"Don't put that there," Xisuma says, tail flicking wildly. A bit nervous that Keralis would break the concrete machine.
"Sorry, Shishwamy," Keralis smiles, moving the box over to a safer place.
Xisuma nods in thanks, carefully stepping around the bits of redstone and making extra sure that his tail wasn't going to hit anything. About halfway across the beam Xisuma stumbles forward and starts walking on all fours as his balance was horrible if he didn't let his tail move freely.
As Xisuma makes it over to where Keralis was waiting he growls slightly under his breath, something was clearly bothering him.
"Are you ok?" Keralis asks, kneeling on the ground next to Xisuma.
Xisuma stands up shaking his head and muttering, "My horns feel really weird."
"Do you know why?" Keralis asks, blinking a bit in the harsh sunlight.
"Not really? I feel like rubbing them against something," Xisuma explains, hunched over in the small room, trying not to poke Keralis with his spines.
"Sharping, maybe?" Is suggested as Keralis pokes at one of the horns testing how sharp it was with his finger.
"That would make sense," Xisuma muses, reaching up to run his hand along the length of the horns.
"Shiswamy, I've been wondering, do the horns have any feeling?"
"Oh, um, sort of. It's like your nails, you can only sort of feel them, but it's really faint," Xisuma explains, looking around anxiously.
"If you want to go and sharpen your horns I can put the powder into the chests," Keralis says, looking at Xisuma who looked really uncomfortable, "Don't give me that look, I promise not to touch anything but the chests."
"Ok," Xisuma relents as he stalks off into the jungle, "Don't break anything."
Keralis rolls his eyes and gets to work putting the concrete away. By the time Xisuma returns with his horns feeling normal again Keralis is almost done putting it away. A few words are exchanged when their communicators start going off with an alert.
The alert is brushed off at first, as earlier that day a couple of alerts had gone off from Mumbo getting killed by a skeleton and he had ended up stranded on the spawn island. Beef who had been working on Lama Rama at the time had flown over and rescued Mumbo who had deactivated from the lack of a signal. After about two minutes the communicators were still beeping so they picked them up to take a look, it was one of the alerts from the meteor saying that it was admitting signals again.
DocM77: I'm there, the meteor has what looks like heat waves and bits of pollen flaking off.
Grian: That's an odd combo.
Xisuma looks over at Keralis who was looking rather nervous, "Are you ok?"
"Oh, just a bit nervous that it'll get me next,"
"Why?" Xisuma asks, cocking his head to one side.
Keralis gives a small smile, "It's the Pollen, the bees have that and we've been pretending to be bees,"
Xisuma nods understanding where Keralis's fear had come from. "How's this? I'll stay with you tonight and keep an eye out for something happening."
Looking up and meeting Xisuma's solid green eyes Keralis nods, "What about EX? I don't think he'll like someone else there."
"He's moved out, he has his own place not too far from here,"
The pair finish up what they were doing and head over to Xisuma's home near his bee farms. As they near the base Keralis starts giggling about having a sleepover. Xisuma smiles the best he can through his mask and fangs.
................
As the sun starts rising over the horizon Xisuma sits up and fights his helmet trying to fit it over his horns that would always get caught on the edge of the helmet. Looking around for Keralis and not finding him anywhere in the room Xisuma rolls his eyes and sets out looking for him.
Eventually, Xisuma finds him as he sits on a ledge, legs dangling over the edge walking up making sure his claws are clicking at least a little bit as not to startle him Xisuma comes over and sits down next to Kerails, "What are you doing over here?"
"Oh, Xisuma, It just smells good over here and I got distracted looking at the bees,"
"They are really cute aren't they?"
"They are," Keralis says, before clutching at his head. Doubling over in pain, Xisuma pulls him off the ledge and into a shadowy area of the base.
"Keralis?" Xisuma asks tentatively, fur bristling slightly.
Keralis responds by lifting an arm and covering his eyes with it, "It burns."
"Your eyes? Ok, see anything unusual?" Xisuma frantically asks, getting a small cloth out and soaking in water and laying it on Keralis's face.
"That feels nice. It was like I blinked and then, bam! It's really bright. It was like the world suddenly got switched into a high definition or something,"
Xisuma nods slowly then turns pulling something from a shulker box, "Here, Ren lent them to me when we had to remake my helmet. I never got around to giving them back,"
Keralis fumblingly accepts the sunglasses sliding them on, and cautiously opened his eyes. He opens his mouth in an oh shape, "It's beautiful, it's as if there's a new dimension to the world," Keralis takes a few minutes to admire the world and eventually stops running around and comes back to where Xisuma is patiently waiting.
"I have a question, does anything else feel weird?"
Kerails tilts his head considering the question, "Now that you mention it, my back feels kinda funny, and the top of my head feels weird. It feels like somethings pushing at my skin," as he says this he starts hyperventilating slightly.
"Ok, calm down, it's going to be ok. Can I look at your head?"
"Ok, but if it hurts you have to stop,"
As he says this Xisuma sucks in a breath, before muttering "That doesn't look good,"
"What doesn't look good?"
"You have two little bumps but they're way too thin to be horns," Xisuma says before realizing, "Earlier when you were on the ledge you said it smelled good? What smelled good?"
"The flowers? I don't see where you're going with... oh, I think I get it. Bees?"
Xisuma nods solemnly, "Bees,"
.................
A few days had passed and nothing new had happened to Keralis. He was slowly learning the limits of his eyes and preparing for what happens to him next.
All of the hermits had been notified that Keralis was affected and were told to keep an eye out for him. Currently, Keralis was in the shopping district doing some work on the building that was being constructed for the concrete shop. As it nears midday Keralis drifts towards the Five Goats to pick up some carrots, passing the garden that contains the quartz shop he stops, turning suddenly and entering the garden. The flowers look fascinating especially since his eyes had changed so much and he could see so much detail in everything.
He stumbles into one of the lilac bushes a bit overwhelmed at all the colors and sits down in the grass taking in the scent. He slowly gets closer and closer to one of the flowers before he buries his face into the sweet-smelling bud.
"Keralis? Is that you?" A voice suddenly asks from behind.
"Huh, what?" Keralis says blinking rapidly rolling out of the bush.
Bdubs looks down and extends a hand to help Keralis up, "What are you doing in the flowers?"
"They smell nice," Keralis explains, shrugging a bit as he looks up at Bdubs, "Aside from messing my eyes up the meteor is turning me into a bee."
"Really?"
Keralis nods vigorously dislodging a few flowers from the top of his head. As he and Bdubs continue to talk something odd starts to happen. Keralis stops moving clutching at his face with both hands and when he removes them there's a small pair of antennae. They're mostly black with small bands of brown. The moment Keralis moves his hands out of their way they start twitching, moving around wildly.
"Keralis? Are you ok?" Bdubs asks, panicking slightly that his friend had just grown antennae.
"Bubbles, I'm fine. Shiswamy said that this might happen,"
"What else might happen?"
"Wings probably,"
By this point, since it was pretty obvious that Keralis wasn't really bothered by the antenna, Bdubs decides to drop the topic and move on to something else. "So how's Xisuma doing?"
"He's doing pretty good, he's stopped trying to resist the need to walk on all fours sometimes and he's figured out how to sharpen his horns," Keralis explains as they walk up the steps of the nether portal.
"That's really good. Wait, he's sharpening his horns? Those things are already wicked sharp," He says laughing.
Keralis nods humming softly under his breath. As they enter the nether they pass by the button game that had been constructed by Mumbo. Doc was sitting in the nest of blankets and other things that he had constructed as to watch the button more closely, however, it appears that he had passed out and was sleeping soundly wrapped up in several blankets. Bdubs stops walking and gets several pictures of Doc sound asleep.
As they move on heading for Keralis's base they can hardly suppress the giggles about the sleeping creeper. Bdubs pulls out his communicator and asks if someone could come and get Doc and bring him back to his base.
.........
"How does your back feel?" Xisuma asks as he enters Keralis's room.
Keralis sits for a moment considering his answer, "The pressure just keeps building up and it feels like something's about to burst."
Xisuma growls at the answer, flicking his tail in agitation, "Sorry, I didn't mean to growl at you. Maybe we can use a regeneration potion?"
"That might work, it'll speed up the healing time which will hopefully speed this up," Keralis nods excitedly at the prospect of the horrible feeling coming from his back ending.
"Let's try it," Xisuma hands Keralis the potion to drink as he slowly chokes the liquid down, his back starts to slowly swell, more than it already had. After about half an hour's worth of waiting, the wings were able to poke through the skin. There were four of them in total, two on each side. They were a transparent, slightly filmy looking, beige color. You could see the separate veins extending through them. In no way did they look strong enough to hold a person's weight.
As the wings finish growing Keralis lets out a sigh of relief, in thanks that that is over. He flops back on his bed just lying there for a few minutes. A few minutes pass when Xisuma helps him move over onto his stomach so he can start washing the wings off.
Once the wings are fully clean Xisuma helps Keralis to stand up. Once up he sways backward a little before regaining his balance.
"You good?"
"Yeah, it feels a lot better now that they're out," Keralis says, stretching his shoulders. As he stretches his arms up the wings flutter a bit. Feeling this he freezes at the foreign sensation. "That felt really weird,"
Xisuma nods his spines quivering a bit as he walks, "It does, you'll get used to it eventually."
This time Keralis puts some effort into moving the wings causing them to flutter rapidly. Xisuma gives the best encouraging smile he can and nods his head encouraging him to go on. Gaining confidence Keralis lets the wings flutter and flap in attempts to take off.
Xisuma frowns at this as he spots something off, "Did you feel anything coming from that?"
"No? What do you mean?"
"When I was helping Wels with his wings every time he tried to flap them before he figured out how to fly, he almost knocked himself off balance, even standing up would almost make him fall in the first few weeks. Your wings aren't really having any effect. Even with your balance, the wings aren't heavy enough to knock you off balance."
"That's not good is it?" Keralis asks slightly panicked wings fluttering wildly from the panic.
"No, it's not. They probably won't be able to hold Your weight," He explains as gently as possible.
"Oh, oh, I don't like that," Keralis mutters as his voice is filled with a nervous buzzing sound.
"I'm sorry," Xisuma mutters, not meeting Keralis's eyes
"Don't be, it's not your fault. No one knew this would happen."
Xisuma drops the topic shaking his head a bit as if clearing the negative thoughts away, "Thank you."
Within the next few minutes, the communicators go off with an alert saying the meteor has gone dark once more.
"So, how do you want to tell everyone?" Xisuma asks mostly joking but with some amount of seriousness.
"Server-wide call meeting? I know that Iskall's been struggling to get places with Echo and Vee in their arms,"
Xisuma chuckles a bit at this before calling the others and with Keralis's help explains what had happened.