Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Time was blurring together.

The universe had a twisted kind of humor. It kept Mumbo alive against all odds, let him survive the change, and then made it impossible to live. It wouldn’t allow him to move on, his code frozen in the night his heart stopped beating. He remained static while the rest of the world kept going, kept changing.

At first, he tried to hold onto a daily routine. He would wake up with the stars and go to sleep when the sun threatened to peek above the horizon. Every night for a few weeks – or was it years? – he would go and watch his family’s server portal. Mumbo was not welcome there anymore, not after the night had taken hold of him. Yet he couldn’t let go. He craved comfort – contact, someone to take care of him – but the world stripped all of that away. It turned his living family against him, and offered no undead one in return. Only the wooden spoon his father had carved remained.

The newly changed vampire felt like a toddler left to its own devices. He held onto the familiar sight of the portal, never leaving the shadows of the lush green canopy around the little clearing. Every night he became lost in the sounds – the wind in the leaves, the frantic little hearts of forest animals, the hum of the server portal. He breathed in the smells – the damp moss, the death of prey animals, the unnatural scent of his former home behind the portal. And every night he had hoped to see his family. Instead, he watched the portal slowly crumble, the runes go dark, the hum go silent, the smell gradually dispersing until only the crumbled portal frame remained. It was soon covered by moss, becoming part of the surrounding forest, trees slowly encroaching on the clearing that was once maintained by the careful hand of his sister.

Who knew what had happened to Mumbo’s family?

Perhaps they left the server behind after the loss of their son, perhaps he watched the portal long enough for them to grow old, perhaps the server code became too unstable to support itself and it collapsed in on itself and took them down with it. Even after the portal’s hum faded, he stayed—cradling the rune-stone in his hand. Its surface was damp, cold and smooth under his fingers. He stayed until others – unnatural creatures of night, like him – found him.

“What is that? A little fledgling?” A mocking voice startled Mumbo. They must have been utterly silent in their approach before their voice suddenly appeared barely a meter behind him. There was no sound. He didn’t hear their hearts – had come to rely on the beats to warn him of anything nearby. “Hmmm, what are you doing in our territory, darling?”

“Leave it be, it’s not ours,” came another voice to the right of him. The woman it came from gave Mumbo an unimpressed look. “It’s already starving, no need for us to interfere. It’s not going to live much longer. The poor little thing was an obvious mistake. Even its sire did not keep it – let the universe take care of it.” Maybe he was a mistake for the vampires. Maybe that was why he was abandoned and not welcomed by the one that made him – way too little, way too weak, just a mistake.

The male looked at Mumbo with crazed crimson eyes that rooted him in place. “Well then, why not put it out of its misery?” He came closer, hand gripping Mumbo’s jaw, forcing his mouth to open. Mumbo stayed frozen, mind barely in present. “It still has the changeling fangs. I can’t ignore this opportunity, now can I, Kalma?”

Mumbo was harshly pulled back into the present with the pain that blossomed in place of his now-missing right fang. He wailed and struggled fruitlessly to pull away. “Balor.” The woman’s voice dripped with bored disgust. “We have to keep going if we want to make it back in time to not burn. We’re here to cull threats, not parent the night’s mistakes. The day will not be kind to it, it will be dead soon enough.”

If Mumbo were not occupied by clutching his jaw and trying to see through lights dancing across his vision from pain, he would see the man wore an almost comical look of offence. “But the changeling fangs, Kalma – they’re rare. You can’t expect me to just leave them.”

“Get the other one then, and let’s go. Leave it to its own destiny.”

“If you insist… Let’s not keep it waiting!” the man’s attention quickly turned back to whimpering Mumbo. “Shhhh, darling,” he mocked, “there’s still something you can give me.” He forced his hand back into Mumbo’s mouth despite the young vampire’s protests. It did not take much – Mumbo was far weaker than the clearly matured vampire – and his other fang was forcibly pulled out. A second scream cut through the forest. The fangs that he despised but at the same time were the thing allowing him to feed easily were ripped from him as if they were nothing more than an annoying weed to be pulled out.

“Happy? Now leave it,” was the last thing he heard from the pair. He was left alone, in pain, with only a few hours before dawn.

Without the den of a forest creature living nearby, he would have never survived the day with its sunlight. His hunger soon got the better of him as he killed the inhabitants of his temporary shelter. Though, without the fangs, Mumbo had a hard time feeding. He had to tear open the animal’s chest and squeeze its heart for blood. He was lucky, he supposed, the universe was so determined to keep him alive.

He stayed there for days until he could no longer stand the smell of the rot from the carcass next to him. He emerged from his hideout weak but still standing. Mumbo gave the grown-over clearing a last longing look. The smell of his home was now long gone. The vampire took the portal stone and wooden spoon he let go of in the struggle and in the blanket of night left his human life behind. He could not return. If more vampires found him, he wouldn’t survive again.

It took more than six full moons for his fangs to grow again.

His nails were always stained red as he set to hunt under the blanket of darkness. He was the predator now, nothing he could do about it. His code was written into the unnatural thing he now was and so he became one with night, a lone vampire without coven to come back to. Every day, Mumbo slept curled around the spoon like a child. He fed on forest animals until he became strong enough to feel a bit more like himself again. The vampire knew he couldn’t live in forest caves forever. He considered looking for other vampires, perhaps they would take him in. But every time he remembered the echo of a voice – “It’s not ours,” she said “let the universe take care of it.” – and concluded that he would not be welcomed among his kind. Seemed like community was another thing that was not to be his. That left the town.

The time blurred together. His body remained eternally seventeen, but by now, he must surely be considered older – eighteen, probably much older judging by the overgrowth that claimed the portal to his former home. That meant he could get an apartment in the town. Yes, natural players, especially the human ones, would hunt him down with spikes if they knew what he was. But they did not need to know. So he slowly crept closer to the bustling town, making sure not to be seen in tattered clothes stained with blood.

For a time he observed the players going about. The town seemed larger than he remembered, bigger and busier. It spread wide from the center with its bell-tower. There were still people walking through the streets illuminated by torches after nightfall. Every night the vampire lost himself in the sounds – the bangs of shutters as they were closed for the night, the beating hearts of players, the crackle of fire they made to keep warm. He breathed in the smells – the damp dirt from roads, the sweat of people working all day, the smoke rising from chimneys. And every night he waited for the opportunity that would surely present itself.

And it came. One night he washed himself in the stream, the water turning crimson, and stole a suit left to dry in the sunlight and forgotten just to be taken in the moonlight. The suit made Mumbo look older – though how old he actually was, he didn’t know – than his lanky, forever-seventeen body. He took another two full moons to find the courage to face people. When he finally prepared himself, he went to the town square. He needed money to get a place to live that was not a damp cave. There was only one place that he would be able to find money in now, in the middle of the night – the tavern.

He tried to steel himself, and before he could talk himself out of it, he entered. The heat, the sweat, the flowing blood in their veins overwhelmed him right then and there on the threshold. Though the vampire did not stand frozen for long. “Outta the way, ya stick!” He was shoved aside by one of the drunken patrons.

There were people everywhere, drowning him in body heat. The crowd pulled him in mostly one direction, towards one of the tables swarmed with cheering men. They all tried to push through to the front, where two men sat across from each other, blades flashing in a game of five-finger fillet. All around the other patrons made bets, stomped, and clapped to the rhythm, splashing Mumbo with the sickly-sweet-smelling mead in their hands.

“…all my fingers, the knife goes…” sang the men while trying to not lose their fingers.

“Chop, chop, chop!” The crowd around joined in the singing, one of the surrounding patrons screaming next to his ear. The yelling made the vampire feel as if his eardrums might burst. The beat was progressively getting faster and the yelling louder. All around him the crowd cheered them both on until it all went eerily silent. At least Mumbo’s ears stopped working for a second or two while the men around him erupted in the loudest cheer yet as one of the players at the table stabbed through his middle finger with full force. Of course, he thought, the universe would decide to taunt him right here and now.

Now, Mumbo never smelled something so good. It was like nothing else, incomparable to the blood of animals. Player blood was something else and he was starving. Animal blood was clearly not enough to satiate him fully, lacking in the nutrients, lacking the code his system so desperately craved. The vampire saw the liquid smear on the table, wasting away while dripping on the filthy tavern floor. He could almost feel the heartbeat of the man in the powerful squeeze of his empty stomach. That was what he was, wasn’t he?

Mumbo was pulled into the present, back into his mind, as the men beside him raised the honey mead high to cheer the winner and promptly went on to dump the liquor onto the vampire’s head. Mumbo tasted the alcohol and the yeast on his lips and almost threw up. He needed to get away. Far from the smell of blood. If he acted, if he did anything, he would be dead before the dawn came. So he decided to not do anything – even as his mouth watered – but move through the gap in the crowd towards the back of the tavern where barkeep sold the liquor.

He stumbled through the crowd of bodies – the sound of their hearts louder than the music, the smell of their sweat and blood stronger than the ever-present mead – until he reached the bar. He hoped to get a paying job, but his hope was immediately crushed. “Hello, I–“ he started but was immediately interrupted by the barkeep.

“Hand here, lad – need to see your age code!” He shouted. Mumbo was so stunned to do anything except comply. The barkeep scanned his wrist with a little device – it looked different, sleeker, a bit smaller and shinier than the brass bulky ones he had seen as a child – then snorted. The screen flashed with the red 17. “Too young! Now get out of here! This place serves the grown folk. Hey, Tauren! Show him out!”

“But I–“ the protest died on his tongue as the barkeep signaled an imposing bull hybrid that did not hesitate to take a step in his direction. The vampire didn’t particularly want an altercation in the middle of a crowded tavern, so he cut his losses. He went out of the tavern, the bull hybrid decidedly slamming the door behind him.

The universe had a twisted sense of humor. He was sure he was living in the woods for at least a few years. He was certain he was watching the town for about a year. But his code was frozen in the night he changed. His mind was older, but his body and code was locked in time.

Now he was immortal, forever trapped at an age that others dismissed at first glance. It seemed that everyone would be against him – a little mistake to vampires, a naïve youth to players. So Mumbo was once again forced to stay alone. He wandered through town – that got him a few looks, but nothing threatening – until the world gave him a place to stay. At the outskirts of the town stood an abandoned building. It was left behind, not even wholly built, but still good enough. Certainly better than the caves he lived in up until now. And it was surrounded by farms with animals he would be able to feed on without gathering attention easily enough.

He made the building his home. He started by getting a bed and a bookshelf. He filled his new place with books and little mementos of the years that passed by, and kept the spoon and the portal stone on a shelf where he could always see them. The vampire observed the town slowly grow into the City. He watched the people around him wither away – he made a friend once, a farmer from one of the surrounding farms, but it did not last. The farmer died in the blink of an eye.

Soon the universe would watch him live alone through his 300^th winter. He supposed then that solitude was safer – no chance of betrayal, abandonment, pain. Yet, buried deep, he still craved someone who might look at him and stay.

Chapter Text

The clocks made no sense at all.

The young parrot avian was trying to figure out why the bell-tower rang so loudly just because the hands were both pointing straight up. Honestly, people were way too obsessed with those clicking things. Good-for-nothing, if you asked Grian. An hour, he understood, a day? Sure. But a month? It did not make sense. Players say that a month is the time it takes the moon to grow full again. But they insist that it was always the same amount of days. Lies. Sometimes the moon changed shape twice in one night. He checked. They were all stupid, the little avian thought. They should try thinking for once. Like him. Grian was an excellent thinker.

Food first though. “Come back at two, kid. Lunch break,” the shopkeeper said, exhausted, and waved him off. Two what? Whatever. He spun on his heels, feathers puffed, and headed for the market. It was easier to get things in the stalls anyway.

There was a market near the now silent bell-tower. Most of the stalls were empty, because the tick-tock brains let the clocks tell them what to do. But a few of them still had sellers in them. The avian wove between the time-mad townsfolk. There were a few things Grian wanted from the market. Well, mostly food, but there was surely something else he would like. First though, he had to figure out what they wanted in exchange.

Players were weird. Trade a carrot one day, shiny rocks the next. Today it was gold coins. Couldn’t they just make up their mind already? Grian had no coins. It didn’t matter anyway. Most of the time his feathers proved to be payment enough. And if they didn’t want his feathers – their loss. It’s not like they hide this stuff. He could just take it.

“I want the sunflower seeds! And… these nuts!” he exclaimed as soon as he got to the stall. He was barely tall enough to see over the table. The boy still saw the seller frown.

“That will be two gold,” the seller told him. “You have that much, kid?”

“No.”

“I am not a charity. Get lost then!”

Grian flinched. He really needed the food and the nuts were hard to take. The little parrot quickly plucked one of his feathers. Ouch. It was pretty – red, with a bit of yellow and blue on the tip of it. “I have this!”

It was good that today they decided to take his feather. He was soon leaving the stall behind with two paper bags in hand. He pushed the nuts into his bag. It was a struggle. The bag was full of things – a flint, a sleeping pack, a water pouch, and a few other trinkets – everything he owned. The nuts should be a great food later, when he got hungry again. Hopefully the paper bag would hold, or he would have to fish them out to eat and that would be pain. As he snacked on the sunflower seeds – they were his favorite! – and turned to the other stalls.

He looked around. The stupid clock hands were pointing straight up – a blink – no, they were pointing down. The world always changed unpredictably. He shook his head to get rid of the sudden dizziness. The sun jumped much lower and the sellers were now just setting up their stalls. The stalls were different too. They looked a bit sturdier and sold vastly different things. Good, more for him to look at.

Almost immediately he ran into a woman that was not there a second ago. Half of his seeds went flying. He locked eyes on the shiny knives. Once he saw a man carve a beautiful wooden spoon with a knife. Grian could do that too! Probably. He just needed a sharp knife. He darted to the knife stall before the woman could scold him. It wasn’t his fault – she stepped right into his path!

He eyed the knives – ooh, that one. A beautiful steel knife with a red handle. “This one!” he exclaimed.

The seller took one look at him. “Knife? How old are ya, kid?” he demanded.

They always wanted to know how old he was, when he was born. They told him that June was after May and Friday after Thursday. He quickly learned to just nod and let them think whatever nonsense they made up. This one wanted an answer though.

“Twenty,” Grian said the first number that came to mind. It did not mean anything anyway.

The man did not look satisfied with that answer though. “Ha! Right. Good one. Now give me ya hand.” He did not wait for answer this time, just snatched Grian’s wrist and scanned it with a brass gadget – it looked like a smashed bug. The screen flashed before the avian could voice his protests. “Thirteen? Get lost, kid!” Whatever, Grian thought, the knife was his anyway. If the man can snatch his wrist, he can snatch the knife. “Get back here, ya little wing-rat!”

Grian had wings, alright, and he would use them. He was an amazing flyer. Before anyone could do anything about it, he clumsily took off and ended up on a roof of a nearby house. He eyed his prize triumphally. The knife was really pretty. Now where to put it? He briefly patted all of his pockets until he decided on stringing it to his belt loop. Good. He wouldn’t lose it there. And it clicks against his buttons every time he moves.

He got comfortable on the roof and eyed the rest of his seeds. “Stupid, clock-heads,” he grumbled. He made sure to safely tuck his seeds into an inner pocket. He had had enough for now. Even if he was still hungry, he had to save more for later. He could not get food every time, so he had to save it.

The sun was just getting high enough to feel its warmth. So he spread his wings to soak it in, slowly combing through them. They were getting itchy again. The worst were the little ones by his face. They always got dirty quickly, often knotting with his hair. As he untangled his ear feathers, the sun rose over him – blink – no, the sun was replaced by moon. The little avian grumpily shook his head to stop the dizziness. He didn’t have much time to reorient himself, as the roof became a bit too unstable and gave up under him. Quickly he flew out of the hole. His feathers were full of dust and pieces of wood. Stupid roof had undone his hard work!

He had enough of the clock town. And he needed to find some wood to carve! Spoon. Yes. With the new shiny knife. So he went to the surrounding forest next. Sometimes he found other towns or little communities there. They moved and never stayed. It seemed that only the clock town stayed at the same place, though it never looked exactly the same way twice. How did they manage to stay together anyway? How did they do it? He would figure it out one day too. He would stay put just like them!

Anyway. Grian liked forest. No one bothered him there. There were no stupid players. Well, at least usually. After three sleeps and one partially successful carving, he found an avian colony. The trees were full of wooden nest-houses linked together with walkways.

He liked other avians. Most of them were welcoming enough and even if they weren’t they still had community food he could take easily enough. But they often moved, never stayed in one place. They were not always the best place to nab food.

Grian stayed in the surrounding trees only for a minute, judging his chances. It seemed like this was a mixed colony. Good, they would most likely ignore him. He could be subtle. The little avian lowered himself to the ground and made way to the center. Grian was clever! He knew what he needed to do. He had to look like he knew where he was going and eventually he would find the food.

As he strolled through the little temporary town he got a few looks. But nobody stopped him before he got to the food. Avians always had a big food stash just in the middle – seeds, fruit and nuts all in one place. He liked the fruit, but preferred the nuts. They always tended to last longest. Usually, there would be no guards. He was not so lucky this time.

He got out a little leather pack and started shoving everything that came under his hand in it. This is good! He would be able to eat for… at least 10 sleeps! As Grian fastened the string around the bag and went to get an apple for himself, he heard a mechanical hiss and click behind him. Not good! Time to run!

Thankfully there was only a roof to this place, so he quickly darted away. Iron golems were always the worst. Usually they were in the human villages though, not the avian colonies. Doesn’t matter. He had to get as far as possible. Golems didn’t just give up and the last thing he wanted was to get whacked by one. No, thank you. At least the golem can’t fly.

The little parrot flapped his wings and fled. He loved flying, but his bag always dragged him down. He flew until he could no longer hear the golem behind him and then made himself comfortable in a tree to catch his breath. Getting food was always risky. He was always good at getting out of trouble. Usually he only ever had to run long enough to feel the world change around him. This time he managed to get away without the world shifting and with a whole lot of food! He triumphally attached the food pack – it did not fit in the bag – to his belt and looked around.

There in the nearby clearing was a group of three human and two avian children. They looked taller than him with the exception of one human boy. He was tiny. Most of the players he ever met were taller than him. It didn’t matter. He was much faster than all of them!

The children were sitting in a circle weaving flower crowns. It was a perfect opportunity. Grian gathered little pebbles and twigs and moved to tree right above them. He made sure to aim and then started chucking pebbles at the unsuspecting group. Children were always better than grown-ups. It took way too long for them to take notice of him. It was as if they were blind. Unlike Grian, he actually used his eyes!

“Hey! Who are you?” yelled the a brown-feathered boy while clutching his head. It only made Grian laugh.

“You wanna join?” asked a human girl.

“Hilda!”

Grian thought about it. “Yeah, why not,” he concluded. “So, what doin?”

“Flower crowns,” said the black-feathered girl. “I am Carina. You?”

“Grian.” He waited for a bit if the others would tell him their names. It seems they would not. That did not matter. They could be friends without names just as easily. “Wanna see my knife? I can carve a great spoon with it! I just need a bit of wood.”

That got the attention of the smallest boy. “Can I see?”

“You have a proof you can carve? Because right now you just look like a Christmas tree with everything you have on,” said the red-headed human girl and attempted to grab his bag from him. Grian quickly flew up, back to the tree. The bag was his! “You’re not exactly the image of a master carver.”

And that’s how he ended up trying to carve a spoon under the watchful eyes of five pairs of eyes. They would see. He was a great carver! He didn’t get to finish though. His escape apparently wasn’t as good as he thought. Stupid. He should have gone further.

As it was, Grian only registered the golem when it was right next to him. With a beating heart he jumped to his feet, the half-carved spoon landing in the grass. He needed to get away and so he tried to take off just as the golem made his attack. The avian managed to get out of the way just enough to not get hit. Too slow – the golem snagged his bag.

“No!” The strap broke and his bag fell down just by the golem’s feet, his sleeping pack getting thrown out. He needed to get away, but he needed his bag. It was everything he had! He dived for the bag. It was just out of his reach – a blink – no, it was nowhere to be found. He tumbled to the ground just where the bag was a second ago. He was covered in dirt, with only the knife in hand and food pack attached to his belt. The trees got smaller and frost covered the grass. Everything was silent and the afternoon turned to night. Golem was gone. Just like his bag.

The little avian stared at the empty ground as if it could spawn his bag. It could not. He should have known better.

He was stupid to stop. People always disappeared with the change anyway. He wanted friends. It was his fault that most of his things – his sleeping pack, his flint – were now gone, never to be seen again. At least he had the food. And the knife. Whatever. He would just have to get new things again.

Chapter Text

Everyone always withered away far too quickly.

The universe taught Mumbo quickly that he was operating on a vastly different timeline from the rest of the world. He was not sure how long ago he had settled in the then-abandoned house on the outskirts of the main City – because it was no longer a town, but a city – a few centuries must have passed. It did not feel like centuries.

Once, he made a friend – well, more like an acquaintance – the farmer whose sheep he sometimes took for blood. Mumbo met him as a boy. Then it felt like he only blinked and the farmer had kids. Next, his hair shone silver in the moonlight. After that, the vampire watched his funeral.

Ever since the farmer’s grandchildren passed, Mumbo had stopped trying to do anything meaningful. The world moved around him. Humans and natural hybrids withered way too quickly. Different unnatural hybrids may have lived longer than that, but they didn’t mix well with others, mostly staying in their own groups. He was hesitant to make contact with them anyway. If his meager seventeen years spent as a human taught him anything, it was to stay clear of unnatural hybrids. That was before he was made into an unnatural hybrid himself, of course. But still, better to keep a safe distance.

The few interactions he had with other vampires only served to cement him in his belief. For them, he was a mistake. Never did they let him think otherwise. And so, he never joined their society. Instead, he settled near the human – and now increasingly natural hybrid – town that soon became bigger and busier than he ever imagined. And it served as a great deterrent to unnatural hybrids.

The ever-growing City around him made everything anonymous. It was easy to stay unseen in plain sight. Everyone had better things to do than to pay attention to a teenager that only ever went out after dusk and never seemed to age. It was perfect. And it was incredibly lonely.

Normally, he aimlessly wandered the City, losing himself in the sounds of it – the soft melody of lullabies sung to children, the cheering of men for their accomplishments, the muffled cries for those who withered away. The hearts of the City’s inhabitants beat together and their sound only grew louder each year. He didn’t bother going anywhere where the age-scanners could be used – they only ever showed seventeen. Tonight, the air was full of scents - the melting candle wax, the roasting meat – the whole City had shut down in preparation for the celebrations. He had a goal, though.

The house he lived in was old, he supposed, even if he didn’t really consider such a thing until last month when his roof collapsed in the middle of the night. That night he patched the roof with a tarp he had and that’s how it stayed for the last month. The sound of the flapping fabric in the wind was irritating, though.

It seemed that the poor house could not take the weight of an avian. He heard the unmistakable flutter of an avian heart just before – and the beat of wings just after – there was a man-sized hole in his roof. Yet, now that he thought about it, he had never heard them land. It was like they simply appeared, demolished his roof and flew away.

It did not really matter. The universe did what it wanted to do and it obviously decided his roof needed to go. Tonight, he spent a few hours getting the materials and tools that were needed for the repair. Now, Mumbo was making his way back, hands full of tools. He was lucky enough to get his hands on a bit of redstone dust, too. That was always useful.

The vampire was not particularly careful or quiet. And that was possibly the reason why the sound of his cabinet doors getting flung open and the fluttering beat of an avian heart reached his sensitive ears way too late. As Mumbo rounded a corner he was met with a sight that shook him like nothing in the last hundred years.

Right there, in the middle of his living room, was a parrot avian boy. His wings were spread behind him as a way to stay in balance. They were beautiful – vibrant red near his back, slowly transitioning to yellow and blue at the tips. He was quite small, maybe a head or two shorter than the vampire, and he was absolutely drowning in little trinkets – a knife secured to his belt on the right, a small pouch on the left, a bag filled to the brim strapped over his shoulder, a bead necklace around his neck and on and on. It was hard to take in everything the boy had on him. It looked as if he packed a whole house and decided to carry it around. He looked to be about sixteen or so, if Mumbo had to guess.

But it was hard to guess because Mumbo’s uninvited guest was shoulders deep in one of his cabinets, haphazardly balancing on the table under it.

It was really only the vampire’s centuries-long isolation that was to blame for his lackluster reaction. “What– Who– what are you doing?” he stuttered.

The avian jumped and it was a wonder he did not crack his head open on Mumbo’s cabinet door. “Mumbo!” the stranger exclaimed. How did the avian know his name? It was decades, maybe even longer, since he heard his name spoken to him. “Hi! Where are your seeds? I can’t seem to find them. Did you move them or something?”

Mumbo blinked. “I don’t have seeds,” he managed to say, confused. “Why would I have seeds?”

“Yes, seeds!” the avian rolled his eyes in exasperation. “To eat. I am hungry and you always have seeds. Anyway, I got you a new spoon. This one I made myself! It actually looks like a spoon this time, so it’s time for you to have it… What? Do I have anything on my face or something?”

“I am sorry, who are you?”

“Who– oh!” The stranger’s eyes shone with realization. What did he realize was a mystery to the shocked vampire. “Well then, I’m just going to leave this here.“ He put down the spoon and bolted to the cracked window. “Bye! Have a nice day!”

Mumbo stood there for some time before he was able to move. He put the tools and redstone he still held down and went to shut the window. Then he took a look at the mess the strange avian made and went to organize his cabinets, putting the wonky spoon the avian left behind with his little collection of mementos he has accumulated over the years. It fit right in, Mumbo thought as he gently ran his fingers over the intricate design of his father’s spoon beside it.

That was decidedly the most peculiar interaction he ever had. He had so many questions that he couldn’t even fathom trying to make a sense of any of them. And so, he didn’t. If there were to be answers, they would be given to him in due time. He was sure of that. And if they weren’t, then they probably were not particularly important.

He decided that was enough excitement for the next decade, at least.

Forgetting about the strange incident was not exactly easy. Mumbo often caught himself thinking about the avian and theorizing what it was about. It never went anywhere. At least until another one of Mumbo’s night walks a decade or so later.

Avians were relatively common in the City. They were one of the more welcome natural hybrids as long as they adopted human customs. Of course, they were still treated as lesser. Their worth was still mostly measured by their feathers – ever since hunting avians was outlawed in the Overwold, the price of their feathers skyrocketed. The black market was full of them for the past century. And not only that. The City’s underground didn’t lack avian trafficking rings – from the bits of conversations Mumbo overheard throughout the years, they mainly traded with inhabitants of the End. The brightly-feathered avians were the most sought after on the black market and so even if avians were common here, most of them had dull brown feathers.

That’s why the red, yellow, and blue plumage stood out so much to him. He didn’t see it for long and didn’t get a good enough look to be sure it was the avian from his home, as the parrot avian was dragged into the shadows. He had seen it many times – avians getting snatched. There was nothing to be done about it, it would sort itself out eventually. The new problems will take its place. He could not get it out of his mind, though. It could not have been the same avian. They lived such short lives, surely the one Mumbo met had already withered away.

He caught a glimpse of the feathers again years later. This time, he actually took his time and observed the avian closely. He looked like the one in Mumbo’s home. A spitting image. The vampire would swear it was the same avian, that maybe his sense of time was even worse than he thought and it was not decades, only months. However, he was quite sure he was not counting years backward. Because this avian looked just like the one from his home – the same knife, the same poncho, and still covered in trinkets. But this one looked barely fourteen. That was not possible, though – was it?

The strange occurrence did not stop there. Once he was sure he saw the same avian, now maybe seventeen, steal a blanket. Another time, he watched a ten-year-old parrot hybrid shoved to the ground, his things flying in every direction. Then thirteen-year-old getting yelled at for his bad manners. Seven-year-old begging for food on a street corner. Eleven-year-old jumping between roofs with a childish glee. Fifteen-year-old watching him from rooftops.

It was confusing. Maybe there was a logical explanation for it, but Mumbo could be quite ignorant in his solitude. However, it was undeniably the same avian. His age was never the same – sometimes younger, sometimes older – never more than eighteen or so. And he never withered. Unlike everyone else in the City – besides the vampire – he could be seen, ever-changing but never growing old.

Chapter Text

Grian wished the people would disappear already.

People always disappeared eventually. The world always changed and took everything with it. Grian tried to force it to change. He blinked his eyes as fast as he could but nothing happened. The only thing it got him was a chuckle from one of the men who had crammed him into the small cage. He let himself be captured. Now he couldn’t get out.

After he saw the golem and his bag disappear, he took a moment to reorient himself. The forest was always confusing. The trees looked completely different every time and in his frantic run away from the iron golem, he forgot to pay attention to the way he was going.

Grian breathed out a little cloud and wrapped his poncho tighter around himself. The avian had barely anything now. He had to get back to the clock town. He needed a new bag, something warm, and preferably some flint. He needed a new everything. The walk back to the clock town took him longer than it should have, as he got lost more than once. Thankfully the food from the avian colony was enough to live on for the most part. He was still freezing and absolutely starving when he finally saw the bell-tower through the trees, though. “Yes!” he exclaimed.

His excitement would not last long.

On his way to the center of the town he hadn’t been paying enough attention and let himself be snatched into a shady side street. The men were much bigger than the little avian. It was not hard to overpower him – he bit them though. It’s not like Grian would let himself be snatched just like that! He got a black eye for it before they roughly shoved him in the steel cage and made their way out of the clock town.

That was a few sleeps ago. At least they were giving him food.

“Give him the bread,” the gray-haired man said.

“Oh c’mon! It bit me – it does not deserve our food,” the younger one whined. “At least let me have some of his feathers. They would sell great, as colorful as they are!”

The old man snatched whiny’s hand before he could pluck one of Grian’s flight feathers. “I said feed him. You, son, are a bit too rushed. Void-crawlers pay well, but they’ll gut you for sport if you slip. They’ll pay double for plumage this bright, say it pleases the Eyes. Now feed him so the fight doesn’t leave him too soon.”

And that was that. Grian got to keep his feathers and got the bread every few hours. He was fed better than ever and it made his skin crawl. A few times in different avian colonies he was told the tales of the wing-hunters, the void-clippers. He was warned to stay out of the edges of the Overworld or he would lose his wings. Were the men talking about the same monsters?

He willed the world to change – for the men to disappear – but he was not successful. “Payment’s coming tonight – get the cage out of the back.” He heard once the sun climbed down.

“Yeah, whatever, old man.”

His cage was hauled onto the forest floor and left alone until the full darkness fell. The dark new moon did not provide any light. Grian was almost asleep when the clatter of his knife hitting the floor and the grate of the cage door dragged him back into the waking world.

“I suggest you run, featherling, let’s not keep the End-folk waiting.”

The little avian did not have to be told twice. He snatched his knife and bolted out of the cage as soon as there was the smallest opening.

For the rest of the night he became prey. The forest was dark, the shadows deep and purple. He could not see much, but he could feel the monsters shifting in the darkness. Flying proved impossible – as soon as he took off, he crashed into a tree trunk or a branch – so he ran. He ran as fast as he could but the monsters were closing in. He heard their footsteps, he heard their voices.

One was right behind him. Touching his feathers. Tackling him to the ground. Pinning his wings painfully to the ground – a blink – no, he was on the forest floor, the night brighter as the moon grew full. He had no time to shake off the dizziness. The shadows would surely still have the monsters. They would soon be back. They would soon take his wings. People always disappeared, what about the monsters?

He ran and he ran, for as long as his feet held out. When he finally managed to get out of the thick canopy – the sun was already high above – he took flight. He flew until the sun fell again and the moon reemerged again. Flew until he saw the stupid bell-tower again.

He eyed the clock town and went for the cracked skylight of a house on the outskirts. The little avian huddled into the corner of the attic and clutched the knife. Hopefully the monsters would not follow him here. The avians said they were on the edges of the Overworld. They would not be able to get him here. Right?

The little avian would not be able to stay vigilant for long. He was exhausted and soon he found him eyes closing against his will.

“G? You alright, mate?” said the voice that woke him up. Grian quickly grabbed his knife and swung it blindly toward the voice. “Woah! Hey! Hey! Calm down, it’s just me. I brought you some sunflower seeds. Went for them the second I heard your heart in my attic last night. You really like my roof, don’t you, you little pest.” they said, staying on the other side of the attic Grian invaded. They made sure to stay out of the sunlight that now streamed into the attic through the open skylight even as they walked right and left, front and back. The black jacket and trousers they had on made them look as a part of the shadow. They also seemed a bit jittery.

While the stranger was rambling, Grian took a closer look at them. The man, well not quite a man yet, was very tall. He would tower over the avian even if he actually stood up from the corner he huddled himself in. He looked human, but he was weird. And it was not only the mustache that made him look weird. He was just left of a human, not quite right. His skin was pale, he stood a little too unmoving, like a mannequin. And his eyes were a deep shade of red. The stranger was weird, and he was offering Grian seeds. Sunflower seeds, his favorite.

“Seeds?” Grian asked hesitantly.

“Sunflower seeds. Yes. Catch!” the stranger said and tossed him a small bag of sunflower seeds. The avian eyed them suspiciously. “I am not going to poison you, mate. You always want seeds so I got you seeds. Oh, and last time you jumped without your bag, do you want it? I don’t see you having it.”

That sure got Grian’s attention. As far as he knew his bag disappeared with the golem. “My bag?”

“Yes. Let me get it,” the stranger said and went to the open latch leading down to the rest of the house.

That was Grian’s chance to get away. The stranger was trying to find the bag, that definitely was not Grian’s. Now he could slip away.

“I’ve got it. Here.” came the voice as its holder came back to the attic. The avian froze in the window. “You don’t have to stay, but I think the bag would do you some good. Come on, you know I can’t be in the sunlight.”

They spent a few minutes silently watching each other. The stranger had the smallest smile on his lips and the bag in an outstretched hand. It was decidedly not Grian’s bag – this one was colorful, red with patches in every color known to man. But it would prove useful. It looked full of things. He made the decision. The avian grabbed the bag from the outstretched arm – stranger’s skin was cold like ice – and bolted out of the opened window.

The bag was full of great things, including a pair of trousers that were a bit too long for him, but having a spare pair was never a bad thing. So, he kept the bag. It even had an embroidered G in a colorful thread on the side of it. It was great!

But the bag became a constant reminder of the stranger who’d given it to him. It was stupid thinking about that weirdo Grian met. He must have disappeared with the next change, the avian was sure of it, just like everyone else always disappears.

Grian spent a long time in the clock town – stayed there through his first growth spurt and at least twenty world changes, yet he was still hesitant to re-enter the forest. He quickly became aware of which roofs stayed the same through the most world changes and were safe to sleep on. He also came into a habit of checking every shadow he passed, especially when the sky was full of stars.

Maybe that was the reason he kept seeing a man that looked suspiciously like the weirdo that gave him his new bag. Once he saw him from the rooftops, just walking through the darkened town illuminated by lanterns. Next, they locked eyes in the bustling city when Grian was on the hunt for food. He watched him being shoved out of a tavern by a bull hybrid in the light of torches. He saw the shadow man carry books in the light of street lamps.

The weirdo was a mystery Grian just had to solve. Because everyone disappeared with the changes. Everyone except the weirdo. He didn’t seem to be there every time the world changed, but he kept appearing. Unlike everyone else he remained unchanged in the ever-changing world.

Chapter Text

Mumbo established a new routine.

The conscious effort to do anything that was not strictly necessary felt wholly foreign. He didn’t remember the last time he actually tried to keep any sort of rhythm to his immortal life. Now, to be fair, the routine wasn't particularly well thought-out. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

One night, he was walking through the City while a festive market bustled. Mumbo was not exactly sure what occasion they celebrated – festivities blurred together over the years. The important thing was that he was able to purchase things after dark. His money reserves were not large, but they were enough for an occasional purchase.

That night he bought seeds – sunflower and pumpkin.

According to the vendor, sunflower and pumpkin seeds were favored among avians she knew. She could be lying, he supposed, but who was he to question her expertise?

The seeds had gone bad quite quickly. The vampire hadn’t anticipated the shelf-life of actual player food, though he did not remember eating seeds in his youth – so maybe it was only avian thing. His food supply was walking, breathing – taking care of itself, really – up until he needed to feed. So, he hadn’t been storing any food in his home since his transformation. One evening he simply woke up – it must have been only one moon since the purchase – and was welcomed by the smell of a rancid pack of seeds. They smelled like paint mixed with rotting fish and damp grass.

Mumbo threw them right out and spent the next two months airing out the smell.

After he could no longer smell the rancid seeds, the vampire made his way to yet another festive market and bought another batch. The second batch sprouted grey pelt of mold seemingly in a blink of an eye. Just like the third. The fourth and fifth rotted. By the sixth attempt, he owned muslin, glass jars, and – astonishingly – a calendar. The seventh batch lasted more than six months before it went rancid.

One night, in the City, he spotted the feathers again – the fifteen-year-old they belonged to was gone before Mumbo could say anything. And the seeds were in the glass jars anyway. After that encounter, he started keeping a little bag of seeds on him at all times. They went bad quicker like that, so he started buying even more of them.

His house now always smelled of a variety of seeds and nuts – the slightly sweet hay-like smell of sunflowers, the warm, spicy aroma of a pumpkin, the vibrant earthy scent of nuts. It made it feel like a home. Suddenly it stopped being a place to sleep and felt like a place to return to. The seeds that were kept just in case the little avian showed up again gave him hope – they were in a way a reminder that maybe there was possibility of not being alone.

Every time he came back with a new batch of seeds he made sure to spread them out on a piece of cloth just before dawn and leave them out the whole day for the sun to dry properly. Most of them were taken by birds in the sunlight where he could not defend them. Some of them survived the process, though. After nightfall, he would pack them into glass jars.

To his absolute delight, they actually lasted a few months, some even the whole year. He would check if they were going bad and replace them before they turned rancid. His nose served him well in that regard, much more sensitive to the passing of time than he was.

The just-in-case bag of seeds paid off soon enough. He was on his way to purchase a new batch when he locked eyes with the fourteen-year-old avian trying to steal a bag for himself. “You want some?” Mumbo asked, offering the bag with seeds awkwardly.

The boy was extremely thin, much more than the sixteen-year-old he met in his home.

They stood there for quite some time eyeing each other, the boy clutching his patchwork bag tightly. The avian’s black eyes flickered between the seeds and Mumbo, he squinted suspiciously. “Why?” the boy asked instead of an answer.

That was something Mumbo had no idea how to answer though. I bought them for you, he almost said. “Well… because you look hungry?” the vampire answered.

“Never mind,” the avian spared him further embarrassment and snatched the seeds out of his hand with a skill of an experienced thief. “Thanks for the seeds!” the boy uttered and bolted off to the nearest roof. The whole night the parrot’s heart could be heard all around the City, up until the vampire made his way home with a silent triumph of a successful night and a new batch of seeds in hand. One second the avian was there, and the next the flutter of his heart vanished as if it was never truly there.

After a while, purchasing seeds or nuts every few months to a year got a bit too expensive for his dwindling funds, but now he was in too deep. No way he would stop now. If paying for seeds was too costly, Mumbo would have to get his own then.

Even after the centuries’ worth of expansion, his house stayed on the outskirts of the City simply because it bordered the farms that their owners clung to as if their lives depended on them. So even as the City grew, it spared the farms with their fields, and the surrounding forest. It was convenient all around. Staying out of the public eye among the farms suited him just fine. The livestock proved to be a great source of food – the farmers blamed the lost sheep on wolves.

Now, these farms would provide another thing he needed.

The expansive fields were full of a variety of different crops including the sunflowers and pumpkins. Sunflower seeds were the first on his radar. What could go wrong? He just had to wait until they were ready to be harvested and get a few flower heads before farmers started harvesting.

Turned out, the real challenge was beating the farmers to their own crop. The first two years, he simply missed the harvest entirely. One look, the sunflower seeds were not ready to take, the next they were all gone, the fields green again with the next year’s worth of crops.

He had not kept track of time in the last couple of centuries. The vampire had no reason to. The seeds turned to be reason enough.

Mumbo started paying attention to the moon growing and to the changing seasons. The next year he managed to see the farmers harvesting the sunflowers. The one after that, he managed to get to them before the harvest. It took another five to figure out the precise timing, the way sunflowers looked when they were ready to be harvested.

Over the following years, he perfected the storage again. Turned out the fresh seeds were a bit more difficult to store than the ones he bought.

He found the hard way that they were much moister and harder to dry and clean properly. Once, they went rancid almost immediately. After that, he made a simple redstone contraption to toast them and keep the moisture out more effectively.

Next on the list were pumpkin seeds.

The process of getting to them was messy, but they were ultimately easier for him to keep. It took the vampire two decades to establish the yearly routine perfectly. All of that was just in case the bright-feathered avian ever showed up again.

And the avian did.

The vampire was so preoccupied by the mess on his floor that he almost missed the fluttering heart behind his cracked window. Thankfully his ears still functioned well enough to listen to the sounds – the flutter of an avian heart, the click of metal against wooden buttons, the shifting of different kinds of fabric, the rustle of feathers. Mumbo made the decision to let the avian come by himself and pretend to be immersed in the pumpkin guts dripping between his fingers. It did not work as intended.

“I know you hear me, you spoon,” said the avian as he skillfully slipped in through the window as if it was second nature to him.

The vampire turned in the parrot’s direction. He looked fifteen this time around. His feathers looked and smelled well taken care of and his cheeks were fuller. He looked as bright as the sunflowers in the fields. He made his way through Mumbo’s home as if he owned it, though he still did not let the bag go.

“Hello,” Mumbo said carefully. “So, are you actually planning on telling me your name? Last time you were here, you went through my cabinets and then vanished.”

The blond looked slightly amused by his request. “Forgot you ever did not know it. Grian. At your service, Mumbo,” he said with a mock bow. “And you are playing with food?” the avian – Grian – asked, and curiously eyed the mess Mumbo was in the process of making.

The only reason the vampire wasn’t red all over was the fact he had no blood in his veins to turn him red. “Pumpkin seeds,” Mumbo said as if it explained anything.

“Yeah, your seeds are always the best. Is the pumpkin murder necessary, though?” Grian asked.

“Well, I just have to get the seeds out so I can dry them properly,” Mumbo started. Talking to the avian seemed easy, natural – right. “You know, I thought the pumpkins would be harder to get right. I was wrong. They’re messy, though!” he gestured to the pumpkin guts in his hands, bringing them closer to the avian as if to make a point. “See? That’s why I live off livestock.”

Grian took that as an invitation to snatch a few seeds – still slick with pumpkin guts – and haphazardly chuck them in his mouth. “They’re good. Not as good as the ones you have normally, but good anyway.”

“Hey!” Mumbo snatched his hand back. “You know, it took a few decades to do this properly, but I think I have it down. So, if you came for seeds, I have you covered. I made sure to keep some on me at all times in case you ever turned up again.” He glanced at the avian that kept peeking over his shoulder. “And you did – fifteen this time! So maybe you could help me finish, or are you only going to watch me do it all?”

“Sure, what do I do?”

“Well, it's quite simple really – you just…” After that, the vampire went into a rant about seeds and proper drying techniques he managed to learn over the years all the while he meticulously extracted seeds from another two pumpkins he had brought home. Turned out the avian’s idea of help was mostly snatching a few seeds when Mumbo wasn’t looking. After a while, Grian perched on Mumbo’s shoulders, watching the vampire work. It startled the vampire. The contact was not something he expected after the centuries of solitude but he managed to shake the shock off quickly enough, the avian was clearly enjoying the position and it’s not like the vampire was going to buckle under the weight of a fifteen-year-old avian.

Mumbo kept working and rambling until he heard the avian’s heart settle and felt his breath even out. The vampire stopped his work and made way for his bed – there was nothing soft besides it and he did not have the heart to wake up the young avian. He set him on the bed, then went to clean up.

Suddenly the flutter of Grian’s heart and his breath vanished. Not in death. The dead still made sound – the rattle of code escaping with the body’s last breath, the hum of muscles relaxing and the crackle of their subsequent tightening. No, the avian was not dead, he was simply gone. The bed was empty. Mumbo would be sure that he was never there to begin with if it weren’t for the dip in covers and one lingering red-yellow-blue feather in the middle.

Mumbo turned the red-yellow-blue feather between thumb and forefinger. It was proof – impossible and tangible – that the avian was actually ever there. He put it with the spoons and other mementos he collected over the years. Then, he slid a fresh pouch of seeds into his coat – just in case.

Chapter Text

“Get out of here, wing-rat!” the restaurant owner shouted, throwing a bucket of greasy dishwater on the avian’s head.

Grian grabbed a partially rotten apple – still perfectly good to eat – and bolted to the nearest roof before the man could get another bucket. Bleh. The grease stuck to his feathers. He would have to clean his wings again. Unfortunately, the unexpected greasy shower was not an unusual occurrence. It seemed the townspeople didn’t like Grian very much – more often than not he ended up with trash in his feathers.

Why did the owner care, anyway? The avian was only taking the scraps they threw out – mostly produce. They were ungrateful – always throwing out perfectly good fruit and vegetables just because they were small or looked a little funny. They were stupid. But that suited Grian well – more food for him.

He could do without the water, though.

Grian settled on the roof, making sure all of his stuff was still firmly attached to his person. Everything was where it was supposed to be. Good. He grabbed his knife and cut the apple into bite-sized pieces to eat.

While he ate the apple, he watched the sun fall below the horizon. It painted the world orange for a few minutes – like a slow, all-consuming fire. He heard some avians in the colonies he had visited call it the Nether hour. Because, just as the sun hid, the greens and blues of the Overworld gave way to the orange of the Nether.

It was beautiful. Grian could appreciate the picture the sun painted all around him. It was better away from the clock town, though. As pretty as the buildings looked painted in orange, the townspeople still rushed wherever they needed to go, some of them anxiously speeding up after glancing at the clock – one of its hands was now pointing up, the other down. At least it was not ringing, Grian supposed – a blink – no, it rang in the dark of night, both clock hands now joined together, pointing up. The avian shook off the sudden dizziness easily.

The avian shot an annoyed stare towards the ringing tower. At least there were fewer people now, though not by much. These people were ignoring the tower, not even acknowledging the ringing. Most were pointing their gazes at little shining devices – sleek rectangles that lit their faces in pale blue.

Thankfully the roofs were barren of annoying people. They were safe. Only the winged hybrids were able to get up on them easily, and those that stayed in the town seemed mostly hesitant to fly within its borders.

So the roofs became his territory.

The avian quickly figured out he was almost untouchable up on them. He learned which roofs changed way too often and which of them were mostly safe to sleep on, only rarely disappearing under him. Most of the time he slept near the clock tower as the houses there seemed to stay relatively the same. All around them the town sprawled and shrank. Sometimes, only the five houses in the center remained, standing around the clock tower and small dirt plaza. Other times, the houses were the smallest ones in a sea of glass houses all around.

When the whole apple was gone, he began preening – getting the grease out, feather by feather. It was always difficult and time-consuming to clean his feathers. The avian was trying to avoid having to do it as much as possible.

The townspeople did not make it easy.

Sometimes, they yelled and threw things at him simply for existing – it’s not like they were telling everyone that the roofs were off limits. So there was no reason to yell at him for using them. Like, come on – they were right there!

If clocks were their first obsession, houses were a close second. And they were just as weird too. They did not always disappear through the changes, though their occupants always did. Sometimes, the houses would disappear only to reappear in another change. They were like trees in that manner. But people were not obsessed with trees, they were obsessed with houses.

Grian supposed they provided a good temporary shelter – they certainly kept the rain out of his feathers whenever he got into one – but they were far too unpredictable to trust them this much.

Still, the houses mostly stayed, and their occupants disappeared. All except the one house that stayed on the outskirts of the clock town, even as it grew and shrank, and its lone occupant who seemed to stay with his house through every change.

The only pairing Grian ever witnessed staying.

Thinking of the shadow man, Grian decided it was time to look for him. The avian spent every night he could stalking the shadow through the dark streets. It took him a bit of time to realize the shadow only ever went out at night, if ever. He would almost always had seeds with him – giving them to Grian for free or in exchange for some trinket the avian had on hand.

He was interesting, a mystery the avian was determined to solve.

He made his way across the rooftops towards the house and sat down on its roof to watch the door, fiddling with a loose button.

The avian would not have to wait for long. Soon, the door cracked open and out came the weird shadow man – he was dressed in the same black clothes Grian had seen him in the last time on the streets. He was still melting into the night. His shoes clicked and the seeds he always seemed to carry in his pocket rattled with every step he made.

He really must love those seeds.

Grian watched carefully, prepared to trail the shadow wherever he went tonight. What he didn’t expect was that the man would stop directly beneath his perch and do absolutely nothing. Weird.

The avian leaned over the gutter. “Why are you staring at your own door?” he asked the stranger.

“Looking for a little parrot making a nest on my roof,” the shadow said, not looking startled at all. “I was not sure why you did not come in. Are you coming home now?”

“Why?”

“Is that a no? Okay, then.” He pulled out a small paper bag from his pocket and held it up. “Pumpkin seeds. I’ll trade you for the button, little bird.”

Seeds? A snack would do him good. Seeds were great. “Why do you want my button?”

“Why not?”

Fair enough, Grian supposed. He eyed the button, then flicked it down. Bonk – right between the stranger’s eyes. “Now give me seeds!”

The man fumbled, clearly not expecting the button attack, but he tossed the seeds up for Grian to catch anyway. Then the stranger sat down on the ground, back resting against the wall.

“How did you know I was here?” Grian asked after a moment. He was great at being sneaky and quiet. The shadow man was the only one that always seemed to know where to look for him, often waving at him while Grian followed him across the rooftops.

“I heard you.”

Yeah, right. “You’re weird,” Grian muttered, popping pumpkin seeds into his mouth.

“Sure,” the stranger nodded. “Are the seeds up to your standard?”

“Yes. The sunflower ones are better, though.” The stranger’s seeds were by far the best he ever had. “Why are you still here?”

“Should I go? I still have a few hours till sunrise.” The shadow took out a few red-glowing pieces and began snapping them together, then taking them apart again.

Grian’s curiosity soon got the better of him. He slid down and inched closer to see better. “What’s that?”

“My old communicator. It stopped working some time ago.”

The shadow man spoke while he worked and Grian listened, even though the words made little sense to him. They stayed like that until the dark sky paled and the horizon took on an orange hue.

“Well, it’s time for me to go,” the shadow said, rising. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in, Grian? I could help you clean your wings – you smell as if you took a bath in garbage.”

The avian fluffed his wings and hopped up onto the roof again. “No.”

“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, the window’s open.”

Grian watched the shadow enter his home just moments before the sun popped above the horizon. He spent a bit of time there. Should he go inside? No, maybe some other time. And so the parrot took off towards the center. Seeds were great, though he would need a bit more food for now.

The sunrise woke the whole town up. The light was almost impossible to escape – a blink – no, the sun was setting. Everyone was scrambling to get home. Grian blinked a few more times to stop the dizziness. Then he went and stole a few pieces of fruit from a nearby store and took to the roofs before anyone could give him another unwanted shower. He ate till he felt full, yawned, and closed his eyes to sleep. There was no way for him to be able to look for the shadow man now, not when he just spent hours listening to the man rant about the communicator he was trying to fix.

The ringing of the clock tower woke him up hours later. As he went to stretch his aching muscles, another bag of seeds – sunflower, his favorite – fell into his lap from where it was previously sitting on his rising chest. He eyed the bag curiously, then put it into his pocket, making sure that nothing went missing while he slept. The bag – spare clothes, a flint, a blanket – the knife attached to his belt, buttons all over his poncho, and some trinkets in his pockets – a small rainbow marble, a single gold coin. Good. He did not lose anything.

Days later, he made the unfortunate decision to rest up on the bell tower in the middle of the day, sun high above. He was startled out of his lurking by the loud and sudden ringing. He jumped up in shock – a blink – the tower was still ringing, though the sun was replaced by a full moon. He managed to stop his unexpected fall with his wings despite the sudden dizziness.

He never even came close to hitting the ground. Still he made sure to land on a roof far away from the ringing tower. The town did not let him go that far though, it shrank significantly. To the avian’s disappointment, the shadow house disappeared with most of the other houses. It would most likely reappear later, but for now Grian was quite sure the shadow man disappeared with his house.

Grian did not like that. He had grown quite attached to the weird man living in it. He stayed in the clock town just in case the man stayed. And now he was gone. Whatever. Who needs the shadow and his seeds anyway?

The avian was pulled out of his sulking by a face that looked almost right. But not quite. This one was old and not melting into the night. It was all wrong.

“Come, my love, we have to find a room for the night,” said a man with the same funky mustache that adorned Grian’s shadow man’s face. The color was wrong, though – brown, not the black Grian was used to seeing. He took the hand of the black-haired woman beside him and went through the closest door.

Grian watched them for the next few days. They went out in light -that was also wrong. It all felt weird and not right and Grian could not stop watching them. They were admittedly very boring and seemed to often wander the growing fields. In his curiosity, the avian even entered the forest and watched them from the cover of trees.

The fields were just starting to sprout little green pieces of wheat – a blink – no, they were full of drying sunflower heads. Grian blinked away the dizziness and shock from the impact he made on the ground when the branch he was sitting on disappeared from under him.

The town spread again and the farms grew with it. The shadow’s house was back and the shadow with it. Grian watched the man uncertainly collect the sunflower heads and examine the sunflower seeds between his fingers. He seemed half happy and half incredibly unsure of what to do with the sunflower heads he collected, but made his way back to the house.

Getting seeds like this was unnecessary. He really must love them if he resorted to getting them from the unreliable fields – they changed way too often to actually provide a stable source of food. And the ones in the market were always better.

Well, Grian thought, maybe if he got the better seeds for the shadow himself, then he would stay! The shadow man often gave the avian seeds, so it was time to return the favor.

Grian, now with a goal in mind, went in the direction of the market. He struggled to get through the sunflowers – a blink – no, now pumpkins stood in his way. He shook off the dizziness and took off. There were no pumpkins to trip over in the air. Thankfully for him, the market was in full swing even in the dark of night.

He eyed the stall until he found one with seeds. Bingo. The female vendor did not seem very observant, so there was no harm at picking up some seeds for the shadow man – his belly rumbled – and for himself.

The avian flew down to the ground and wove between the roaming people. He made sure his approach was sneaky enough to not be noticeable - hiding in plain sight.

His thievery was interrupted by a familiar voice. “You want some?” the shadow asked, offering another bag of seeds awkwardly. He shifted foot to foot, arms too long for his body. Grian was not sure what to do either.

They stood there for quite some time eyeing each other. Grian eyed the man and the seeds in his outstretched hand suspiciously. He was just getting seeds. “Why?” he asked the stranger. It did not make sense. Grian was perfectly capable of getting his own seeds from the stall they were standing next to.

“Well… because you look hungry?” the man said, sounding incredibly unsure of his own answer.

“Never mind,” Grian said. It was true, he was hungry and there was no point in getting the man seeds when he was right there. “Thanks for the seeds!” He grabbed the bag and flew off.

The rest of the night he trailed the man through the streets – a blink – the man disappeared and the night turned to afternoon.

Grian shook his head and spun on his heel. Time to try again.

Getting the seeds in the light of day when there was no risk of getting caught by the shadow man was much easier. He should have done that in the first place. Though he had to trade a feather for them.

After making sure the bag of seeds was tied properly so as not to spill any seeds on the way, he flew to the shadow house and then hesitated. What should he do now? The shadow would not go out until the dark fell and who knew how long that would take. He circled the house until his gaze fell on a cracked window. Well, the man had said to get in through the window if he changed his mind. That was quite a while ago, but an invitation was an invitation.

The man was fast asleep when Grian stepped into the house. He was lying on a bed full of blankets and pillows that formed sort of a bowl.

The avian supposed he could look around and let the man sleep for a bit longer. His gaze fell on a shelf full of random things – a piece of rock with an unfinished carving, a wooden spoon on the verge of falling apart right next to another one that looked a bit newer and much sloppier, a few feathers that looked suspiciously like Grian’s, a jar of buttons, a cup full of other eating utensils – the list was never-ending. “This is all junk,” the avian muttered.

“Grian? What?”

The avian jumped up a few feet, wings flapping, and knocked the jar of buttons onto the ground. “You told me I could come in. How do you know my name?”

“You told me.”

“No, I didn’t! I don’t even know your name.”

“Mumbo.” The man carefully made his way out of bed, glancing at the buttons all over the ground. “Are you going to help me get all my buttons back? Or did you come in only to make sure I have things to clean?”

“I have something for you!” Grian was reminded why he had come here at all. “Here!” The avian proudly presented the pack of seeds.

“Why are you giving me seeds, Grian? You know I can’t eat those.”

“What? But you always carry seeds! Why do you not eat them?”

“They’re for you, little bird. I am a vampire – no player food for me.”

“You’re a vampire?!”

Chapter Text

Mumbo let out a breath when a weight landed on his chest, dragging him out of his slumber. “Grian, get off!”

“No,” the avian murmured into Mumbo’s shoulder. “I’m sleeping.”

“Then let me get up.”

“No.”

“Grian.”

“Shush.”

Mumbo slumped back down, resigned to his fate. It seemed the next few hours would be spent under a seventeen-year-old avian blanket. Not that he really minded that much. As much as the vampire valued his solitude, he cherished Grian’s appearances no matter what they came with.

The avian – Mumbo’s friend – never arrived the same twice.

Throughout the years, Mumbo met Grian at various ages. Sometimes, a scrawny thirteen-year-old with filthy feathers, other times a cocky fifteen-year-old waving gadgets the City would not invent for years to come – the holographic age scanner was still lying among Mumbo’s other trinkets.

He might appear three nights in a row, then not come back until Mumbo almost forgot the sound of his laugh. More than once, he had simply materialized on Mumbo’s bed in his sleep. Time did not seem to treat the avian sensibly, but he managed to do something no one else Mumbo had ever met could – he stayed and he never died.

The seventeen-year-old was gone before Mumbo woke up again.

Mumbo was left alone for a few years until a hesitant fourteen-year-old avian came through his window.

Mumbo spent the afternoon fiddling with redstone pieces while the avian watched him from the top of a nearby cabinet, carving a piece of wood. Grian was snacking on the nut-and-seed mix the vampire kept for him and not-so-sneakily stuffing his bag full of seeds every once in a while. Mumbo was trying to improve his seed roaster. The thing was well-used and was already showing some wear and tear. Unfortunately, it seemed he was stumped. “Could you hand me the Redstone Mechanics book, G?” he sighed.

“Sure,” the avian said and handed Mumbo a book. “Here.”

“Grian,” said the vampire, eyeing the book uncertainly. “This is a cookbook.”

The avian fanned out his ear wings. “Okay, so which one do you want?”

“The mechanics one.”

“Which is…”

“The one with ‘Redstone Mechanics’ on its spine.”

“I don’t see it. What’s the color?”

“Red.”

“Right. There you go!”

Mumbo stared for a bit too long. “This is an astrology book.”

“Well, I don’t know! There are multiple red books.”

“It’s written on it.”

“You told me to give you a book. I got you a book. What more do you want?”

“Grian.”

“So I can’t read, okay? It’s overrated anyway.”

Mumbo watched the avian grab some more seeds and flee through the window. He could hear him sitting on the roof for quite some time, his heart fluttering wildly in his chest and angrily muttering to himself about stupid books. The vampire waited for him to get back, but it seemed that he was not planning on it, as only a few hours later he flew off. It took a day for the flutter of the avian’s heart to disappear from Mumbo’s perception.

It never really occurred to Mumbo that someone might not know how to read. He vaguely remembered his mother teaching him to read when his heart was still beating. She always sat him down at the table and let him choose a book he was curious about. Then, she would guide his fingers across the words while leaning over his shoulder, her long charcoal hair always tickling his neck. After he learned a bit more, they read together each night.

He supposed it made sense for the avian to never had learned. As far as he knew, Grian raised himself – there was no one to teach him and apparently he never went to any of the schools that popped up in the last few centuries.

It took Mumbo a year or so of not seeing his friend to make the decision. He took one look at his collection of books – redstone, physics, engineering, redstone, encyclopedia, redstone – and concluded there were no books overly interesting for his friend. Time to get more of them.

He waited for dusk by the door – the summer always meant he could not leave his house much – making sure there was no hurtful sunlight before leaving in the direction of the nearest bookstore. He was so focused on his half-formed plans, he did not register the fluttering heart trailing him across the rooftops.

“What doin?” called Grian’s voice from the roof above him. Mumbo’s startled scream was followed by his friend’s giggles. “You seem to have a destination in mind,” he said after catching his breath.

“Grian!” Mumbo exclaimed, watching the sixteen-year-old avian fly down to him. “I need to get some books for you from the bookstore.”

“For me? That’s where you got the books? Okay then, let’s do it. What’s the plan, mister Jumbolio?”

“I am going to buy them from the bookstore. Since you are here, you can actually select the books you would like.”

“Sounds good. There’s just one thing you’re forgetting,” the avian said, pointing toward the bookstore door. The lights were dimmed, the store silent and empty of life. “The store’s closed at night.”

“Oh, I did not think this through.”

“Don’t worry, my friend, I’ll get us inside in a second. Just watch!”

The avian flew up to the window above the door, which was cracked open to let the cool night air inside, and squeezed himself through the tight gap. In just two minutes he dragged Mumbo through the open door with a proud grin.

They spent a few hours sifting through various books. Mumbo managed to find some more redstone engineering books and spelling books. Both of which were met with rolled eyes from the avian. Grian picked various books – stories, myths, natural and unnatural hybrids – and stacked them on the counter.

Mumbo eyed the stacks of books and decided there was no way he would be able to pay for them. He still left five coins on the counter as compensation – it barely covered one of the books the two of them decided to take. It was not enough, but better than nothing.

They took the books and made their way back home, making sure not to be seen. There, they deposited the books on every empty shelf they managed to find, just in time for dawn.

At the end of the night, Grian climbed through the attic window to watch the sunrise. He made himself comfortable on the roof tiles and watched the colors the sun painted all over the sky, waiting for the morning Nether hour to arrive. While the avian let his feathers soak in the early sunlight, Mumbo hid in the shadow of his attic.

They sat in silence.

What was Grian feeling right now? He must have watched countless sunrises, often telling Mumbo how good the sun felt in his feathers. Mumbo could not help but feel a deep sense of melancholy.

“You know, I don’t remember what the sun looks like anymore,” he said through the roof.

Grian stuck his head in the window to look at his friend. “What do you mean?”

He surprised even himself with the answer, thinking he got over his feelings about his humanity a long time ago. No reason to dwell on something he could not have. “I haven’t seen it in centuries. I did not appreciate it enough then, now I cannot see it anymore. I- I miss it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? I am a vampire! My code was changed for the worse – it gave me immortality and took the sunlight from me.”

Grian watched him for a bit with that scheming, determined sheen in his eyes he sometimes got. “You will see the sun again, Mumbo,” he said resolutely. “I am sure of it.”

“That’s impossible, Grian, and you know it.” Mumbo did not want to even entertain the idea. His shoulders sagged. Grian was still chasing miracles. Some things were simply out of their hands.

The avian frowned. “Your code already changed once! It can change again.”

“No, Grian, it won’t,” Mumbo declared.

The avian stayed silent for quite a long time, hiding in the light on the roof where Mumbo could not see him. Only the fluttering avian heart indicated Grian was still there. At least until a soft voice penetrated the solemn atmosphere. “You know, it’s beautiful,” the avian whispered. If it were not for Mumbo’s sensitive ears, he would never have heard him. “The sunrise starts early, long before the sun climbs above the horizon. First the sky becomes lighter, and the stars start to disappear. Then the horizon blushes – it takes on a red and orange hue. It paints the clouds above in the same colors. Nothing happens for a bit after that. It all stays still till the sun finally peeks above the horizon. It’s bright – too bright to look at normally, but for a brief time you can just about see it, only when there’s just the top of it. It shines and spreads the light all around – every color seems to soak in the light and becomes brighter. The shadows become much sharper then, seemingly darker.”

Mumbo closed his eyes and listened. The attic felt a universe away from the dawn Grian described. The avian did not stop, and the vampire hung on his every word, yearning to see it for himself.

“Right now, the sun is already above the horizon. It doesn’t stop painting, though. Every day, just after sunrise and before sunset, the sun drowns the world in orange. Some avians call it the Nether hour because it feels as if the world is on fire. The only color you can see is orange, just like the torch flame, but everywhere.” He trailed off. “I want you to see it again. I will make it possible,” the avian murmured.

There was nothing to be said and so they just sat in silence with the roof between them – one soaking in the sunlight, the other hiding in the shadow. And for the first time since the night had claimed him, Mumbo mourned the day.

Chapter Text

“A-d… Ad-m-i-n. Admin!” Grian murmured to himself as he crouched on the roof across from a building full of important-looking people. “S-c… Sk – no. Ch. Sch-o-o-l. School. Admin School!” he said triumphantly.

If only Mumbo were here with him – he would be so proud. Grian would have to tell him later.

Mumbo had been teaching him to read for quite a while now. He was very insistent on Grian learning – he labeled everything in their home, got stacks of books, and pestered Grian with reading practice almost every time the avian saw him. The most annoying thing the vampire thought of was withholding information those books held. It was annoying. Even more annoying was the fact that it worked.

Grian was still not able to get through the whole chapter on vampires in his book on hybrids. It was way too long, if you asked him. However, he was able to piece together a few key things. Vampires were unnatural hybrids. Their code had been changed, in some way it was damaged – that’s what the book said. Well somewhat. He still had problems reading longer texts and often just forgot to actually pay attention to the words leaving his mouth. But code was one of the words he saw quite a bit in his book.

If Mumbo was a vampire, then his code was damaged. Maybe he could fix it.

That meant he would need to find out how one could change the player code, though. So he spent a lot of time, a lot of world changes, looking for information. It led him here, to a place that was supposedly centered around code.

He watched people rush in and out of the Admin School. Mumbo told Grian that schools were for children to learn, but as far as he could see, the Admin School was full of adults carrying books and various devices. The building – sleek and white in the morning sun – seemed to be at the center of everything whenever it was actually standing. For as important as it seemed, it only ever appeared when the whole City around was made of glass and concrete. That was a problem. It was not always here, so he needed to be quick.

According to Mumbo, books were a great source of information. Grian would love to disagree with him – they were horrible, and reading them was a nightmare – but the vampire was somewhat right. Books he could keep through the world changes, but people were a different thing. Devices were tricky. Some of them worked, and some of them turned into a piece of junk in the first world change. Those always ended up on Mumbo’s junk pile – mementos, he called them.

Grumpily Grian had to agree the books were his best bet.

He surveyed the layout and made his move. The school had its own library that seemed to be a rather frequent stop for a lot of people. It would be really easy to wander in and snatch some books for himself. He just had to look like he belonged. Easy.

It turned out that it was not that easy after all.

At the entrance he was stopped by a burly man before he could slip inside. “You forgot to scan your ID,” the man said, pulling Grian by the shoulder.

“Oh.” Grian frantically tried to come up with a response to that. “I don’t have one?”

The man narrowed his eyes at him. “Then give me your hand.” He took a little device – it seemed really fancy, the screen was projected above it when it was turned on – and put it on Grian’s wrist. The screen flashed with numbers and letters. Half of it was flashing way too quickly to understand, even if Grian could read it. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, kid, but fifteen is not remotely enough to study here. Come back in three years or so. Maybe get your code checked in the meantime, it doesn’t look right. Now shoo!”

“Can I at least take a look around?”

“No. Students only.”

Grian made a decision then. Who knew when he would see the Admin School again? He grabbed the device off the guard’s table and snatched a book bag one of the students was stuffing full of books by the entrance. Then, he booked it before anyone could stop him, leaving the shouting players behind him.

They gave a chase, though. There were even a few flying hybrids after him. And they were gaining on him.

Grian made a sharp turn – no need to lead them home. He needed to hide somewhere. In the end, he squeezed through a cracked-open window in the roof of a large building, making sure to hide under the sill to not be seen. The window did not lead into a room, it was surrounded by the beams that held the roof up. Between them, there were haphazardly placed wooden walkways all around. It seemed like a good place to hide, and so Grian made himself comfortable in the rafters and stayed quiet. He was above a big  crowded hall.

They were all watching a human couple in the front – one of them wore black, the other was in white. An old man placed a cloth over their clasped hands with a serious face.

Everything was incredibly dramatic.

The woman in white seemed like she was trying to keep from crying. The man in black on the other hand, was openly bawling his eyes out while smiling through the tears. People watching them were either smiling or quietly wiping off their tears. Grian was not really sure if everyone was happy, sad, or part of some elaborate theater. The theater seemed the most likely, though.

Just when the silence became a bit too awkward, the old man pushed the couple’s heads together. “Today, we celebrate the union of two players. Today, we witness the union in code – the one is written into the other to keep each other close. They’ll wear each other in their being as a reminder to never forget. So now, fall silent and close your eyes to let the union take place. Let them speak each other’s Name and write it in themselves from now on forever,” he spoke, holding both of them by the nape of their necks.

That was interesting. They could change their code just like that?

As one everyone fell silent and the couple whispered to each other – they were too far for him to hear. The silence stretched until everyone cheered, throwing flowers at the now embracing couple. Grian watched it all happen from the rafters – a blink – the rafters were gone as was the whole building, leaving the avian scrambling to catch himself before he hit the ground. After he shook off the dizziness, he took a look around. The town was much smaller than before, the glass and concrete now switched for wood and stone.

Good. The guards would have disappeared with the change.

With no one after him, he flew in the direction of home. Home would let him rest and take a proper look at his prize. He was ecstatic to find his friend there, even if the vampire was a bit grumpy that Grian woke him in the late afternoon.

The avian went through the stolen bag with Mumbo’s help, telling him about the adventure he had while trying to get it. There were a few books about code – Player Code, Making of a Server Portal, Pairing Players with a Server – that found their place on the shelf with other Grian’s other books, a small empty notebook that ended up in one of Grian’s pockets, and a bunch of junk. Then they tried unsuccessfully to find out how to work the scanner. It was functional, at least, but they were unable to do anything with it. So for now, it would stay on Mumbo’s junk pile.

When the world darkened and the full moon took its place in the night sky, the vampire practically dragged him to the roof. Grian was much more used to sitting on it than Mumbo, so he watched his friend clumsily climb out of the window. “There is going to be lunar eclipse tonight. It should start any minute right now,” Mumbo said, looking at a pocket watch.

“Why do you keep a clock in your pocket?” Grian asked. “It’s not like it’s good for anything.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? It tells time, lets me know how long I have till dawn or dusk.”

“You can tell? How?”

“Tell what?”

“How long the night will last.”

“Of course I can. It’s the same every time,” the vampire explained, a little exasperated, but still patient. He was almost always patient with Grian. Even if he thought the avian’s questions were stupid, he answered. Grian liked that about his friend. Though sometimes the vampire’s reasoning and answers did not make a whole lot of sense. “Well, mostly. It changes a little bit throughout the year. Longer in winter and shorter in summer, but it’s consistent.”

“No, it is not. It’s different all the time,” Grian insisted. “Clocks always change at random, and the night is sometimes over quickly or it stretches on and on. I don’t get it. People in this town are obsessed with the clocks. It does not matter how many times the world changes, the clock is always something people love.”

Now it was the vampires turn to be confused. He watched Grian with curiosity for quite some time before speaking again. “Grian, no,” he said gently. “The night is always the same, the world changes gradually with time… tell me about the world changes you are talking about.”

“Sometimes, the world changes when I blink. People disappear, houses change – the town is sometimes small and sometimes big.” Grian paced around the roof waving his arms.

“City has grown, yes. It changed over the years, but it changes slowly, it grows. The people grow old and wither away.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Grian frowned at his friend. Why doesn’t Mumbo believe him? He stays through the changes, he had to have experienced them. “The town shrinks and grows between the changes. Sometimes it’s big, full of colorful lights and glass buildings without actual roofs, and then it shrinks to only a few houses and is illuminated by torches. The clock tower mostly stays, but other than that almost everything disappears, no one ever stays. But you do! Mostly. You are here most of the time. Sometimes you are not here, though. Sometimes I can’t even find home – it’s not there, or it’s empty,” the avian exclaimed, sitting back down, gaze now trained on Mumbo, willing him to understand. The vampire seemed to have nothing to say, watching the avian skeptically. Grian, desperate to provide a proof, looked toward the moon. “They say the moon changes slowly, they say it takes a few nights for it to grow full again. But it’s not true. Look!” Grian pointed to the night sky. The moon was now looking like someone took a bite from it. “See? It was full. Now it is not.”

The vampire was silent for a bit, clearly trying to come up with a response. “Okay…” he said, uncertain. “But the moon is not changing phases right now. It’s the lunar eclipse tonight. Just watch. You can see it slowly getting into the shadow, growing red. And then you will see it go back in light. It’s a special night.”

“But-“

“Just watch.”

They sat there. Grian was fascinated to see the moon turn red for a few minutes. Had he ever seen it do that? It was pretty. Still, Mumbo just had to understand, and so he spoke into the night again. “It’s still changing, Mumbo.”

“Well, yes,” the vampire said. “I admit this night is not the best for me to convince you about the moon’s cycle.”

They sat on the roof in silence. Grian was not sure what to make of it. It made no sense at all. Why was Mumbo so adamant about proving him wrong? The silence stretched until the moon grew again and they made their way back inside, both of them exhausted.

As they were lying down in the bed, Mumbo gently pried Grian’s bag of off him. “Just lay it down for a bit, you will sleep better without it.”

“No! It will disappear! I can’t be without it. It has everything.” Why would Mumbo take his bag?

“It will stay with me. And if it doesn’t, I will get you a new one, deal?” Grian hesitantly let Mumbo put the bag on the floor next to the bed. He still refused to empty his pockets. There was no way he was ever letting go of everything. They lay next to each other in the nest of blankets around them, while the vampire weighed his next words. “Grian, do you remember how we first met?”

Grian frowned. How could he ever forget that? How could he ever forget the panic he felt that night? How could he forget the shadow giving him what he needed? “Of course I do. We met in the attic. You gave me the bag!”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No, I remember how we first met differently. How could I ever forget an avian going through my cabinets, looking for seeds that were not there? You were there, in my house, acting like it was yours,” the vampire said with a smile. “It was quite a shock to see you just there when no one ever came in.”

“I do that all the time. There was only one time you did not have seeds for me.”

“It was the first time I met you.”

“No, it was not.”

“It was. Though, it apparently was not the first time you met me.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does. I don’t remember giving you the bag. It did not happen to me yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe it’s not the world that does not make sense. Maybe you just don’t follow the rules of time. Every time I meet you, you are a bit different, younger, older. Sometimes you can’t read, other times you can. It’s…” the vampire hesitated. “You know, the time stopped dragging me with it a long time ago. I am stuck. I think you are different. I think you are jumping through it.”

Chapter Text

Over the centuries, Grian’s jumps had started to make more sense to Mumbo.

Mumbo put another spoon Grian brought him with the rest. This one was quite plain, made of soft metal. It meant the avian was last in the future. He often described everything getting a bit uniform, simpler. The metal and glass were the future of the City Mumbo spent centuries in. It seemed like a different world when Grian spoke about it.

The avian jumped through time, but stayed in place and seemed to gravitate towards Mumbo whenever he jumped to his time. Well, he gravitated towards Mumbo as a teenager. More than once he saw little Grian wandering the streets and begging for food, shying away from people who got too close. He had never seen his friend older than seventeen or so, though. That seemed worrying. But not worrying enough.

Today, seventeen-year-old Grian ended up on Mumbo’s shoulders as he worked on the redstone wiring for the lights. As he worked, the avian showed him his leather notebook filled with crude drawings of things he encountered.

“I went to the forest, Mumbo. In my last jump, home was not here yet, so I went exploring a bit. I found a group of allay hybrids.”

“Allays? I didn’t know they were ever in this area.”

“It was much more green than it is now. So many trees and clearings with long grass and wildflowers. It was pretty.”

“They let you close?”

“I watched from the trees. There’s no way they would ever let me talk to them. They always vanish when I try to get close.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an allay hybrid. They stay out of the City as far as I know. Apparently, they stay in one place and guard it.”

“They are pretty and really small.”

“Smaller than you?”

“Hey!” The avian hit him on top of the head with the notebook, only making Mumbo laugh more. “And for your information, yes. They were much smaller than me.”

“I am sure of that.”

Grian ignored his remark. “They were making this ritual with their children. Binding them to the land or something. They took the long grass and flowers and wrapped them tightly around their ankles. They also gave the babies their Names.”

“Sounds like you had an eventful jump.”

“I did! Now tell me what you are trying to do.”

While Mumbo rambled about the redstone lighting he wanted to install in their home so Grian could see more easily in the night, the avian slowly fell asleep. As Mumbo heard his breathing even out, the notebook fell out of his hand, landing right in the middle of the redstone dust.

Mumbo took it and began flipping through it. As bad as Grian’s handwriting was, there was no doubt what the content was – the notebook was full of notes on player code, code changes, and rituals. It was the avian’s need for change that lived in that notebook. It made a little sense to Mumbo, but he could learn.

Mumbo hesitated for a second but then he hid the notebook in a cupboard nearby until the avian jumped in his sleep.

Grian was still the only one that did not wither in just a few years, he was Mumbo’s one, relatively stable, connection. As long as Grian jumped through time, Mumbo would not lose him. As long as Grian jumped through time, Mumbo would not have to see him grow old. He would not have to smell the code leaving his body, listen to his heart fall silent.

Mumbo supposed they found some kind of solidarity in each other – they were both prisoners in time, just a bit differently.

It was all fine just the way it had been for centuries. Mumbo could not comprehend why Grian would want to change it. And the avian wanted to change, wanted to understand, and wanted to fix everything. Mumbo was not sure how he felt about it. His existence felt like broken glass haphazardly glued together. He only started to put himself back together after he met the avian, and now he could see Grian trying to disrupt the careful balance the centuries created. He did not see it before, but in hindsight it was always there. The older the avian got, the more he wanted things to change.

“I think I got it! I got it working, Mumbo!” the sixteen-year-old avian exclaimed proudly from the floor. He was surrounded by books a younger Grian stole sometime in the future, frantically flipping through the leather notebook full of his awful handwriting. 

As much as Mumbo tried to teach Grian to read and write, the avian was stubborn and only ever learned to read enough to get Mumbo off his back. He was still not a good reader, but not many things could stop Grian from doing what he wanted.

His handwriting was more like a chicken scratch than anything. Though, Mumbo supposed, it fits – the avian had enough feathers for more than one chicken.

“What?”

“The scanner, Mumbo! It’s just a fancy one, like the one shopkeepers use. See?” He took the scanner that was collecting dust on Mumbo’s shelf for a century and put it to his wrist. As soon as he did, the holographic screen started flashing with numbers and letters.

Technology had always been Mumbo’s weak spot. He loved to take it apart and put it back together. This one device escaped his comprehension – though that may be because it had not yet been made. At the very least, he managed to power it so it did not break over the years just by sitting on his shelf. He put down his book and crouched by the avian’s side, trying to decipher the flashing symbols. “It doesn’t look like the ones from town. And the screen does not show an age. What am I looking at?”

“It scans the player code. Depending on where you put it, it shows different parts. Look,” the avian said, pressing the device to his neck. The display changed, still flashing, but now, Mumbo could make out a few words – avian and Grian stood out to him the most.

“It tells the species?”

“On the neck it does! The neck has most of the player ID data, or something like that. The ankles show space code – coordinates, dimension of the player. The wrist shows time code – age and date. It does not look right, though. It should not be flashing this much, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, look.” The avian put the scanner back on his wrist, and once again the symbols started flashing wildly across the screen. “The bottom line shows age, it ticks up by the second. It looks like the book says it should.”

Mumbo looked over the code. The code was never his thing. His father was the one that managed the server code for them when he was still human and still, they had never had devices this advanced back then. He watched a long string of ones and zeroes change with each tick of clock, but otherwise remain relatively stable.

“The code up top should be date code, it should look similar to the bottom line, but it’s just wrong.”

“Interesting. You think it may be because you jump through time? You don’t belong in a single time, so you jump around.”

“Hmmm, maybe. Can I see yours, then?”

“I don’t know, Grian.”

“Mumbo, please, just let me look once!”

Mumbo was always weak to the avian’s pleading, he gave in instantly. “Just this once, okay?”

“Yes! Now, give me!” Grian went to take Mumbo’s hand.

They both watched the scanner work. In an instant, the holographic display showed his code – it was eerily still. He did not know what he was expecting after seeing the chaos Grian’s time code had been, but it was not this. His code looked like a picture, static, unchanging. And as much as he did not want to admit it, it made perfect sense. That’s what he was for most of his existence, wasn’t he? Stuck, staying still, while everything moved around him.

He snatched his wrist back. “That’s enough. I think I am going to bed, the dawn is almost here anyway.”

Grian seemed unsure what to say. He ended up wishing Mumbo a good rest and then diverting his attention back to his notes.

When Mumbo woke up the next evening, the avian’s fluttering heart was nowhere to be heard.

Often he watched the code on the scanner’s screen, willing it to change. It never did. It took decades for Mumbo to come to terms with his own code. Decades to finally understand part about the time code in Grian’s journal which he still kept in a cupboard.

He was not even sure why it affected him that much. He knew his code was wrong. He knew he was not generating new code himself. He knew he needed blood to replenish his code once in a while. But he never saw. Knowing and seeing were two different things.

He knew that! It did not make a difference. He threw the carcass of a sheep into the trees and wiped the blood dripping down his jaw.

It was always a bit jarring after he fed. The world sharpened, every little sound became a razor blade, every smell was overwhelming. But nothing came close to the flutter of an avian heart that appeared in his house – it was beating even more rapidly than ever. When he finally reached his door, the world smelled of panic.

Mumbo came in to find his house trashed. Fifteen-year-old Grian was standing in the middle of the mess, frantically stuffing his pockets with nuts and seeds from the broken jars. He was trembling, his wings protectively curling around him.

“Grian! What are you doing?”

“My bag! It’s not here,” the avian exclaimed, gasping for breath.

Mumbo carefully inched closer. “You jumped without it?”

“You said– you said it would be fine. But it’s gone!”

Did Mumbo take Grian’s bag? He would not do that. “Let’s get you a new one, then. It’s okay.”

“No!” The avian leaped out of his reach and flew out of the opened window. Mumbo watched him crash on the roof across the street and curl himself into a small ball, wings shielding him from the rest of the world. But Mumbo could still hear him gasping for air. Thankful for the night, Mumbo followed him and stopped beneath the avian.

“G, please come down,” he pleaded with Grian.

“No!”

Mumbo did not know what to do with that. It was a miracle no one had come to yell at them already. Trying to climb onto the roof himself would surely attract attention, and there was nothing stopping Grian from simply flying away from him, so he sat down on the pavement. “It’s going to be okay. Just breathe.”

“I can’t!”

“Yes, you can. Just take a deep breath.” Mumbo listened – the panicked breathing was barely changing. He had only ever seen the avian like this once. Only once did he witness the avian so panicked. He was younger then, panicking in their attic. It was similar and different. The avian did not recognize him then, snatching his bag from Mumbo’s hand and bolting out of the window as fast as possible. This time, Grian did recognize him and he still tried to flee. Out of his element, Mumbo started to talk. “Okay, let’s just stay here then. You know, I’ve been trying to make a jukebox lately. You would love it – it has so many buttons. It…”

They stayed there until the dawn came close. They stayed there until the avian jumped again and left Mumbo alone with too many questions and not enough answers.

In the safety of his own home, Mumbo cleaned the mess the avian made in his panic. Over the next few years, he made a spare bag for Grian, so that he would at least have something to give him in case they ever ended up in a similar situation. Maybe then he would not panic so much.

Mumbo knew the avian feared that everything would disappear when he jumped. No matter the age, he always seemed to hide food in his pockets when he thought Mumbo wasn’t looking. He was incredibly protective of his belongings. Taking anything from him would be cruel, Mumbo thought while flipping through Grian’s notebook.

Mumbo knew that, but seeing the aftermath was different.

Chapter Text

Grian hated when he jumped to a time without Mumbo. 

The vampire became one constant in an ever-changing world, so when he was not there – when home did not yet exist – Grian was forced back into a time before he had a home, into a time when he was entirely alone. It was unbearable. He did not know how he had ever managed to survive so long by himself. Just the knowledge that Mumbo wasn't where he should be was impossible to come to terms with.

He spent a good amount of time looking at the undisturbed piece of land his home should stand on – but it was not yet built – willing himself to jump, to be back with his home. It was a vain effort. He knew that. He could not control his jumps. 

After a while, he turned around and went into the nearby trees. The forest still scared him a bit. Being hunted for sport, for his feathers, would do that, but in this ancient time there was nowhere else for him to go.

Grian wandered aimlessly, picking berries as he went and stuffing them into his pockets. It was getting dark quickly, he needed a place to stay. Unlike in the City, where he could wander regardless of the time of day, there were no light sources here, and the thick canopy above did nothing to help. 

As the world fell into the darkness around him, Grian was greeted by an unexpected magical light show. A flickering blue-and-purple light caught his attention, floating between the trees and luring him deeper into the forest undergrowth. "Oh, a will-o'-the-wisp!" he whispered, and followed the lights, trying to catch one before it disappeared out of his reach. 

He was always told by avians in the colonies he visited to never follow them, for they would lead him deep into the forest and leave him lost forever. Well, jokes on them, Grian knew these woods like the back of his hand, and he could survive just fine in the forest for as long as he needed. It was not the first time he had followed the lights into the woods, often while the superstitious avians watched just to see their reaction. Never before had he been lucky enough to follow them wherever they led him, because he jumped before he could reach them.

This time, luck was on his side. 

After his wings were full of sticks and leaves, the lights started to blend with allays. Allays were always pretty. No bigger than the palm of a hand, they sparkled in the night and wandered the world, gathering colorful objects. Grian often made one follow him by giving it a button or a pretty pebble he had on hand. It would stay with him up until he jumped, dancing around his head to his whistling.

Today they did not seem interested in his buttons. They all gravitated toward the nearby clearing from which kalimba songs came. 

Theoretically, he knew the allays were never far from a hybrid colony but he had never managed to get a good look at them. The hybrids often fled as soon as he got remotely close. This time they were too occupied by other things to notice him right away. This was a great opportunity, and he would not waste it by trying to get even closer. The edge of the clearing was as close as he could get and still be under cover. 

He climbed the nearest tree and took out his notebook. It was nothing overly amazing. His writing skills still did not meet any kind of standard. Thankfully, he did not need to write or read that well for what he wanted to do – code was not made of full sentences anyway. 

Grian was sure his, maybe even Mumbo's, problems could be solved by code. After all, they were code to begin with. 

Mumbo and Grian were, in some ways, the same – their time code was wrong. They were both at the mercy of time. If Grian could find a way to change his own code, maybe he could change Mumbo's too. But they were also polar opposites, two sides of the same coin. Grian's time code was unstable, his era code flickering unpredictably, yanking him through time without any rhyme or reason. Mumbo's time code stayed still, his age code frozen, keeping him the same while everything else changed.

But at least, Grian thought jealously, Mumbo would not have to worry about everything disappearing in a blink of an eye.

Grian was determined to change his code. It was possible. He knew it was, because Mumbo's code had been changed once. His code could surely change too. Just maybe without turning him into a vampire in the process.

That was why he was compiling everything and anything about code changes. The Admin School in the far future of the City – which currently consisted of 4 whole houses and half constructed clock tower in the middle of the woods – was promising in the code department. To his dismay, there was little to no information on changing player code there – it was too controversial, too close to unnatural hybrids. That meant Grian was on his own.

It took him way too long to find that code changes were far more frequent than one would think. They were everywhere, in the ancient past more than any at other time.

Players in the past were much more likely to mess with player code, even if they did not exactly know what they were doing. That was fine, Grian did not know what he was doing either. He would find out. And a clearing full of allay hybrids was just one more piece of the puzzle he was so determined to solve.

Grian made sure to hide himself behind the branches and watched. 

The clearing was swimming in allays and wisps and in the middle there was a gathering of allay hybrids. They were pretty – their cheeks sparkling with blue and their ankles purple, their translucent wings flickering on their shoulders, and their white dresses flowing in the night wind. And they were really small, the tallest barely reaching Grian's shoulders. 

There were so many of them – at least thirty, maybe more – standing in a circle around five in the middle. Some of them were playing songs that traveled through the night, while others were dancing around the perimeter. The ones in the middle each held a baby with blue skin and purple cheeks. They were barely bigger than the allays fluttering all around.

All of a sudden, the music stopped and everyone looked toward the middle. The babies were gently lowered into the grass and an elder began speaking. 

"Come and quiet down, for tonight we bring new lives to us. For tonight we bind them to our home, so they become one with us."

There was quiet all over the clearing after that. Nobody except the five who held the babies moved for what felt like eternity. They were wrapping wildflowers growing in the clearing around the babies' ankles. They did not kick around, their flower bindings apparently far too tight. The elder looked over the bindings, gently tugging at the babies, making sure they were firmly bound to the ground by their ankles. Satisfied, he spoke again. 

"Now bring out the lights! Lead them to the land they belong to." He turned to the ones by the babies. "Speak their Names and bind them to the land!"

Grian could not make out the Names that were given to the babies. What he could make out was the sudden burst of light as many wisps came into existence. There were many to begin with, but now the clearing was brighter than day, shining with the tiny lights every allay called upon. 

When the light eventually died down, Grian saw the babies had now lost their purple cheeks and had gained bright purple ankles beneath the flowers.

"Now welcome them with song and dance and let the land take effect!"

As soon as they got the permission, the hybrids picked their kalimbas back up, and the song rang out even louder than before. For hours on end, Grian watched them sing and dance around the babies still bound by flowers. 

He wrote what he could in his journal, accompanying it with crude drawings of what he saw. 

It was all similar to what he had seen of the rituals before. He had seen so many weddings where two written their Names into each other. He had seen a couple of warriors bind their eyes together before battle to watch each other's backs. He had seen witches bind their animals' legs to keep them close.

It was never as elaborate as this ritual, and as far as Grian could tell, it never exactly worked. Couples forgot each other despite the reminder in their code. Warriors still did not see the attacks. The animals still left.

This felt different. Maybe it was actually working. Maybe. 

He looked at his messy notes. There was still something missing. Something was still not right. Mumbo went through a code ritual. And it worked. Maybe the vampire would know more than him. He would have to ask Mumbo. Grian knew there were many rituals that worked. But it just so happened that they were mostly done by unnatural hybrids, and not for the lack of trying, Grian had not been able to see one of those.

Getting out of the woods was a challenge.

He jumped more than once until he finally stumbled into the now-existing City with his home waiting. By the time he found himself at home, he was exhausted beyond belief and fell asleep on Mumbo’s shoulders while his friend rambled about his latest redstone project.

He was rudely awakened when his friend disappeared from under him.

There was a yell and a bang of a wooden cabinet door before a voice sounded. “Grian? Are you okay?” Mumbo asked from another room.

“No,” he said, dramatically sprawling on the floor, wings covering most of the floor around him.

“Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate.” The vampire gave him an unimpressed look from the doorway. “Is there a particular reason you are taking over our floor, mate?”

“It’s your fault.”

“How is that my fault?”

“You disappeared under me.”

“Right.”

“You should make it up to me.”

“Sure. I have seeds if you want some.”

That got Grian moving. As much as he was able to fend for himself, he had become much more reliant on getting food from home. Jumping to a time without his home was much more jarring now. He did not understand how he could have ever lived like that.

He ended up stuffing his pockets full of seeds while Mumbo was not looking – better safe than sorry when it came to food. “What was it like when you were human?”

“Why?”

“Just… you were once human, before you changed. I am curious. What was it like? Where did you live? Did you grow up here? Did you have a family? How did you change?”

Mumbo watched him for a bit, not saying anything. “I grew up on a server,” he said after a while, hand running across his pile of junk.

“Server? Really?”

“Yes, they were quite rare and dangerous back then. From what I gathered, servers are much safer these days. There is even an effort to make a portal hub in the City. My family’s portal was in the middle of the woods a few days’ walk from the City. You know, I haven’t been there for centuries. I left it behind after- when it started crumbling.”

“What was it like?”

“I… What about this? I’ll take you there if you don’t jump before sunset. Maybe it would be good to see the clearing after all this time. If it’s even still there.”

“Yes!”

Grian was excited the whole afternoon, anxiously watching the sun slowly lower. He wanted to know more about the ritual, but getting to know more about Mumbo’s childhood was exciting too. He wondered what it was like to grow up with a family. Grian never got to have a family himself, raising himself on the streets. He saw other children with adults often, but he never had anything like that himself. So when they finally left their home in the direction of the woods, he could hardly hide his excitement.

Unfortunately, Mumbo was not very talkative. He was ignoring most of Grian’s questions, only providing an occasional single word answer. But he still led the way deeper into the woods. Grian was fluttering around. The forest was much less scary with his friend by his side, even at night.

They hadn’t gotten particularly far into the woods when Mumbo stopped.

Grian watched the vampire with curious eyes. His friend was always moving, stepping from one foot to the other, fidgeting. He never held still, no matter what they were doing – even when he was breaking Grian out of jail that one time, he still wiggled in his fancy dress shoes. Maybe that was why Mumbo’s lack of movement took Grian off-guard.

“Are you okay?” he asked the man.

Now more than ever, Mumbo seemed to melt into the surrounding shadows. The forest was much darker than the City, and it was hard to navigate. It was swallowing the vampire whole. Mumbo was just standing there, red eyes pointed at the overgrown path they had been following until now. He stood there like a marble statue, and just like the statue, he remained silent. Grian was not even sure he was breathing. Was something happening? He reached for his knife, just to be safe.

“Mumbo?” Grian took a tentative step toward his friend, reaching a hand out to his shoulder. As soon as he made contact, the vampire snapped his red gaze at him.

“Grian? I- just give me a minute, okay?”

“What is going on?”

Grian had never seen his friend act so small. He was hunched over, rubbing his wrists while clutching them tight to his chest. “Nothing, I just haven’t been here for so long. It looks so similar.”

“What does? this is where your portal was? Wasn’t it supposed to be farther?”

“No, not the portal. I was changed on the way to the market.”

“You turned into a vampire here?”

“Yes. We should go.”

“No, could you tell me about it? What happened? How did you change?”

“I don’t- It doesn’t matter.”

“It does, though!”

“I don’t exactly remember much. It was night and I was sleeping. I was held down. I was not able to move. I don’t- I should have died.”

“What? No!” Grian went to take his friend’s hands – a blink – his friend was gone. The forest was still drowning in darkness. He was pulled out of his dizziness by the sound of an inhuman laugh behind him. He gripped his knife tighter and turned around.

Chapter Text

Blood.

The scent had hit Mumbo even before he could see his home, and it only got worse the closer he got. It was way too familiar to the smell in his memories. It was way too close to the images in his mind. Could he only be imagining it? His mind played tricks on him the whole way back. But this was different. This was stronger. This was more real.

He stood with his forehead touching the door, breathing in the blood-thick air and trying to hone his hearing. He couldn’t – the rustling leaves in the wind behind him, the rodents running through the fields around, the people breathing within the city limits – everything was way too much, and the blood covered it all. He could feel it in his nose. He could feel it coating his throat. He could feel it clinging to his hands and crawling under his nails. He could feel it drying beneath his palm on the doorknob. He was drowning in it. It was a wonder the world was not red with it.

Mumbo breathed the blood in and out of his lungs, and finally opened the door to be greeted by red.

The destruction had made a path through the house. It trailed bloody handprints through the hall. It coated the kitchen with colorful feathers. It stained the living room floor with muddy footprints. It covered the bed – the nest he had made so that the avian who so often returned felt at home – with mud, feathers, and blood. So much blood.

Mumbo stared at the feathers. So familiar – they had kept him alive, hadn’t? He reached to scratch the dried blood from his skin. There were no red flakes falling off him like he expected. The cavern – or was it bedroom? – was full of blood. It should have covered him from head to toe. With the feathers, it should have been the only evidence of what happened in the cavern. Only the feathers and the blood. No bodies of the birds he must have killed.

So why could he hear the frantic fluttering heart?

In the corner of the cavern – no, it was the bed – there was a man-sized bundle of feathers. It took Mumbo a minute to recognize Grian, to get his mind out of the cavern. The avian was shaking and covered with wings missing too many feathers. He lay there surrounded by torn sheets, feathers and blood. So much blood. It covered the rock – no, the pillows – around him. It covered him. With his every move, the red drops soaked into the sheets.

“Grian?” the vampire inched closer to his friend. It felt wrong seeing him covered in this shade of red. There was no real response. As soon as he came close enough the avian grabbed Mumbo and pulled him into the red-stained sheets. “What happened? Are you okay?”

The avian soon started wailing. It was not the sound Mumbo expected to come from the man.

“Hey! Hey! You’re okay. It will be fine,” he tried to reassure the avian. “Just let me take a look. We need to stop the… the blood. Just…” he trailed off as he finally peeled the avian off of his shoulder and took a look at the torn skin on his shoulders and his wing roots. Thankfully there was much less bleeding than he feared, most of the injuries already scabbed over.

And among the scratches – which only nails could have done – there were also bites. So many shallow bites covered Grian’s skin. Bites that only a vampire could have done. Bites with no rhyme or reason. Bites made with reckless abandon. Bites that only barely drew the avian’s blood. He was here, in the bedroom, but in his mind he was then, back in the night his own skin had been torn open.

Mumbo gently traced one of the bites with his fingers. With the blood coating his home and hanging in the air, he could almost taste it on his tongue. The avian in his arms thrashed as soon as his skin was touched. Instead of recoiling from the vampire that surely must have been at least similar to the one that craved the avian’s blood, he once again pressed himself against the cold of Mumbo’s skin.

There was nothing Mumbo could do tonight.

Mumbo could not get a response from the frantic avian in his arms, nor could he make sense of what was happening around him by himself. So he took one last look at his surroundings, eyes not exactly focusing, the wooden floors flickering into cavern rock, both covered in colorful feathers, and let himself fall into a restless sleep with the bloody feather blanket.

The avian woke them both up with screams that tore through their silent home like a knife. There was no way calm him, so Mumbo just sat there until the avian fell unconscious again. He did not sleep after that.

A few hours later, when the sun set again, they watched the water turn pink from the blood Mumbo washed from Grian’s skin.

“What happened, Grian?”

“I had to.”

“You… You had to? You had to what?”

“Please don’t go. Please. I have to… You can’t leave! What if I… What if my jumps? You almost died. I can’t see you die again. I had to!”

“You had to… Grian, who did this to you?”

“I had to, please don’t go!”

“I am not going anywhere, okay? Let’s clean you up.” Mumbo gently rubbed the dried blood from his friend’s skin and carefully separated the blood-coated feathers with his fingers. They spent hours in the bath, mostly in silence. As much as Mumbo tried, the blood still clung to everything. Even the new sheets turned pink with the water dripping from Grian’s feathers as they returned to bed.

Mumbo was no stranger to nightmares – the smell of blood, the bright feathers, the feel of rock under his back – he had had his fair share throughout the centuries. He never got over the quiet terror in his dreams. But where Mumbo’s own nightmares were silent, Grian’s were loud.

Throughout the last two weeks, Grian’s skin steadily healed, but his mind still clung to the horrors he had gone through. To the horrors he refused to share with Mumbo. To the horrors that woke them both every few hours.

Grian always clung to Mumbo when he woke up. He always stayed within arm’s reach, never letting Mumbo out of his sight. He was so afraid. It took only another week for the smell of fear to overpower the smell of blood, even if the red smell still lingered.

“I can’t lose you,” the avian would always say when Mumbo pressed him for answers. “I can’t be alone again.”

Seeing his friend like this opened Mumbo’s own fear. He always thought he would never have to witness Grian die like the rest. He always thought he could cherish the moments they had when the avian jumped to his time – that the jumper’s nature would mean he would practically have his friend forever.

But he still found him bleeding in their home. He still saw him spiral. He still smelled his blood and fear. He still heard his frantic heart beat overtime. It made it feel like he could actually lose him.

For centuries, Mumbo thought that by keeping the status quo, by not changing anything, he could keep everything the same. He thought that he would never lose the only soul that kept him company. He thought he would never have to feel him die, never have to hear his heart go silent and never smell the soul leave his body. Only now did he consider that possibility.

Only now did he consider the possibility that it could be even worse – that Grian might die sometime else or might simply never jump to Mumbo’s time ever again. And Mumbo would never know. He would forever wait for the avian who would never show up. He would lose him and not even know it.

Perhaps now, after centuries, he finally understood the avian’s desire to change their lives. Perhaps it would go wrong, but at least they would know.

And so, in the soft glow of moon through the window, surrounded by the sounds of the avian’s restless sleep, Mumbo took out the journal he kept hidden and began sorting through the messy notes. Some parts made more sense than others. He could connect the dots with the rituals documented in the journal and his own transformation. He could compare the avian’s notes with the books on unnatural hybrids he had hidden behind the bookshelf so Grian would not find them.

“I couldn’t let you die, Mumbo,” he said after another week, while Mumbo sat him down to eat. “It’s not your fault. I let you do it.”

He could see the similarities between the rituals detailed in the journal that only marked the code and the rituals from the books and his own experience that truly changed it. The allay bound themselves to the land with flowers around their ankles. The vex were made by slicing their ankles and throat and binding them with wool. The shapeshifters shifted under the moon to stabilize themselves. The werewolves had their neck torn in the light of the full moon. The creaking bound their lifetimes to the trees by their wrists. The vampires… the vampires turned their fledglings by holding their wrists and drinking blood from their neck.

He knew vampire transformation was never whole without player’s blood. He thought his own was different. But now he knew how wrong he was to think that. Now he finally knew how he survived his change. He wished it remained a mystery forever.

“I am sorry I did that to you,“ Mumbo said to Grian while checking the now almost healed wounds. “I am sorry you had to see me like that.”

“I am glad you did not die.”

It took Mumbo another two weeks of nonstop work while the avian slept. Thankfully he never jumped – perhaps his code did not recover from the bleeding yet, perhaps his body knew it would be too much strain, perhaps the code in his veins clung to the one that drank it – but the possibility of him leaving haunted Mumbo’s days more than the blood he still tasted in his throat.

“I know what’s missing,” he said, sitting next to the avian with the journal.

Grian watched the journal with an unreadable expression — it looked far older than the last time he’d seen, Mumbo had kept it from him for a century. Perhaps he had finally figured out Mumbo’s betrayal – that Mumbo took his journal and never returned it until now. For now, though, he seemed willing to hear Mumbo out. “You do?”

“Yes. You need to use concentrated code if you want the ritual to stick. You need…” He rubbed his throat. “You need blood.”