Gifted: A Hermitcraft AU [ON HIATUS]

2: Hearing Screams

It was slowly growing late in the afternoon, and Grian had finally finished dismantling Mumbo's door prank.

Stupid hermit challenges.

The redstone door monstrosity has been fun to vibe with... for about five seconds. It was causing so much lag he couldn't walk two feet without tripping! Plus, he could barely hear his own thoughts over its noise.

But it was gone now, a patch of fresh jungle grass growing in its place. Grian pulled in a deep breath, taking in the serenity of his starter area. The jungle was an exciting new change from last season, with its humidity and lush vegetation.

Grian gathered up all of the doors and started making his way inside.

That's when he heard the scream.

At first he thought it was his parrot, who'd mimicked some of his (embarrassing) yells and screams before.

"Professor Beak? That you?" Grian looked around his doorframe to see the royal blue parrot perched calmly, looking like he couldn't care less. Muffled yelling came next. Okay. That was definitely not professor beak.

Grian dropped his armful of doors, rushing back outside. The sound was coming from behind the hobbit hole, deeper in the jungle. He couldn't make out any words, or tell exactly who it was though.

Though Grian wasn't sure of the situation at all, there was one thing he was sure of. He needed to help.

He jumped into the air, feeling his bones shrink and hollow as he shapeshifted. A few moments later, a fluffy brown barn owl speckled with intermittent red feathers flapped in the air.

Grian tilted his head back and forth, allowing his advanced owl hearing to take in the sound. It was someone calling for help, he quickly realized. Over and over, interrupted occasionally by "stop, Iskall, stop!" The voice was distinctly recognizable as Tango.

what?

That didn't make a lot of sense. No sense at all really maybe Iskall...
Well certainly not!

Grian shot further into the sky, zipping past his hobbit hole and towards the noise. He pleaded that he had misheard something, but, well, coming from a creature who can hear a mouse scurry from miles away... that was unlikely. The only way to know for sure would be to find out, right now.

Gliding over the treetops, he kept his eyes peeled. The noises were coming from fairly deep in the jungle, sort of near Stress' area. In fact, Grian could make out her chimney smoke in the distance.

The winding river of the jungle was just below him, and he finally caught a glimpse of what looked like people. Grian swooped down to perch in the high branches of a tree observing Iskall with his limited, obstructed view. Just as he set his claws on the branch, Tango let out a high pitched shriek followed by a splash sound.

Grian jumped off the branch again, circling towards the forest floor. A few feet from the ground he flipped back human, landing with a quiet thud of his tennis shoes.

Iskall stood at the bank of the river, swaying on their feet.

"Iskall?! What's going on?" Grian shouted just as Iskall collapsed into the grass below.

Grian rushed to the Swede's side. They lay flat on their back, staring blankly into the sky and breathing heavily. Grian shook their shoulder lightly. "Iskall!"

Admittedly, Grian was pretty panicked. Iskall was in a daze and Tango was nowhere to be seen. But fortunately for him, Iskall shot to coherence almost immediately. He suddenly sat up straight, and Grian jumped back a little.

"Hhhholy notch-"

"Iskall what happened?" Grian interrupted. 

"Nononononono- NO!" Iskall jumped to their feet, hands nervously gripping into their hair. Whoa, Grian thought, was it something he'd said? 

"Iskall—"

"Grian go get Stress, you have to get Stress!" There was a crazed, yet distant look in their eyes. 

"No, Iskall where's Tango, I heard him, what did you DO?!" Grian stomped his foot a little, making a confused gesture.

"Please" Iskall begged, holding their hands out. "I'll explain I promise you just have to get her NOW!"

The urgency in Iskall's voice was real, they were scared. Grian gave up trying to argue. He simply nodded and jumped into the air again, not looking back as he heard a second splash. There were a lot of things he could assume, but he wasn't going to, not just yet. Grian whizzed, owl form, through the dense trees, dodging and weaving through branches.

Finally, Stress' clearing came into view.

————
(A/N)

It's almost winter break! Hang in there! (obviously this won't matter if you're from the future, so have a lovely day, night, week, or weekend.)

Big sigh of relief. I'd intended for this chapter to be a bit longer, but I'm thinking the rewrite of chapter three will just be longer instead.

Goodbye my guys, gals, nonbinary pals, neo amigos, and gender fluid peeps.

<3 Soe Silver