doing but if I could hazard a guess I'd say raiding villages or heading to the battle zone to demolish some more of the red kings men. 

They probably wouldn't go for the castle till he had enough elytra to get at least half his army airborne. It would be a slaughter. Although I didn't exactly feel bad for the red king, if he was killed it was just him getting what he deserved for betraying us.

I shifted on my seat, hands tugging through my feathers absentmindedly.

"Mumbo I'm borrreeed" I complained loudly as I hoped up from the chair.

"Have you checked through all the feathers" he replied not looking up from his machine.

"Yes twice" I answered quickly it had taken hours but I had cleaned up all the feathers so they were ready to be installed into the elytra"

"Preened your wings" Mumbo listed absentmindedly.

"Yes" I quickly shot back "can I help with the redstone" I questioned jumping over to his work bench. Perching on the back of his chair leaning over him to look at the semantics. This time he looked up.

"Grian we both know that if you touch my redstone I'm going to have to start over, so why don't you just go help Scar" he finished shifting his current contraption away from me.

"Hey don't bring me into this Grian can't help with my job he lacks the super mystical awesome plant magic" Scar jumped in from across the room where he was guiding the trees growth.

"Super mystic awesome plant magic" I noted dryly, Scar nodded looking very serious. Well trying to really he was barely managing to stifle his giggles. 

"Well fine then I'll just" I was cut off suddenly by a huge explosion echoing from bellow. The whole building shook angrily at the sound.

I flapped my wings as I attempted not to fall of the chair which I sucseeded in momentarily, before Mumbo shoved his chair backwards as he jumped up. This combined with the explosions still going off bellow, removed the rest of my stability. 

I let out a loud squak as I fell backwards landing awkwardly on the floor. Mumbo and Scar both stifled a laugh as I jumped up quickly shooting them a dirty look.  Brushed the dirt off my wings before turning a questioning look to Mumbo and Scar.

"What's happening" Scar asked slowly reaching up to his ears which like my own did not fair well with nearby explosions. 

"An attack?" I thought aloud. "Yeah the Red king knows about the elytra and has probably seen them in use by now, so he's trying to destroy them before the Bone king goes for his castle" I muttered thinking things through as I went.

"If he's trying to destroy the elytra he's probably coming for us as well right? I mean he's not going to just leave the only way to make more here" Mumbo States thoughtfully turning to me at the last inquiry.

"If he's trying to destroy the elytra, how do we know he won't just try and get rid of us as well?" Scar questioned nervously. We all paused for a moment letting the dark thought settle over the room.

"I mean logically speaking taking us alive will make rational sense, as the red king will want the advantage that the elytra will give him in the war." I paused.

"But the mission will most likely be more along the lines off keep us out of the bone kings hands at all costs, with retrieval as a secondary goal" I answered their questions slowly thinking it through. Out of his hands could very well mean dead. 

Yes we are probably wanted alive but there's no way he'll leave us here so the Bone king can make more elytra it's going to come down to a case of 'if I can't have it no one can'. The thought of us being treated as object unnerved me I wasn't a pawn, in the past I had always made sure to stay in control, but now with Mumbo and Scar we were helpless.

"So what do we do" Scar asks slowly as the reality of the situation sinks in. If we just stay put we might just get killed if were deemed to hard to retrieve, Or easily captured as there's nowhere to go in this cell.

On the other hand if we break out we'll be attacked by everyone and if the Bone king catch's us he'll execute Mumbo. Or we could manage to use the chaos to sneak out back to hermitcraft.

I'm not totally sure how safe it is now, but we can always relocate maybe somewhere to the north west, up past the mountains or even at the mountains I bet I could kind a good valley or alcove up there and the mountains would serve as a great natural defence. I tried to shake these thoughts out, I could think about relocating after we escaped. If we escaped.

But before we could even get close to a decision on what to do a huge explosion set off on the outside wall. The impact flung us backwards slamming us into the back wall. The explosion blared in the background wrecking my ears, they were still ringing from the sound, although it was passing quickly.

My wings pushed uncomfortably against my back, as they throbbed angrily at the harsh slam backwards.

I shook my head in an effort to clear my head it might have been hit against the wall in the impact, although it couldn't have been that bad as it was fading quickly. I stumbled upright flaring my wings out for balance, as I turned to face the explosions remains. 

And there standing in the rubble of what used to be a wall was the Red king surrounded by a dozen guards. They all had elytra which clicked suddenly in my brain, they weren't destroying them they were stealing them. Why make more when you can steal from the enemy. The Red king slowly brushed a speck off rubble off his shoulder before turning towards us. 

"Ah there you are, now I think you'll be coming with us" The Red king announced grinning sharp teeth stained red.