Ruffled Feathers

Ruffled Feathers Part 3

Author's Note: Grian is birb. Mumbo is spooked. Scar is very spooked. Cub is deep concern. Author is tired and hungry while writing this.  

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 Mumbo's POV:

 I landed carefully at the scene of the crime. 

 The sound of squawking and savage eating came from Grian's aviary upstairs. I flew up to the aviary by the outside entrance that Grian had built in order to not scare his birds when he needed some peace on the server.

 There was some clues that Scar had been there. I never noticed it at first, but Scar had lost his hat in the ruckus that had occurred here. I picked the torn hat up and placed it into my bag.

 The squawking grew quieter as I entered the aviary.

 " Grian?" I looked around as wind whipped behind me. I turned around and took my sword out. My body shook as I laughed nervously, " C-come on Grian. You know I don't enjoy being suddenly startled." I turned around again. 

 The squawking had stopped, but the vicious eating had grown louder. I noticed a small pool of blood that led back behind a tree. A long, feathery tail was against the ground.

 I walked towards the tree and slowly reached for my sword. The thing crawled out from behind the tree and stared at me. My body froze up. 

 " G-grian...." I stuttered as my shoulders drooped.

 Grian was some sort of mess between chicken and human. He was still his normal height, yet he had large wings, a tail, and feathers sticking out of him making him look painfully bloody. 

 Grian laid down with some sort of animal in his mouth. Maybe it was a rat or mouse? He clearly didn't care as he angled his wings over his prey and made angry noises towards me.

 He kept crunching on the small mammal as he stared at me with his hallow eyes. 

 " Grian.... Do you remember me?" I whispered as I stood still. Grian swallowed his prey whole. His talons were driven into the ground as he stared at me. A weird noise escaped from his mouth as he scratched at the ground.

 " I... I don't .... I don't even know how to take that as an answer." I stuttered as I watched Grian walk over to the small pond. He started to lap up the water while cleaning his wings and mouth from the blood.

 I watched in silence as Grian finished up his work on himself. He licked at his hand-talons and resumed his staring at me. He cocked his head to the side as his wings twitched.

 There's something that doesn't make sense about this situation. Well, there are actually multiple things, but I digress. 

 Grian had attacked Scar; however, he doesn't seem keen about attacking me. He only even seems mildly interested in me being here. 

 I thought for a moment. I need to find a way to get Grian out of here and perhaps to Jevin's base. Jevin did after all have a mild cure for this weird animalization. 

 " Grian....?" I walked forward as Grian tensed up; I stopped. Grian let out a scared noise as his wings twitched. 

 I thought for another moment. Grian was a chicken now. Right? Would he like what chickens like? 

 I opened my inventory  and brought out a bag of seeds, " Here Gri Gri Gri...." I opened the bag and poured some seeds out. I put the bag down and retreated to the entrance. 

 Grian crawled forward and sniffled at the seeds. He stuck his tongue out and bit into the pile of seeds until there wasn't any of them left. He looked up at me as a weird shift in color appeared in his eyes before he blinked and it went back to that hallowed look. 

 The chicken hermit looked at the bag and tried to shove his head into the bag to eat more of the seeds. He bit at the top and shook the bag around violently letting it slap against the ground with a crinkle. 

 This was honestly bag abuse, but I chose not to protest because I could get my face ripped up by my friend at any moment.

 Grian eventually gave up on the bag with an angered squawk as he started to preen his wings. I watched him in even awkwarder silence as he licked and bit at his wings.

 It was insane to watch as my own quick witted friend was now reduced to a bird-brained and ruffled feathered beast of a man.

 I looked down at Grian solemnly and sighed. I needed to figure out some clues on what happened here. The only idea that I have is the video feed that the cameras could've captured.

 I pulled up my communicator and activated the video feed. The feed went as far back as yesterday morning. Heck, it even showed parts of Grian's original transformation into his mer-self from the main level of the base.

 The feed kept going until I found Grian holding up a bottle of a weird colored liquid to the moonlight. He had a triumphant smile on his face.

 This past Grian started to talk about his revenge plan on turning Iskall into a bird for a few days. 

 He was about to put the bottle down as he spoke into his communicator a few minutes later; however, something went through the bottle causing Grian to yelp and hang up as the contents spilled all over his face and body.

 I raised my eyebrow as I stopped the feed and lowered my arm to my side. This explained Grian's situation. I guess that Scar was attacked because Grian was probably still freaking out about his transformation and couldn't recognize friend from foe. 

 " Grian..." I looked at Grian and noticed he had been staring at the video feed to. Did he remember the pain? Did he remember hurting Scar? 

 Grian walked over to me and looked up at me blankly. He shoved his head into my leg and let out a cooing noise as his wings went down against his back. 

 " Let's get you to my base...." I sighed as a thought came to my head, " but away from Scar." I crossed my arms as Grian kept cooing. I opened my inventory again and brought out a lead, " How am I going to do this?" I questioned as I lowered the loop part of the lead. 

 Grian almost instantly crawled through the hoop until his wings were through. He looked up at me with a pleased look on his face. 

 I gently picked the feathery friend up causing him to coo more as I held him carefully. He nuzzled his head underneath my chin as I walked to the edge and took off back towards my base.