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Grog was an intelligent man. He knew where to hit an ogre to make it stay down with any weapon he was given. He could say exactly the right thing to an opponent to make them wet themselves before he even laid a hand on them. Sure, he couldn’t read all the little squiggly marks other people liked to make to write things down, but Pike always told him that wasn’t what was important anyway.
Besides, the language Grog spoke most fluently was battle, and he was a damn poet at that. He could read every attack and move his enemies were about to make told in the tension of their muscles, the balance of their stance, the twitch of their eyes. It was more of a spoken language, a dialogue of action and blood, but even that had its written form. The scars left on the parchment of skin told epic tales for those with a gifted enough eye to read them, stories of glorious battle and rage carved into flesh forever as lines and craters and kinked sinew, or carved out in places that were missing when the story was really good.
Grog liked scars. He wore his proudly, relishing the opportunity to tell how he earned them. He and Pike went over theirs on lazy evenings, remembering the scraps they had gotten into and out of together. He sized up new people he met by their scars as much as what they said or how they looked. (Fighting them was still best, but he didn’t always get to get that well-acquainted with folks they met.)
By the time he was part of the SHITs, he could read his teammates pretty well. Pike’s scars he knew by heart, and had been there when she got most of them. Vax and Vex had pretty much what he would expect from people who snuck around the shadows and woods getting into trouble everywhere they went. Keyleth had almost none, except for small ones that were usually from pretty funny accidents, although she didn’t seem as proud of those stories as he would be. Tiberius didn’t have any noticeable ones really, but he had dragonskin so he looked badass enough without them. Scanlan only had a few Grog knew about, but they had really good stories attached and Scanlan told them well, even if they were kind of different every time he told them.
The one who confused Grog, though, was Percy. The human had been with them for months now, but he didn’t really talk about himself and there wasn’t much for Grog to read about him. He wore a lot of layers and gloves, but what skin Grog could see seemed pretty scar-free. That made sense with him being a noble—they were a pretty boring lot, overall—but most nobles didn’t build things that blew shit up. They also didn’t usually have eyes that looked like they belonged in someone who would slit your throat if you met them in a dark alley. The first time Grog saw Percy unleash his own rage in battle, blasting creatures into smoky, bloody pieces with his crazy-awesome death weapon, Grog knew this was a noble he could get along with.
And they’d met him in a jail cell, after all, so he had to have some pretty interesting stories he wasn’t telling yet, right?
But for now, Grog had pretty much resigned himself that Percy was a closed book on that front and he’d have to be okay with that. Percy had loosened up some since they met him, but not that much.
One day, though, after a particularly nasty fight in a cave against a batch of rust monsters, they stumbled across a hot spring on the way out. Apparently it had been a long enough day even Percy decided to join them for a soak. Grog cannonballed straight in, not even bothering to take any clothes off. He surfaced to Pike casting off her armor and diving in behind him, the rest stripping off their own layers to join as well. The twins splashed in eagerly, Vax dunking Vex immediately. Tiberius lowered himself in more carefully, sighing happily at the heat after the frigid chill of the cave. Keyleth was struggling to get out of her outfit, stumbling slightly as it tangled around her legs in her haste. Grinning over that, Grog’s eyes fell on Percy beside her, carefully laying his clothes and guns away from the water’s edge, but close enough to grab if needed.
And he stared.
It wasn’t Percy’s body, though Grog had to admit the skinny little bastard had more muscle than he would have expected. It was the shitload of scars that were scattered across his torso and arms.
“Aw, man! You’ve been holding out on us!”
Percy jumped, long johns partway lowered as he realized Grog was shouting to him.
The others glanced over at his comment.
“Yeah, Percy! Take it off!” Vex whooped cheerfully.
Percy, still frozen mostly unclothed, frowned at Grog, shifting his undergarments slightly back up. “I beg your pardon?”
“I knew you were hiding something, but may I say it’s more impressive than I would’ve pictured,” Grog said, gesturing with his hand in Percy’s direction. “They’re not as big as mine, obviously, but not bad for a noble.”
Under the interested and peering eyes of the whole party, Percy pulled his clothing higher over himself. “Is this seriously happening right now?”
“I’m a bit surprised myself,” Vax said, arching a curious brow at Grog. “Didn’t know you swung that way, big man.”
“What?” Grog frowned at Vax before recognizing the expression on his face. “No! I’m not looking at his bits and pieces! I’m talking about the scars!”
Now all eyes were back on Percy yet again, but even more intently, as if seeing him anew.
“Shit,” Vax muttered.
“That makes more sense,” Tiberius nodded, sinking into the water further as he lost interest. “I didn’t notice anything else outside the expected range for a human male.”
“Percy!” Keyleth exclaimed, taking his shoulder to turn him toward her and looking him over. “Where did you get all those?!”
“I have been in scrapes before I met all of you,” he retorted. Rather than relaxing with Grog’s explanation, Percy seemed even more skittish about the others attention, shooing off Keyleth’s hands and worried eyes.
“Yes, but that does seem like an awful lot, darling,” Vex said as he quickly shed the last of his clothing and hurriedly slipped into the water.
He sighed, sounding resigned. “I…may have blown myself up a number of times learning to use black powder.”
“Blown yourself up?” Keyleth asked.
“Yes.”
“Like, to little pieces?” Vex asked.
“One piece still, thankfully,” he answered.
“Good thing you were able to get to healers,” Pike commented softly.
“Yes.” Percy settled into a spot against the wall of the hot spring, sinking so the water covered him up to his shoulders and prevented further staring. “Very fortunate.”
“Just to make sure, you learned enough to make sure you don’t blow any of us up, right?” Scanlan piped up.
“Of course.” Percy set his glasses aside and closed his eyes. “With almost ninety percent certainty.”
Grog was ready to call bullshit because there was no way an explosion caused all of those scars, but Pike touched his arm and asked him about how he killed one of the rust monsters during the earlier fight and he got excited remembering how it almost took his arm off and they were off on recounting the glory of the battle and then there was a splash fight between Vax and Vex that ended when Keyleth controlled the water to drench all of them to win and Vax’s underclothes got soaked on the shore and froze and it was an awesome day.
But Grog found himself frustrated for a while after. Seeing Percy’s scars had answered some of his questions, but also kind of confused him more. He kept an eye out after that as Percy got more casual with them and didn’t cover up quite as much. Grog could recognize the small scars on his hands and arms from tinkering accidents. He did see ones that were clearly from burns or shrapnel. And he knew the slashes, stabs, and breaks that had happened when Percy got dragged into melee battle with them.
But there were a whole bunch he’d seen since that first day that made no sense to him. There were long lines, but not as thick or jagged as those from a sword or axe. Burns, but in small precise areas that’d be hard to aim for on a battlefield. All kinds of marks, all in nasty areas that would hurt, but without the rage of battle behind them. It was like he’d been in a fight, but not a fight, and it confused Grog. It reminded him of when he heard someone speak a language he didn’t understand: he recognized parts of it, but not how they were put together.
The question lingered in the back of his mind—when he remembered it—for months, although life was kind of crazy itself with the demons taking over the leader of Emon and Pike dying and coming back and the creepy fuck who was stealing kids and then getting a keep of their own. So it wasn’t really at the front of his mind most of the time. Then, one day, they were in the Underdark, fighting awesome underground monsters, and they found the Halfling woman they were supposed to rescue and she was a badass and killed the guy who’d been torturing her and Grog couldn’t help staring and admiring her muscles and her weapons and her scars…
And something tickled in the back of his mind, like it did when he thought somebody was sneaking up behind him. It took him a while to put together what caused it, but as he was laying there drifting toward sleep in the dark below the earth, thinking about Kima running a guy through on a meathook while naked… it clicked.
All the fresher scars and injuries Kima had when they found her. They were bigger, the edges more rough, but the pattern, the language…
Reminded him of Percy’s.
Oh.
Ohhh…
Shit.
Definitely not from battle. Or accidents.
In the dim greys of his Darkvision, Grog glanced over at the sleeping human, his scars, as usual, covered by layers of clothes, his gun beside his twitching hand, brow slightly creased in a frown beneath hair as white as Pike’s. And he wondered who it was that did it. And if Percy got to put them on a meathook too.
He almost totally forgot about it, what with fighting a giant and then a Beholder and kind of dying and then almost getting wiped out by tentacle-faces and Clarota being a traitorous fuck, but then they were back home with the Beholder’s fucking horn that they’d ripped from its skull and it was time to celebrate. They hit every tavern and pub on their way back to Greyskull Keep and Grog carried Lady Kima’s petrified form and tried to drink enough to forget about the cold darkness of K’Varn’s life-draining thing and about being helpless and restrained while Pike almost died in front of him.
Somewhere along the way, Grog had had enough ale that the world went all bright and wavy and he didn’t really feel it when he punched or got punched anymore, so he looked for the rest of his friends again. He saw Percy sitting with Keyleth, encouraging her to have another drink and grinning as she drained the whole thing and Grog was grinning too ‘cause drunk Keyleth was fun.
But then he noticed Kima’s statue was sitting next to Percy too and through the ale a little spark of memory kindled like a cold trickle of water trying to mess with his nice warm drunkenness. The next ale he swigged didn’t taste as good as usual and the thought lingered in his head like an annoying insect and he decided he needed to get rid of that weird feeling before it ruined the rest of his pub crawl.
When Vex led Keyleth away to find the water closet or something, Grog kept his feet under him enough to wander into the empty space next to Percy.
“Done fighting the local blacksmiths for the night?” Percy asked, sounding too sober for as far as they were into the night.
“Yeah, got boring.”
“Mm.” Percy sipped his ale again.
“Hey, so, I was thinking,” Grog said.
“Oh dear,” Percy offered sympathetically.
“Yeah, I know, but it feels kinda important-like.” He leaned on the high table top. It was hard enough putting words together in a straight line right now without having to focus on also standing upright on top of it.
“So, sometimes Pike an’ I will get kind of drunk and sit and talk about times we had really good fights, right? And she’ll point at one of my scars an’ I’ll tell her how I got it and I’ll point to one o’ hers and she’ll tell me how she got it, and it’s fun, right? But some of the scars I’ve got I got from less exciting things, like when I got beaten almost dead by the Herd.”
Grog wished he still had an ale in his hand even if it did taste stale and bitter right now.
“And Pike never points to those ones. I figured it was ‘cause she already knew about them, since she’s the one who healed ‘em, you know? But I think maybe she doesn’t point to ‘em ‘cause she thinks it’s something I don’t want to talk about.”
Percy nodded thoughtfully, glancing over where Pike was cheering on Vax and Scanlan in a darts game. “She is an insightful one that way.”
Grog grunted agreement. He wasn’t totally clear on ‘inciteful’, but Percy’s voice was fond and respectful, so he figured it was good. “Anyway, I know we’re having fun and all kinds of crazy shit happened today, but I just wanted to tell you, I’ll never point at your scars.”
Percy paused a long time. He did that a lot. It was the problem with knowing too many words, Grog concluded. You couldn’t find the ones you wanted right away, what with searching through all of ‘em.
“Thank you,” Percy said at last, slowly and a bit uncertainly.
See? For Grog, simple words like that were right there in his head, no digging needed. But you had to be patient with people like Percy. Their brains just didn’t work as fast.
“No problem. ‘Course, if you’ve got ones with, like, really good stories, I’d love to hear all about it!” He cleared his throat, pulling himself back to serious dignity. “But I won’t ask.”
Percy chuckled, picking up his glass again. “I think you were there for all the best stories, but if I think of any that are particularly gruesome, I’ll let you know.”
“Excellent!” Grog clapped him on the back, then grabbed a half-full glass from a guy passed out on the next table and held it in a toast. “To scars: like Pike says, they mean you stayed alive!”
Percy cocked his head a bit, raising his eyebrows briefly. “I suppose they do.”
He clinked his glass to Grog’s and the dark little feeling in the back of Grog’s brain faded away into a nice haze again.
And then Vax was whistling and saying there was arm-wrestling at the pub two streets over and Grog was not missing that and they were out the door again. On the way, Grog noticed Percy seemed more quiet and thoughtful than before and he frowned, thinking maybe talking on a pub crawl had been a bad idea after.
But then Vex dumped a whooping Keyleth onto Percy’s shoulder to support for a while and Vax took her circlet and wore it without her noticing and Scanlan started singing about a naughty barmaid from Marquet and Pike beat him to the dirty last line and everybody was laughing and Grog saw Percy laughing with the rest of them, the sober look mostly gone for the moment. So he figured everything was okay for now after all.
For a minute, the memory flickered in Grog’s mind of the indignant rage on Percy’s face as he had blasted the back of Clarota’s head off for betraying and almost killing their friends, and Grog had a feeling if they ever did meet the person who gave Percy those scars, it was going to be a hell of a nasty battle.
He thought about getting a meathook, just in case.