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It was a beautiful day in the forest, that was all that Scar could think of as he sat in the clearing. He came here often, so often that he could walk to this spot with his eyes closed, he knew he could do that because he had done it once! He did have a few bruises after but those went away fast, so that didn’t matter.
He laid back on the rock that had became his go-to spot when he came here, basking in the sunlight that oh so conveniently warmed the rock. As he closed his eyes he could forget all his worries for a second, and just exist.
The stream nearby provided a constant background noise, it sounded exactly like those relax to the sounds of nature podcasts he sometimes listened to. The only thing that was missing were the birds, he opened his eyes again. Where are the birds? Normally the forest was full with sounds, yet now had become silent.
Just as he sat up, the ray of sunshine that had been warming him disappeared. Scar looked up in confusion, it was supposed to be a cloudless day. As his eyes adjusted to the light of the sky, or rather lack thereof, he felt his stomach fall. That wasn’t a cloud, it was a ship, or UFO would be a better name for it.
He quickly scrambled off the rock, the lunch that he had planned as a treat forgotten in his panic, and started running out of the clearing. But he didn’t came far, as an unfamiliar pulling sensation first held him in place but quickly pulled him to the ship thingy. As he flew higher he started feeling strange, like his body was pulling itself apart and putting itself back together at a different place. Suddenly he felt like his stomach was pulled out of his body and his vision went white for a few seconds.
When Scar could feel again, the first thing he noticed was claw like hands on his body, his vision wasn’t completely normal but he still started fighting back. Hitting and biting the claws holding him captive. He heard shouts in a language that he couldn’t comprehend. He didn’t even get a good look at his captors before he felt a sharp pain in his neck and his vision went black.
— — —
Grian didn’t know how long he had been here, but it didn’t matter as the chance of escaping his cell was practically zero. The only chance he had was when the Hermitcraft could find his location and rescue him, he was sure that they were searching for him now.
Grians wings twitched in their bindings, sore and aching. He desperately wished that he could just stretch them for a second, and maybe preen them. But he knew that that hope was futile, as he already had tried to tear and scratch the fabric and it hadn’t bulged.
His musing was interrupted by the laughing of guards, as he heard them come closer to his cell he became worried. Nothing good has happened when they came for him, and this time it was the same. As he heard the cell door open and a thud and a soft groan followed a few seconds later.
He looked up from the corner he had pressed himself in and immediately regretted it, because he couldn’t have anything worse happening to him. There was a human in his cell, a deathworlder, and it was waking up.
— — —
Scar woke up, he wished he could have said that he had been sleeping and he was now laying in his bed wishing that the day would start later. He couldn’t, he was laying on a cold floor that felt like it was doing its best at sucking all the warmth out of him. Trying to lift his head was a monstrous task, because all his limps felt like jelly.
Blinking the fuzz out of his eyes he notices that he is staring right at an alien, and he freezes. The alien also has claws for hands, and for a moment he is afraid that it is the same species as his captors. But then he notices the beak that the alien has, and relaxes again. He was safer, for now.
Pushing himself upright, Scar takes a look around the room. It isn’t that big of a room, around the size of a bathroom. 3 out of the 4 walls and the floor are made out of some kind of metal, the other wall looks like a hexagon pattern if it wasn’t for the rounded edges. The top of the hexagon/circle pattern is about 10 centimeters away from the ceiling.
A choked sounding chirp caught his attention, looking over at the alien he saw how it was curled up. Looking like it was terrified, which wasn’t logical because Scar couldn’t even hurt a fly. He was more of a ‘try to talk before there will be any blood’ type of person, and he took pride in the fact that he was good at that.
Scar shook his head to clear out the thoughts, he had an alien to calm down. Although he couldn’t call his cellmate an alien every time he refers to it, after a few seconds of thinking he decided that Birdy would be a perfect nickname for it.
When he looked good at Birdy, he noticed that there was fabric wrapped around his chest. It looked tight and really uncomfortable, it was probably used to bind something off. Maybe that was how he would be able to prove to Birdy that he wasn’t a threat, removing the uncomfortable fabric.
— — —
Grian did not like this at all, when he finally managed to calm himself down, the human started moving towards him. It made weird noises and bared its teeth, oh god he was going to die wasn’t he.
He tried to make himself even smaller, hoping that by some miracle the human would forget about him. The human stopped for a second, but after that it just kept coming closer. Grian did notice that its teeth weren’t bared anymore, what was the human trying to do?
It stopped about 1,5 blocks away from him, and one of its claws motioned to its chest? The humans claw motioned towards him, and then to its chest, it repeated the motion a few times. Did it mean the bindings that were around his wings?
The human came closer again, Grian was wary of what the human was trying to do, but made no movement to move away. Eventually the human was moving behind him, which made it clear to Grian that it wanted to do something with the bindings. Or it was still trying to kill him, he couldn’t let his guard down.
Grian flinched back into his corner when he heard the guards come back again, he didn’t understand why they came back so soon. Unless it had something to do with the human that he now shared his cell with. Thinking of it, that is probably the case.
He heard the sounds of the door opening and heard footsteps coming into the room, one of them was saying something but he paid no attention to it. About a second later he heard screaming coming from the human, which quickly died off. Grian felt bad for it, even if it was a deathworlder that could tear him to shreds, no one deserves this.
— — —
Scar really thought he made good progress with Birdy, but apparently he went a bit too fast because it suddenly flinched away from him. He tried to make himself smaller again, but was quickly interrupted by the sound of claws on metal. The aliens that took him were coming back.
He watched as the cell door opened, the circle-thingies slid together and moved to the sides of the wall. The moment the gap was big enough, his captors came in, and Scar never said this a lot but they were ugly.
Long limbs, with a tin chest and claws on its feet and hands? It looked like they were starving for a long time, but at the same time had more than enough food. And their heads were a mix between slenderman and a bat, no eyes but a snout and mouth with 2 ginormous ears. He would have laughed if they weren’t coming for him.
With his musing he lost the few valuable seconds that he could have used to try and break free. The aliens grabbed him by his arms, and pulled him up, trying and succeeding in moving him out of the cell.
“Hey mister, I would like you to know that this isn’t very kind!”
Scar knew that they wouldn’t understand him, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t try to talk the aliens out of whatever they were trying to do! He started struggling, but the moment he tried to bite one of them, they pushed a needle into his neck and his world went dark.
— — —
A few moments after the human had been dragged out of their cell, a guard comes back again. Good thing for Grian that he hasn’t moved a pixel, he really doesn’t want to draw attention to him now. Not with a human in his cell, who might not be that dangerous to him but he doesn’t want to risk anything.
2 packets get thrown through the doors, Grian guesses that one is for him and the other for the human. He grabs them both and starts looking through them. One bag has some nuts, water and a bit of stale bread. The other is the same except for the extra dried meat. Because Grian doesn’t eat meat he guesses that the second bag is for the human
Speaking of the human, right when he was looking through the bags it was being dragged back to their cell. Grian saw the guards approach with the still limp body hanging between them, grabbing his food he cowered back into his corner.
The first thing he noticed when the human was thrown into the cell was the red liquid coming out of its head. It didn’t happen before the human was taken away, so this was strange. Maybe it was the human variant of blood, but that didn’t make sense, as everyone knew that blood was brown or yellow depending on the species. Maybe the human doesn’t use carbon as its main breathing source, but that thought was so stupid that he quickly filed it away in his brain.
Blood or not, Grian didn’t think that it was healthy for that much liquid going out of someone's head. Humans were a crazy species but they surely couldn’t survive this big of a wound on their head.
Whatever Grian was thinking didn’t matter anymore, because the human was waking up and if he had learned anything from Doc it was that he should try to keep it awake. Just to make sure that it didn’t die.
— — —
Scar awoke again back into his cell and he immediately grabbed his head. It was hurting so much that he couldn’t think anymore. When he touched his head he felt something warm on his hand, looking at it through blurry eyes he saw red.
He immediately started panicking, and he felt it was completely justified. It's not every day that you get kidnapped by aliens, thrown in a cell with another alien and that your kidnappers did something to your head.
Through the upcoming haze of blood loss Scar managed to remember the time that he took a first aid lesson. His parents had forced him too, and he will be forever grateful that they did that.
He tears a strip of fabric from his shirt and ties it around his head, hopefully stopping the blood a little bit. As he lays back down he hears Birdy softly talking, his voice is soothing, telling him to stay awake but he doesn’t want to.
Scar blinks his eyes open in surprise, a rush of adrenaline clearing his foggy brain. How did he understand what Bridy says? He looks at Birdy, who seems panicked at and for him.
“Hey, you seem like a good human. Please stay awake for a few more ticks”
Finally the words register in Scars brain, Birdy is scared for him, doesn’t he know that Scar has survived falling from a tree once. A big wound on his head won’t stop him, even though there are black spots randomly appearing in his vision.
He looks at Birdy and smiles, trying to convey that he will be okay, maybe. Scar let out a soft chuckle, he is really out of it isn’t he. He can feel his blood oozing out of the wound, the fabric isn’t really helping anymore. He feels tired, maybe he should go to sleep.
Scar closes his eyes and his mind turns off. His head falls to the side, but he doesn’t notice it anymore.
— — —
Grian doesn’t know what to do anymore, the human has gone limp. Is it dead, it could be but there is still the red liquid coming through the fabric it has tied around its head. He knows humans are resilient, but this really toes the line between possible and impossible. He should stop the liquid shouldn’t he?
He slowly creeps forward, prepared to dodge any attack that the human would launch at him. As he comes closer he sees that the humans chest is slowly rising and falling, that must mean something.
He ties the fabric that the human has around its head tighter, there was a reason it had done that so he will follow that. He also checks if the human has other injuries, but he doesn’t really find them. He does think that the humans autonomy is really weird.
As Grian is pondering if he should try to do anything else to help the human, alarms start going off. He starts hearing shots, and screams, and the hope to get out of the cell floods his systems. Had his friends finally come to save him, he hopes so and maybe Doc and Stress can help the human.
He hears the fighting coming closer, and presses himself to the back of the cell, as far away as possible. Which proved to be a smart decision as the moment his wrapped wings hit the wall, a piece of metal slammed against the door.
Grian let out a squeak that he will always deny he made, it did help to get the attention on him. As several heads suddenly turned towards him.
“GRIAN”
Mumbo’s voice cut through the silence and he started to run towards his cell. Grian felt an intense relief seeing him, and all of the fight left his body. He saw Mumbo doing something to the door, and he caught him when his body gave up.
“Grian, Grian, please stay awake”
As Grians eyes closed from exhaustion, he remembered one thing that he had to make sure would happen.
“Please heal the human” He whispered, “It is hurt but didn’t try to hurt me at all”
— (A time skip of about a day in human time) —
To say that Xisuma had a bad day was an understatement, his crew had found Grian, but also a human. And apparently Grian wanted them to help the human, which led to this situation. Where he was desperately trying to calm that same human down.
“Get away from me!”
The human had bared its teeth, and seemed extremely tense. Xisuma knew that if it wasn’t bound to the bed, it would have lashed out and hurt one of them. It was at that moment that Grian decided that it would be a good idea to burst through the door, small patches of feathers missing on his wings as a result of the horrible binding that the Dafri had done.
“Hello X-eye-suma and human!”
Xisuma let out a long sigh, how often would he have to remind Grian that bedrest was important. But before he could start lecturing his crewmate about the boundaries of his body, the human spoke up.
“Scar, my name is Scar. Not human”
Both Grian and Xisuma looked at the human, no Scar, in shock. It seemed to finally have settled in his restraints, but that wasn’t the thing that Xisuma was focusing on. The human had a name, and he had forgotten that it wasn’t just an animal that had become wild. The guilt hit him like a boulder.
Grian was the first to recover from the shock, and moved to undo the humans restraints. It moved to sit up, and did something to its limps that made them pop.
“Are you okay?!”
Xisuma spoke up, it wasn’t normal for any species to have limps to make those sounds. He moved to call Doc, hoping that he could check the humans limps again. Maybe they had missed something while checking its health.
Loud sound interrupted his mission, looking around it seems to come from the human. It had its teeth bared, but eyes closed and its shoulders were moving up and down in almost worrying motions.
“It’s normal for my joints to do this, stranger, it actually relieves pressure. But I don’t know how.”
Xisuma was baffled, but he supposed that is what happens if you take a species on board that isn’t well researched.
— — —
Scar wasn’t scared of the alien in the suit anymore, not after he was released from his bindings and it was so worried about his joints cracking. He had also gotten a good laugh from it, which was always something that he appreciated. Also he could understand them now!
“How did you get into the Dafri’s holding cell?”
The suit alien asked, what he thought, the most stupid question ever. Wasn’t it obvious that he had been kidnapped and was sedated and thrown into that place?
“I was kidnapped, or adultnapped to be very specific”
He could see the pity that they had at the beginning of his sentence, turn into confusion at the end. Which made him laugh again, which made the 2 aliens even more confused. So it turned into a feedback loop, of confusion and laughter.
“I don’t understand, the last word didn’t translate well”
Birdy looked indeed confused, so Scar turned to explain his joke.
“It’s a combination of the words adult and kidnapped, because I’m not a child but an adult. And kid in kidnapped can with a bit of fantasy translate to child”
The moment he explained the joke, both the faces of the aliens turned to an expression that read ‘are you serious’, or he thought so with the suit guy. He couldn’t really read the expression with the helmet on.
“So Scar, I hate to say it to you, but we can’t bring you back to earth. Now that I know that you didn’t come here voluntarily, the crew and I can decide if they want to let you stay onboard.”
The suit guy just had to kill the mood, it was like Scar didn’t almost die and for some reason was saved. No, instead of giving him at least a day to recover. They just dumped the news on him. But thinking about it, Scar supposed his best option was to see if he could stay on this ship. Despite tying him down, they didn’t really do anything bad to him.
“If it is possible I would like to stay”
— (another timeskip of about 2 human days) —
To say Scar was nervous was an understatement, this was the day that he would hear if he would be welcomed on the spaceship and into the crew. The past few days he had spent in the medbay, with occasional visits from Birdy and suit guy, who apparently are named Grian and Xisuma. He also fixed the problem of the aliens calling him it, now they are calling him by his proper pronouns.
He shifted nervously when he heard the door open and saw Xisuma walk in. It really sucked that he had to wear a suit, now Scar couldn’t see his body language.
“I won’t waste your time for long, because I come here to tell you that you are accepted into the crew. A few rules: respect other people's instincts and they will respect yours, do not go into others' sleeping quarters without their permission, please do not blow up the ship, and do not touch other people's stuff. You better go now because everyone is excited to meet you”
Happiness filled Scar whole, after being kidnapped and ripped from all that he knew. There were still people that wanted to stay with him and maybe even love him. He would still miss his little place in the forest, but now that seemed not important. Not now he had aliens to meet.
He truly had found a place in the stars.