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Ever since she’d logged onto the ninth server of Hermitcraft, she’d felt off.
A little more tired, she could build less before her shoulders hurt, she was practically hoarding every bit of softness that entered her base, and she kept catching herself staring at the sky.
It was probably just a side effect of the moon crashing into their last world.
Which meant it was something she was technically supposed to tell Xisuma about, or Joe, or you know anyone at all but it just wasn’t that big of a deal, not really a problem not like other people were having. Besides she’s FalseSymmetry Queen of Heads, Hearts, and Body Parts, it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle.
At least she’d thought so.
That changed when she woke up on a day she planned on building with her back feeling like her back was on fire. The pain radiated from her shoulder blades and down her spine and arms.
She tried to breathe through it, maybe she had done too much building yesterday and she just needed to rest.
The blankets surrounding her and the softness beneath her was making the chronic tiredness she’d been feeling to become more apparent.
Void, she was tired even though she’d just woken up.
Maybe, just maybe, this was something she needed to tell someone about.
She shifted from laying on her side to laying on her front, the pain in her back went down just a bit, not as much as she expected but a bit.
She tried to fall back asleep, to ignore the pain, to just let her body rest.
She managed to doze a little, float between awake and asleep.
But then the pain in her back spiked to unbearable degrees and her shirt was sending uncomfortable prickles through her skin.
She swallowed and fought through the pain to sit up, she pulled off her sleep shift and the prickling feeling went away.
She stared at her comm that was sitting innocently on her nightstand. She swallowed again, steeled herself before reaching forward and grabbing her comm.
Then she stared at the list of Hermits with even the most basic of medical training. Gem and Stress were the official server medics but she trusted Doc more than anyone else on the list. Doc was a scientist first but he knew more than most. Zed knew lots but was very much a mad scientist at the end of the day. All admins had to have at least an above basic level of first aid knowledge.
But her decision had been made since before she picked up her comm. She opened up her messages with Doc.
‘You whisper to Docm77: Can you come over to my base. My back hurts a lot.’
Even that felt like a giant understatement of the pain that was ever present.
A response came in very quickly, ‘Docm77 whispers to You: On my way.’
She set her comm down and curled her arms around her abdomen, closing her eyes to block out the pain.
She could hear her door open below her.
Doc knocked on her door.
She thought really hard and managed to tap into her minimal magic to create a halter top that stayed up but didn’t touch her back. Then she turned to face the door.
“Come in,” She called, trying not to let the pain show in her voice.
Doc entered, looking concerned, “Hello False.”
“Hey Doc,” She greeted.
Doc took in her room for a moment, raising an eyebrow at the mass amounts of blankets on her bed, before walking up to her, “You said your back hurt?”
It wasn’t really a question but she nodded anyway.
“Can I see?” Doc asked.
That was a question.
She responded by turning around so Doc could see, she didn’t think he would be able to see much but he asked.
“Can I touch you?” Doc asked, “I just want to check something?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” She allowed. She did not feel very much like the ‘feared’ Queen of Heads, Hearts, and Body Parts right now.
It was safe though, to not be that right now.
Doc carefully touched the small of back first before carefully trailing up to her shoulder blades.
The moment his fingers brushed against that part of her back she flinched away as the pain increased again.
Doc removed his hand, “Okay, I’m going to call Xisuma and Grian because I think I know what’s going on and they’ll know better.”
“Okay,” She agreed.
While they waited she asked quietly, “What do you think’s going on?”
Doc hesitated before coming into her eyesight, “I think you’re growing wings.”
Her eyes widened before she said, “Doc, I’m a human. Why in the world would I be growing wings?”
“I don’t know, that’s why I’m getting X and Grian. They’ll know better,” Doc said, usually gentle.
She nodded. Doc probably jumped to a conclusion that was wrong.
The pain didn’t get any worse while they were waiting for the resident Parrot hybrid and their admin which was good because she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
She heard her front door almost slam open and then rapid footsteps racing up the stairs.
Her bedroom door wasn’t slammed open but it was opened rapidly.
She swallowed her pain to look over her shoulder.
Grian was standing in the doorway, eyes widened and glancing at Doc very quickly.
“I don’t want to be wrong about this,” Doc explained.
“I certainly wouldn’t want to be wrong about something like this,” Grian agreed before addressing her, “Can I come in False?”
“Yes,” She allowed. She didn’t know why they were making this such a big deal, because the way Grian said it was making it a big deal.
“So?” Doc prompted.
“I don’t want to confirm anything without X checking her code,” Grian said. Diplomatic, not very Grian but very admin.
“I’ve never heard of someone presenting this late,” Doc said.
Void, they were still on the wing thing.
“I have,” Grian said simply, “It’s not common but it happens.”
She rolled her eyes a bit.
Xisuma arrived soon after and as he went through her code, after her permission was given, Grian started asking her questions.
“How long has your back been hurting?” The parrot hybrid asked, perched on her headboard.
“This morning,” She answered, there was no use lying they were just trying to help.
Grian nodded then asked, “Have you noticed your back’s itchy?”
She stared at him for a moment before answering, “Yes, how did you?”
Grian hummed, looking at the blankets and pillows on her bed, which she just now realized looking an awful lot like Grian’s nests.
Grian eyes returned to her, “Have you found yourself staring at the sky more often?”
She nodded, “Why is that important?”
Grian took her in for a few more moments before softening, “It’ll be okay False.”
Xisuma inhaled sharply from his spot beside her bed.
Both her and Grian looked over to their admin.
“False, are there any known avian hybrids in your family?” Xisuma asked, eyes staring at her code from behind his visor.
Oh, oh shit.
She needed to answer, “Not that I know of.”
She didn’t know much about her family actually. They were never very forthcoming.
“That’s okay,” Xisuma answered, “I’m just gonna say it then, your code says you’re an avian."
She stared, “My code changed?”
Xisuma hesitated, “Maybe or there were signs but since you looked human and just hadn’t presented yet, we ignored it.”
She nodded.
“Doc, can you get us a regen potion, a strength potion, and a few weakness potions?” Grian asked.
She glared at the avian, other avian, void that was weird, “I don’t take weakness potions.”
Doc left to go get what Grian asked for.
“You will,” Grian said, “Growing wings, which is what you’re doing right now, hurts.”
“It can’t possibly hurt that much,” She argued.
“The wings rip out of your skin,” Grian said bluntly, “I don’t remember growing my wings because my mind has blocked it out. It’s what they do because it’s protecting you.”
“Then how do you know?” She pushed.
“I have two younger brothers who are avians, I remember them growing their wings,” Grian said, then he softened again swallowing, “We grow up with a little girl my youngest brother met at daycare, she’s basically my sister and she was two when she grew her wings, please drink the weakness potions False.”
She stayed quiet, Grian didn’t really talk about his life prior to crash landing on Season 5. He must be serious about this.
Doc came back with the requested potions.
“Okay,” She agreed.
“Thank you,” Grian said, taking the strength potion and one of the weakness potions.
“Strength and Weakness?” Xisuma asked, worried, “Won’t they cancel each other out?”
“You’d think,” Grian said, “But strength potions are basically a shot of adrenaline and weakness potions are physical tiredness. I’m coding the strength to last for 2 hours by the way X. Weakness helps the actual process, physical tiredness lets the wings come out easier, along with distancing your mind immediately while the strength makes it so you don’t feel the pain, or at least most of the pain.”
“How’d you figure that out?” Doc asked.
Grian paused, even in his coding, before continuing and saying quietly, “My twin likes potions.”
“You have a twin?” She asked, surprised.
Grian’s face went guarded, like it usually was when a question about his past came up, “Strength first.”
They weren’t going to get an answer to that, Grian was done sharing for the day.
She reached out to take the potion from Grian.
He yanked the cork out once it was in her hand.
She downed the potion and the adrenaline immediately kicked into gear, softening the edges of her pain.
Grian uncorked the weakness but didn’t hand it over yet instead he asked a question, “This is gonna get real important very quickly, can we go into your nest?”
She nodded.
“Words False,” Grian said, firm but not sharp.
“Yes, you can all three of you,” She answered.
Grian slipped off the headboard and onto her bed, offering the weakness potion to her.
She took it and only hesitated for a half a second before also downing it.
Grian asked Doc for a couple more medical things as Xisuma joined them on the bed.
“You’ll be okay False,” Xisuma promised.
Grian carefully tugged her so she was laying with her head basically in his lap.
The weakness hit and she could feel her muscles relax, exhausted. Her thoughts also floated off a bit, distancing her from the sensations happening to her body.
“We will be here the whole time,” Grian promised, “Do you want anyone else here? A medic other than Doc?”
She shook her head after both questions, the less people who saw her like this the better.
“Okay,” Grian accepted.
“What do you need me to do G?” Xisuma asked quietly.
“Not much,” Grian admitted above her, “Keeping an eye on her code to make sure nothing’s going wrong is helpful but not necessary.”
“So mostly moral support?” Xisuma teased lightly.
Grian chuckled, “Yeah, pretty much.”
“And because the admin kind of needs all the information about the hybrid types they have on their servers,” Doc added, bed dipping as he climbed in and set what Grian asked for somewhere.
Grian hummed in agreement.
“I really don’t know more than you’ve told me about avians G,” Xisuma said.
Grian was quiet for a long, stretching moment.
“How much have you told us about avian’s G?” Doc asked.
Grian was quiet for a bit longer hands rubbing up and down her arms a few times before finally admitting, “I’ve barely scratched the surface, Its-you guys are flock but I was taken from my flock before and I’m scared. I’ll explain everything to False I promise.”
She nodded as much as she could.
“That’s okay G, I’m not going to force you to tell me anything,” Xisuma said, gentle.
“But you’re gonna make me tell False?” Grian half joked.
“No but if you don’t she’ll have to go to the hub to learn,” Xisuma said.
An angry chirp slipped out before Grian could stop it, but he cut it off before it could finish, “I’ll tell False everything.”
“I believe you,” Xisuma assured.
Grian’s hands continued to run up and down her arms as the three on her bed lapsed into silence.
After what felt like far too long of silence and nothing happening Doc spoke up, sounding surprised, “Is skin supposed to do that?”
“When growing wings,” Grian answered.
“Those are her wings?” Xisuma asked.
“Yeah, they have to come from somewhere,” Grian said.
She shut her eyes, she didn’t want to know what they were seeing, under her skin?
Doc seemed to know the silence would get to her eventually as he started up a conversation with Xisuma about some sort of redstone advancement in technology.
She decided she wasn’t going to pay attention to that, she didn’t need to know the redstone information, that’s not her strong suit and her mind was a bit fuzzy. She also didn’t want to know what was going on around her, to her.
She let her mind float off to the sounds of Doc and Xisuma talking.
Eventually some sort of pressure started to press against her skin.
She grabbed onto whatever she could of Grian and her sheets as hard as she could.
“It’s starting,” Grian said then warned, “It’s going to get bloody.”
“We’ve got you False,” Doc said.
She trusted them, she did, so she very consciously shoved her panic to the back of her mind.
The pressure steadily increased, Grian feeding her another weakness potion about halfway through.
Then the pressure rushed out all at once and two heavy blanket like limbs collapsed on top of her bed and body.
“Void, that’s a lot of blood,” Xisuma said quietly.
Grian held the regen potion to her lips and she drank it with his help.
She stayed awake for just a few more moments before her world was consumed by darkness.
Hands were cautiously running through her hair.
She blinked open her eyes, she was still in someone’s lap but it wasn’t Grian’s. Something in her head rebelled against that, against the fact Grian was gone.
Then the sensation of much more confident hands carefully moving through the feathers on the wings on her back.
The thing in her head settled, that had to be Grian sorting through her feathers.
She let out a noise that she didn’t know she could make, a chirp.
All the hands on her froze for a moment before Grian’s hands continued on her wings, accompanied by chirps that she translated as safe-flock.
She reached out to the side where she could feel a large dip in the bed.
Doc took her hand and squeezed gently, “Hi False, how are you feeling?”
She struggled with words for a moment before saying, “Like a truck hit me.”
Grian chuckled, “Yeah, it tends to feel like that.”
Xisuma’s hands restarted running through her hair.
“When can I use them to fly?” She asked, quietly.
“Once your actual feathers replace the down ones,” Grian said, “Plus your instincts are in the fledgling stage which means they’re really sensitive.”
“Fledgling?” Doc asked, ever the scientist.
“What baby avians are called,” Grian explained, “Obviously False isn’t a baby but her instincts are in that stage.”
“So how long? Xisuma asked.
“About a month or so,” Grian said, smoothing out the last of her down feathers, “Back muscles have to heal and grow stronger and feathers have to grow in.”
“What kind of bird am I,” She asked.
“We’ll find out when your feathers start growing in but I’m putting my money on eagle,” Grian said.
She nodded, she was tired, which did make sense, she did have wings break through her back.
“You can sleep False,” Grian promised, “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
She let out a content trill and soon let sleep claim her again.