Chapter Text
Grian stands next to the watcher, beside the pool of strange purple water..stuff. They stand on a slightly raised platform in the center of a giant hall and they’re still alone. The tap of Grian’s shoes on the floor is deafening in the silence.
“I would like to demonstrate all that we’ve talked about by gifting you temporary powers to allow you to see similarly to the way we watchers see your world. Then we can move on to discuss our arrangement further..” Grian nods in agreement.
“Firstly,” the watcher motions around them to the empty hall, “this room that we are in is a meeting hall in The Watcher’s Citadel. It’s an entryway into our dimension.”
The watcher lifts its hood once more, shielding its luminous eyes. “Think of this,” it motions to the pool in front of them, “as something akin to portals to the nether in your worlds.” Grian nods once more, looking to the portal.
“It allows us to travel between dimensions as well as look into them without interfering. Similar to a looking glass.” The watcher continues.
“You will have access to this for now, with restriction, while I use my magic to guide you through certain moments in time and space without the ability to affect them.”
“How will I get out-” the question bursts out of Grian, unwarranted, “I...I don’t know how...how any of this works, I...I don’t-” the feeling of a hand gently touching his shoulder comes over Grian but when he looks to his right side, nothing’s there.
Instead, the hooded figure of the watcher looms next to him. Still kinda creepy.
Grian stares at the watcher, clearly unnerved.
“My apologies, that does not seem to have the effect of comfort I intended.”
The watcher takes its hood off once more so Grian can see its eyes. They seem to be squinted as if the watcher were smiling. This time, the watcher lifts its arm, forming a hand from the black smoke of its body, and places it gently on Grian’s forearm.
“It will be ok.” The watcher says with a slow nod. “Please have faith. I am here to protect you.”
Grian, despite first impressions, is charmed by the watcher’s attempts to comfort him. He lets out a genuine chuckle.
“Thank you.” He smiles and looks back to the pool.
“Do you trust me?”
Grian once more finds himself staring at the watcher before him. A strange being whom he’s never met that seems to - against all odds - charm him with it's level of understanding. A being so unique and interesting that he can’t help but be curious and eager to learn more. Something, not someone, that seems to understand his urge to protect and help others create things that are beautiful and to be shared.
“Yes.” Grian utters. “I trust you.”
The watcher’s eyes squint in that kind of not-smile once more. “Thank you.”
It takes its hand off Grian’s arm to offer it out to be held. “Take my hand.”
Grian places his hand in the watcher’s and feels a cold rush through his body and a wind pick up in the room. The watcher gently places both their hands on the surface of the pool in front of them and Grian goes ice cold from the tips of his fingers to the center of his chest.
“My name is Videntis.”
Grian is swept away by a phantom wind before he can reply and he feels his body become light as a feather. Faces, voices, songs and sounds whisk by him like petals caught in a stream.
There’s a deep sense of falling in Grian’s stomach before he hits what feels like a floor. Grian gets up on his hands and knees to see what looks like a stage looming before him.
A tall man in glasses speaks solemnly from the stage, he seems to be conducting a speech of some sort while a boy hoots and hollers beside him in excitement. Grian looks at the crowd of people surrounding him. No one sees him. Even if they did, their eyes are all cast intently to the stage. No one would pay him any mind. The crowd of faces is filled with so many mixed emotions.
Excitement, guilt, worry, concern, joy.
The tall man on stage seems to finish his speech with a crease in his brow, a silence falls over the crowd and a horned man steps up to the podium. There’s an impenetrable hush and a sense of impending doom, Grian feels it in his bones. It’s almost palpable.
Before he can hear what this goat-hybrid man has to say, Grian’s pulled once again by that feeling of falling. He stumbles forward and the trampled grass swallows him whole. Grian could be screaming for all he knew, but no sound seems to echo other than passing voices coming from who-knows-where.
Grian feels the anger emanating as he falls through the void. Shouts ring out around him. “SHUT UP!” muffled yells and thuds seep through the darkness amidst the muted cacophony. “They’re lying to you! He’s lying to you!”
Again, before Grian can make out anything more, he’s swept away by the whims of the void.
“Legacy is all you leave behind in this world.”
“Thank you for showing me what it’s like to be human.”
“I’m sorry. I’m grateful for the time we had together.”
Sadness. The all consuming emotion rocks Grian’s very soul, shifting from ripping anger to a cold wave constricting his chest and his ability to breathe. Tears ping Grian’s eyes and he grapples to try and allow some air into his lungs.
Images whisk by before his eyes.
A man is stabbed by a woman in purple at the edge of a snowy cliff. He falls to his death, clenching his side with gritted teeth. His eyes flash with desperation and regret.
A woman crouches at the edge of a pool, a bow and quiver beside her as she hugs her knees and cries. She grasps a photo in her hand.
A halfing is hunched over the body of a friend, heartbroken and in pain while snow falls gently on the grounds of an unfinished colosseum.
Rain batters the sides of a normally beautiful and welcoming mushroom forest as two men scream at each other, sharing hurt and misunderstanding that’s never to be resolved.
It's as if the void is consuming him, sucking the soul from his body leaving a sense of loss and loneliness, more images float by him.
A man, his dog, and a scientist in a laboratory at the center of a desert.
A cat hybrid placing flowers out the front of his lovely house.
A person protected by blast armor leaving the site of a soon to be nuclear bomb site.
The echo of a rumbling explosion makes it's way to Grian's ears. He feels the sense of impending doom getting closer and closer...and then the noise dims.
Grian finds himself once more on semi-solid ground. Still invisible to others on account of the scene in front of him. Two people, a man and woman, leaning into each other, silently looking out across a bay lit by the dying light of a beautiful pink and orange sunset. Their hands are clasped together. Cherry blossom petals gently detach and sway down to the bayside below.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
It’s quiet here. Peaceful. Happy.
Loving.
Grian’s an outsider, looking in on something special. His heart fills with the love and adoration these strangers hold for each other.
Before Grian can step away from this private moment, he feels the telltale pull, lifting him off his feet and descending into the void once more. He’s pulled out seconds later - like a fish on a hook - back into the high ceilings of The Watcher’s Citadel.
“Did you see?”
Grian’s silent for a while. Staring at his own hands on the cold marble floor.
Thoughts, emotions, feelings flash in unison through his mind.
“Yes. Yeah I...I saw.” Grian continues to stare into oblivion before he feels a soft hand on his chin, gently tilting his head up to view the eyes of the watcher. Videntis, he remembers.
“Do you understand? What we see? What we are trying to protect?” Videntis urges gently, yet firmly.
“Yes I do.” Grian whispers. “It’s..."
Love. Anger. Sadness. Loneliness. Happiness. Everything.
“It’s beautiful.”