Chapter Text
Grian had shown to have an exceptional gift with magic since he was very little.
Magic was something that anyone could learn, but it often wasn’t easy. Jimmy struggled to learn the most basic of spells. Pearl could use it fairly well and often dabbled in potions. Though, her potions were always just a bit off.
But Grian?
It was as easy as breathing.
He was incredibly talented for a child his age and only seemed to improve more with every day that passed.
But unbeknownst to him and the people around him, his remarkable skills had caught the Eyes of beings beyond their understanding…
~*~
The first glimpse of them he’d ever gotten was when he was around nine years old. It started as just brief glimpse of them in his dreams, only ever so often. Disappearing from sight as soon as he noticed they were there. Sometimes there were many of them, other times there was only just one.
The verdict young Grian had come to was that they were odd.
They had many wings. They even had wings at the sides of their heads. The feathers a beautiful gradient of white to purple. They were covered in purple eyes that blinked out of sync. Some on their faces, their skin, even some floating around them. They dressed in fancy robes and most of them had a cloth with a strange symbol covering where their normal eyes would be. A few covered their eyes with the wings on their head or a veil over their face.
But there were some that instead had their faces completely uncovered.
That didn’t mean he could see their faces.
Their faces were distorted. Unclear. Blurry. All in a way Grian, even when he grew older, struggled to describe.
The dreams they appeared in always stood out to him. They didn’t feel like things that were purely created from his subconsciousness. They felt… tampered with in some way.
They slowly stayed for longer.
A few seconds more.
A bit longer.
A while further
Till they were there for the entirety of the dream.
Grian had always been too curious for his own good. It didn’t take long for him to decide to confront the odd creatures of his dreams. He just couldn’t stand not knowing what they were or why they were there.
So, when he saw them again, in a dream about a strange game of tag, he didn’t hesitate to stop what he was doing and approached the strange beings.
~*~
“Who are you?” He asked, his voice filled with curiosity. “Why do you keep coming back? Most dreams don’t come back.”
Their faces had always been emotionless as they watched him in his dreams. But now that he’d come up to him they smiled. It wasn’t as reassuring as it should have been, it held a dangerousness in it that should have filled him with fear.
But something stopped Grian from being afraid.
“We are the beings that Watch,” The one closest to him spoke, holding their arms out in the air. “We are powerful. Almost to that of Gods.”
Little Grian had been amazed. He’d normally voice this, but it was like there was something stopping him from even having the thought. Instead he gave his full focus, his full attention, to the being before him.
“We’ve Seen what you can do,” They told him, bending down to be closer to his height. “You hold an incredible amount of magic. We want to see just how much you can do. How much you can withstand.” The way they said the last sentence felt like their eyes would be twinkling.
But twinkling with what the young avian hadn’t realized.
Grian’s own eyes were practically sparkling with awe. God-like beings were curious about him? About his magic? It was beyond what Grian would have ever dreamed.
And he was literally in a dream.
“Wow! Really?” Grian asked them excitedly, his wings fluttering behind him. They simply nodded, giving him that not-so reassuring smile of theirs. For some reason it worked. “What do you want to see me do?”
He wanted to please them. He wanted to impress them with his magical abilities.
“We know you can do far more than what you’re being taught. We want to see you perform spells that are more challenging,” They told him, their voice determined in a way Grian couldn’t understand.
This got Grian’s excitement to hesitate. They wanted him to do harder spells? He was already being taught spells that were two skill levels above what a person his age was being taught. If he did anything higher than that there was a much larger chance for things to go wrong.
The beings noticed the reluctance.
“You are so much more powerful than you think, little one,” They told him, their hand reaching out and brushing the top of his head gently. “We know you will do it with ease.”
Well… if powerful beings thought he could do it, then he must be able to, right?
“Yeah!” Grian cheered, his wings flapping excitedly behind him. “I can do it!”
Grian didn’t notice how malice grew within their smiles.
What he did notice was how they began to fade from his dream. Leaving behind nothing in their place, as if they’d never been there.
He didn’t let that bother him. He turned back to his dream, and happily let it continue on.
He woke not long after that.
~*~
Grian knew that they wanted him to do more advanced spells. The problem was he didn’t know how to do them.
His teacher would absolutely refuse to teach him any higher. He'd been very vocal about how he felt with Grian doing spells above his age level. He thought that the power would go to his head and that he’d lose sense of why one should do magic.
Or something like that. Grian would always stop listening before he could get any farther.
The only reason that his teacher was even teaching him two levels above him was because Grian had mastered all the spells in those levels in just a few weeks. It would have been a waste of Grian’s skill not to teach him at a higher level.
So, getting his teacher to help him? Wasn’t going to happen.
That meant that Grian had to find the spells on his own. And the only way to do that was sneaking into his teacher’s office.
Which was much easier for Grian than it really should have been. Since he’d snuck in there a few times before.
The only thing he had to do was deactivate the protection spell that was put in place, meant to prevent others from entering with his teacher’s knowledge. He’d secretly written that one down when his teacher wasn’t paying attention one time, because it also was a spell above what Grian was learning.
It wasn’t hard to find a spellbook that would do the trick, in the bookshelf that held the books his teacher never used. Every book within it was covered in a thick layer of dust. Grian knew taking one wouldn’t be noticed, let alone missed.
He grabbed the book he needed and quickly scurred out. Reactivating the protection spell, making sure it appeared to be the exact same as it had been before.
~*~
Magic was used most often in two different ways. It could be used through movement or voice. When first learning a spell however, especially the more advanced ones, it’s heavily encouraged to do both. Doing so makes the spell more secure, helping the spell push through when a mistake is made. It could even make a spell stronger if one pushed their magic hard enough.
Grian preferred to use his spells with his voice, but with these spells it would be better, and safer, to do both.
Because bad things could happen if you messed up an advanced spell.
With basic spells if you made a mistake in the motion or pronunciation, then you were just doing something that wasn’t a spell and end up channeling your magic with no way to release it. The worst that could happen would be pushing out your magic and it coming right back, draining your energy. Something that could be solved with a break or a nap.
But the more advanced spells, they were made from different, smaller, simpler spells. Meaning if you messed up you could still cause something to happen.
And that could cause a lot of damage.
That’s why Grian was scared to learn spells on his own. There was no one there to correct him with pronunciations and movements before he put magic to them. With the protection spell it had taken a month for him to gain the confidence to attempt it.
But the beings from his dreams told him he could do it. Even though the level was for people who’d trained for years more than Grian had.
They believed he could.
So, that night hidden away in his room, Grian took a deep breath before opening the spellbook. Searching for a spell to begin with.
~*~
When he returned to his dreams the beings didn’t wait for him to find them. They appeared right in front of him, with their strange smiles on their faces.
“You did excellent,” The one in front told him. Grian grinned happily at the praise, his wings giving a little proud flutter. “We can’t wait to see your progress.”
Then they were gone again. Disappearing as quickly as they appeared. Leaving Grian to his dream.
A dream that was full of magic and wonder.
~*~
It was like that for a while. Them visiting in his dreams, sometimes just watching, sometimes asking him to do more spells. Each spell a bit more difficult than the last.
There’d been a few that had Grian tripping up and struggling. But by nightfall he’d manage to get the spells right. Receiving proud praise by the beings as they smiled in their unsettling way.
It was a little over a year since he’d met them that things began to change.
They asked him to do spells that were levels and levels ahead of where he was being taught. Requesting spells that were nearly impossible. Having him perform multiple at once. Even asking him to cast spells without giving it a proper outlet.
The ‘impossible’ spells were ones that were known to be difficult for even an elven magic user who’s lived for hundreds of years. They were spells that most believed couldn’t be done, believed that they didn’t even exist.
But the beings knew that they did and asked Grian to perform them.
Performing multiple spells could technically be done easily, if you used different forms to do the spells, one with movement and the other with voice.
But the beings didn’t want him to do that.
They wanted him to do them the same way. It had taken so much practice, but eventually he’d gotten the hang of it. Even if he took longer every time they asked him to change the spells.
But trying to cast a spell without giving it an outlet was the most difficult. Casting a spell without channeling it through something was hard because you were pushing your magic without giving it anywhere to go. You had to get the magic to work on its own.
Your mind had to be as clear and focused as possible, only thoughts of the spell could be in your head. Anything else, even the smallest thought, could prevent it from working.
It wasn’t the first task that Grian considered giving up and telling the beings he’d failed, but it was the task that got him the closest to doing so.
He struggled for months, just trying to do the most basic of spells with only his mind.
And the beings were nowhere to be found the entire time.
He’d grown used to them always being in his dreams. It hadn’t taken long for them to stick around after a task was complete.
They were always Watching him.
Every second of every dream.
But once the requests reached a certain difficulty, making him take longer than just one day to complete them, he learned that they’d refused to speak to him until he did.
Grian hadn’t experienced nightmares since they first began showing up.
When the beings weren’t there nightmares were all he experienced.
They hadn’t been too bad at the start, not even scary enough to be called nightmares, just bad dreams.
But the longer it took for him to complete the task the worse they got.
As the days went on he began waking up in the morning in a cold sweat.
Then with a loud gasp.
Waking in the middle of night.
Not being able to get to sleep after.
Waking with a scream on the tip of his tongue.
By the end of it he’d began screaming in his sleep. It was loud enough to get the guards attention, thinking he was being attacked, only to find him trapped in a deep sleep they couldn’t wake him from.
The amount of relief he felt when he was finally able to light a candle with the tiniest of sparks without any movement or words was overwhelming. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it had brought him to tears.
It wasn’t even relief to see the beings again, who he’d missed more that he could express, but the relief that he would finally be able to sleep without fear. Finally wouldn’t have to fear even just the idea of sleeping.
That night, Grian fell asleep with ease. The nightmares had been making him have an extreme lack of sleep, both from waking him in the night and from him beginning to avoid it from fear.
But that fear was gone now. He knew that he’d see the beings this time. Their presence would protect Grian from the terrors of his dreams.
Grian was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
When the white, void-like place that Grian had grown accustomed to when seeing the beings, he couldn’t help but smile. Relief and joy filling him to the brim.
He didn’t know when his dreams had changed to the white void they now were. He didn’t even know if that change was sudden or a gradual shift over time. He’d just accepted it when he had finally noticed.
The beings looked incredibly pleased when he saw them. They appeared in front of him out of nowhere. His relieved smile turned to them when they appeared. He was so thankful to see them again.
“You’ve done wonderfully,” The one in front told him. It was always the one in front, but exactly which one changed every so often. “This was the hardest task we’ve given you so far.”
“I-I’m just glad it’s done,” He told them with a weak breath, feeling tired in a way he didn’t understand. He’d never been tired in his dreams before, it was odd.
“Yes. And now that you’ve done it once you’ll be able to do it again with much less difficulty,”
Grian’s heart dropped as he was filled with sudden dread.
“W-what?” He stuttered out, shocked and fearful. “No. Nononono, please! I can’t go through that again- I-I can’t!"
The pleased looks vanished from the beings. Instead turning to the emotionless expressions they had when he’d first seen them.
Grian could tell that he wasn’t getting through to them. He fell to his knees as he continued to beg. Tears filling his eyes.
“Please. Please! Something else! The- the nightmare, I-I can’t do it again! I-”
“Your behavior disappoints us child,” The one before him said. Any fraction of kindness that was ever in their voice gone, an uncaring coldness taking its place. “You don’t believe you can do it, even though we’ve told you you’re capable?”
The question was a trap.
How was he supposed to answer that?
If he said that he didn’t then it would surely lead to something bad. But if he said that he did then he’d be forced to accept the task.
The young avian was at a loss for words as tears ran down his face.
Now, ever since Grian met them only one of the beings would speak in his dreams. Though which one would switch every so often.
But this time the others were muttering to each other. Whether or not it was a bad sign though Grian couldn’t tell.
Then one step forward. One he’d never heard speak before. Their face was distorted rather than covered, but they were dressed just as fancily as the rest. They didn’t look at him as they spoke, speaking only to the being before him and the others.
“Perhaps we should give him something simpler,” They suggested, the beings behind them silencing as they spoke. “He is a child. If we push him too far we might break him. Mortals are already so fragile, and child mortals are even more so.”
Grian looked at them with tear filled and hopeful eyes. But the being he’d been speaking to looked at the other with disdain. The muttering began again, this time with a few of the beings nodding in agreement.
It didn’t take long for the muttering ones to seemingly come to a verdict. And even though they hadn’t spoken a word to the two before him, the beings seemed to know what decision had been made.
“Fine,” The first one said. Their face held the same, if not more, disdain as before. Grian’s shoulders saged as relief flooded him once more. “But,”
That was all it took to make him go rigid again. Dread flooding his stomach.
“But,” They continued. “You still will have to complete the task we’ve asked of you. You’ll just have simpler tasks going along with it.”
Grian desperately didn’t want to go through the mental gymnastics that doing mental magic was, but he could tell that this was the best offer he was going to be given.
At least with this his nightmares would lessen.
All Grian could really do was accept it.
~*~
As another year passed the time between being given simple tasks to complete as he tried to achieve harder ones stretched. Not by much, but enough that the nightmares Grian experienced woke him in the middle of the night.
But the beings had been right.
After having done mental magic once he started to get a better grip on how to use it. The time between him being given a task and him completing it shrunk a little more each time.
It was when he had completed his fifth mental task that things changed again.
~*~
Every time he completed a task, especially the harder ones, the beings would express briefly how proud they were. And no matter how brief it was, it never failed to bring Grian a huge amount of joy.
This time the one to approach him was the distorted faced one that had allowed him some relief from the constant night terrors. How he knew it was them he didn’t know, it’s not like there were many, if any, defining features between the beings.
He just did.
“Young one, we believe it is finally time,” They told him. There was fragments of joy in their voice, something that Grian rarely heard anymore.
He had no idea what time it finally was. But he didn’t dare to interrupt.
“You’ve been told that we are nearly as powerful as gods, correct?” They asked him. The avian nodded his head, making their distorted face smile somehow. “But you’ve never actually been told what we are.”
Surprisingly, this was the first time Grian realized this. Somehow it had never crossed his mind to wonder, to ask, to investigate.
It was so out of character for him not to.
He wasn’t allowed much time to realize this though.
“We are called Watchers,” They told him, extending their arms out, a powerful aura wavering off them. Well, wavering off them stronger than before. “Beings that Watch the happenings of worlds and realms from afar. Rarely interfering with the ones who live within them. And even less often speak or interact with them.”
The reveal of this made the young avian feel incredibly honored. They didn’t talk to people much, but they were interested in him. They talked and interacted with him and likely no one else.
"We Saw the incredible amount of power you have within you. We grew so curious of just how far that power could go,” They explained. “But the mortals of this world wouldn’t push you enough, unknowingly holding that power away from you. Because they aren’t able to See how powerful you truly are.”
“That is,” They said. “If we didn’t interfere.”
“So we stepped in. giving you tasks, tests, to see just how far we could push you. To see if you could handle what is to come next.”
“What comes next?” Grian asked, his full attention caught up in this amazing tale that was his life. The Watchers around them looked at each other with smiles on their faces, all knowing what was to come.
All hopeful for the correct outcome.
“Young one,” The one before him began, if he could see their face he was sure that it would be holding a gentle gaze. “Would you like to become a Watcher?”
The young avian was speechless.
“We’ve told you the power we hold,” They said. “So powerful that we perform what mortals consider advanced spells, as easily as the smallest of light spells.”
“We can See so much more than what mortals can comprehend. We can travel to lands that most worlds and realms don’t even know exist. We know so much more than anyone would think.”
Grian never had much care for ‘power’, but he was still a child. The promise of doing magic so easily, traveling to unimaginable lands, and knowing so much that he’d likely win every argument he had with his siblings, it was all so tempting. Even the promise of whatever Seeing was was tempting.
And Grian was extremely susceptible to temptation.
Especially as a child.
He hadn’t hesitated to accept. Enthusiasm filled his voice and his wings fluttered behind him.
The Watchers were clearly pleased.
“A word of warning,” The one before him said, their voice remaining just the same as before. Like they were telling him a grand tale rather than a warning. “Only incredibly powerful mortals can be turned into a Watcher. If they don’t have the ability to contain the amount of magic that a Watcher holds, they will tear themself apart and become one with the void itself.”
A sense of fear crept its way within Grian at the warning.
But it felt foggy and far away somehow.
“It’s the reason that we’ve pushed you to do so much,” They told him, their voice gentle and kind in a way it rarely seemed to be. “We needed to make sure that you’d survive. But now we’re confident that you will.”
Grian knew that this information scared him, but he just couldn’t seem to grasp that fear. A tiny, suppressed voice within him was telling him it was a bad idea. That he shouldn’t do it.
But the Watchers were confident that he’d survive. They’d never led him wrong before. Even with the hardest of tasks they’d always believed that he’d succeed.
They’d always been right.
So Grian ignored his fear and gave the Watcher a firm nod. Choosing to trust the Watchers once again.
They wouldn’t have given this offer if they weren’t convinced he’d survive.
“Are you sure you accept?” They asked him again. “Once you do, there is no backing out.”
“Yes,” Young Grian told them confidently. Not an ounce of doubt in his voice.
Oh how much he’d come to regret this decision as the years passed…