Over the course of a few days, Grian slowly gets back on his feet. Someone was with him constantly just keeping the troublemaker company. After a while, He gets used to the slightly disproportionate build of his body. He hadn't been let out of the jungle and its surrounding areas as everything is fairly close together.
Today Grian is working on the inside of his mansion, Mumbo has agreed to come over and help him reach things and just to hang out. They've been working in comfortable silence for a few hours when they take a break to get some food.
Grian grabs a few carrots and a handful of seeds. He starts cleaning the underside of his nails that had gotten all gunked up working throughout the day. As he picks at his nails he notices something slightly off, "Mumbo?"
"Yes?"
"Do my nails look weird to you?" He asks, showing the offending nails to Mumbo.
"Let me see," Mumbo gently pulls Grian's hand closer to his face, "They look kinda pointy?"
Grian hums thinking for a moment, "Ok, let's finish this last wall and then check if anything else is happening."
Mumbo nods in agreement and continues helping Grian. By the time the wall has been fully detailed both are exhausted, but they still make sure nothing is happening.
Mumbo has Grian stand against the wall and he checks his height making sure that It hadn't changed. After everything had been checked Mumbo shrugs to Grian, "Nothing besides your nails has been affected, I'll come over tomorrow morning with Iskall to check again. I'll see you then."
"See you!" Grian shouts after as he stretches his back and walks back to his starter base; he had run out of rockets earlier that day and hadn't had time to get more.
When he walks in the door the first thing he sees is Professor Beak hanging upside down off of his perch. Grian watches the bird for a while. After a while, Grian grows tired and heads off into his bedroom.
The next morning he awakes to Mumbo shaking him, "Mumbo? Wats goin on?"
"Give him a chance to fully wake up first," Iskall chastises, Cutting off Mumbo and gently bopping him on the shoulder.
A few minutes later and Grian was more awake, "So, what's happening?"
"Um, well, look at your feet, and legs," Mumbo rushes saying.
Grian looks over at Mumbo and Iskall curiously before taking the blanket that had been draped over him off. When he sees what had happened he gasps.
He gingerly bends his knee and flinches when he sees that it's moved up a few inches. He tries flexing his toes shuddering when they bend, "So, this is really weird."
Iskall gets a look of sudden revelation on their face and runs out of the room. A few seconds later they re-enter carrying Professor Beak, "I thought your foot looked familiar, it's kinda like a parrot's."
Iskall is right, the area under Grian's knee is not unlike that of a parrot. The skin is tough and leathery. His foot has shifted to that of a tree-climbing bird. It has two toes in the front and two in the back, both equipped with wicked sharp claws that are perfect for climbing up and down trees. His ankle had stretched up a few inches and was positioned kind of awkwardly.
Grian takes a few minutes to start getting used to the awkward feeling of his legs movements. Nervously he attempts to stand, as he almost loses his balance Mumbo grabs his arms keeping him upright. A few moments later Grian realizes that he shouldn't try to extend his leg fully. As he tries to bend his leg in a way it's not supposed to. Wincing he takes a step forward.
Unsurprisingly he trips. Stumbling forwards he catches himself on the wall. At this point, Professor Beak jumps off of Iskall's shoulder and onto the floor. Where he starts making a ton of noise until everyone's looking at him. Once everyone in the room staring at him he squawks and very intently takes a step.
Iskall bursts out laughing, "Oh my gosh, he's trying to teach him to walk."
Mumbo grins as the bird walks around intently staring at Grian, "Well, that is one smart bird."
........
"Scar! Help," Grian shouts from where he was stuck hanging in one of Scars trees.
The aforementioned mayor candidate grins as he leans over the fence, "How did you do that?"
"I don't know," He squawks tugging at the vine that was caught around his ankle.
Scar gives a small smile and helps free Grian from the tree. Grian thanks Scar before he heads back to his base.
Grian lands near his door closing his elytra. He carefully steps forwards onto the wood floor of his base. Once he's in he hops forwards a bit and starts putting things away. Carefully sorting things into chests. He reaches the top row of chests and realizes that he can't quite reach it. Not wanting to bother someone he tries something that he saw Professor Beak do.
Carefully gripping the wooden wall with his talons he slowly shuffles up the wall until he reaches the chest he needs. He happily jumps off the wall and promptly falls on his face. He stands back up grumbling as he had fallen so many times in the past few days.
It's getting pretty late so he plays with Beak; by this point, Grian is pretty sure that Beak is just trying to teach him how to be a bird while they play. After he plays with Beak he eats dinner and heads off to bed.
Midway through the night, he wakes up to his lower back aching. He's able to get back to sleep and the rest of the night passes peacefully.
The next morning he gets up and almost falls over as he tugs his sweater on. As he pulls a pair of pants on; that stress has thankfully adjusted to fit his odd posing legs. He freezes as he feels something odd around his tail bone.
He turns around to try and see what had happened and gasps. He has a tail, it's only a few inches long. Immediately after noticing that he rushes towards his communicator. Calling Mumbo who agrees to meet him in a few minutes.
As Grian paces he can feel something happening in the area near the tail, it didn't hurt but it didn't feel good either. When he tries to get a look at what's happening it looks like muscles were forming in the surrounding area.
Exasperated he runs a hand through his hair before freezing. There were a bunch of tiny little bumps all over his head. Groaning he buries his head in his hands and sits down in the ground hissing in pain as he sits on top of his tail.
"You ok there?" Mumbo asks softly as he sits down next to Grian.
Grian looks up at Mumbo blinking tears away, "I thought I could handle it."
Mumbo leans over and gives him a side hug, "It'll work out, one way or another. So why did you call me over?"
"Tail," Grian explains, shifting so Mumbo could see the offending limb.
"Um, I don't want to alarm you but, it's got a bunch of little bumps on it. There are a few quill looking things as well."
"What!" Grian shouts, jumping to his feet.
"I think they're feathers, some of them have little fluffy bits at the top."
"Are they different sizes?" He asks a bit calmer than before.
"Yeah some of them are really tiny others are about the size of a melon seed."
Grian runs a hand through his hair, "Mumbo, would you take a look through my hair? I think there might be more."
Mumbo agrees and starts looking at his hair, "You've got a bunch of little feathers... Joe has a book on bird feathers, I'm going to ask if we can borrow it." He looks over at Grian who nods In agreement for getting the book.
As Mumbo starts calling Joe he walks out of the room, Grian looks over at his tail. He could definitely tell it was growing feathers now, the feathers had started growing quite rapidly. There are some really tiny gray poofy ones, ones that are slightly bigger and less poofy that are a golden brown, these ones partially cover the fluffy gray ones. Surrounding the base of the tail there are some small overlapping feathers leading up his spine that upon further inspection have both of the other ones underneath, these ones are a pale red color.
Once those three types of feathers seem to have stopped growing another type starts to grow. These ones are huge; there are about fourteen of them and they are a mess of color. The color is predominantly golden brown but there are bits of red, yellow blue and green speckled throughout.
When Grian stands to see if he can find where Mumbo went, he sees that the tail feathers almost reach his feet. By this time Mumbo walks back in saying Joe would bring the book. Then he spots Grian, "Oh."
"Yeah," Grian deadpans as his tail feathers twitch slightly