Chapter Text
Red dirt clumps up in between Grian’s fingers, gritty and warm, just as suffocating on his skin as the air is in his lungs. He brings his palms up to his ears and instantly regrets it as the gritty particles of dirt smear uncomfortably over his cheeks. They’re talking, everyone is talking, excited babbling, hoots and yelps, but Grian just wants to nurse his headache and try and figure out where he is.
“I hate the nether,” someone yells vehemently. The nether, that’s right. That’s where they all are.
“Wouldn’t know, I’ve never been,” someone else quips. “Not that I remember, anyway.”
Laughter, yelling and shouting. They all sound so familiar. He can’t place any of their voices.
“You okay?” asks someone he definitely knows, but the face – the voice – he hasn’t met them before. Or has he? “I’m Xisuma. I was in charge of the switch. I’ll be looking after you all in the new world.”
“Right,” Grian mumbles awkwardly. “I can’t remember…” He starts, but trails off, because he doesn’t even know what it is he doesn’t remember.
“It’s okay,” Xisuma smiles kindly. “None of us do. How about you sit here with Doc for a bit? He’ll look after you. I have to go see how to get out of here, don't think we usually start in the nether. Yeah?”
“Mmh,” Grian agrees limply. Xisuma is quick to scurry away. A few more people send him curious glances, a couple ask if he’s alright. He says he’s fine and waves them off. Something about their faces makes him… Angry, almost. He knows he’s lost something. He wants to know what it is.
“Nether doesn’t agree with you either?” someone ventures, interrupting his thoughts.
Grian flinches. All of a sudden he gets the feeling that he's next to someone... Cold. Terrifying, even.
The hermit slumped there is a half-goat, half-man mix, with dull green fur and patches of his body made entirely out of whirring, clanking metal. His head is leaned back against the wall, sweat beading across the furless patches of skin between flesh and robotics.
“I don’t think so,” Grian replies hesitantly. He has the sensation that something about this man is deeply wrong. He should be afraid.
But just as he’s about to push himself up and hurriedly excuse himself, a vision flashes across his mind. A terrifying mechanical beast, a laughing goat hybrid pilot, and Grian’s own wicked laughter. Whatever had happened in that past life, Grian and this man had known each other. Perhaps it had even been fun. The feeling of danger… Quietens.
“Going already?” the man sighs.
Grian has half lifted himself up, without even realising. He flops back down. “No,” he says shortly.
The man is quiet for a while, a long while, until more shrieking interrupts their vigil. “They’re excited,” he murmurs. “Running around like crazy. Would you mind seeing if they have found a way out yet? My robotics, they don’t do good in temperature changes…”
“Oh. Of course. Um – what’s your name?”
The man winces. He looks pained, and Grian can’t do anything but hover awkwardly. “Should I – fetch someone, maybe?” Grian offers hesitantly. “Xisuma knows some first aid, I think…”
“No, no. It’s Doc. I’m Doc.”
“Grian,” Grian replies.
“I know,” Doc smiles back. Strained.
True to their name, the hermits had all quickly dispersed from each other in this world, leaving only Doc and Grian at spawn – And now that he thinks about it, everyone had given Doc a very wide berth, despite stopping to check on Grian.
“I’ll go, um… Check on things, then.” He stands, a little wobbly still, and hurries away faster than necessary. Just before Doc is out of view, Grian makes the mistake of glancing back at him. Doc is still slumped against the wall, real eye closed, mechanical eye glowing faintly against the harsh light of the nearby oozing lava. He looks defeated. He looks lonely.
It’s yet another first time walking through the nether, but it doesn’t feel unfamiliar. Though he can’t remember being in this realm before, he has kept a collection of knowledge about it: That there are fortresses, hogs, and piglike creatures he can barter with for gold if he’s careful. The hot air presses around him like a wall and he’s uncomfortably dry, hopping nervously around the edges of sparking lava pools, making his way towards one of the louder groups he can hear.
“Hey, hey, red jumper,” someone waves at him. Grian doesn’t recall if he’s been told their name yet or not. “You feeling better now? We just accidentally made two halves of a portal in different places.”
“Well, that sounds silly.”
“Right?” someone else pops up, tall, slender, a glorious moustache. Grian’s head aches and he starts to feel faint again. “These lot – an absolute mess! You feeling better now?”
“I still feel a bit woozy,” Grian murmurs, leaning back against the wall.
“Oh, woah, easy,” tall, dark and handsome squawks in alarm.
“Let’s sit you down, mister,” Scar says. Oh – that was his name. Scar. “This is my buddy Mumbo. I’m Scar. Nice to meet you again.”
“I bet we were friends last time,” Mumbo claps his hands together cheerily. “I can sense it. We should set up base near each other when we’re up top.”
“Maybe we were evil,” Scar says, eyes twinkling. “Maybe we all turned insane and tried to kill each other and that’s why we had to move to a new server.”
“If we turned insane,” Grian can’t help joining in with the speculation, “Surely we wouldn’t want to leave to a new server? Delusional people want to stay delusional.”
“Well,” Mumbo declares. “I’m the most rational man alive, so clearly that can’t have been the case.”
“I doubt it,” Grian snorts.
Scar giggles too, then hugs Grian firmly before looking him firmly in the eyes. “Alright, mister, you get up. We’ve got some great memories to make in this life as well.”
Grian winces.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” he sighs. “It’s just… Sad knowing we’ll forget everything next time.”
“It’s for the better,” Scar beams. “And there’s nothing we can do about it, so let’s just – live in the moment.”
“Portal!” Mumbo yells suddenly. “They got it working!”
“Let me give you a hand,” Scar winks.
Grian suddenly, vehemently, hates how familiar Scar’s hand feels wrapped around his own. He hates that he knows exactly where the scar on the back of Scar’s right hand is without even having seen it yet – hates that he knows he’s ran his thumb over it a hundred times already. Doesn’t know when, or why, or how. Just that there is a searing gap in his heart, filled with a dozen forgotten lives.
Why does he have to forget everyone, every single time? Why do they always have to start fresh? And why – why does he still remember all the feelings he should have forgotten too?
He follows Mumbo and Scar into the overworld and as soon as their eyes are off him, he returns to the nether. A long minute is dedicated to retching by the side of a lava pool, chest heaving with sobs he refuses to let out. He knows what he’s lost. He doesn’t know what he’s lost.
And Doc is still there, forgotten, at the spawn point. Grian grimly wipes his face, straightens his jumper, and walks the long way back to Doc.
“You still alive?” he asks, squatting in front of him. The man doesn’t look it, but when Grian speaks he whirrs into life – literally, robotics twisting into action, humming faintly.
Doc rumbles a low laugh. “Still alive,” he confirms. “Didn’t want to be seen coming back for me?”
Grian shudders and refuses to meet Doc’s steady gaze. “It’s not – like that,” he deflects lamely. “I just got… Caught up.”
He’d thought about taking Scar and Mumbo to help Doc to the surface. He’d very consciously decided that was a bad idea. He doesn’t know why.
Doc ignores his discomfort and reaches out a hand. The metal of his fingers is hot, so hot it almost burns Grian and he yelps. Doc sighs and offers his other hand instead. Grian pulls him up, as far as he can, but the goat hybrid is far bigger than Grian and quickly chooses to lean his weight on the wall rather than against Grian, who barely reaches his chest.
“So,” Grian says, after he realises that they’re a third of the way to the portal and the silence is already insufferable. “Aaaany base plans?”
Doc grunts. “Ice,” he says.
“Right. That – that because it’s too hot here?”
“No.”
Grian winces. Neither of them make another sound except for when Grian squeaks as a bit of lava spits onto him.
Seeing the overworld feels even better this second time. He doesn’t even spare Doc another thought as he hurries away, ready to start searching for the perfect spot for a base.
The faint strands of Scar’s singing lures him to a mountainside cavern, and as he strolls around and listens to the echoes of his footsteps inside the cave, he decides this will be his home.
The rest of the world fades out: Grian stands in his cave, looking around, and his mind begins to paint.
There, a greenhouse. There, a trade hall. If he works hard, he can encourage moss and plants to grow, and there’s water near the back so he can start a small farm up. A staircase up to the surface wouldn’t be a bad idea either. A bedroom there, a domed top – stained glass painting a patterned floor with dapples of colour.
As days pass, he loses himself in the flurry of gathering resources, planting moss, hacking away at the stone entrance until it’s shaped the way he wants it to be. He hauls logs, digs, builds them up, and slowly the skeleton of a greenhouse begins to take shape, forming the vague shadow of the image in his mind.
“Morning, Grian,” hollers Cleo, making her way into his base entirely uninvited.
“Morning, Cleo,” Grian hums, hand on his chin. “Do you think I should tint the glass? I can remake it, I think.”
“Ooh, maybe,” she shrugs, and slaps him hard on the back.
“Ow,” Grian groans, doubling over. “What was that?”
“It’s a massage technique,” Cleo sniffs innocently. “Haven’t you heard? It’s all the rage. Anyway, we’ve barely seen you around. Mumbo keeps complaining that you haven’t visited him yet even though he’s so close by.”
“Oh, really?” Grian hums. “I’ve been busy… And I don’t really know him yet.” The words feel wrong in his mouth. Mumbo is so dear to him. Mumbo, the stranger.
“Of course you do,” Cleo says, which is exactly what he was hoping she wouldn’t say. “We all know that we probably used to be friends. So come hang out with us. We’ll make new memories soon enough.”
I don’t want new memories, Grian mouths while Cleo turns around to admire one of the rooms he’s working on. Not before fully forgetting the old ones.
“I’ll go check out everyone’s bases,” he says, hoping this will appease her. “How does that sound?”
“Sounds like a great idea,” Cleo smiles. “Oh – come and see the back of Mumbo’s base. Gem showed me it the other day - It’s atrocious.”
Grian laughs. “Backs of builds are hard. I hate doing them.” Even though he doesn’t recall it. Or maybe he does, in shadowy memories. A manor house, unfinished.
Cleo cackles. “I knew there was a reason it made me think of you.”
Grian clenches his teeth hard. It would be better if they didn’t remember at all. After all, there’s this half-hearted knowledge of who they all used to be but that’s it, really. Their friendships are all just… Someone else’s remnants.
He’s distracted, even though Cleo is trying her best to cheer him up. Even Mumbo’s base only teases a half-hearted chuckle from him.
She gives up eventually and leaves him be. Grian picks his way back down the steep slope of his base, gasping in alarm the few times he stumbles and slips a few metres downwards, but he makes it down unharmed.
He looks at his base properly.
It’s taking shape, yes. But it feels hollow. Tools and sawdust are scattered everywhere, furnaces, chests, and not a single place to rest.
He decides he ought to make himself a bed, but at he digs through his stash of wood, he finds instead that he takes out a slender branch and starts crafting a fishing rod, at first out of forgotten habit, but then intentionally.
Bait, a small chest, and he suddenly feels… Better. Like he’s someone again, not just the crumbs of another person. He’s Grian.
He fishes outside. His first cast feels like his thousandth, and he smiles into the late afternoon sun, settling down on the grass by the river.
One, two, three, ten salmon, squirming in his bucket, and he drags over a small furnace to begin baking them for later.
A low, familiar voice echoes over the hill.
“Do you remember ~” echoes like gunshots. “The twenty-first night – in September ~”
Thump, yelp, silence.
Grian hides a smile. Scar, sweet Scar, always so easily distracted, so clumsy. Dear Scar who Grian trusts with all his soul and knows so intimately. Who Grian has only met a handful of times.
He digs his fingers into the earth, feels the crumbling soil, the way the dirt adheres to his fingers. So much less sticky then the nether-mud. It’s almost pleasant. He breathes in and out and the wind kindly tucks his hair behind his ear for him, carrying away Scar’s resumed singing.
“I don’t remember,” Grian whispers under his breath.
He should go say hello to Scar, ask what he’s working on. But though he knows they are close, have always ended up close, he can’t. Because why would he, when he’ll just forget him in the next server anyway? Why would he?
As Scar’s singing grows louder, Grian hides away back in his cave. He presses himself into the damp wall behind a loose boulder while Scar looks for him, and only leaves his hiding spot when Scar is long gone. He breathes out a shaky sigh of relief and picks up his rod again.
There is a pool at the back of his cave fed by an underwater stream. There are fewer fish, but for the sake of privacy…
Something about fishing is achingly familiar. The callouses on his hands meld with the rough wood of the rod, a perfect fit, a tool that has always belonged in his hands.
The moon comes up, shedding grey light across the still water, and still Grian fishes – fruitlessly now. And then Mumbo wanders over, several hours into his moonlight vigil.
“Fishing again, buddy?” Mumbo laughs.
It’s so easy to get to know Mumbo. He just acts like they’ve always been close, pretends they both remember their past lives, even if all they’re left with is gut instinct.
“Again?” Grian muses. “Do I… Fish often?”
“Feels like you do,” Mumbo shrugs, and sits down next to him. “Oh, it’s cold,” he says, wrapping his long arms around himself.
“You can get a blanket from the chest over there.” He motions with the rod to the other end of the cave, where he's carved out a small space for himself.
“Don’t need one,” Mumbo sniffs, sidling closer. “I have my buddy Grian for warmth.”
“Hmm.” He lets him sit close anyway, leaning against him in the silence. Eventually Grian reels in the empty hook, places the fishing rod down, and stretches his back out with several sharp pops and an explosive sigh.
“Even if I did fish much last time,” he says, “It’s not as if I’d remember.”
“Aw, buddy,” Mumbo sighs, and unwraps one of his arms from himself to wrap it around Grian instead. “Sometimes, knowing we lost something, even if we don’t know what…”
“It’s a lot,” Grian mumbles, and sticks his face into Mumbo’s shoulder.
“You’re shivering,” Mumbo whispers, and if he can tell it’s partly from a sudden, exhausted rush of tears, he doesn’t make any mention of it. “Where do you sleep?”
“Wherever there’s a flat enough surface and a blanket,” Grian says, voice muffled. Mumbo is so comfortable. So warm. Such a good friend. It only deepens the feeling of something being... Gone. “I don’t have a bed.”
“Well, you’re frozen,” Mumbo tuts. “Come on, come check out my geese with me, the walk will warm us up.”
“Eh – geese?” Grian asks, momentarily startled out of his melancholy.
“Yeah, geese!” Mumbo laughs. He always sounds a little surprised when he laughs. Grian has missed it so very much that it hurts. “Geese, geese, I’ve had geese on the mind, come and look at them with me, I built them all, it’s been taking me weeks, I mean, trying to build that high up -”
“Alright, alright,” Grian agrees, rolling his eyes, and taking Mumbo’s helping hand as he stands up. “Oh, goodness, I feel faint,” he blinks, trying to get the stars from his eyes while Mumbo holds him steady.
“Hungry?” Mumbo asks, already tapping away at the small screen on his wrist to summon the item before reaching into his inventory bag and pulling out some bread. “I have some other things too. Um. Cake. Fish. You have plenty fish, okay, maybe not.”
“Bread’s good,” Grian says, taking it and nibbling on it as they walk. The cave is cold, but outside it is even colder, and the wind is brushing icy cold against their faces.
“Doc settled down that way,” Mumbo says, gesturing vaguely. “We’ve been getting really cold wind from there. Something about an ice kingdom.”
“Oh. Yeah. He seemed really… Cold.”
“As far as I know, that sums him up,” Mumbo murmurs. “Not that I know much.” Grian doesn’t bother to comment.
Mumbo’s base is nearby and they stand outside together, shivering, as Mumbo points out the silhouettes of the flapping mechanical geese he’s built, and shows him a few ground-level earlier prototypes he’d cycled through. It’s fascinating, but exhaustion has finally snagged Grian by the hair and is dragging him downwards.
“I should go,” Grian yawns. He’ll wander back home, slump down next to the pond, and wake half-frozen in the morning.
“Just one more thing,” Mumbo pleads. “My sketches, they’re inside, come look.”
How can Grian refuse? He wearily trudges after Mumbo, entering his ramshackle hut and standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.
“Just a sec while I set up a fire, I’m frozen,” Mumbo whistles, already with an armful of firewood. “Sit on the sofa, would you, you’re looming over me. I’m getting all nervous.”
Grian snorts. “You’re the last person I’d be looming over, Mumbo.” Even bent over the fire, Mumbo is taller than Grian at full height. But he gets on the sofa anyway, and sneaks the crumpled up blanket around himself. Mumbo spots him taking it and waves a hand happily.
“Wrap up nice and warm, I’ll just make sure this is going full steam before getting my sketches out, okay?”
“Mhm,” Grian nods, resting his head on the sofa arm. Mumbo starts talking about redstone. It’s boring, so Grian tunes it out.
He only realises he’s been tricked into sleeping somewhere warm and comfortable when he wakes up the next morning, at which point Mumbo convinces him to help him in the wheat field over the next few days and Grian, bemused by the underhanded tactics, agrees.
In between helping Mumbo out, he fishes. And when he’s not fishing or helping Mumbo (empty gaps of time that seldom occur), he catches wind of an uncomfortable rumour. Grian is fishing again.
But he doesn’t remember an again, and neither does anyone else. He just knows that he feels comforted by the rote actions, and that the others have all so far reacted with alarm followed by confusion.
“Must’ve been some server last time,” Grian comments to Mumbo while they’re working in the wheat field together. “Or the time before. Everyone’s being really weird about fishing.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mumbo chirps. “Do you reckon two windmills or three would be better?”
“I don’t think you were a builder,” Grian pouts. “I’m sure of it. I’m too impressed by you for this to be normal.”
Mumbo laughs, a hearty and welcome sound. “Trust your gut,” he winks. “If there’s anything I’ve learned each time, it’s to trust my gut. You’re a friend – Doc is scary – Scar is prone to being stupid.”
“Scar proved himself stupid about ten minutes into the server,” Grian replies, heart aching with fondness that he doesn’t recall growing. He simply feels, feels it all, and doesn’t know where anything came from. “Mumbo,” he says, and Mumbo briefly stops work with an inquisitive sound, shading his eyes as he looks over. “I’m really getting the early season blues,” Grian admits quietly. “It’s bad this time.”
“Bud,” Mumbo says sympathetically, brushing dirt from his hands before trampling a good deal of wheat on his way to wrap Grian in a warm, comfortable, and very sweaty hug. “I know. I know. But… I’m looking forwards to seeing the team we’ll make this time round.”
“Why do we have to forget?” Grian whispers into Mumbo’s armpit, and regrets breathing in afterwards. “Why do I have to lose you all every time?”
“I’m still here,” Mumbo says, squeezing Grian tight. “Always will be.”
They stay holding each other for a moment longer, before Grian squirms out of the embrace and takes his first whiff of fresh air in what might as well have been eternity. “I think we both need a shower,” he grumbles.
“Oi. Not til we’ve finished tilling the rest,” Mumbo laughs. “You’re trying to get off work early, huh?”
“You’re not paying me!” Grian screeches. “I’m doing this for free!”
“Nah, nah,” Mumbo laughs. “It’s my good lucks and charm that I’m paying you with. Look at this -” he flexes, dropping his hoe, and whoops as he dives after it.
Grian cackles and imitates Mumbo’s startled face, his panicked hand motions.
It will all be okay, he thinks with a smile. He will forget the old emotions, soon, and revel in the newfound friendships he will get to experience for the first time yet again.
And yet, he does not forget.
In the privacy of the night, swaddled in the depth of his cave, he fishes. Over and over, catching little, but comforted by it nonetheless.
On a particularly bad night, when he has tried to go to bed twice already but tossed and turned so much that he gave up and went back to fishing, Mumbo comes to his base. He creeps in with ghostly silence, uncharacteristically stealthy, and makes a startled little noise as he sees Grian awake, fishing by the blue lantern-light.
“Grian,” he yelps.
Grian, startled out of his mind, clutches at his heart. “Jeez, Mumbo,” he gasps. “You scared the life out of me.”
“Wh – what are you doing up?” Mumbo asks, sounding equally aghast.
“What are you doing in my base?”
“I – I was just,” Mumbo fumbles, gesturing vaguely around, before his shoulders sink in defeat. “It’s a full moon,” he says helplessly. “I couldn’t sleep. Too bright, I think.”
“Moon big,” Grian mutters under his breath. He doesn’t know why. And he doesn’t know why the words scare him. Mumbo doesn’t hear, or pretends not to hear, but he sits next to Grian anyway.
“You’ll catch a cold, sitting without a blanket,” he says.
“I’ll be fine.”
“The amount of ill and sniffling hermits I’ve come across at spawn thinking respawning would cure them is horrific,” Mumbo tuts. “And that’s just this season. Anyway, come and check out my base, I changed how I want the windmills to work.”
Grian sighs and gets up, offering Mumbo a hand, before looking outside the cave.
Moon big.
He shudders, something primal taking over. “I’m tired,” he says simply, and turns his back on the moon. Mumbo’s face falls. Grian pushes past him, heading back to his fishing rod, before changing his mind and pivoting on his heels. “Help me light a fire. And stay a while.”
He doesn’t look back at Mumbo but hears a relieved chuckle, and the footsteps he hears are more than just the echoes of his own strides.
By the time the fire is spitting and crackling in the furnace, they still haven’t exchanged another word. Mumbo has methodically cracked what may have come close to every bone in his body. He begins to drum his fingers.
Grian folds his hands neatly in his lap and stares at the flames. “It’s warming up now,” he says dully. The tension immediately drains from Mumbo and he flops backwards to lean his head on the back of the sofa.
“Yeah, your base is freezing. I can’t believe you didn’t try warm it up sooner. At least have it toasty for when you’re ready to go to bed.”
“Oh, um. I have a pile of blankets outside for that. I just put a bed in for…” He’s about to say for you, but bites his tongue. “For – for decorative purposes,” he stutters out.
“You were just gonna sleep in the cold?” Mumbo asks incredulously. “Grian!”
“I – It’s not so bad,” Grian defends himself. “I mean, I get – fresh air – and the sun wakes me up…”
“Grian,” Mumbo repeats, softer this time. “How much do you sleep?”
Grian glances over. Mumbo’s eyes, dark and serious, are trained on his face. He winces. “I sleep,” he says quietly. “Some.” Mumbo has aimed his guess perfectly.
“So that’s why you’re so exhausted every time I see you.” Mumbo sighs, and wraps an arm around him. “You silly goose.”
“You sound like Scar,” Grian murmurs.
He’s dozing off against Mumbo’s shoulder when he’s rudely awoken by a series of bumps, thuds, and yelps.
“Speak of the devil, I think,” Mumbo whispers.
“Scar,” Grian groans.
Indeed, it’s Scar that stumbles through Grian’s unfinished build, hair sticking out all over the place, clothes raggedy, and holding a saddle in his hand, before it gets stuffed into his inventory.
“Oh my goodness graciousness, the stairs in this place,” Scar announces as he flops down to sit next to the fire and shakes himself out like a dusty dog. “Take my leg clean off if I don’t step right!”
“Why is everyone in my base,” Grian groans.
“Yeah, why are you here?” Mumbo echoes, managing to sound a lot more pleased than Grian did about the appearance of a dishevelled Scar.
“Ahhh, I don’t know,” Scar grins, bright as ever. “My base is a minefield, it’s awful, Doc put the creakies all over it – and I fell in a pit when I was looking at the moon and it reminded me of you but then I fell down the stairs and that reminded me even more of you, so, I’m here!”
“I swear, the full moon makes you all crazy.” Grian can’t even manage to sound annoyed anymore, because he just… He’s so warm, and he’s not alone, and it’s so very late.
“Get on the sofa with us, Scar,” Mumbo laughs. “Come on, there’s room.”
There isn’t any room, as a matter of fact, but the three of them manage to squish together in a horrible tangle of limbs and, cocooned in forgotten friendships, Grian sleeps easy that night. The only fragments of his dreams that he remembers the next morning are a sodden book on a pier – a looming moon – and a deep, foreboding pit in the ground.
In the morning, Mumbo has cheerfully untangled himself and gone off to work on his base but Scar remains curled up on the side of the sofa. Grian smiles despite himself and rests a hand in his hair. In his mind, he hears the trickle of sand and smells acrid gunpowder.
“Scar,” he says, shaking the sleepy hermit. “Get up. Help me build an iron farm, I need to move where I put it.”
“I’m tired,” Scar whines. “I can’t ever sleep because of the creakies.”
“The creakies?” Grian asks, folding his arms.
“Doc put them there.” Scar raises his head and pouts miserably. He really does look tired, thinks Grian with a softening heart. Dark circles, streaks of dirt, scratches on his cheek. “They’re all over my base and I can’t get rid of them.”
Exhaustion is evident in his voice, and Grian takes pity on him. “Alright,” he sighs. “Just rest here. I’ll help you get rid of them later. And – why? Why would Doc do that?”
“Apparently I pranked him on the last server,” Scar pouts. “I can't even remember it! I would never, Grian, would I?” He blinks a few times, aiming for innocent but landing more on scheming.
“Yes, you would,” Grian smiles. When he turns away from Scar, his smile drops like a brick. He only barely keeps the accusation from his voice. “Do you think he remembers something?”
“He’s an odd one,” Scar says evasively. He might as well have said yes outright.
That settles it: Grian needs to pay the old goat a visit.