Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Grian was flying back to his base from the Barge, he had much to do before the opening of his newest business venture.

Landing down by his ever-growing chest monster and grabbing and emptying some shulkers, he paused. Something didn't feel right. He squinted at the shulkers as he thought about what had happened previously in the day, which was only a few hours, scrutinizing every detail. He talked with Scar and Mumbo for a bit, then stocked the Barge(and realized he was out of sand), and now he is at his mansion base, looking through shulkers.

What was wrong? Well certainly not something he.. that felt wrong.

"...That might be it." he thought aloud, looking away from the shulker in his hand and moving to the portal so he could get to an area for the sand faster. "but that's a problem for future Grian, I need sAAAnd right now. Whatever that is can wait."

He chuckled to himself as he made his way to a desert.

~~~

Over the course of the next couple of days, Grian talked to other hermits between obtaining materials for, planning, and building his newest quests for the Barge. Today, he was walking through the shopping district, thinking of some new pranks to pull. He could see that Mayor Scar was making steady progress with replacing the mycelium with grass, there were only a few patches of the mushrooms left. He thought that, with time, whatever problem from the other day would go away, alas it had not.

"Hey, G-man!" Rendog called, running over to him. Grian frowned at his words, he hoped Ren didn't notice. Wait, why was he upset? It's not like he didn't want to see Ren, Ren's awesome! fixing his expression, he smiled at Ren as he approached.

"What's up, Ren?" Grian asked.

"I haven't seen you in a bit! How are ya doing?"

"Good, good, I was just thinking of some new pranks to do." He didn't seem to have the same energy about him, and he hoped it wasn't noticable. "How are you?"

"Im good as well, just getting materials for my base." he spoke, "Oh, have you restocked yet?"

"Yea, I did yesterday, so there should still be supplies." Grian responded.

"Alright, thanks dude!" there it was again, a twinge of some sort of upsetness. "See ya later!"

Ren went on his way, and Grian was left to think. Why were these masculine terms just now bothering him. It hadn't been that way before, had it? No.. it had...

He decided that if he were to have another a gender crisis, the shopping district is not the best place, so he flew home.

~~~

As he got to the safety of his hobbit hole, he let himself think freely. Sitting on the ledge of Professor Beak's enclosure, he thought back to how happy he got when he played as Ariana Griande or any other feminine roles. But he also remembered back in highschool, before everything happened, when he would spend hours at night researching about pronouns online because something about he/him wasn't always okay. Grian couldn't remember what he had found, but there were some terms that he liked. Too bad he didn't get the chance to tell anyone before highschool happened, not even Taurtis. Because of the hostile enviroment, he learned to repress the winces and any other outward indicators when he/him didn't feel right.

But, what did he learn going down the rabbit hole before? Grian cant seem to remember...

"Okay," Gri took a breath. "Gonna solve this Sherlock Grian style. What do I know and what tests can I do to verify, then I'll draw a conclusion from that."

Grian sat down at the desk and pulled out a blank notebook and started writing things as he(she?) spoke.

"What do I know? Well, lets see... I seem to like being reffered to with masculine terms sometimes, but not all the time. I enjoy being seen as a woman as well, but its not always. Sometimes I feel as if neither fit right at all either. I also had this problem before in highsc- wait," Grian paused. "I still have some of my highschool stuff!"

Grian dropped down to the floor next to his(their?) bed and grabbed the box of highschool things.

There it was, in between a picture of grian, sam, and taurtis and a blue and red friendship bracelet, was grian's old phone. She(?) picked it up and tried to turn it on. Somehow, it wasnt dead yet??

Grian opened it and found the internet, and looked up one of the things they(?) remembered from researching before. The pronoun dressing room.

Grian opened the page and was taken aback by the amount of pronouns in the generated area, grian had forgotten about neopronouns

Grian inserted his name and put in she/her pronouns in the boxes. That felt right, much better than he/him

She decided to try more, going through the whole list of pronouns on the website and writing down the ones that either felt right or grian would be okay with in seperate areas. As she went through she remembered parts of her previous searches before highschool.

At the end grian was left with 5 sets of pronouns that she loved or remembered loving: They/them, she/her, he/him, voi/void, and chir/chirp

at the moment though, she/they/chirp felt right. After a bit more digging they also found the term genderfluid, meaning that someone's gender identity changes overtime.

She sighed in relief, it was like a weight was lifted off of their chest. After who knows how long, Grian figured themself out somewhat. Chir was excited to tell chirs friends

Wait...

And the weight is back at full force..

How will her friends react? How will she tell them? What if they hate chirp for who chir is? What if- Grian took a deep breath "I'll just tell mumbo, i could send him a letter or text him." chir fidgeted with chirs feathers "yea, ill just ask him to meet me here, yeah thatll work."

Grian started typing, erasing every other word as they went trying to figure out what to say. After about 5 minutes they ended up with "hey, meet me at my hobbit hole please"

With a deep breath, she sent it and then turned off her comm and started thinking of what to say.

Chapter Text

Mumbo was afk on one of his farms when he was woken from the trance by a notification on his comm

>Grian to you : hey, meet me at my hobbit hole please

Why was G in the hobbit holes? They'd stopped being hobbits for awhile now and Grian never really went back to his old bases. Maybe he found something cool? Or maybe he was pranking him.

Whatever the case, Mumbo figured he'd go see what the pesky bird was up to. He put his gear back on and his things in his inventory, send back an "ok" and started to fly over to the hobbit holes.

--

Grian was a bit panicked, but as she heard rockets approaching she couldn't think of a way out, which increased chirs anxiety.

What were they even going to say? How would Mumbo react?

Professor beak waddled over and flew up to Grian's shoulder, trying to get chirs attention.

"Spoon, spoon" professor beak repeated, trying to distract Grian.

"Peskyy biird" Grian laughed, petting the bird lightly. That did calm her down a bit.

After a few moments of calm, they heard Mumbo land and their anxiety shot up once more.

"Grian?" chir heard from chirps front door, along with a knock.

"Deep breaths, Mumbo is your friend, just tell him, it'll be okay." Grian whispered as she got up, attempting to reassure themself. They took a deep breath and opened the door with a smile. "Mumbo! hello!"

"'ello mate" Mumbo greeted. Grian ushered him next to professor beak's safe space and grabbed her book off of her desk, making sure not to loose her page. Chir stumbled chirps way in.

"Now, you're probably wondering why I gathered you two here today." Grian stuttered, she was shaking, and they knew Mumbo could tell. Professor Beak chirped lightly, attempting to comfort Grian.

Mumbo was sure that this was a prank at first, but seeing how nervous Grian was convinced him otherwise. Grian always held himself with much confidence and right now he is shaking and stumbling over himself and his words.

"I, well figured out that- well i've sort of known but- uhm," Grian paused, continuing to look down at the notebook.

"Take your time, G," Mumbo replied softly, whatever it was, it must be important.

Grian took a deep breath and closed chirps eyes, "I'm genderfluid."

Mumbo paused for a moment, letting the words register in his brain. gender.. fluid? fluidity between genders... oh! "Thats awesome, G! 'err sorry, do you use a different name now?"

Grian smiled as they let out a sigh of relief. "Still Grian I think, but I use different pronouns and terms. Currently feminine and gender-neutral terms and she/they/chirp pronouns."

"Chirp? what's that?"

"Neopronouns!" Grian smiled, excited to inform their friend "instead of they/them/theirs/themself or the binary sets, chirp neos are chir/chirp/chirps/chirps/chirpself!"

"Woh, I'd never heard of those before" Mumbo looked to be processing it all, and somehow Grian didn't feel nervous about that. Mumbo smiled, "It's great that you've figured yourself out, G. How do I know what pronouns to use each day? and do any of the others know?"

"I think for now just ask, I do remember a cool thing about having bracelets that signify which pronouns and terms though so I might look into making some." chir responded, "No one else knows yet."

"Alright, Thank you for telling me, Grian!" Mumbo smiled, "I'm really proud of you for being able to tell me."

"I- I think I need a hug." Grian stuttered out, overwhelmed by the positive reaction and the relief that followed suit. Mumbo walked over to her and gave her a hug, letting Grian fall into him.