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They watched. Gleaming eyes glittered unblinking and lidless in the vast expanse of false night. They waited. They would need to move quickly, and soon, but for now it was too early.
They did not have the talents of the ones they watched, but they could see that. They were made for watching.
And waiting.
Finally. They saw it. An opening.
They darted forward, a little army, spear carriers all, like wrens interrupting a battle between the eagle and the hawks. None of the great powers had made note of them until then, none payed them much more than cursory heed, even when they offered their powers to help defeat the tyrant.
Except for the time keeper. His eyes were sharp when they fell upon them. Did he know…? Surely, even he could not see everything. Even the wisest of ghosts would go insane.
But, in the moment, they fought. They were the allies of the hawks, and, as they always intended, they went for the old eagle’s eyes.
A hundred spears and the powers of ghosts possessed of ancient and unknowable strength- They won one eye at the cost of many wounds and half their number. They flew. They fled. Their prize in hand, they could not afford to stay.
Fifty Observants clustered around the stolen eye of Pariah Dark, drinking in its power. Once, every ghost it saw fell under the command of its owner. They did not think it would do that again. But they would see.
.
They built themselves back up, the watchers. Pariah’s eye made it easier. So did the chaos following his defeat. So many ghosts sought order… It was easy to convince them that the Observants would provide it best. It was true, after all. No one else seemed prepared to do it.
They would do it best. They had craved power for their own enlightenment and preservation, but… why not spread that around?
It was a more enlightened view, after all.
They did not let this distract them from their other goal.
Nocturne. The Ancient Master of Dreams. The Slumberer. The Granter of Sleep. He had many titles and the power to back them up.
Even if he appeared incautious, they knew he was not. Nor, even slumbering, was he defenceless.
So they watched. And waited. And watched some more.
Let Nocturne see them. Let him think them nothing, when they do not act. Let him grow at ease with them, grow used to them, grow in contempt of them.
Meanwhile, they would grow in power. Grow in followers, adherents who would follow their orders.
They did not attack him while he slept. That would be an invitation to doom. When else would the Prince of Dreams be stronger?
No.
They attacked him at full light, while he, awake and aware, traveled.
It was one Ancient against the army the Observants had raised, the ghosts who had been convinced of the threat Nocturne posed to order. They had one goal.
Nocturne’s eyes.
One was all they got.
Again, one was enough.
.
Many said Clockwork was all knowing, all seeing. Perhaps this was true for physical things, but he could not read minds, could not see dreams. Therefore, this is where they attacked him.
Even the greatest of ghosts had to sleep once in a while.
But Clockwork was waiting for them. They could not run, not in dreams, so they fought and… they won?
.
“All is as it should be,” Clockwork reminded himself through gritted teeth. He had not wanted to lose his eye, but it would have happened eventually, regardless. He could not have staved off the Observants’ greed forever, not without erasing them from the timeline, and that was not an action he could take without destabilizing dozens of other important events.
He sat down heavily in front of his vanity, tail coiling beneath him, and opened the jewel box that contained the false eye he had commissioned when he realized he needed to do this.
This, at least, gave the Observants a false sense of superiority. This gave him the opportunity to make plans… and put certain rather vindictive curses on his eye.
The Observants wanted to use it to see the future? To bind him to their will and cause? Well. He would bind them as well. See how they would like it.
He put the false eye in. Except for the rapidly healing cut - which would undoubtedly scar - and the ectoplasm smeared over his face, he looked much the same.
“Everything is as it should be,” he repeated, as if that would ease his fear.
Someday he would be free again, someday what he had lost would be returned. He knew that. But, now, with his eye gone and the shackles the Observants wanted to put on him looming large in his mind… it was hard to see.
He would just have to watch and wait. Good things came for those who watched and waited.