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<Keralis1 has opened a private conversation with you.>
<Keralis1> Brian. Tell me.
<Keralis1> Can you tie a tie?
<Grian> ????
<Grian> oh
<Grian> we’re doing lessons again are we
<Keralis1> :) yes we are sweetface. It’s important!
<Grian> alright
<Grian> no I can’t tie a tie
<Grian> where are we doing this?
<Keralis1> I was thinking the boatem hole!
<Keralis1> nice and cozy down there. Makes me feel all fuzzy inside.
<Grian> you and nobody else. Alright, I’ll see you tonight.
<Keralis1 has closed the conversation>
<MumboJumbo> Does anyone know where my spare-spare-spare tie went? I can’t find it anywhere.
<ImpulseSV> Excuse me, your what?
<MumboJumbo> you know? The tie I keep as a backup for my backup for my backup?
<ImpulseSV> …No. I haven’t seen it. Do you just have a collection of identical red ties?
<MumboJumbo> You say that like there’s a single person on this server who doesn’t just have fifteen copies of the same outfit in their closet
<MumboJumbo> Looking at you and your forty identical black t-shirts, Impulse
<ImpulseSV> Tell you what, I’ll keep an eye out for it if you stop throwing shade at me.
Grian looked up at the giant moon overhead, and then down into the depths of the boatem hole.
Why Keralis liked being down there so much was anyone’s guess, really. He spread his feathered wings and jumped off the edge, flapping madly as he spiralled down and down into the depths of the pit. Not too far, though, and as he slipped past the edge and below the bedrock, he caught a glimpse of a blue t-shirt.
The cold chill of the void bit at his bones and he flapped back up, climbing back up to the land of the living and alighting on a bedrock spire in the little cavern that surrounded the Boatem hole.
Keralis was sitting cross-legged on a patch of bedrock, a smile on his face as he played with something bright red and silky in his hands.
Grian groaned.
“Mumbo’s been going half spare looking for that thing, you know,” he said with a sigh, “going through my chestmonster and everything. He’s been putting up signs offering a reward for the safe return of his tie.”
“So take it back to him when we’re done.” Keralis said brightly, “Sounds like a positive to me. Bumbo gets his tie back, you get lessons and a reward. What’s not to like?”
Grian sighed and found a more comfortable spot to sit, cross-legged on the other side of the hole.
“I assume today’s lesson isn’t about how to tie a tie?” he asked.
“Nope. Well, sort of. I’m not going to teach you, though. You’re going to teach yourself.” Keralis leaned forwards, resting his chin on his fist and maintaining unbroken eye contact.
Grian swallowed.
“Xisuma doesn’t want me doing this.” He said lamely.
“Shishwammy is just worried about the Watchers coming in for a little Lookie. But I’m here, Brian. They won’t be Looking for very long.” He grinned, and Grian chuckled.
“Yeah. I- Yeah. No offense dude, but Looking at you is…not pleasant.”
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Keralis said sagely.
Grian swallowed and played with the hem of his sweater.
“What if someone catches us? You know what looking at us would do to anyone who isn’t TFC or Scar. Maybe we should go someplace else. Like the End? You like the End, right?”
Keralis shook his head.
“I like it down here. And everyone else is asleep. We’ll be fine, Brian. If someone comes down here…you just use the little trick I taught you. Then they don’t have to see us, and nobody gets hurt.”
Grian sighed.
“I guess you’re right. I’m just- I’m worried. What if I can’t do it? It’s been weeks, since you-“
“Confidence. You have to have confidence.” Keralis said, “And remember, I didn’t teach you anything. You taught yourself! You gotta believe in yourself.” He said with a smile.
Grian sighed.
“Fine.” He replied, rubbing his face.
“Tell you what. You come out of your shell, and I’ll come out too. How about that?” Keralis offered, already pulling his shirt off.
“I- Okay, wow, you’re just going for it then. I…I guess?” Grian swallowed. “Um…”
“Come on, Grian. It’s good for you.” Keralis said kindly, “We need to do this sort of thing sometimes. It’s healthy.”
Grian sighed.
“Okay. But if something goes wrong, I’m blaming you.”
Keralis carefully put the tie, his shirt, and his hat on the bedrock beside him, and grinned.
“I’m okay with that. Now. Come out for me, Grian.”
“I’m gonna need you to never say that ever again.”
Grian groaned and closed his eyes.
He had to reach deep, deep within himself. Grabbing at the lid he usually kept pressed tightly down, sealing up the vessel of power he’d been granted. It was only ever half-full- they hadn’t bothered to fill it up all the way- but-
He tore it off, pulling away the mental blocks. Right, now the tightrope- cling on to his body, don’t forget himself, don’t forget his name-
He mumbled his name to himself, taking care to pause every few repetitions and think of something else- if he repeated his own name too much it’d lose its meaning entirely, and then he’d really be in trouble. Feathers and building, friendship and laughter, and he focused on the golden sun in the bright blue sky, the feeling of wind under his wingtips-
The familiar rush of power flooded through his wings, and he opened his eyes.
All of them.
All of them.
Grian glanced down, looking at his body. It had fallen over, laying facedown on the bedrock- his wings were askew, but at least he was still breathing.
He spread a few dozen of his hundreds of wings, giving them an experimental flap; watched their motions cause ripples across the past and present, and on into a future that was obscured to him.
He was an ephemeral collection of eyes and wings, floating in the air like a translucent ghost; he glanced up, and instinctively his advanced senses recoiled at the sight before him.
A great, pulsing, shifting mass of unholy black flesh was standing, leaning, shuddering from the space directly behind Keralis’s facedown body. The…thing…slithered in and out of the present second, undulating along the fourth dimension, something Grian’s many extra eyes could easily see. It was that motion he was so worried about- if Mumbo came down here now-
But then, he was sort of doing the same thing, wasn’t he?
Grian flicked some of his eyes down to Keralis’s body.
A body that, now it wasn’t carrying a giant black mass the size of a small elephant, looked remarkably less…fresh, than it did previously.
Grian couldn’t help himself, really. Some of his eyes floated away to peer at the body for a closer look, sliding into the past to give him disjointed glances at Keralis-from-ten-minutes-ago, alive and happy, and Keralis-now, a barely-breathing, ashen-looking almost-corpse-
“Grian.” A deep, rumbling voice cut through his confusion, and all his eyes snapped to attention, at the space where Keralis was and had not been ten minutes earlier.
“Oh, um, right. And then we have to do Manners- Oh, bloody hell, that’s- that’s English- um-“
“We can speak in English for a bit.” Keralis said, several dozen of his mouths moving to smile at Grian. The blank white eyes that stared out of the pulsating tower of flesh were creepy as hell- sightless, empty things, gazing into infinity and seeing nothing.
“Just don’t be upset if I talk a little funny. Maybe some Polish, maybe some Swedish. I have a lot of mouths, sometimes they don’t listen.” Keralis said, gracing Grian with several hundred very toothy smiles.
“Right, uh. Oh, and you’re- I’m looking at you, right now.” Grian informed him to an assenting…nod? It was hard to tell with a thing that didn’t have a head, “I mean, I’m facing you. Forwards. I think? I- honestly, Keralis, I don’t even know which part of me is the top or which is the bottom. I think that’s important?”
“It’s okay. You haven’t been out of your shell for a bit; we all forget. I’m a little confused too.” Keralis said patiently.
“Oh! And, uh, right. Manners. Um-“ Grian flapped a few of his dozens of wings, “Uh-“
And then he cleared the throat he didn’t have and switched into Galactic, speaking a few sentences. Rendered into English, a very poor translation would read something along the lines of:
“The Watcher sees you for what you are, Voidspawn.”
Even more of Keralis’s mouths twitched up in a smile.
A deep, raspy snarl came back as a reply:
“The Void regards the Sighted One fondly.”
That was Manners, apparently. Or at least, Keralis called it Manners.
Personally, Grian was glad to have Manners over with- it seemed too formal, and like they were- like it was a preamble to squaring up for a fight. He liked fighting, but not…not like this.
“You never did tell me- I mean, a few months ago, the last time we did this. You never did tell me what I had to say if I was talking to TFC or, or, or an admin that’s gotten a bit pissy-“ Grian said, and Keralis chuckled.
“Let’s start with some hiding. Hide yourself away, and then I’ll tell you. Alright?”
“Alright. Hang on, let me just-“
He gathered up some of his errant eyes that had started to drift into the past and up the boatem hole, pulling them all close to his…his…nucleus? The glowing thing in the middle, his soul. He pulled them all close, and groped down his own timeline, snagging it and pulling himself a few minutes into the fourth dimension.
Backwards. Only ever backwards.
A true Watcher could see forwards, but-
Well.
He opened his many eyes again, feeling the strange sensation of being both in the past and the “future” (or would that be the present?) simultaneously. His physical body was moving into the future, along with Keralis’s body, but his Watcher self was- was-
God, the English language was not equipped to handle this nonsense. At least he wasn’t getting a migraine. It just…was. It made intuitive sense to him, in this form.
“Absolutely wonderful!” Keralis said brightly, “You’re doing just beautifully, Brian. To answer your question, you should never ever talk to admins in your Watcher form. Never, ever, ever. But TFC, he’s…special. You want to greet him as “The Original One.” Okay? Keep that in mind.”
“The Original One…sounds lofty.” Grian mused.
Keralis shrugged several dozen of his chitinous shoulders.
“It is what he is. I never asked. Anyway, back to where you were.”
Grian closed his eyes and grabbed the fourth dimension again, hauling all his eyes and wings back to his body until he was in lockstep with it again.
Right, and check to make sure it was still-
Yeah, it was still breathing.
“I gotta say,” Keralis hummed, “If I ever see those Watchers myself-“
“Which you won’t, because they Really don’t like guys like you-“
“-I am gonna give them a piece of my mind! Tore you all inside out, stitched your human soul to one of theirs, and what did they do? Turn you loose! Didn’t even tell you how to open up, how to Look and See-“
“Keralis…we’ve been over this.” Grian said with a sigh, “It wasn’t their fault. I- I saw something. I told them I saw something, and they decided against the final step.”
“Giving up your humanity is a bit more than a final step.” Keralis said quietly, “There’s nothing wrong with being afraid of that.”
“And just how would you know?” Grian shot back.
There was a moment of silence.
“I wouldn’t.” Keralis replied, “But I can guess.”
Grian watched as tendrils slithered out of the pulsating mass of flesh and eyes, patting across the ground until they found the prone form of Keralis’s shell. They wrapped, loosely but protectively around it, and he sighed.
“Sorry. Sometimes I get a little- anyway. Lessons. You wanted to do something about a lesson?”
The hundreds of smiles were back, having faded away for a moment.
“Oh, yes! Now, I can’t tell you how, because-“
“”I’m not a Watcher,”” Grian said, finishing the sentence with a roll of several thousand glowing eyes, “I know, I know. But what did you have in mind?”
“Well, you’ve already been taking a bit of a Lookie at me. Just that! More of that. Learning to really use your powers.”
A long, thin tendril carefully picked Mumbo’s red necktie off the ground, stretching as it crossed the boatem hole and carefully dropping it next to Grian’s body.
“And we need the tie because…?” Grian asked.
“Because you’ll be Looking at Bumbo to learn how it’s done. I was thinking… you Look at Bumbo tying the tie, then go back into your body, and try it. Repeat until you have it down.” Keralis’s voice was as smooth as it ever was, and Grian hummed.
“I guess I could try that. How would I…oh, wait, I know. Okay, so Mumbo always ties his tie in the morning after he gets dressed, so-“
Grian grabbed at his own timeline, reaching back along it.
Unbeknownst to Keralis, he had been taught a few things by the Watchers. Mostly a bit of theory stuff- the methods for beginners. This technique he’d personally called “Tree branching” because it involved-
Oh, whatever.
He reached down his own timeline, sending his eyes into the past to watch himself going about his day, trying to keep away from his own line of sight. Remaining hidden, to watch, to wait.
Sliding until he watched himself meet up with Mumbo earlier in the morning, and then the eyes latched onto Mumbo, hopping from his own timeline to his friend’s.
He slid it back, to the morning- Not too far, his human guilt reminded him. Let the man have some privacy.
Human morals.
Not Watcher morals.
The instant he was looking for was, conveniently, just before Mumbo left the house. He usually ate his breakfast in his pyjamas so he didn’t get crumbs or stains on his perfect suit, and Grian watched with interest as Mumbo-from-that-morning slipped his tie over his neck, and-
And whoa, whoa, whoa, what in the name of the void, that was like four seconds! What the hell?! And there were like a dozen complex movements… Grian slid his eyes back to the start of the tie-tying exercise and watched it again.
And again.
And again.
Okay, put it around your neck…then loop…then…oh, god.
He’d just have to give it a try.
“Well?” Keralis said, “I just remembered that Bumbo likes a full Windsor, so maybe…not the best choice…”
“I think I got it,” Grian said, his perception still split between Past Mumbo and Present Keralis, “I can see all the steps, but I don’t think I have the muscle memory to pull it off.”
“Come back and give it a try.” Keralis suggested, and Grian nodded and yanked his eyes back to the present-
-while they were still latched to Mumbo’s timeline.
And without bothering to properly hide them.
And he was actually still about ten minutes in the past, not quite at the full-future yet.
Oops.
Mumbo was asleep in bed, and the sudden tug against his timeline- it was well outside the range of human senses, but it was enough of a jab at his consciousness to wake him up. He sat up with a groan, rubbing his eyes, and Grian felt a spike of shame and fear. He wrenched his eyes back to the present, properly this time, and turned his eyes to face Keralis.
Not that the other one could see him, what with his host lying facedown on the floor.
“I- I don’t like doing that,” he admitted, “I feel like crap. I’m spying on my friend…and I woke him up.”
Keralis hummed.
“No wonder they destroy the body of all their acolytes…” he mumbled.
“Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?” Grian hissed, and Keralis shook his head.
“Nevermind. It’s not important.” He said with a sigh, “Anyway, I want you to go back into your own body and try tying that knot-“
They both froze as the sound of footsteps crunching closer echoed down the hole. Grian sent one of his eyes sliding up the hole to have a look-
It, and all the rest of his eyes, went wide as saucers. Mumbo was rubbing his eyes and walking closer, wearing his pyjamas and rubbing his eyes.
“Weird dream,” he mumbled, “Just gotta check Grian’s not dead down there, an’ I’ll go back to bed…”
Grian turned to Keralis frantically.
“Mumbo’s coming! Here! To check on us!” he hissed, “Great idea, mister Voidspawn!”
“Hide yourself!” Keralis snarled right back, yanking himself into the fourth dimension. Grian followed suit, frantically pulling all the eyes that had been drifting across boatem a minute or so into the past as well.
All except a few.
He glanced across the hole and saw a growth of black ooze on the far wall, a sightless eye and a single mouth- Keralis was following suit.
The footsteps stopped at the edge of the hole. Some fireworks triggered- and to Grian’s relief, Mumbo opted to land at the edge of the meeting room instead of flying all the way to the bottom. He drifted an eye up to look at his friend’s face, trying his best to keep it hidden.
The other man looked deeply shocked the second he laid eyes on their two bodies, and-
Oh, bollocks. Keralis’s umbilical, the black stain connecting his main body to the slit in his back, was still totally visible. Also they were both lying facedown on the bedrock like a pair of corpses but frankly that was a much smaller concern.
“Hello? Keralis? Grian? Is- hold on-! Are you two alright?!” Mumbo nearly shouted.
“We’re fine!” Keralis yelled with his single remaining mouth, “Brian and I are just, uh-“
“Playing a game! We’re playing a game!” Grian added hastily, forgetting for a second that he was supposed to talk with only one voice and not the several he’d been layering overtop of each other.
“G? What’s wrong with your voice?!” now Mumbo sounded downright alarmed.
“Nothing! Nothing. I’m a bit. I have a cold!” Grian said, kicking himself as he shoved the layered tones into the past where they belonged.
“Okay, and…what kind of game is that?” Mumbo was peering down into the boatem hole properly, and his frown deepened when he locked onto Keralis.
“…What happened to Keralis’s shirt?”
“I- uh- I took it off!” Keralis yelled with one of his many mouths, “We’re playing a game of, uh-“
“Who can lie facedown shirtless in the Boatem hole the longest!” Grian blurted out, “It’s great. I am having so much fun right now.”
“This is the best game ever!” Keralis agreed rather frantically, “But it’s two players only.”
“Uh-“ Mumbo did not sound convinced.
There was an awkward pause as the redstoner cleared his throat.
“Okay, well, uh…if the game is to play dead shirtless in the boatem hole…then why’s Grian still wearing a sweater?” He asked carefully.
“Easy mode! Easy mode for babies! I am the best at this game so I play it on hard mode which means no shirt!” Keralis explained frantically, “But Brian said-“
“Oh, I was like, no Keralis I’m not chafing my nipples on the bedrock, it’ll cut me all up-“
“And I said, Brian, you’ve got to man up! It’s all about the challenge!”
“And I was like I’d rather not- I mean I already beat Doc at arm-wrestling, I’m pretty much all the man I’ll ever be-“
“And I said he could keep his sweater!” Keralis finished frantically.
There was another long, LONG pause.
“…Keralis? Are you…what’s that coming out of the hole in your back?” Mumbo asked.
Oh, crap, he’d seen the umbilical.
Keralis giggled, a high and nervous thing.
“I, uh- it’s-“
“It’s blood!” Grian yelled.
“Lots of it! Just blood! Regular normal blood!” Keralis added frantically.
“…Are you two alright. Seriously. Do you need me to call X?”
“NO! NO NO NO BUMBO THAT’S ALRIGHT WE DON’T NEED ANY HELP!”
“We’re fine! We’re all fine here! How-how are you, Mumbo?” Grian spluttered.
Mumbo sighed and sat down at the edge of the hole.
“I’ve been feeling pretty down lately, honestly.” He said with a sigh, “I mean, me! Building! No goofy redstone, no elaborate industrial contraptions, just- building! I built some trees on Scar’s mountain. Am I going insane? Is there something wrong with me? And then there was that weird nightmare I just had, I- Man, I thought you both were dead. I just had this vision of these…monsters…leaning over your bodies, and I just- well, I just needed to check, that’s all.”
Grian, despite the absurd situation, was touched that his friend cared so much about him.
“We’re totally fine, Mumbo. Just peachy, actually. Keralis and I have been having some, uh, lessons.”
“Building lessons. But then we decided to mix things up with our game.” Keralis said sweetly, “There’s nothing to be worried about, Bumbo.”
“If you’re sure,” Mumbo said dubiously, “You promise you’ll get that bleeding looked at, K?”
“Absolutely. I pinky-swear.” Keralis said, and Mumbo sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“God, I’m so tired…” he muttered.
“Go to sleep, Mumbo. Go home, get some sleep, and forget all about this.” Keralis said, and Grian could taste the unearthly rumble on his words, the tang of magic as Keralis used his voice to spin a web around their friend.
Mumbo yawned, and Grian caught a glimpse of a soft yellow glow in his eyes, just for a second.
“Alright. I’m going to go home and get some sleep. Thanks, guys. You’re both insane.” He said with a grin.
“Pot, meet kettle!” Grian snarked back, and Mumbo flew away with a chuckle.
The minute the soot from the fireworks faded away, Grian slid back into the present and stared at Keralis.
“I cannot, for the life of me, believe that worked.” He said flatly.
Keralis just chuckled.
“He was wrong, by the way. We’re not the insane ones….” He mumbled, before grinning at Grian.
“We got lucky. We should probably call it here.”
“What about my tie-tying practice?” Grian asked, and Keralis shrugged his many shoulders.
“Try it in the morning. See how much you can remember. It’s all about practice, Brian. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. I didn’t learn how to manipulate my body overnight, and neither will you.” he said brightly.
“Alright, I guess.” Grian said with a sigh.
It was honestly a relief to slither back into his human self, closing his eyes one after another and shoving them through the skin and into the depths of his solid form. Keralis might have called it a shell, but it wasn’t a shell to Grian. It was just his body, always and forever.
The vision from all directions, drifting back and forth across time faded, gradually, until it was just him and his two eyes, blinking open and staring at the bedrock below him.
He sat up, looking around. It always took a few minutes to get used to being so…heavy. So bound by gravity.
But it was a nice feeling, in a way. Comforting.
And having hands was a delight.
Keralis yawned and stretched across from him, the last tendrils of vile black sludge sliding into him as he did so. The builder reached over and slipped his shirt back on (thank god) and plonked his hat back on his head.
A pair of his thin, slimy wings slid out of the slit in his back, and he grinned at Grian.
“I’m gonna go home, have a little sleep. That was a lot of fun.” He said brightly, “I hope you liked it.”
“Yeah, always. I’m just- it’s a bit nerve-wracking to start, because I just- I worry that-“
“You worry that you’ll never get back to your own body?” Keralis finished, and Grian nodded.
“It’s not as…blatant as you.” he said, gesturing at Keralis, “You’re a cabled connection. I’m wireless. One of us is a bit more…dependable.”
Keralis snorted.
“You can’t really compare them, Brian.” He said softly, “Anyway, when you want to do this again?”
“God…I’m gonna need a break I think. A couple weeks maybe? I don’t know.” Grian said with a shrug.
Keralis nodded, and stood up. He spread his wings and pulled some rockets from his inventory.
“We’ll see how it goes. When I’m free, when you’re ready. See you!”
Grian gave him a tired wave as Keralis rocketed up the boatem hole.
Grian watched him go, sighing. He shoved Mumbo’s tie in his inventory and flapped up, flying out of the hole and towards his own house.
The next morning, Mumbo was having some extra-strong tea while fiddling with his communicator when Grian burst into his bus with a giant grin and something in his hands.
“Mumbo! Looking for something?” he asked, dangling the tie in his fingers.
“Oh! My tie! Hang on, did you steal that?” Mumbo asked, and Grian shook his head.
“No, I didn’t. Just found it on the ground.” Grian said truthfully, “By the way, want to see something neat?”
“Sure, what?” Mumbo got up from the table and walked over expectantly.
Grian got up on his tiptoes and threw the tie around Mumbo’s neck, and after a painful minute of fumbling-
“Tah-daaah!” Grian said brightly, “I learned a new trick! Impressed?”
Mumbo carefully picked up the knot of the tie, examining the very sloppy, uneven, but nonetheless recognizable full Windsor. It was far from perfect, but with enough practice Grian would be well on his way to actually tying his ties properly.
“Where in the world did you learn to do that?” He said, eyes wide, “Last I checked all your ties were clip-ons!”
Grian grinned.
“A magician never reveals his secrets!”