Chapter Text
Scar watered the flowers, making sure that as few drops as possible made it onto the petals and leaves. He knew that that was a fire hazard. He had learned that a long time ago, back when he was simply just a gardener in his village. He grabbed his cane and stood up, looking at the flower bed. The pink and yellow flowers were the same as ever, colors slightly faded, although they looked… A little more vibrant than usual? They looked more akin to when they were first planted. The orange flowers looked just the same as ever, the color dull and the tips of the petals just barely curling up at the tips, you couldn't even tell they were curling if you didn't look at them closely. They looked like they could start wilting at any second, but they'd always looked that way. Ever since all of these flowers were planted, all of the flowers looked like this, dull orange and slightly dull pink and yellow. Except for those days… He shook his head at the memories, trying to clear his head. Whenever he thought about his friends, his thoughts would always eventually slip back to…. To him.
He looked at the flower bed again. Some of the flowers were hanging their heads over the edge of the box, so he picked some and separated them into two small bouquets of all three colors, and walked over to a very well trodden path through the forest, into a clearing, where there were two poorly crafted gravestones. There were cracks in both of them, and moss and flowers grew in the cracks. Even though grass and flowers covered all of the earth in this clearing, he knew precisely where both of them were buried, even without the stones. He placed one of the bouquets on the grave labeled ‘Lizzie’, and the other one on the grave labeled ‘Jimmy’. A pained smile spread across his face as he remembered his friends, who had taken him into their family after… That day. His smile faded, and his hand reached to his dragon scale necklace. That horrible, horrible day. That day where he lost everything.
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It was night time, Scar and Grian were running. Running. Running. There was torch light behind them, alongside angry shouting. Every time Scar's feet hit the ground, his legs felt like they were burning. He was panicking, trying to stop his breathing from shaking too hard.
His village had turned on him when they learned he'd fallen in love with a dragon, and was actively hunting both him and Grian down. Grian could've, should've, just flown away as soon as he was revealed to be a dragon to the village, so only Scar would have to deal with the repercussions (there shouldn't have been repercussions), but he refused to leave Scar behind, so they ran instead. But… Scar's legs had never been… Fully healthy, so Grian had a firm grip on Scar's wrist, keeping him going even though he was tired. He knew Grian was tired too, but they couldn't stop. If they stopped… If they stopped, then… Then… Scar was ripped from his train of thought just like his wrist was ripped out of Grian's hand by other hands pulling him back by his shoulders, and shoving him forcefully onto the ground into an uncomfortable sitting position, while Grian snapped around with his eyes wide and panicked at the sudden empty space in his hand. An arrow got lodged in his shoulder, causing him to hiss in pain, while another person forcefully yanked Scar's hands behind his back by the wrists, and held them there. His struggling didn't so much as faze the strong hands rendering him helpless.
And that wasn't the worst of it. He was forced to watch as Grian tried to fight off the mob by himself, gathering more and more injuries as time went on. Scar kept trying to struggle, even while he felt ropes being wrapped around his wrists while he was screaming out for Grian. Barely any time later, he felt the hands leave his shoulders, but before he could do anything else, there was a foot on his back and his cheek was pressed against the ground. He squeezed his eyes open, and he saw Grian fall onto the ground with a blade through his chest, and the blood on his body that was illuminated by the torch light made him feel sick. But what really made him sick was the way he turned his head to him, the shine of his eyes fading with a sad expression on his face, like he was saying ‘I’m sorry.’
More of the mob went over to Grian's body, and Scar couldn't do anything but watch as they cut off his wings, his horns, his tail. They were violently violating his body, and Scar couldn't do anything about it. He barely registered anything except for his crying, the distant cheering of the mob, and he barely even registered getting sat back up and being hit, kicked, and punched. All he could do was stare at the reminder of Grian's corpse and cry. Looking at his dirty brown hair, permanently stained with his blood, his black eyes permanently dead, in a puddle of his own blood on the ground. Eventually he felt cursed magic coursing through his body, and heard someone sneer “You'll live with your sins forever.” And then Grian's corpse was being picked up, and he was being taken away, and then Scar was alone, injured, his hands tied behind his back, and staring at Grian's blood staining the dirt through his tears. They took his body. He couldn't even properly bury him now. The only thing he had left of him was the dragon scale necklace he'd gifted him.
Something in the back of his head was telling him that he had to move, they would be back for him, and he'd be locked up somewhere until the curse faded or the building he was locked in weathered away. But he couldn't bring himself to do anything but cry. The sun was rising now, and the bright shimmer of the blood made him sick. He was still stuck trying to process everything when he heard a shocked “Jimmy!” He still barely registered anything when he heard the thumps of someone's feet, when the rope on his wrists was sliced off, when someone crouched down in front of him. He didn't register anything until someone asked him if he was okay, at which he blinked quickly and saw a woman with pink hair and a man with blonde hair, looking at him with concern. “Are you okay?” The woman asked. Scar tried to respond, but all that came out was a broken noise before he was crying again, and trying to wipe the tears away. He vaguely heard a conversation between them.
“...We need to clean and bandage his wounds...”
“...Do we have enough bandages for this?”
“...Well, it's going to have to be…”
“...Hey, we're going to clean your wounds, okay?”
If Scar was in a better mental state, he would've appreciated the warning. But as it was, the image of Grian like that… It was all he could think of right now. He was barely aware of the sting from his injuries being cleaned, but he could tell how bad it was in each area because of how long each area took to clean. His legs had taken the brunt of the injuries, his arms the least, and he was a little bit surprised that there were any on his face at all, but there were. Before he knew it, all of his injuries had been cleaned and bandaged.
Even though the… events of the night kept replaying in his mind, he was able to think a little clearer now. He muttered out a “Thank you”, and the two smiled at him. Suddenly, there was a noise in the foliage, and Scar jumped quite a bit at it. It didn't surprise him to hear voices, and now that his head was just a little bit clearer, he knew for a fact that Grian wouldn't have wanted him to let himself be locked up. So he tried to get up quickly, but fell back onto the ground immediately. The combination of his legs being so tired from running the night before, and getting the most injuries out of his entire body wasn't good for trying to use them. “Woah, are you okay?” The blonde man asked, concerned. Scar didn't have much of a choice but to ask these two for help. Trying to figure out a quick way to ask where he wouldn't be asked too many questions, he settled for gesturing to his injuries and saying, “They did this” Quietly. They looked at each other in understanding, and they both reached their hands down to him. “Well, c’mon! Let's get away from them!” The woman said.
Scar accepted their hands, and with some difficulty, they helped him up, and disappeared into the forest before the villagers found them. “My name's Lizzie, by the way.” The woman told him while they were walking. “And my name's Jimmy!” The man said. “So, what's your name?”
He thought about that longer than he should've. But when he thought about it, he didn't want the name his parents gave him. His parents were a part of that mob that went after him and Grian. And that only added to his lost trust in the village. So in the spur of the moment, he decided to name himself something that reflected his mental state (And later, his injuries). “Scar.”
“Well, it's nice to meet you, Scar!” Lizzie responded, smiling. Scar managed to smile too, although it was definitely pained.
After a while, they'd made it to a small house deep in the forest, that nobody could find unless they were being guided by someone or knew the way there. It was Lizzie and Jimmy's house, and Lizzie and Jimmy were siblings too, he'd learned. The house had a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms, and an attic inside, and a front porch outside. There was a small garden behind the house as well, alongside a well a little farther away. While Scar's legs recovered, he slept on the couch in the living room, and Jimmy and Lizzie made him leg braces and a cane after their initial inspection of his legs, now that they were truly safe. Not long after that, they'd invited Scar to live with them, and well, not only did he not have anywhere else to go, he liked Lizzie and Jimmy. So he accepted, and together they built an extra room into the house for him to live in so he could stop crashing on the couch. Although it didn't matter where he slept, he was always plagued by nightmares of that night, and often woke up crying or screaming, worrying Lizzie and Jimmy.
They spent twenty years living together. On the third year, Lizzie had come back to the house with six small flowers, two pink, two yellow, and two orange. She was quite enthusiastic about finally being able to use the flower bed they'd built together on the second year. Lizzie planted the pink flowers, Jimmy planted the yellow flowers, and Scar planted the orange flowers.
On the sixth year, Lizzie and Jimmy had planted a small box of catnip near the front of the house without telling Scar. Imagine his surprise when there were suddenly cats fighting and running around outside! Some of them came up to him and let him scratch and pet them, and he loved them!
On the thirteenth year, all three of them carved wooden bird figures that they painted later. They all had some splinters that they helped each other get out, and a few scratches where they'd mostly missed the wood. And the paint took forever to clean off of their hands!
On the fifteenth year, Lizzie made a comment about his necklace. About the dragon scale. It had been a scale Grian shed while his wings were growing, that he'd turned into a necklace and given to Scar as a gift. He had hidden it under his shirt back when he lived in the village, so that nobody asked where he got it from. Before he could respond to Lizzie’s comment, Jimmy pointed out that while him and Lizzie looked like they'd aged, Scar still looked exactly the same, save for getting scar's from his injuries back when they first met. That was what made Scar remember. And that was what broke him. He'd started crying again, and Lizzie and Jimmy got worried and asked what was wrong. That was when he told them both everything. Everything about Grian, about the village, about his injuries, and… about the curse that was placed on him, about how he was certainly going to outlive them because of it.
They didn't turn on him like the village did when he told them about Grian and the curse. Instead, they hugged him and cried with him, ending the day by promising that they would all cherish each moment with each other more than they already were.
………..
On the twentieth year, Jimmy got sick. Scar and Lizzie tried as many things as they could, but he just got worse. One day, he seemed like he was getting better, and he even said he was feeling better, but when they checked on him in the morning, he'd passed. Scar and Lizzie cried at his bedside for a bit before setting up to bury him. The flowers had spread quite a bit since they'd been planted. The yellow flowers looked almost wilted, and the sky was blocked out by clouds. The sun was beginning to set by the time Scar and Lizzie had finished carving the stone and digging the hole. They laid him there with a flower of each color in his hands along with a flower crown on his head, and then filled in the hole together. Then they started picking some more of the flowers to put directly on top of the grave. While they were picking flowers, it started to rain. They didn't really care, though, just continuing to pick flowers until they both had bouquets they could put on the grave. They stood in front of his grave for a while before going back inside.
Two months later, Lizzie got sick too. Scar tried everything, even the recipes he swore he'd never use again because they were his mother's, and his mother had been a part of the mob that went after him. Nothing worked. All Scar could do now was be with her while she died. Her final wish was for Scar to keep taking care of the flowers they'd all planted together. She'd asked with a smile. He promised. She closed her eyes, and Scar watched her breathing slow, until she wasn't breathing at all. He checked her heartbeat. It was gone. He checked her pulse. It was gone. She was gone. Scar cried again at her bedside before he worked on carving a gravestone. It took him longer to do it on his own, but he couldn't rest properly until Lizzie was resting next to her brother. He worked well into the night to make sure the stone was decent, and started digging the hole. The sun was rising while he carried Lizzie to the grave. The pink flowers were wilting. He laid Lizzie down in the hole with the same flower arrangement that they'd buried Jimmy with, and started filling in the hole. The last thing he saw of her before he finished filling it in was her face, eyes closed peacefully for the last time. He went to pick some more of the flowers, and left a bouquet on both graves before going back inside, and completely breaking down for the third time in his life.
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He hadn't realized that he had started crying while he recalled his memories. Scar stayed by the gravestones for a little longer with his hand clutching the dragon scale, trying to take deep breaths and calm himself down. He tried to run his mind through the other tasks he has to do today. He needs to finish cutting out the shape of his next cane and smooth the stick out to make it. His current cane was the one that Lizzie and Jimmy had made for him, as were the braces. They were made of a tough wood that would last a long time, Jimmy had told him. And he was right, because it'd been roughly five hundred twenty years since it was made now, and only now did it start creaking and rotting. He would have to fix up his braces soon, too… Right, and then he also has to leave out the bowls of cat food, and tend to the garden.
He got up, and went inside of the house to pick up the cat food and pour some into the three food bowls nearby the catnip, before putting the food back inside and heading for the garden, which had gotten bigger over the years. While he was tending to the garden, he occasionally looked over at the flowers. There were days where the pink and yellow ones were more vibrant than usual, and days where they were more dull. He sometimes talked to them as if they were Lizzie and Jimmy, and even though he knew talking to flowers was already delusional enough, he could swear he saw the flowers' color dull or become more vibrant when he asked questions, like they were answering him. He knew that was delusional, but other times there would be gusts of wind carrying yellow and pink flower heads that would land in his palms, on his head, anywhere it could reach when he would feel sad.
He'd gathered all of the ripe vegetables and fruits from the garden and watered the plants along the way, so he went inside to put them away, and grabbed a strawberry to eat before he got back to work on his cane sitting on the front porch. He knew that Grian, Jimmy, and Lizzie would all get onto him about eating, even if technically he didn't need to. Remembering that brought a pained smile to his face. He ate the strawberry and rinsed his hands with some of the water he pulled from the well, and then sat down on the front porch to get back to work on his cane.
While he was working, his thoughts wandered. He rarely left the general vicinity of the house, and leaving the forest was even rarer. Whenever he did leave, he made sure he avoided the direction that his old village was in. Even though it could've been completely destroyed, he doesn't want to go back there for any reason. It could've expanded to the place that Grian had been killed, for all he knows. And another thing is if the village is truly still standing, there's certainly spooky children's stories where him and Grian are portrayed as the villains that'll snatch them away if they're bad. He shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand.
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By the time the sun was high in the air, he'd excavated the general shape of his cane from the block of wood, and was working on smoothing it out when a particularly strong gust of wind caught his attention and made him stop, looking up at the sky in confusion. You wouldn't normally get a gust of wind this strong so far into the forest. There was another strong gust of wind, and this time he saw pink and yellow flower petals on the wind. His gaze followed the petals all the way over to a tree, and what he saw there made him freeze completely, body and thoughts. Leaning on that tree was a man who… who… who looked… exactly like… like him. Dirty blonde hair, black eyes, the only difference was a lack of dragon features. He was leaning against the tree with his shoulder and one of his hands, and the other hand was holding his stomach, which looked like it had a… gash on it… His thoughts briefly returned to… That image, but he quickly shook the thoughts away. This man might… look exactly like his dead boyfriend from over five hundred years ago, but, he was injured. He wasn't going to ignore someone who clearly needed help.
So, he stood up with his cane, and started walking over to the man. When he was close enough to better see him, he looked like he… was in a bad state. And just like that, the man fell over, and Scar panicked a bit and strained himself to stop the man from hitting the ground. He really did look exactly like him… But he couldn't dwell on that right now, this man had an injury that needed tending to. So he carefully laid the man out on the ground, and as quickly as he could muster, gathered some medical supplies, and then returned.
He cleaned the man's wound, and he heard his breath catch when the blood was getting cleaned, and he winced a bit, because it sounded exactly like a noise Grian would make. He shook his head clear of his thoughts, and continued to treat the wound until it was time to bandage it, at which he carefully pulled the man up and was just as careful wrapping the bandage around his stomach and back. He laid the man back down on the ground, his mission complete, and stared at him, trying to figure out his next course of action.
He looked up at the sky, and it was a mixture of pink, purple, and orange, so the sun was setting. He couldn't just leave this man out here during the night. He sighed, and carefully picked up the man. He wasn't quite sure how he would carry both the man and his cane, but he supposes he could come back to get his cane, since he was planning on setting this man on the couch, which wasn't too far away from the front door. So, that was what he did. After he grabbed his cane, he went back inside for the night, and he looked at the man again. He tossed a blanket over him, and then went straight into his room, and paced around for a bit. This has to be some kind of sick joke, he thought to himself, the universe must want to laugh at me. He got into bed, and tossed and turned until he fell asleep, plagued by nightmares of the past.
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Scar winced when he saw the man sleeping on his couch in the morning sunlight. He had hoped it was all a dream, but another part of him knew it wasn't, because any dream involving Grian was a nightmare. The bags he's sure are under his eyes from last night should prove that. He sighs, and goes into the kitchen. He's sure this man is going to be hungry, so he decides to start cooking with one of Lizzie's old recipes.
After a while, a good smell started filling the house, and it nearly choked him up. The last time he'd smelled this was when Lizzie was alive, which was over five hundred years ago. He heard the man beginning to stir, and he didn't know if he was ready to talk to someone who looked so similar to his dead boyfriend, but he had brought him into his house, so he'd have to. He heard a confused noise that turned into a slightly panicked “Where am I?!”
Scar winced. He even sounded similar. He took a deep breath and turned around to face the man, and put on a smile. “Well hello there.” He greeted. The man looked at him, a mix of confusion and fear. “You were leaning on a tree outside of my house, and you passed out, so I brought you inside because it was night.”
“...Were you the one who took care of my injury?” The man asked, confused and thankful. “Well, there's not really anyone else living here anymore.” He answered. The man looked at him, a bit perplexed. “Anymore?” He asked. “What happened?”
“Life.” Scar responded with a shrug. Not technically a lie, getting sick is a fairly normal occurrence in life. There was silence while the man looked at him a bit more closely. “Your hair’s really long.” The man commented. Well, that wasn't something he expected to hear, but he wasn't exactly wrong. Scar hadn't been able to get the energy to care much about his hair more than tying it into a ponytail or occasionally braiding it since Lizzie passed. “Who are you?” Scar blinked at the sudden change of subject, but yeah, of course you'd wonder who the person that took care of your injury was. As much as he was still… dealing with it, for lack of a better expression, he was able to put on a lopsided smile when he answered. “Scar. You?”
There was a bit of silence while the man seemingly contemplated what he was about to say. “Grian.”
Oh.
That- Oh.
Scar tried not to let the smile fade from his face when he heard that. Grian (not his Grian) sniffed the air and scrunched up his face. “Is something burning?” He asked, and that was when Scar realized he'd left the stove on, and made a loud noise that was probably amusing, since he heard Grian snicker. While he was trying to save breakfast, he was only thinking, this HAS to be some kind of cruel joke. How else can you justify someone almost EXACTLY like him landing practically on his doorstep? This has to be some kind of sick and twisted joke.