Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

World Lore

ASFB takes place within Minecraft, and how the world works and responds to people’s actions is heavily based upon this. The story takes minecraft as a framework, and works within it to fill out missing details.

The universe of asfb was coded by some outside entities, who while generally known of in concept aren't even in-world known to exist. Whether the universe has a mind of its own or was crafted by developers is hard to pin down in the world, although an answer to that does exist and that's as far out as the world building goes.

The universe has existed for roughly 900 years, although this story takes place around 800 years in. every so often updates come, adding new things to the world and fleshing it out more. However other things can exist within the world, but only through mods or derivation. Basically making things out of the existing things. These things dont slot into the inventory system, which is a set of simple standardized default objects that make everything easier. A person can get by without them, but they make things interesting.
Everything is made of code, and the more complex they get the harder it is to see, and the less they are recognised by existing systems for simplicity.

Mobs are a certain class of being existing in the world, and they generally speaking are the things able to affect change in the world. This is animals, monsters, as well as players and watchers. The more complex a thing is, especially a mob, the harder it is for the universe to make more of it without prompting. Monsters are simple and easy, Animals hold more feelings and ability to grow so are less common, players are a large step up and spawn in naturally very rarely, and no new watchers have spawned in since the first batch.

You can force new spawns though, in the case of monsters and animals, constructing methods like spawn eggs exist. But for more complex things the only option is to type into a console to create more. Most new players are from admins typing in console commands, usually from players wishing to be parents, and in those cases set to take some of the data from a parent as a base, although “randomly create new person” is an available option for the risky.

Watcher Lore

General history
The watchers were created to help add order to the chaos that players had wrought in their first two hundred years of existence. They were created to be the most powerful things in the universe, so they could act as on-site gods to order the populace. They were made immortal with wings and black sclera and an incredibly powerful regen factor able to withstand being thrown into the lava pits of the nether, as well as substantial natural magic potential and psychic abilities far above those of most players.
They were also created largely unorganized, and told to be responsible, with great knowledge of the universe, great amounts of proficany, but no memory.

The first two decades of the watchers' existence was mostly one of revelry. They were young and happy to be alive and shed their responsibility to have fun.
Some misused their power, and this and ambition caused groups to start to form among the watchers with frequent hostility to each other. It was a 30 year long era of chaos for them, and many of the players who frequently joined in and took sides.

Eventually though, A peace was reached and the watchers were divided up into 16 different(to match the colors of dyes in the world) groups each with one seat on a shared council, each group holding responsibility over one 16th of all player worlds and a specialization, each member holding authority over their particular group of watchers, and the council holding collective authority over the entire universe.

Each council member was fully responsible over the inner workings of their own group, but the council collectively decided to retreat to a city in the upper end of a world declared the hub world and neutral ground, and took a much more detached connection to the rest of the world.

Around this time, all of the colors of watchers took their specializations, and while the color specializations and council members primarily matter little to our story, the violet watchers are of particular interest to this story.

The Violet watchers have the specialization of knowledge, keeping an archive of all of the information in the known universe, being one of the most withdrawn colors of watchers in the world especially under the leadership of Council Member Konys.
Konys’s reign has been relatively short, out of the 600 or so years the council has been in place they have been ruling for 85 at the time of the first chapter of asfb.
Before them was council member Uros, whose circumstances of retirement or current location are currently not publicly known. They were known for being one of the most violent and conservative members of the council when they were on it, as well as highly valuing secrecy and enforcing laws with an iron fist and a hawk's eye.
Comparatively, Konys has been more peaceful and forgiving, but holding to similar policies of secrecy, a quality that for both them and their predecessor is often mocked as ironic being that they hold the archives.

Cultural notes
Watchers, as referred to here are mostly the more conservative of the watchers, a lot being very specific to the violet watchers, and are ideas that exist within the mind of many younger watchers as old timey or conservative practices. With that said, let us continue.

New watchers do not just spawn in like players do. As the force meant to run much of the world, their workforce began to be stretched thin and new watchers were needed. While a few more watchers were created, there was a worry that too many of them would cause a problem due to having too many entities with such power. The solution to this was the new generation of watchers also known as second gen watchers.
Second gen watchers data’s are half constructed from a watcher parents data, and half from randomly selected player data. Some second gen watchers are the children of one watcher and one player who decided to start a family, but were at least initially uncommon although now make up more and more of the group.

Second gen watchers have largely created a cultural gap, a group of people raised as watchers who have not been there to see the system created and feel less connection to the general watcher culture group challenge many of its standards.

Chapter Text

(context, Xelqua is 75 at the time of the story, meaning they are the maturity of a 15yr old, since watchers are raised as genderless, pronouns are they/them for now)

Xelqua wasn’t particularly good at anything.

Well compared to a player at the relative same level of maturity as them Xelqua would be ahead in basically every aspect. But compared to other second gen watchers, Xelqua was both incompetent and disobedient in equal measure. Also insolent and idiotic and impatient. They could keep adding adjectives on, but it probably wouldn't help. After all you could only learn so much from any given mistake till you reached a point where all you were doing was lowering your self esteem. Although that was probably another thing that could be added to the list of Xelqua’s list of negative traits.

Releasing this path of thought would probably not help with anything, Xelqua moved to thinking about the particular mistake that had gotten them sent to their room this time. It was always interesting to figure out what exactly they were about to be scolded for before the scolding in question happened.

However this was the first time Xelqua had accidentally fireballed their sparring partner. This was also the first time Xelqua had accidentally fireballed anything. Or even lit something on fire for that matter. It was kind of a miracle that it had taken that long.

Still Xelqua had no idea how they had actually managed to summon a fireball. They hadn't even attempted to ast any kind of spell relating to fire. Ever. and it hadn’t felt like magic.

Either way, Xelqua was sitting on the edge of the bed trying to summon a spark of flame in their hand. They hadn’t managed to do anything as impressive as that before, and it gave them hope that if they could just figure out how to do this one thing right, then maybe-

Their thought was cut off however, as the door opened.

In stepped Ochav, Xelqua’s parent.

Come. Ochav gave the command to Xelqua psychically. That was strange, most of the watchers rarely were that rude or direct when telling Xelqua to do stuff, and even weirder that it was coming from their parent.

Xelqua slid off their bed, and slipped on their shoes and coat. However when they reached to grab their mask Ochav shook their head, and Xelqua put the mask back down on their desk. Strange, since Xelqua was normally forbade from leaving their room without it.

Xelqua followed Ochav through the watchers domain. While it had been over 20 years since they had seen the world outside of their room with eyes uncovered, they could tell they were being led somewhere they hadn’t been before.

Ochav? Where are we going? They asked. Ochav didn’t respond, and proceeded to speed up their walking pace.

As they walked Xelqua noted that the other watchers were avoiding Xelqua. Well avoiding Xelqua more than a 75 year old second gen watcher following their parent around while maskless would normally be avoided.

They came to a large archway, where two watchers were waiting for them.

“Is this it?’ one of them asked.

“Yes.’ Ochav responded.

One of the watchers grabbed Xelqua’s hand and began to pull them into the room. Xelqua heard Ochav whisper “im sorry” in their ear before they turned and walked away.

The moment someone started forcibly pulling Xelqua was the moment they realized maybe they should have been struggling.

Chapter Text

Xelqua was pulled into a room with much more force than necessary, the door closed behind them.

The room had plain white walls and ceiling with a portal in the center. A watcher was standing at the console on the side of the portal, seemingly fighting with the settings.

“There is going to be an update tomorrow. Its got a name. The dev’s are calling it the world of color update”. As the watcher turned to face Xelqua they recognized them as one of the council of watchers, Konys. They were about to greet them properly with their name, when they continued to speak.

“It is a shame you will not be alive to see it.”

“What? I- I, you can’t be serious! It was just one fireball, I cant have done-” Konys cut him off.

“You did not make a mistake”

“Then why?”

“Your code is practically more glitch than normal code, it was not a mistake of yours. The fireball simply alerted us to an error we made a long time ago, you should be glad we found the error before it could cause more trouble.”

“Can’t you fix it?” from the way their demeanor and forehead shifted they could tell Konys had furrowed their brows.

“The error is not one that can be fixed, it was one in your creation. Deleting you is the only way to fix it.” Xelqua moved their hand across the door behind them, finding no way to open it; they began moving into the corner, pulling their wings around them giving a veneer of safety.

“Do not worry, with how badly your code is messed up, i doubt you could be considered a sentient being.” Konys said in an attempt to calm Xelqua. It did not have its intended effect.

“THAT’S SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER?”

“It means your existence should logically be of no consequence.” They hesitated for a bit
“it means your failure to meet our expectations wasn’t your fault.” They said, stepping towards Xelqua.
“You should not have been forced to act logically as it seems it would have been impossible.” They took another step toward Xelqua.
“You should not have been forced to do something that was impossible for you to do.”
“You should not have been allowed to progress to a point of believing yourself to be a person.” Konys reached out and grabbed Xelqua’s wrist.
“And you should not be allowed to continue” Konys used their other hand to cast a spell to open the portal. It swirled open, a dark black hole in the space in the middle of the room.

Konys then tugged hard on Xelqua, pulling them towards the portal, trying to position themselves with Xelqua in between them and the portal. The sudden forcefulness dazed Xelqua for a bit, but sensing the magic of the portal behind them, they tried to push back against Konys, despite the fact it was probably futile.

Konys however was much stronger than Xelqua, and continued to push them back towards the portal.

Xelqua was used to fighting people stronger than them however, and proceeded to change the angle they were going, so the momentum from the push directed them towards one of the walls.

The force of which they were pushed up against the wall knocked the wind out of Xelqua for a bit, allowing Konys to get the upper hand in the conflict.

Konys pulled Xelqua around and pushed them back in the direction of the rift.

Without thinking, Xelqua pulled their free hand in front of Konys’s face and summoned a blast of fire. This caused Konys to back off in surprise and pain, but the force of Konys pushing them away combined with the recoil from the fire caused Xelqua to fall backwards into the portal.

Xelqua fell through the portal, the last thing they saw were the flames consuming Konys’s body. That was definitely going to leave some scars.

Chapter Text

Then everything went black.

Xelqua felt themselves falling. It was cold, the air around them was getting thicker and thicker as they dropped, the pressure from it slowly crushing in on them.

As they fell it got worse and worse, the pressure building and building around them.

Xelqua felt their ears pop, the air became too thick to breathe.

And still they fell.

Xelqua felt the pressure continue to build, but could tell something was wrong. As in worse than being tossed into an all consuming void could be.

It had been measured how long players, even watchers could survive in the void.

They had been falling much longer than should be possible. They should be dead.

The air, was it even still air? Was getting thicker. They couldn’t breathe. they tried to gasp, yet nothing filled their lungs.

And it was getting colder.

Xelqua was about to pass out from lack of oxygen while falling into the void, something that was scientifically impossible.

-------------------------------

Xelqua woke up(not re-spawned) after going unconscious in the void. They were lying on something soft.

Xelqua sat up and looked around. Everything ached.

They were sitting on an endless plain of fluffy light grey stuff that was slowly drifting down in little clouds from the black void sky above. There was no clear light source that Xelqua could see, yet the area around them was clearly illuminated. The light seemed to flicker in places, but consistently illuminated the empty landscape.

Xelqua found they could breathe again, although the air was somehow thinner than was preferable to Xelqua, who had grown up in the watcher homeworld, which had air thinner than even the highest peaks of the overworld. Additionally the air was full of the falling dust particles causing them to cough every few breaths.

They pulled up the fabric of their shirt over their nose and mouth to filter out the dust, wincing as the back of the shirt collar rubbed against their now tender neck.

They sat still, breathing in and out slowly, trying to prevent themselves from hper-ventilting from the stressful situation.

Xelqua had fallen through the void. And they weren’t dead. They were sitting under the void. Under the void. Under. the. Void.
It was oddly peaceful. And very, very cold.

Forget getting crushed by the void or suffocating, Xelqua was going to freeze to death.

Xelqua wrapped their wings around themselves and closed the buttons on their jacket to stave of the cold as long as possible, trying to think of something, anything that could get them to a safe location

Xelqua couldn't tell how much time had passed, but they could tell it had been awhile. They felt cold. So very cold, and their eyes were starting to drift closed.

They didn’t know if they fell asleep if they could ever wake up

They rocked back and forth, trying to stay awake and generate even a small amount of heat to keep going.

Xelqua had begun to start whispering to themselves a while ago just so the endless silence wouldind drive them insane.

It had started out as a well thought out reflection of Xelqua’s inner thoughts, but had devolved into a repetitive chant whispering. “I don't want to stop. I don't want to stop, I don't want to stop, I….”

The words slowly became more unclear on their tongue, their eyes trying even harder to close, small icicles had formed on Xelqua’s feathers, clothes, and hair.

Xelqua felt hot. Too hot. But they knew they were still under the void, and this was just signaling late stage hypothermia. meaning they weren’t going to last for very much longer.

Xelqua had stopped rocking back and forth. Their whispering was barely more than short breaks between breathing. Their eyes began to close.

And then they felt a hand on their shoulder.

Chapter Text

(1.5 days after)

Another update, another attempt from the devs to remove him from the game. He had gotten used to it. The pain, the teleportation, the falling. The endless plain of light grey dust.

Herobrine stood up, dusting off his pants. He started walking. It took time for him to gather enough energy to teleport back to the overworld, and in a place cold as this staying still was ill advised.

He was walking absentmindedly. At least this was one place where no one was trying to kill him. It was awful cold, and quiet. And lonely. Well it was supposed to be. this time however, herobrine noticed something purple in the distance, sticking out of the monotone environment like a sore thumb. What looked to be a purple ball of feathers turned out to be a person with wings that were wrapped around themselves, seemingly to protect from the cold. Protecting themself from what would be inevitable had herobrine not happened to be there at that exact moment.

He placed his hand on the person's shoulder, almost flinching away because of how cold they were.

He was tempted to summon a flame to warm up the individual, but decided to wait and gather enough energy to teleport the two of them to the overworld, so for the time being he put his attention to surveying the health of the individual.

The person had barely reacted to his touch so he decided to investigate if the person was breathing. Carefully, he lifted the individual into his arms, and was able to see the faint rise and fall of the individual’s chest, more interestingly he was able to get a better look at the person while he adjusted them in his arms.

It looked to be a teenager, with no indication to their gender. They had a pair of light purple wings that had had icicles grow on some of the feathers. Their undershirt had been pulled up over their nose and mouth to filter out the ambient dust, but with how faint their breathing was herobrine decided it would be better if they could breathe freely at the risk of a bit more dust getting in their lungs. Then came to their clothes which were indicative of a watcher.

Herobrine had seen a few before, they typically had paid him no mind, opting to focus on whatever disaster or event had caused them to come down to the overworld. It was strange to see one at the bottom of existence itself like this, especially one so young.

He held the child closer to his body, trying to warm them up with just his body heat.

Far too slowly herobrine felt his energy returning to him. He paced around, much more anxious than was typical for him. And he was anxious quite often.

When herobrine was finally able to teleport to the overworld he was impressed by the shock of the change in air temperature.

Maybe it was that he had had to spend more time down in the cold below the void than he did when he was on his own, or maybe it was the fact he had to share his body heat with another being who was so lacking in it.

Herobrine found himself in the middle of a field, surrounded by tall yellow flowers all facing the sun which was setting, painting the sky with bright colors. A warm breeze blew past, causing the kid in his arms to shudder in their sleep.

Herobrine looked around, looking for any place where they could find shelter for the night and warm up from the cold of the void. Luckily after a bit of looking around Herobrine saw the pointed roofs of a village, and began to head towards it.

As he got closer herobrine noticed that he couldn't see any villagers, and could see quite a lot of cobwebs. Although the village being abandoned wasn’t particularly a bad thing, in fact it meant he could pillage whatever resources had been left by its former occupants guilt free.

When they reached the village the sun was about to drift beneath the horizon. Herobrine located a blacksmith and moved to it, due to the warmth that would emanate through the building due to the lava in the smithy.

Herobrine set the child down on the floor of the blacksmith building. He then headed out into the rest of the abandoned village, looking for anything particularly useful that had been left behind, particularly a bed for his… companion?

When herobrine had returned to the blacksmith the night had begun, and he could hear the growls and hisses of monsters fill the night. He placed down a bed he had found and pulled the child into the bed. When he pulled the kid into the bed he noticed a very large bruise on their left wrist, as well as other faint bruising, probably from the fall through the void they must have undergone to end up at the bottom of the world.

He moved over and opened the blacksmith chest, inside were a few apples, a loaf of stale bread, a few ingots and nuggets of metal, and a single worn down iron pickaxe. After taking stock of his inventory herobrine shifted over to the bed and huddled next to it,allowing the exhaustion that came from teleporting two people to overcome him.

Chapter Text

(2 days after)

Xelqua opened their eyes, blinking. They were tucked into a bed inside of a wooden structure, someone was resting next to the bed, with their head resting on the mattress. Xelqua tried to pull themself up to a sitting position, but winced as the bruises covering their body made themselves known.

Xelqua was sitting up now, the blanket pulled up around their legs and lower torso, their wings shoved up against the wall. They looked down at their arms, noticing severe bruising, and even a bit of dried blood on their left wrist. There was one chest in the corner of the room, it was propped open showing a small amount of basic resources.

And then there was the individual in the room with Xelqua. They were curled up next to Xelqua’s bed, their head leaning against the mattress. They had dark brown hair, tan skin, a teal shirt, and worn blue jeans. Xelqua had seen someone who looked like them before. Well not seen exactly ‘seen’ in the traditional sense, but someone who looked like one of the original players wasn't particularly common. In fact, there were only two people who looked like that, and they didn’t think Steve would be able(or likely) to rescue an ex-watcher from the void.

Other people would probably have a larger reaction to finding out they were most likely sitting(wounded) in the same room as herobrine, but they didn’t particularly have any reason to be afraid of him. Especially since they hadn’t ever seen any proof of the misdeeds so many players tended to pin on herobrine. Besides, if not for him they would probably be dead. That wasn’t a particularly nice thought. Xelqua shuffled that thought to the back of their mind and attempted to stand up. Of course the pain from the bruises prevented this, but did succeed in jostling herobrine a bit.

Herobrine blinked a few times and sat up straight, startling Xelqua. Herobrine grunted a bit, still in the process of waking up, then pushed himself up off the ground, stretched, and turned to face Xelqua.

“Ah, you're awake.” Herobrine observed.

“Mhm.” Xelqua acknowledged Herobrine, then attempted to nod their head, which caused a headache to flair.

They stared at each other for a bit in awkward silence.

“Are you… okay?” Herobrine asked. Xelqua stared at him for a bit, they ran their tongue over their lips, looked down, looked back up, and tried to speak.

“╎-” they cut themselves off, noticing how dry their throat was as soon as they tried to talk. Instead they just shook their head causing another spike in the headache. With this herobrine seemed to look... nervous.

“Oh, do you only speak galactic? I don’t know very much galactic um… ⍑ᒷᔑꖎℸ ̣ ⍑ ꖎᒷ⍊ᒷꖎᓭ ᔑ↸ᒷᑑ⚍ᔑℸ ̣ ᒷꖎ|| ⍊ᔑꖎ⚍ᒷ?” Xelqua starred at Herobrine, trying to determine whether it would be more painful to respond through shaking their head or actual speech. Or-

Xelqua closed their eyes and tried to reach out psychically to Herobrine.

Im fine. I just need some water. And yes i speak english.

“Oh.” Herobrine calmed down visibly(it was suprily easy to read his emotions, but that was probably due to the fact Xelqua had learned how to read the emotions of people who hardly ever emoted and wore masks over half their faces.). “Water. I can do water.” Herobrine reached into the chest and pulled out three iron ingots, and went outside.

A few minutes later herobrine returned with a bucket of water and handed it to Xelqua. Xelqua awkwardly lifted up the bucket with their one good hand and began to drink from it. Its was surprisingly cool for water that had been presumably sitting around in the overworld. When they put the bucket onto the ground about half of its contents had been consumed. With a bit more grip on the situation, Xelqua noticed how hot they really were, and proceeded to unbutton and remove their coat and overshirt, so they were just left with their white undershirt, which while still put Xelqua’s temperature above that of the watcher homeworld, it was much more bearable.

“Is that better?” herobrine asked. Xelqua nodded, and noticed that with the reduction in temperature and added water their headache had mostly subsided.

“Thank you Herobrine.” Xelqua said, looking Herobrine in the eyes.

”you know who I am? And you’re not running away or trying to kill me?”

“Yes. and I have no reason to expect hostility from you, in fact I suspect if not for you I would be in the void and-” dead Xelqua cut themselves off. “thank you for your help.”

“Of course. What kind of person would I be if I left a kid to die in the middle of the void? You are a kid right?”

“You would be the kind of person everyone thinks you are. And yeah I could be considered a kid.” xelqua looked at herobrine for a bit. “The first one was a rhetorical question wasn’t it?”

Chapter Text

(one week and two days after)

Despite herobrine’s worries that Xelqua might be in danger if they stuck around herobrine, Xelqua had made it clear they intended to stay with herobrine, at least for now.

Herobrine was not accustomed to having a traveling partner, especially one who was so… respectful to herobrine. Not in a generally treating him like a person kind of way, but more of the way one would treat a community leader. In fact they would normally only do things with explicit permission from herobrine, which seemed to also include casual conversation.

They were four days out from the village, having taken a few days to gather resources and heal from injuries sustained from their time in the void.

Well most of them. It was clear something additional had happened to Xelqua’s wrist, however they seemed intent on not talking about it. In fact they seemed intent on not divulging any personal information to herobrine at all aside from their name. Not that herobrine had pushed for any answers of any kind, having a traveling partner was quite enough.

They were currently sitting in a small cave, a small fire had been lit in the center and two beds had been placed against the walls. Xelqua was sitting on one of them, their legs tucked close to their chest with one arm wrapped around them. They were staring intently at the fire, the light flickering in their heterochromatic eyes.

It was quite strange. Most watchers wore masks over their eyes. At least all of the ones herobrine had seen. However Xelqua didn’t seem to have one. perhaps it was something only watchers got when they became adults or maybe they had lost it in the void.

Herobrine hadn’t eyes that looked like Xelqua’s before. One was completely black, except for a purple iris. Black sclera wasn’t that uncommon among players, although they usually came with some kind of end heritage. Xelqua’s other eye was the strange one. It was plain white like herobrine’s, although Xelqua’s eyes didn’t seem to glow at all. Herobrine had only seen a handful of players with plain white eyes in his entire life, and it was always the result of some kind of glitch or error in code when the iris and pupils didn’t load properly. Or at least that's what he had heard. Herobrine didn’t know nearly enough about player code to figure out if that was even the case.

Herobrine was staring again. He started at people a lot, usually from a distance though. It felt much more invasive to stare at someone who knew he was there for some reason.

Xelqua reached up into their hair and began to undo the braid it was in. it had been in that braid for a week, which was quite long enough. Usually they took out their braid before a shower, but because of their current predicament they hadn’t showered for a week. It was impressive how bad they could smell, just from a single week of uncleanliness.

Xelqua noticed that herobrine had been staring at them for a while. While having herobrine’s complete attention would probably unnerve most players, it was substantially less intense than the constant attention most watchers gave their surroundings. However herobrine noticed Xelqua noticing his stare, and he quickly turned his attention to his inventory, but not quickly enough to miss Xelqua flinch when they accidentally pulled on their left hand.

“Your wrist still bothering you?”

“Mhm.” Xelqua mumbled, still trying to un-braid their hair. Herobrine moved over to sit next to Xelqua.

“Can I see your arm?” Xelqua nodded, extending their arm to herobrine. Herobrine placed his hand on Xelqua’s wrist and then closed his eyes for a bit. Then faint red particles formed in the air around Xelqua’s hand. It was like Herobrine had used a healing potion on Xelqua’s arm without a potion.

“Thank you.”Xelqua said, then they moved their wrist back in a quick motion that caused the pain to flare up again.

‘Does it still hurt?”

“Yeah.”

‘Hmm.. that should have fixed it completely. Maybe you broke it? Healing magic doesn’t do much good for that kind of stuff.'' Herobrine pulled out a strip of cloth and some sticks and used them to fashion a makeshift brace on Xelqua’s lower arm.

“If we can find a world command console I could teleport us to a world with doctors.” Herobrine looked worried at this. “A small world of course, find a small community and see if they can help us out, or maybe just me if you're worried about being recognised.” Herobrine thought for a bit.

“That's probably a good idea, and it would give us something to look for… do you know how to find one?”

“They typically generate near zero zero. Unfortunately neither of us have a communicator, so unless you have some way to track coordinates, we will just wander around and hope this world’s one generated above ground.”

“I guess that's better than nothing. Now come on, you should eat something.’ herobrine said, holding out a loaf of bread from the village chest to Xelqua. They took it and began to eat it, then tucked themselves into bed, facing the fire. Their hair was still loose and it lay strewn about their pillow as they drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Minor warning for motion sickness.

(two weeks and two days after)

They had been walking in one direction for a few weeks now, stopping and raiding the few structures they came across for food and supplies. They hadn’t talked to each other much.

Herobrine had hoped that Xelqua might tell him a little more about themself, or at least how they had broken their wrist. However they had stayed quiet for the most part aside from necessary communication, and herobrine didn’t want to push.

I was nice to have someone around anyway, even if they were much quieter than would be considered normal. At least for most humans, herobrine had no idea what was normal for a juvenile watcher, although their entire situation definitely wasn’t it.

The sun was setting when they reached a beach. The sand was still warm from the day under the hot sun. herobrine set to work constructing a dirt hut. Xelqua usually didn’t do very much when it came to the construction of their temporary shelters, it was mostly due to their wrist injury, but herobrine expected they didn’t have any experience with building.

When herobrine was finished he turned around to see xelqua sitting on the beach, staring at the setting sun. Herobrine sat down next to them.

Xelqua was idly running their fingers through the tips of their hair. It had gotten quite tangled very quickly due to lack of care, and at this point could almost be described as matted.
Sunlight reflected off of Xelqua’s eyes, and illuminated their face with a few flickers of golden light. Even though they had only been in the overworld for about three weeks they had developed a scattering of freckles across their cheeks and forehead. Their coat had been if not discarded, stashed away, and their overshirt had been tied around their waist.

And they were smiling, a faint smile to be sure, but one of the first ones Herobrine had seen on their face for the entirety of their time together.

“You know I always heard that sunsets over oceans were beautiful, but this is so much better than I could have imagined.”

“Guess so, I wouldn’t know, though.”

“Oh, did I say that aloud?” Xelqua said looking down at their lap. They then looked to herobrine “what do you mean you wouldn't know? I mean growing up in the overworld I suppose it would just be a fact of life but… hm.” they looked back up at the sky.

“I was there for the first sunset. It was actually very concerning at the time. I guess I never really had a chance to notice how beautiful sunsets really are.” Xelqua nodded and then stood up and went inside.

The next morning they stood looking at the ocean. Well more accurately their next obstacle.

“Can you swim?” herobrine asked Xelqua.

“Yes, a bit. Although I would rather not swim across an entire ocean.”

“Same here.”

“I could fly?”

“Then how would I get across? Besides you might get tired and I wouldn’t want to be flying above an ocean when I was tired.”

“Boat?”

“Boat.”

Now I'm going to be perfectly honest as a narrator and zoom out for a bit while our heroes make themselves a boat and take out into the ocean and tell you about one trait they both happened to share. A fear, or at least strong dislike of water, well being in bodies of it.

The first time herobrine encountered a body of water he didn’t know what it was and almost drowned. And the largest body of water Xelqua has ever been in was a large pool that they learned to swim in. not to mention that getting your feathers wet is supremely uncomfortable. Of course properly preened wings don’t get wet from rain or a shower, but wings that haven’t gotten preened in a few weeks going into a body of water is a different story.

So suffice it to say that both of our heroes were quite uncomfortable with their current situation.

Now back to the story, now from Xelqua’s perspective.

Motion sickness was not a concept Xelqua was particularly familiar with. Of course they had heard about it, and felt dizzy at times. But they hadn’t ever been in a moving vehicle before. They also had that strange notion one often seems to develop when they hear about something others find hard that for whatever reason everyone is exaggerating it and you will be able to handle it no problem.

This notion was fairly quickly dispelled. To herobrine’s credit the rowing was pretty uniform, there were no lurches of speed. If there were, Xelqua would probably have thrown up by now.

It was still unpleasant. And that was only one of the many complaints Xelqua had about this journey.

The sun was beating down hard, their wings and legs were cramped, and they were in a small boat in the middle of an ocean squished up against another person. That in itself was quite unpleasant. And it was very boring. At least when you are walking you feel like you are doing something.

Xelqua began to comb through their hair with their finger tips, trying to remove some of the tangles.

“I am bored.” herobrine announced, seemingly putting a voice to Xelqua’s thoughts.

“Ok?”

…

…

…

“Usually saying my troubles aloud helps to deal with them.”

“Still bored though.”

“Are you bored Xelqua?”

“No.” Xelqua said, almost on reflex. “I mean yeah I guess just a little. Sorry for lying about that.” Herobrine raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t need to apologize for something like that Xelqua.”

“But I do. You're not supposed to lie to superiors. And sorry for contradicting you just now, I shouldn’t have done that as well.” Herobrine hesitated for a bit.

“First of all, what makes me your superior?”

“I mean you are older than me. I know that. Sorry for assuming you are my superior, if i wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“Someone being older than you doesn’t automatically make them worthy of respect Xelqua.”

“I know that, there are bad people. But I don’t think you're one of them, I have no reason too.”

“That may be true, but just because you respect me, or because i'm older than you doesn’t mean I'm infallible. No one is. And finally you don’t need to apologize for something as casual and small as that, and its okay to lie sometimes. Sometimes you need to keep a secret. Remember that, okay?”

“Okay.”

…

“Its just, I owe you, don’t I? You have been looking after me for three weeks, and I have hardly done anything for you, in fact all I have been doing is using up your supplies and slowing you down. I owe you respect.” Herobrine seemed almost angry at this.

“You are a kid. You don’t owe anyone anything just for taking care of you. Taking care of a random kid is just common courtesy. Being kind is just a common courtesy. You don’t owe anyone anything for it. Don’t ever think you owe someone just for the bare minimum. Your trust and respect are things only you can give, and you should be careful who you give them to. Make sure they earn it” herobrine sighed. Then looked back at Xelqua and smiled. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”Herobrine stopped rowing for a bit to pull out an apple and handed it to Xelqua before counting to row. They reached a landmass before night fall, and set up camp on a beach. They sat and watched the moon rise just as they had watched the sun set the night before.

Chapter Text

(one month after)

Worlds consoles open to the air are rare things, they are what an admin has over any of their players, and they usually spawn near spawn. And they are the traditional method used to transverse between servers.

An unclaimed world console could be used by anyone with an interworld passport, and could be used to summon a new copy of a pre-existing one should it be lost for whatever reason.

When they found one there had been a hope that Xelqua’s passport could be used to transport the both of them to a minor hub-world of some kind, and find someone who could help with Xelqua’s injured wrist.

Xelqua turned on the console, they hadn’t gotten to use one themself before, but had read tutorials and watched older watchers and a few players use them before and was decently confident with their abilities.

/start
/set interface: transport
/browse local worlds

A list of worlds appeared on the interface, Xelqua ran through the logged worlds before the found one that seemed promising, and called herobrine over.

“green hub 25-38-16?”

“Yeah, it looks like fairly generic small community hub that this world is connected to, we could go there, its probably not big, but big enough that we could probably find a doctor or two.”

“I'm not very comfortable being in a hub world, it doesn’t matter if its small, I still might be recognised.”

“We are going to have to go somewhere with at least a small population if we want to be certain there is going to be a doctor. Besides if we get you a pair of sunglasses and a change of clothes you will be… distinctly less recognisable.” herobrine sighed

“We do need to get you actual medical attention, and with my random teleporting we could end up watchers know were, so i guess we're going to green hub 25-38-16.” herobrine conceded. Xelqua resisted the urge to say ‘no, the watcher don’t actually know where you are going to end up’

/select green-hub-25-38-16
/teleport @nearestplayers(2)

Xelqua placed their passport on the scanner on the panel.

Error: passport outdated. Update? (y/n)

Huh, that's weird. It should be fully updated

/y
Enter player number
Player number entered
Player number incorrect
/exit worlds list
/view watcher passport “Xelqua”

…
Passport located

Xelqua looked over the theoretically updated passport info displayed on the screen.

It wasn’t theirs.

Yes, it was a watcher file. Yes it was someone named Xelqua. Yes they were Ochav’s kid. But they were only a week old.

Xelqua had been replaced.

Their existence… just wiped over by the watchers.

They knew they were considered a mistake by the watchers, being thrown out like that. But…

Xelqua lifted their passport back off of the panel, and turned it off.

Chapter Text

Xelqua stepped back and sat down on the grass, wrapping their wings around themselves.

Without knowing, they had been hoping there was some way they could go back. Some way, somehow.

But they had been erased. it probably wasn’t even the first time it had happened. They had only created a fireball a few hours before they had been abruptly thrown into the void. It was efficient. And also completely illegal unless there was some secret special case for glitches that people didn’t get told about.

But… there were no rules about glitched watchers that commanded their destruction, not unless they were actively in great pain(mercy), or uncontrollably creating destruction.

But that didn’t matter. Council member konys had been fully in it, nothing could be done.

Watcher Xelqua of 75 years of age had been erased. Their name had been given to someone else.

And they? They were a nameless glitch sitting in a field alone.

“Xelqua? Are you okay?” a hand was again placed on Xelqua’s shoulder

No, nameless, and a glitch, but not alone.

They were two glitches in the middle of a field, they had been tossed out of every place of civilization they had ever entered. But they were not alone.

They hadn’t allowed themself to tell herobrine about anything. They hadn’t taken the time in the month they had been together to tell anything, to or to let anything out. Or even to acknowledge anything was wrong to themself. It had just been to get home.

They turned their head around to face herobrine. They folded one of their wings around him and nudged him into a sitting position next to them. And then they leaned into herobrine.

“No”

One of herobrine’s arms was around their shoulders, and he reached up to wipe a tear off of their cheek. They hadn’t been aware that they were crying, but after one tear fell, more followed. The individual who was no longer known as Xelqua buried their head in herobrine’s shirt and sobbed.

Watchers didn’t sob. They weren't supposed to, and if they did it was in private, and definitely not into someone else’s shirt.

But they were not a watcher. They were an outcast, a child, in the middle of a field. crying into an outcast's shirt.

But of all the things they were, they weren't alone, maybe for the first time ever.

And they didn’t want to be alone ever again.

-----------------------

They(the individual no longer known as Xelqua) stayed sitting for a long time. They had eventually stopped crying, They were now leaning Their head against herobrine, who was stroking their matted hair.

They looked up and watched the trees rustle as faint breezes cleared the top of them. They removed their wing from around Herobrine and sat up straighter, tucking their knees to Their chest.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Probably.”

“If you want to say something I’m here, Xelqua.”

“I- that's not my name. Not anymore.”

“Oh? What do you mean?” Herobrine tilted his head.

“Well… um. Names for watchers are unique. For any given watcher name there is only one watcher with that name, so all identification is tied to names. Apparently my name has been given away to a new watcher. My sibling I guess.”

“And that means?”

“Any record of me existing is… gone. I'm just a mistake konys couldn’t clean up properly.” they started picking at the grass.

“What do you mean a mistake?” there was a hint of worry in Herobrine’s tone.

“I… konys said my code was glitched and they couldn’t fix it, so they um… got rid of me. I wasn’t causing any problems though. I don't know… I… hmm.” they looked down at the grass. “What am I now, herobrine? I'm just a nameless glitch that can’t die properly, aren’t I?”

“No. You are a kid. And you deserve the chance to act like it.” Herobrine turned to face Them. “I'm guessing you can’t use the control panel, so we need to figure out what to do next.” Herobrine stood up and offered his hand to Them. They took it and stood up. “I could teleport us somewhere random, if we are lucky we will end up somewhere you can get help for your wrist.”

“Or we could end up somewhere else, somewhere dangerous. Or in the middle of an entirely different uninhabited world. My wrist is feeling a bit better anyway. Its not worth the risk.”

“Then what?”

“We stay here. Its not a bad spawn all things considered. Build a base, make some farms. You know, act like players.”

“You sure?” Herobrine asked. They nodded.

“Let's do this, I'm tired of sleeping in dirt huts.” They turned around and headed to the forest at the edge of the field. “I have always wanted to punch a tree.”

“Wait, we already have an axe.” herobrine said, following after them.

Chapter Text

(two months after)

Together the two of them had built a decently sized mansion out of oak wood on a hill that was nearish to the world control console, even though it was pretty useless to them.

Herobrine had taken to calling his companion Sunshine, mostly out of a need to call them something, they didn't mind, in fact they quite liked the nickname.

Sunshine was walking around the fairly empty interior of the mansion holding a notebook, trying to plan out the interior. The mansion itself had two and a half stories. The bottom floor was divided into five different rooms, one main one and four that opened up from it.the second floor was one giant room. Above it was the third floor that only covered one half of the mansion, and it was divided into two separate rooms and a sort of internal balcony that looked down onto the second floor.

It was very empty. Of course one day, they would probably have a use for all the space, but for now it was giant and empty. Sunshine was in one of the rooms on the top floor. They had basically claimed it as their own.

It in itself was much bigger than anything they had ever had to themself before. It was comforting to be able to have a space that was theirs though, even if they now shared an entire world with only one other person. Their room had been a place of safety to them before, and it still felt like it now, even though they no longer needed to hold up an appearance in front of others.

They were seriously considering modeling it to be just like their old room, but bigger and with all of the stuff they had at one time or another wished it had, including but not limited to:

A large circular shaped bed because they were more comfortable for people with wings
Multiple bookshelves, opposed to the one they had had before
Curtains
A desk with a built in inkpot, multiple drawers, and a shelf above it.
A bedside table
A potted plant, preferably rose. Although those didn’t exist anymore
A rug
A chair that wasn't a desk chair, and combined with that somewhere for reading that wasn’t the desk or the bed.
A balcony
A closet containing clothes that weren’t all the same
A mirror
a plush animal of some kind. Bears were traditional, although Sunshine was more inclined to a parrot or cat.

Just then they heard a knock on the door.

“Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Herobrine opened the door and came in. “how's it going?”

“Its… I have some plans for this room. My room. I do not know, I have not had the chance to plan out furnishings like this before. It is… different.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” herobrine said with a smile.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Sunshine said. They then tried to run their fingers through their hair, which didn’t work particularly well due to the fact it was at this point their hair was so matted it was closer to being a piece of fabric than strands of hair. “Ow.” they said, trying to remove their fingers from their hair.

Seeing Sunshine’s struggle, Herobrine came over and carefully untangled their fingers from their hair. They hadn’t expected herobrine to help them out with that, and after that, how nice it was to feel herobrine’s hand against their own.

“There you go.” Herobrine said, he pulled his hand back, but Sunshine held onto his hand for a bit after.

“Thank you.” sunshine said, before quickly pulling their hand away. They looked a bit embarrassed.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah just… after watchers turn 25 they are expected to do all of the grooming stuff on their own. No one has helped me with something like that for like… 25 years. Watchers do not really do touching at all.”

“Oh. um, if you don’t mind me asking, when was the last time before we met that someone touched you?”

“I am guessing you do not mean getting pushed into a portal to the void or sparing so…” Sunshine stood thinking for a moment. “I think my friend Hma'i'ssu gave me a pat on the back about two months before I met you.”

Herobrine stood thinking for a moment.
“Well, I'm here if you ever want a hug or help with anything.”

“Okay. thank you I… could you help me with my hair? Its been a mess for awhile.”

“Hm.” Herobrine moved around to look at Sunshine’s hair. “I mean I could try to give you a haircut.”

“Couldn’t you just help me with brushing it?”

“I think at this point its past being able to be brushed out, at least not with the tools we have available to us right now.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I just… I’ve never gotten a haircut before.”

“Oh.. well. There's a first time for everything.” herobrine offered. Sunshine snorted with laughter.

“Yeah, yeah there is.”

-----------------------------

Herobrine had brought Sunshine down the hill to the river bank and placed down a stool for them to sit on. He pulled out a large piece of fabric and placed it around Sunshine’s shoulders.

A faint breeze blew past, rustling the tops of the trees. Herobrine pulled out a pair of shears.

“So I'm gonna try and cut your hair to shoulder length, is that okay?”

“I guess.”

“And one thing, please try not to tilt your head unless I try to move your head ok?”

“Mhm.”

Sunshine sat still as herobrine clipped away at their hair. They felt small pieces of hair falling down and landing around their neck. It was strangely peaceful.

Snip, snip, snip

“So.” Herobrine said, trying to fill the silence “how’s furnishing the mansion going?”

“Its going okay, I have a few ideas for my room. But it is a lot of empty space. I do not know what to do with all of it.”

“Mhm.” herobrine hesitated for a bit. “Um, I'm gonna need to give you an undercut if that's okay,otherwise its gonna be wonky.”

“Yeah its fine.”

About fifteen minutes later herobrine was done, he finished by pulling Sunshine’s hair back and tying it into a ponytail with a piece of string.”there you go” he then pulled the sheet of cloth away from Sunshine’s shoulders and put it back into his inventory.

“We’re by the river for a reason, go take a look at yourself.” herobrine said, stepping back.

Sunshine stood up brushing the spare hairs off of their neck. It felt strange to touch the back of their neck without the thick layer of hair they were so accustomed too. They walked over to the river and stared down at their reflection.

The bathrooms in the rooms of the watchers junior were not actually outfitted with mirrors so it had been quite a long while since Sunshine had seen their own reflection. They had never been particularly fond of their reflection however, although they weren’t particularly familiar with it. However there was something about this time that was different.

Despite the dirt on their face and the general look about them, they actually liked their appearance. Infact, they loved it. They ran their hand over their newly cut hair, and kneeled down to get a better look. There was something right about their appearance, although they couldn’t quite place their finger on why.

They ran their hand over the clipped hair on the sides of their head and flicked the end of their ponytail.

“You like it?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

Chapter Text

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

(five years after)

Sunshine and Herobrine were sitting on the roof. A large blanket had been spread out on the stone bricks.

Herobrine was showing Sunshine constellations. He told them the stories of them. Some myths that he had heard on the road. Stories of heroes that had been immortalized in the sky.

And true stories. Stories of how people used the stars to navigate across the world.

“I’ve seen star charts and stuff before, but i have never been able to actually see them when I was learning about them.”

“There aren’t stars in the watcher homeworld?”

“No, it's too high up.”

“Too… high?”

“Yeah… I mean the stars and stuff are below the end and the homeworld is above that.”

“So when you look up at the stars you’re looking up at the watcher homeworld?”

“I don’t think so, Its only above the hub world.”

“Oh.” Herobrine sat thinking for a moment. “I’ve never been to the hub world, too many people. What's it like?”

“I haven’t seen the main hub world, just the homeworld. I don’t think the homeworld is much like the overworld hub.”

“I would start comparing them but I haven't seen either of them.” Herobrine chuckled.

“Yeah.” Sunshine smiled and shifted closer to Herobrine. “I'll go there someday. And then i'll tell you all about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I promise.”

“Hm.” Herobrine put a hand on Sunshine’s shoulder. “Don’t make promises like that.”

“But I will. I’ve spent so long cooped up in one place and I want to see the world now that I can. and i want to see the stuff you can’t do and tell you about it.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I might not get to see the great cities and builds of the world but there are plenty of good things I do get to see and I like to think that's enough. Plenty of good things... like you.” Herobrine said scratching the top of Sunshine’s head.

“Aww… thanks. Well you’re a pretty good thing too.” Sunshine pulled one of their wings around Herobrine. “Actually I think you are my second favorite person.”

“Oh? Does that mean I’m better than at least one of your parents?”

“I only have one parent. But you’re still better than them.”

“High praise… what do you mean one parent? Did something happen?”

“No I just-” “watchers are really powerful beings. But there aren’t enough of them. But the council decided it would be dangerous to just make more watchers as powerful as the original ones, so they decided to make the second generation of watchers half player. Just a randomly selected player. I guess I do technically have two parents, but I won’t ever meet one of them. Or even know who they are. Apparently my code’s pretty messed so i don’t think i could even find them by looking for matching lines in other people's code. And they might be dead from old age anyhow.”

“What do you mean messed up?”

“Apparently it's like half glitches and stuff. Its why I was gotten rid of, but I guess probably why I survived falling through the void. I mean you’re the only other person who’s survived down there and you are like all glitches.”

“That's hardly messed up. There's nothing wrong with having glitched code. I should know.”

“I know. But not everyone thinks that. That's the problem.”

“And its a problem we will face together. I promise”

“You just said to be careful about making promises.”

“Yeah, but i'm sure I’ll keep that one.”

“So am I.”

“Ah.” Herobrine looked around, then back to Sunshine. “I guess those are both not very good promises then.”

They both looked up at the stars for a while, taking in the scene in front of them.
…

…

…

“I love you dad.” Sunshine said in a whisper. Herobrine looked back down at Sunshine.

“I love you too Sun.”

“Did you just call me your son?”

“No, It was Sun, like a shortening of your name.”

“Well being your son works well too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought so but works pretty well.”

“Well then. Sun my Son.” Sunshine giggled.

“You know you could've just said Sun my Sun or Son my Son or Son my Sun and I wouldn’t have known.”

“English is pretty crazy like that.”

“Yeah. its weird. But I like it.”

“I guess you are used to speaking galactic aren’t you?”

“I mean a bit, but there is actually a separate language that watchers speak. It doesn't have a name but its the first language we learn and its what a lot of official documents and diaries and stuff is written in.”

“ oh, that's cool. I didn’t know that.”

“Thats kind of the point, players aren’t really supposed to know about it. It looks and sounds a lot like galactic so unless you know galactic you would think that's what watchers are talking about. for putting themselves in charge of documenting and storing all knowledge they really like to keep secrets.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

…

Sunshine reached up and pulled off their right earring.
“I want you to have this.” they handed the earring to Herobrine.

“Uhh ok.” herobrine said, taking the earring “why?”

“Well watchers mostly all wear one uniform that's pretty much all the same but my parent made me these. They’re one of a kind, a bit of me I guess. So I wanted you to have one. Have a little thing that means a lot to me. I also made you this.” Sunshine pulled a coat out of their inventory and handed it to Herobrine. It fit quite well, it was two shades of brown.

“Thank you. But if your parent gave the earrings to you shouldn’t you keep it?”

“No. You should have it. Besides, we match!” Sunshine said. They then reached over and hugged herobrine.

"I guess we do"

Chapter Text

Sunshine woke with sunbeams drifting across their face from the window behind their head.

They slowly sat up and stretched their arms and wings out, feeling warmth from sunlight on their back and wings. They pushed the blankets of their legs and curled their legs in, bringing their knees to their chest and curling into themself before stretching out again.

Sunshine swung their legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

They then took a shower, enjoying the feeling of warmed water falling on their shoulders and back and soaking into their hair. They got out and wrapped a towel around their waist and shook out their wings, sending drops of water around the bathroom.

Sunshine brushed out their hair in the mirror, using small bursts of flame summoned from their hand to dry their hair.

They went to their closet and pulled out a pair of light blue jeans, white socks, a structured cyan glove that had been made to prevent sunshine from hurting their wrist again, a white t-shirt, and a mustard yellow plaid flannel(and also underwear). They got dressed and then put on their earing and placed a pair of brown leather boots in their inventory for later.

They grabbed a piece of string and used it to make a short braid out of their now shoulder-length hair.

Sunshine then left their room and clambered down the stairs, and then down a second floor to the bottom floor. As they got closer to the kitchen they could smell something cooking.

Herobrine was standing in front of the stove. A bowl of pancake batter was placed at one side, and a large plate that was slowly filling up on the other. He turned as Sunshine entered the room, a smile on his face.

“Good morning Sun!” Herobrine greeted Sunshine before turning back to the stove.

“Hi Dad!” Sunshine said, walking over to Herobrine’s side and leaning over to look at what Herobrine was doing. “Whatcha making?”

“Pancakes. Your favorite. It’s your birthday after all.”

“Thank you!” Sunshine said almost singing and leaned over to hug Herobrine.

“You Are Welcome. Now please get off of me so I don’t burn these pancakes.”

“Ok!” Sunshine said, letting go of Herobrine and moving across the kitchen to pull out plates and silverware from the drawers and cabinets and began to set the table.

Herobrine finished cooking and placed the plate of pancakes down on the table, as well as pulling out a small bottle of apple-cinnamon syrup.

They sat chatting about plans for future projects, as well as just anything that happened to cross either of their minds.

Herobrine was beginning to clear away the dishes when he stopped and placed a hand on his fore-head.

“Are you okay Dad?”

“Yeah I'm fine, just a little headache… oh that's not good .”

“What?” Sunshine moved closer to their dad.

“I- you know how I get removed in every update and end up getting tossed into the void?”

“Yeah.” Sunshine said, now quite concerned.

“Well sometimes I get sort of on-set headaches before the updates. And I’m feeling something like that right now. But I’ll be fine. Ok?” Herobrine put one of his hands on Sunshine’s shoulder.

“Ok. okay.” Sunshine said staring at the floor. “Okay.”

“Hey. come here.” Herobrine opened his arms out, and wrapped them around Sunshine.

“Hm” Sunshine whined into Herobrine’s shirt. “This can not be happening. Not today.”

“Hey, look at me.” Herobrine put a hand on Sunshines cheek. “We are going to be okay. We are both going to be okay. You got me?”

“yeah.” Sunshine mumbled. “I got you.”

“Okay. Now, here’s what we are going to do.” Herobrine reached into his inventory and pulled out a jacket and knife in a sheath and handed them to Sunshine. “First, these are your birthday presents. Ok? secondly I'm gonna come back here, I promise. I'll do my best to get back to this world. I will find you again. Thirdly, we are both going to be ok. No matter what. Remember that.”

“Yeah…” Sunshine took the items but then slowly broke down into tears and wrapped their arms and wings around Herobrine. “I will…”

Herobrine reached one of his hands up to stroke the back of Sunshine’s head.

Sunshine’s sobs slowed, and eventually they furled their wings behind their backs and let go of Herobrine for the most part aside from holding his hand.

“Okay I’m-”

And then Herobrine disappeared in a flurry of glitched particles falling to the ground in a shower.

“-Fine?”

Sunshine fell to the ground on their knees in the middle of the messy kitchen. They pulled out the jacket and held it to their nose.

“Happy 90th birthday, I guess.”

Chapter Text

(16 years after)

Mild warning for description of injury and maybe some blood, nothing much though.

Sunshine had stayed near and around their house for a year. They had tried to maintain their lifestyle to mixed success. On their own for the first time in their life they had had to get used to cooking and cleaning the house on their own and without assistance, and without reminders their maintenance of personal hygiene began to deteriorate as well.

Dust built up on unused surfaces, and sunshine didn’t take to cleaning it up, instead leaving faint grey layers over objects they did not use much. It felt dreary to be inside yet familiar. They spent most of their time curled up in their room drawing clothing and buildings in notebooks although they rarely put any effort into realizing those sketches into the real world.

They were sitting curled up in their bed with their knees pulled to their chest on which a sketchbook was balanced. They were drawing something when they heard footsteps in the bottom floor of the house. They put down the sketchbook quickly and bolted down the stairs to see who was there. The middle floor was empty, but they could hear voices from down below them. They didn’t recognise them.

Sunshine went down another flight of stairs to see three individuals standing in the kitchen. They looked to all be in their late teens.

“Wow no kidding, this place is dusty.” one of them said, their face in one of the cupboards. They pulled out a glass and ran a hand down the side which sent a wave of dust falling to the ground.

“How do you think this all got here? This world wasn’t listed as previously inhabited.”

“I dunno? Herobrine?”

“You seriously believe in that legend?”

“Maybe? How else did this get here-” they turned around to see Sunshine. They reflexively threw the glass at Sunshine, it missed, hitting the wall behind them and shattering. Sunshine flinched away but a few shards of glass hit them, a few getting stuck in the feathers in their right wing but one large shard lodged itself in their back just above the shoulder blade and another left a small cut on Sunshine’s cheek.

“oW. Hey!” Sunshine yelped, flinching into the side that had just been peppered with glass which only succeeded in pushing the piece of glass further into their back, causing them to yelp again, although it was much quieter this time. “Owowowow ow. Ow.” as Sunshine moved to remove the glass shard from their shoulder the second dude hid behind the one who had thrown the glass.

“Ohhhhhh shit dude. You messed up.”

A third of them then spoke up. “No way that ain’t herobrine. Everyone knows what herobrine looks like. That's just some random avian.” The first speaker looked from Sunshine to the third one.

“So what's some random avian doing on our server?”

“Living. I'm living here.” Sunshine said after removing the shard of glass

“No one asked you.” The third player snapped.”you shouldn’t even be here. This is our server now. So just run off to wherever you came from and leave us alone.”

“This is where i have lived for 16 years. I don’t have anywhere else to go. And even if this is your server its my house.”

“Not our problem buddy.”

“Charlie…. That's kind of mean.” the second player said.

“Well I’m the admin. And I got the permit to go to this server and this random dude isn’t invited. Not our problem.” one of the other players was now solidly going through Sunshine’s cabinets pulling out glasses looking for anything good inside of them.

“Please… I don’t want any trouble. Stop going through my cabinets.”

“Its our server. That makes these cabinets ours. You are trespassing. Not us.” Charlie pulled up the admin screen and began to run commands.”so get out, what is your name… eh i don't care to try and pronounce that.”

Sunshine blinked and the world shifted around them, blinking out and back in in different places in succession, the universe unsure of where to put them. They appeared in the void, the hub world, and a few different rooms in the homeworld in quick succession. It was a spinning disorientation experience as the pressure and make-up of the air changed mid-breath.

They felt panic build up in their chest as the world began to blink faster and faster around them.

Then with a sudden release of energy it stopped.

Sunshine stood in a forest, the sun was setting casting the sky in tired but bright shades of red and orange and purple. They could feel the golden evening light shine on their wings, a strange feeling of warmth and peace complementing the small flickers of hope inside of Sunshine. For a second everything felt warm and familiar. And then the sun ducked beneath the horison and the heat was gone, the absence of animal sounds in the forest, the silence, felt deafening where moments prior it had felt so right and peaceful.

Sunshine had not been aware of how used they were to the sounds of animals despite the fact they spent most of their childhood without it, although they could still be considered a child now.

They allowed the small amount of heat they felt left inside of them to come into reality in the form of a small flickering flame floating above their hand.

A faint breeze blew through their hair. Peace felt tentatively restored.

And then they saw an arrow fly past the side of their head placing another graze next to the one that they had gotten earlier from the shard of glass.

The flame flickered out, gone as soon as it had come.

Chapter Text

Sunshine lifted their hand up to their cheek and stared at the blood on their fingers, then wiped it off on their pants and looked around for the source of the arrow. They could see nothing through the thick forest. They tried to look into the forest with the powers to perceive the world without vision used by watchers, but they had not used it in so long that it served more to hinder their vision than assisting, purple tingly fog covering their vision.

Then another arrow flew this time not missing its mark, instead embedding itself in their left shoulder. Sunshine stumbled back still trying to clear their vision from the aftermath of the failed attempt at watcher magic. Still no sign of their attacker however.

They turned around and tried to take off into the sky. However as they tried to use the wings that they had not used for months, possibly years, they felt the pain flare up in their shoulder and throw off their delicate balance, sending them hurtling down into the tree cover and onto the ground landing in a pile of branches and broken feathers and glass shards they hadn’t realized were lodged between feathers.

Whatever had shot the first shot was still there and Sunshine was faced with the fact they didn’t know how to look out for themself anymore. They didn’t know when they had lost the ability to defend themself, to hide, to run. If they had even had that once what had been there was gone.
So they were lying in the middle of a forest somewhere before sunset with an arrow in their shoulder.

They carefully pulled themself into a sitting position wincing. Their fingers were covered in blood, and their feet stang from the small cuts in them from the fall. And their left arm was aching more than it had in a very long time from the fresh disturbance.

Then they heard voices from behind them.

“You know what? I think that might have been the most pitiful attempt at flight I have ever seen.”

“Well, there was the one time with that parrot with broken wings that fell off a cliff.”

“This one only had like one arrow in it. I’d say it's at least more embarrassing.”

“And you thought it would be hard to hit the pay grade this month.”

“Oh fuck off.” The first voice said.

Sunshine heard the sound of an arrow being released from a bow and leapt in any direction hoping they would avoid the unseen arrow’s path. It was a partial success as the arrow missed their body, instead going through some of the feathers on their left wing damaging it even more but causing very little pain. Though when they looked at their wing to see the damage they saw some sort of pale green liquid on the tip of the arrow. Almost definitely poison, although they had long since lost the ability to identify poison.

Sunshine scrambled to their feet wincing again, but paying no mind in their fear.

They heard the sound of boots running on soft soil and grass behind them. Sunshine looked behind them and caught a glimpse of their pursuers. Five or so men and women armed to the teeth wearing iron armor glistening with magic. They looked strangely casual for the occasion in posture however, with body language similar to the few times Sunshine and Herobrine had gone hunting wild animals. Although more confident.

Sunshine put more effort into their sprint, heart pounding in their head, almost loud enough to drown out the sound of the footsteps getting closer.

And then Sunshine felt something grab onto their wing pulling them back sending another jolt of pain through them, and another as they tried to pull away fruitlessly. Something hit them on the back of their head stunning them, allowing their attackers to push them down onto the ground. They felt blood and tears fall down their cheeks as more people surrounded them.

Sunshine felt a blade cutting into the place where their wing met their back and thrashed around trying to get away as they heard laughter and congratulations on an easy hunt from their attackers.

And they heard two sicking cracks from their back. And they screamed and lashed out and just wanted to get away away away away away away away awayawayaway.

And then they were away. Not very far, breath heaving and blood flowing down their back, but away. Purple particles floated around tem for a bit, catching in the blood and tears and sweat that covered them.

They felt cold and weak, more than they had ever been. The world seemed to fade away from them. Slipping away like water falls through one's hands. They were lying on their chest, the sweet smells of grass mixing with the sharp smell of blood

They heard muffled yells and footsteps and the clanging of steel against steel but it all sounded far away and muffled as if it were happening one too many rooms away.

The sounds slowly quieted down, Sunshine couldn't tell whether they had gotten further away, quieter, or it was their hearing failing them.

And they did feel so cold. And the world felt so fuzzy at the edges. And tired, they felt tired. It had been a lot for a day so much more than it had been for a very long time…

And then they felt a hand on their shoulder. It was warm, but not a sudden enough change to break them out of their faded state, if that was a thing that could even happen right now.

They heard the person speaking to them but couldn’t quite make out the words.

Someone lifted them into their arms, their head placed on their shoulder. The fabric of their shirt? jacket? something was soft and their head was resting against it. Liquid was poured on their wounds and something tight was wrapped around their midsection before they were lifted onto a horse and fell asleep to the steady trot of the horse and the warm feeling slowly spreading over them.

Chapter Text

When sunshine woke up it was a slow process. Blinking awake only due to their body’s instance. They were lying in a warm bed, and there were sounds of voices all around in quiet tones all which reminded them of the infirmary in the homeworld.

But despite the increased warmth and the louder sound of voices here it felt a thousand times less familiar and inviting. But it was not really the place that felt unwelcoming, or how much it reminded them of places they would now wish to forget, or even that they did not know the intentions of the ones who had brought them there.

No, what felt wrong about this was them. Their body more specifically, that felt wrong and uninviting in this place. It was how they laid flat on their back in a way that they hadn't before. Because they couldn't. Because something had been in the way.

That was what felt wrong. So essentially wrong.

With this realization Sunshine sat up straight with a jolt. Because of the missing weight on their back they overshot and ended up falling forward into their legs, and tried to catch themself with both arms. They had gotten so used to not using their left arm to avoid hurting it that they hadn’t noticed half of it was gone when they had sat up.

So with the realization that half of their arm was missing they crumpled into themself irritating the cuts on their back.

They had pulled up their knees near the end which cushioned them some and prevented them from trying to fold further than their body could, but it still hurt a lot.

And with their head resting between their knees on the soft red blanket they slowly began to have a panic attack. (Which to their credit is a perfectly reasonable thing to do when you are a teenager in an unfamiliar environment who has just fully comprehended that they have lost half of their limbs.)

They heard the voice around them getting louder until one became comprehensible.

“Hey kid you ok?” a woman was standing next to the bed looking a bit consernably at them. Sunshine didn’t respond. ”hey you're safe ok? Just breathe, you are gonna be okay.” she said in a very evenly paced voice.

Sunshine hadn’t needed to calm themself down for a long time, and just like other once survival skills in the homeworld or on one's own was now fading and they needed to gain those back one step at a time. And that started with just breathing and remembering how they would calm down.

It had once been hooking onto the minds around them, the thoughts and conversation of watchers far off. They had no voices or minds to listen to did they?

There was something they could hear at the edge of their perception. A cacophony of words they could not make out but felt strongly consistent and strong enough to latch on to. Grounding whispers that disappeared from their awareness as they calmed down.

As they zoned back into the world they could hear the woman was still trying to calm them down with measured ramblings trying to get them to follow her voice.

They gingerly sat up slowly trying to ignore any muscle memory and trying to balance based on the weight that was there. With only one hand to correct for balance.

Sunshine sat up and looked at the woman.

“Feeling better?” Sunshine nodded. “You are probably wondering where you are. This is the Avian and Hybrid protection agency in the local area, A.H.P.A for short. We rescue people like you. We're gonna make sure you are ok. Got that?” Sunshine nodded. “You can call me Ms. Amanda, I'm gonna be taking care of you until we can get you to a proper sanctuary. What's your name?”

Sunshine was about to say something but they then realized they didn’t really have a good answer. Sure dad had called them sunshine but it had felt more like a familial nickname. And xelqua hadn't been theirs for 17 years. So they shrugged.

“Okay then. You are sure you don’t have anything you want us to call you?” Sunshine nodded. “Okay then honey. Lemme know if you need anything.”

Sunshine finally took some time to look around the room they were in. It was a large hall with many other beds as well as other simple things needed for life. And there were a lot of other hybrids in the room as well, most visibly hurt in some way all going about their days.

----------------------

Sunshine learned and adapted to the environment and tried their best to get back on their feet. Literally at first since losing three limbs plus the pain from injury really hampers that.

Their life had changed now and it was time to realise that. They hadn’t allowed that truth to sink in for the last two years, that the bubble of contentment they had built around themself- that herobrine had built for them had popped. But that day had forcibly made them stop hiding reality from themself.

So they thought and let the world pass by around them, still not caring for what happened and still not connecting to it, but now painfully aware that it had changed.

They weren't the only one here separating themself from the world, but they might be the one doing it the most extremely.

There were plans made to move a bunch of the hybrids by ship to a city that had been magically warded against those that would do them harm, and they were going to be one of them. Well by ship to a city on a different server. So they would need interdimensional passports to get there.

A lot of things had been assumed about Sunshine by the A.H.P.A. they assumed basically everything about them actually, as they hadn’t given them much to work with. They had looked at them and assumed that they were an avian boy of about age 16 who had run away from home and wasn’t going back and they had made… Him a passport.

Ms. Amanda and the captain of the ship who was also her girlfriend- Captain Irene had also had to come up with a name for him.

Grian apparently. It meant sun in some language, apparently he really did have sun vibes to everyone.

He didn't mind it really. He didn't mind ‘he’(in fact it felt better than ‘they’, it felt more human to him, a connection to gender, a thing which watchers didn’t bother with) he didn't mind the name ‘grian’, he didn't mind how young he must look for his age when he should look about 18 now.

Grian didn’t mind being Grian. It was something to hold onto at least, something to be, and identity to hold when it felt that very little of it was left at the moment.

And so Grian got to go off the server through proper means for the first time in his life and got on a ship to go somewhere that hopefully he could make his home.

So… Grian.

Chapter Text

He had been traveling on the Great Lily for a few months. He had been glad to have the safety and comparative quiet of the small crew and private quarters of the ship from the busy open rooms of the shelter at the edge of the forest. The ship was bound for an avian settlement known as Homestead, that could only be reached by flight, or a long trip through the ocean. It was protected by magic so that no one wishing the inhabitants harm could reach it.

Of course it seemed that no one knew exactly how the spell worked aside from the fact that the island would seem to wander around the ocean so that ill-wishers could not reach it, this made boat travel rather difficult but captain irene had made the trip many times before, and would do so again.

A few days before the trip he had been given a redstone-based metal prosthetic arm, and told he would have plenty of time to learn how to use it (probably not the most responsible instruction, but the prosthetic was better than nothing). However, not much learning had taken place as he had stayed in his quarters curled up in his bed or on the chair that was fixed next to the bedside table.

The scars on his back still ached, large waves of mental dissonance came when he saw the metal of his arm, and his still poor balance was not helped by the rocking of the boat.

So he had continued to stay in his room, but unlike he had at home he no longer even needed to get up for food and sorts, as the captain had seemling made it her personal job to make sure he was cared for. Three times per day she visited him. Once to wake him up and bring him water, once to bring him food, and a third time to bring him more water and make sure he was taking care of himself.

She was nice, and somehow smelled like quartz and daisies. Sort of like Ochav, but a bit more like sea water. It was strange, but despite everything he found that comforting.

He was sitting in bed sketching on a notebook he had been given two months ago when he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Irene opened the door.

“Hey Grian.” she said smiling. She was holding a large bowl of fish stew and some bread. She placed it down on his bedside table, closed the door, and sat down in the chair. “How ya doing?” He closed his book and set it down, then picked up the bowl of stew and began to eat as they talked.

“I'm as good as always.” he dipped a small chunk of bread in the stew.

“Carefull, it's hot.” Grian paid her concern no notice and ate the incredibly hot stew with no problem. Were he in a better mood he might find her unnecessary concern humorous (he had never been burned by food before, he wasn’t about to start now), yet he took no notice. She sighed, returning back to the conversation.“If you're doing as good as you always are, I don’t think that means you’re okay, especially in your case.”

“Mhm” Grian almost protested, turning away from her.

“I'm not expecting you to start talking to me, but we are gonna be there soon so maybe you could talk to one of the other kids before we get there? Or at least walk around some before you are gonna have to do it regularly again…. Please?”

“Why now?”

“Because we're gonna get there before sunset, Grian. You need to get used to being on your feet at least a little bit.”

“Oh. Hm. I’ll think about it.”

--------------------------

A few hours later Grian pulled himself out of the bed and pulled on some shoes and a hoodie. His hand hovered over the violet jacket stored in the drawer with the clothes given to him, the only item of clothing that had survived with him from his old home. And from the one before that too.

In the end he picked it up and tied it around his waist, before heading up, hand on the wall of the ship’s cabin. He walked up a flight of stairs to the main deck and stared out into the sky.

He hadn’t been out of his room in awhile, and certainly hadn’t seen a sunrise in a long time. This was quite the sunrise, the sun setting just behind the outline of a city in the distance, and bright neon pink lighting up the clouds.

It was… nice. A faint breeze blew over the ship, and grian leaned on the side rail of the ship.

Irene walked over smiling. “So you did decide to show your face after all.”

Grian nodded and stared out across the ocean again.

Taking in the moment before it was suddenly ripped away from him.

The water suddenly reached up over the side of the boat and wrapped itself around Grian in a whirlwind and pulled him overboard thrashing. A voice echoed in his head, in galactic.

“⎓𝙹𝙹ꖎ╎ᓭ⍑ ∴ᔑℸ ̣ ᓵ⍑ᒷ∷, ℸ ̣ ⍑╎ᓭ ╎ᓭ リ𝙹ℸ ̣ ||𝙹⚍∷ !¡ꖎᔑᓵᒷ. ||𝙹⚍ ↸𝙹 リ𝙹ℸ ̣ ʖᒷꖎ𝙹リ⊣ ⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ, ||𝙹⚍ ∴ᒷ∷ᒷ リ𝙹ℸ ̣ ⊣╎⍊ᒷリ !¡ᒷ∷ᒲ╎ᓭᓭ╎𝙹リ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ᓵ𝙹ᒲᒷ ⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ. ⊣𝙹 ᓭ!¡|| ᓭ𝙹ᒲᒷ∴⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ ᒷꖎᓭᒷ.”

--------------------------

He thrashed in the water, trying to escape the whirlwind current that would be near impossible to escape were he in good physical shape. And he was far from that.

The water pulled him down further into the murky depths. Water stung in his throat as his body struggled to gain a breath of air deep under water. The current around him began to subside as he grew deeper but without air in his lungs to keep him afloat and the weight of his left arm he continued to sink.

This now, as light from above grew blue and dim and water burned his eyes and lungs is when he should start to pass out, when his vision should fade, and life drain out of his battered body.

But it wasn’t

Yes gravity pulled him down and water burned his eyes and throat and lungs, but that was it.

His breathing steadied as he fell. Not to gain oxygen as one would assume, but to calm himself and just from instinct. A faint lack of clarity filled his mind, but he wasn’t slipping. Just sinking.

The panic dissipated, but adrenaline still ran through his veins. He attempted to swim up now, but it was futile. He practically didn't know how to swim without wings, despite how much they hindered swimming.

He supposed the city was an island, he could just land on the ocean floor and walk to it. He shifted his attempt at momentum towards the city. Yet as he got closer he felt a current push him away.

He was getting closer to the ocean floor now. This world was a primarily ocean world. The next city, the next land would be miles away and even if he was somehow surviving, he wasn’t designed to breathe water.

It still hurt. It still felt wrong to be surrounded by water. The pressure down here still made him feel like he was being crushed. And the cold began to creep into his bones.

There was some direct intention to it this time, even if he had no knowledge of the destination when the sparkling purple particles began to form around him, here to take him somewhere that wasn’t the bottom of an ocean, somewhere with warmth and dry air. Somewhere hopefully safe where he could rest.

Chapter Text

Cold. That is what Grian felt as he struggled to get his bearings, he felt solid ground beneath him and water lapping at his fingertips. But where was he? The last thing he knew is that he was sinking...

It took what felt like an hour (even though it was barely a minute) before his body had even registered enough of what was happening for him to start coughing up the seawater, a salty sting left in the back of his throat when it was most out.

And that was enough time for the cold to set in, a chill in his bones. But that’s a given seeing that Grian was laying on a beach for who knows how long.

He sat up and wrapped his arms around himself to warm up and take in his surroundings.

He was laying on a beach, an incredibly sandy beach.
It looked like the beach was bordered by some dense forest preventing him from seeing farther into his surroundings.

That passport was definitely going to come in handy.

---------

Grian had found a bench and curled up on it. He really didn’t know what he was going to do, so now he was waiting for something since it had seemed to work so well for him in the past.

He wasn’t sure if that thought was sarcastic or not.

Luckily as fate would have it, the universe was not giving up on its string of people showing up at Grian’s times of need. Not yet at least.

Grian watches the path, his chin resting on his knees, feeling even colder with the darkening sky. A few people walk past, giving him what he thinks are probably pitying looks, but he doesn’t have much experience to go off of.

Then two people who look about his age come by. They are chatting quietly when they come around the corner. Grian isn’t expecting them to talk to him, but one of them does.

“Hey, are you ok? You are shivering and look drenched.” one of them asks, her eyebrows scrunching together. Grian opens his mouth to respond but decides against it.

“Are you homeless?”

“Taurtis! You can’t just ask someone that!”

“Oh yeah, sorry Pearl.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

“Sorry…”

“It’s fine I-” Grian tried to respond but ended up coughing up more seawater that had apparently still been in his lungs.

“Hey um, not to intrude on whatever you are doing sitting on a park bench covered in sand” she sniffed the air. “Is that seawater? How is it that you are coughing up seawater? I get being wet and covered in sand but coughing up seawater isn’t exactly common here in Hubcity, especially since you don’t seem to be aquatic.” Grian didn't answer, he was still having a coughing fit (now with a bit less seawater). “Do you need help?”

“uh -cough- yeah I -cough- think so”

“Uhhh, can we help you get home?” Taurtis asked, scratching the back of his neck.

“No.” they both gave him a confused look. “I don't think I have one right now?”

“You don’t think?” Pearl said, the combination of confusion and worry on her face getting stronger.

“I don’t. I don’t” Grian said slowly internalizing that fact a bit more. It had been months yet he didn’t think he had quite internalized that yet.

“Taurtis?”

“Yes?”

“You have a spare guest room at your house right?”

“Yes. why?” Taurtis stared into space for a bit. “NO! I’m not taking a random person we just met on the street in!”

“You make me take care of random animals all the time!”

“That's because you have a garden.”

“Animals are a different thing from a whole person! One who we don’t even know the name of!”

“Uh my name is Grian, and it's fine I don’t wanna take up your space.”

……..

“Actually that's kind of sad dude, you can come stay while my parents are out of town.”

“It’s fine uhhh…..”

“I’m not leaving some random teen in the middle of a park covered in seawater. It's against mine, and probably anyone’s good conscience.” Pearl interjected.

“My name’s Pearl, this is Taurtis, and we are gonna go get you a shower and a change of clothes.”

------------------------

As they were walking to Taurtis’s house Grian spoke up over Pearl and Taurtis’s continued argument over what to do next.

“Where are we?”

“Uhh, 134th street?”

“No, I meant which world we were on?”

“You don’t know?”

“Yeah. It's a long story.”

“We’re on the hub world.”

“Oh yeah, you did mention being in the Hubcity earlier. I guess I didn’t really realize what that meant.”

Chapter Text

Grian didn’t know how to feel about this, on one hand, he was staying with one of the people who had found him after the boat incident, and on the other hand, he was staying with one of the people who had found him after the boat incident. Not that there was anything wrong with that but he was unsure of how to proceed, since they more or less dragged him into the white van of friendship, that is if they considered him their friend, heck he didn’t know if he’d think of them as friends! Nice people ya sure, but friends? Maybe (he really didn’t know what constituted a friendship now, did he?).

Grian jumped as his train of thought was interrupted with a knock on his door, “Hey dude, I’m going shopping, you need anything from the store?” Taurtis asked,

“No? Or at least I don’t think so?” Grian said in response.

“You sure? Uh, want to come with, just in case?” Taurtis said his front foot out the door, turning back around to look at Grian.

“Taurtis, I quite literally have no money to my name.”

“Don’t worry about it, you can pay me back later. I’m feeding you anyway aren't I?”

“Right…” Grian considered for a bit, wondering if there would be any strings attached. “You know what? Sure, I’ll come with. Feels weird to be in your house without you anyways.” When Grian stood up and opened the door he was greeted with the sight of Taurtis giving him some kind of look, he couldn’t really describe it, it felt almost smug, but not quite.

--------------------------

As they were walking to the store Grian was looking around, trying to make sense of HubCity. It looked like Taurtis lived in the older part of town, with the buildings looking like they had been there for at least several decades, perhaps even a century. With how there were plants growing alongside them. Seeing how everything seemed to fit in just right was truly a sight to behold, with the buildings standing tall with spires pointed up at the sky, windows shining in the afternoon sun.

To put it simply, he was admiring this part of the city (to be fair, it was the first city he had ever been in). If Taurtis saw his eyes shooting around the city, taking everything in, then he didn’t mention it which Grian was grateful for, not wanting to look like a kid in a candy store with all these new things to look around at.

Grian jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry to startle you but we’ve arrived at the store,” Taurtis said.

“Ah, alright,” Grian stared through the glass window, looking inside at the rows of food and the bustling environment. “That's... A lot.”

“Never seen a grocery store before Grian?”

“No actually, that's a lot.”

“Bit of a broken record there.”

“It's a lot!”

*shopping montage will probably be posted sometime in the near-ish future*

“Well that certainly was a lot”

“Gonna keep saying that, aren’t you?” Taurtis chuckled, teasing Grian a bit.

“I-” Grian “I guess so. It’s a lot, of everything really. Noise. Types of food. People.” In reality, it was almost overwhelming with all the new smells, noises, people bustling about. But Grian wasn’t going to tell Taurtis that.

As they started the walk back to Taurtis's house, Grian zoned out, only focused on not dropping the groceries.

How they managed to get back to Taurtis's place without any mishaps is nothing less than a miracle, but Grian wasn't going to start to question it.

"So Grian, do you know how to cook?" Taurtis asked trying to make conversation as they started to put away the groceries

"Uh, I mean sorta? I haven’t cooked for a long time though." Grian responded, more focused on putting away the groceries correctly than the conversation at hand.

"Want to try and see if you remember?"

"Sure? Though if something goes wrong it's not my fault. I genuinely have not cooked more than craftables for three years."

Taurtis looked a bit uneasy at that statement but he shrugged it off and motioned towards his kitchen, "You know what? Let's find out how much you remember."

--------------------

"What." Taurtis looked at the pot of water that somehow got set on fire.

"Huh, that was not supposed to happen." Grian was curious about how he'd managed that. “I’m so sorry about the pot, let me see if I can put it out.” Grian reached towards the flaming pot.

“Don’t touch it! You could burn yourself.”

“It might light your house on fire! How else am I supposed to put it out? With more water?”

Just then Pearl walked in and looked at the on-fire pot “I was gonna free-load on your food, but it seems that that's not an option tonight.” sighed, and asked, “How does pizza sound?”

“Pizza sounds amazing”

-------------------------

“You know what? I think that since this was the only mishap, that this was a pretty successful day.” Taurtis sighed contently,

“Yeah, you guys seemed to have an eventful day,” Pearl responded. “So did anything catch your fancy Grian?”

“Uh, the city was really a lot. Pretty. But a lot.”

“I suppose it does seem like a lot at first. You get used to it though.”

“Pearl. He’s been saying that it's a lot all day!”

“Oh has he?”

“I have been. A lot in fact.”

Chapter Text

When dinner was did and done Grian helped Taurtis clean up and file away the leftovers, some of which Pearl not so discreetly snuck into her bag. After hanging around the couch for a while after talking about everything and nothing, Pearl bidded farewell and went home.
Soon after that Grian himself decided that that was enough socializing for one night and wandered up towards the room he called his.

He never really got around to decorating the room, sure it had a storage shelf with some nick-nacks that had been gathering dust for years, but with how it looked Grian wasn’t sure if it had ever been sorted through.
The room had a closet sure but with all the luggage and blankets Taurtis had managed to shove in there, there was a snow golem’s chance in the Nether that Grian would ever be able to fit anything in it.
Walking past the shelf and closet he stood in front of the bedside table, it contained everything he owned, (besides his books, of course, they were carefully packaged up and awaiting a new bookshelf to arrive) which mainly consisted of hand-me-down clothes and a few trinkets.
Now changing into his pajamas, he did his nightly routine, not noticing the shadows moving in the corner with how dim the lighting was.
He pulled away the covering and sank into the soft sheets, curling up into his blankets and getting dream to dreams of the stars.

+---+-----+---+

He opened his eyes to a golden field, where he lay in the field the grass blocked out his immediate surroundings, the only thing he could see was the sunset, but he guessed that that’s what that was since he couldn’t really tell from his position.
He braced his arms and shoved himself up, looking around and seeing that he was surrounded by poppies and appeared to be on a hill above a field of flowers and gold with a ring of trees surrounding it.
The poppies gently swayed with the golden grass in the breeze, from far away it looked like splatters of rubies on gold. This place was undoubtedly beautiful but it felt like there was something off.

The breeze pushed at his back, making him stumble towards a path he hadn’t noticed before cutting through the field. As he walked down the path to the bottom he felt flowers brushing against his legs, pulling him along the path towards the trees. As he was pulled along he admired the flowers dancing along the side of the path, there were quite a few of them that he knew the names of but had never seen in person before, recalling the books about other modded worlds he read when he was still a Watcher. Purple hyacinths were swaying near his feet, a few hyssops were mixed with the hyacinths, creating a wave of amethyst in the breeze.

A blanket of marigolds covered the little ground he could be between the grass of what used to be the path behind him, for he had turned around as he heard something moving in the grass around him but when he looked back there was nothing, and I mean nothing was behind him except the field.

He could smell the rosemary before he could see it, he knew that it had a very distinct smell from his books but he didn’t think it’d be this pungent. He walked to a gate covered in crimson roses and pushed it open, revealing the rosemary and rhododendrons surrounding the path winding into the trees.

As he walked farther into the forest, it was starting to get denser and harder to see through the trees. There was a clearing up ahead which looked like it was surrounded by willows, there appeared to be a spring bubbling up in the clearing, it was surrounded by the roots of the willows, between the twisting roots and the stream some snapdragons and zinnia were surrounding the path, preventing him from leaving it.

As he left the clearing he found himself back in the field, he had walked right back out of the way he’d first gone into the forest, he was confused and the longer he spent here the less his thoughts made sense. Everything was starting to blend together.

As he walked the fields he swore he felt like there was someone, or perhaps something, watching him, slinking through the shadows underneath the grass. But every time he looked behind him there was nothing there, he tried calling out to whatever it was but there was no response. He didn’t know what would be worse, hearing an echo or getting a response to his question.

He saw a figure on the hill now, he was wary if he should approach it, not knowing if it was friend or foe. Yet the smell of flowers muddled his thoughts and the serenity of the field soothed his worries and he started walking towards the now towering hill. When he caught a glimpse of familiar dark hair he started running towards it, a flicker of recognition in the back of his mind as he began to hear the person humming a familiar song. And he knew to who he was running to.

“Hma'i'ssu?” he panted, out of breath.

Hma'i'ssu turned to face Grian, their hands clutching a daisy chain they were working on, a veil covering their face.

“I’m sorry but do I know you?”

“Wha?” “It- It’s me Xelqua,” Grian smelled a faint whiff of smoke as he spoke. “You know me, we are friends. We have known each other since forever.”

“I'm sorry, I don’t remember.” as they spoke, the daisy chain in their hands began to burn, starting at the bottom and working up to their hands.

“I- I can’t remember.” They said, staggering back as the flames leaped onto their sleeves, and igniting the daisies in the basket they had been working from.

“I’m sorry I-” the wind picked up and blew around the two of them and creating fire swirling around their feet. Yet grian felt no warmth coming from the flames, in fact, it felt cold pushing against him.

“Why can’t I remember?” they lunged forward trying to grab Grian’s hand as the flam consumed their thick outer coat. Grian reached for their hand but flinched away as the cold fire bit into his hand. And with that Hma'i'ssu’s knees buckled and they collapsed with their hands clutching their head.

“Why Can’t I Remember!” they yelled, Grian watched as their hair faded as the fire licked at it and began to eat away the veil they wore. The fields of flowers caught fire around them, flames sneaking up the branches of the willow trees.

“I SHOULD REMEMBER!” Hma'i'ssu screamed and Grian tried to approach them but was stopped by the flames, which burned ice cold against his skin, then made their way into his lungs, which felt like they were freezing in his chest.

The last thing Grian saw before was the veil burning off of Hma’i’ssu’s face and their eyes staring into his, bright red and full of fear.

And then, that too was consumed by the flames.

+---+-----+---+

Grian startled awake, coughing from the cold and smoke in his lungs. As his breathing stilled, he felt the cold sensation disappear although the faint smell of smoke still lingered in his nostrils. Grian was not a stranger to bad dreams, yet that one still felt strange. There usually aren't flowers or cold fires. Not that it was a strange element for a dream, but it was unfamiliar.

He stared blankly into the darkness as his brain began to blur the dream, and decided that he’d think about it more in the morning, not wanting to mess up his already horrid sleeping schedule over a weird dream.

And with that thought, he collapsed back into his bed and pulled the blankets back up over his chest, falling asleep seconds after his head hit the pillow

+---+-----+---+

Fear was all that was going through his head as he stood paralyzed, unable to look away from the sight before him. Konys was looming over his past self, they were grinning under their veil as they were about to exile the other him to the void.

The other him clearly didn’t know what was about to happen, they didn’t know about the event that set him on this path, the reason why he’d end up the way he did. That was not to say they were not afraid, but they had a hope that they could get out of this. And a determination to survive because they thought the void would be death.

He almost felt bad for his past self but he knew that he could never, would never be able to change this moment, to change his fate, to be able to fight back against Konys and win. So he watched the fight, flinched when Konys broke his arm, and wondered why he was seeing this.

He watched on, wondering why he was brought back.

Was he meant to relive this moment and get dragged down to where he started? To have his progress undone? He didn’t know.

The other him fell through the portal after putting up a good fight, and Grian got to see for the first time the damage he had done to Konys. The last-ditch effort that had ended the fight. The fire. The gruesome sight of seeing the flames tear away at cloth and hair and leave scars that might never heal. At least they had both permanently scarred each other.

Ochav looked almost sorry for dooming their child to that misfortune. Konys looked smug like they didn’t care in the slightest how they changed the course of history, how they wove a new string into his cloth of fate.

As both Konys and Ochav went to leave the room, only Ochav looked back.

+---+-----+---+

“What the actual fuck was that.” Grian breathed as he sat up and grabbed his face with a hand, using the other to brace himself up in his bed.

He pulled the covers off of himself and started to stagger over to the door, he swiped clumsily at the door trying to get it open. He needed a glass of water and some time to think about why the hell he’d be forced to relive that, don’t get him wrong, he dreamed about that moment a lot but he’s never really dreamed beyond that moment, why was he shown what happened after he fell? He had no guesses other than some deity out there hated him.

He stumbled into the kitchen and over to the cabinets, grabbing a glass, he filled it, took a sip, and meandered back into his room, shutting the door behind him. How he didn’t notice the shadows watching in the moonlight? We’ll never truly know.

+---+-----+---+

A loud roar filled his ears as light flashed before his eyes. He found it difficult to breathe with the adrenaline running through his veins and how the air felt almost thinner wherever he was.

He had absolutely no clue where he was or what he was doing. He had been blinded by the light dancing across his vision and he was unable to make out where exactly he was.

He felt exhausted like he'd run across HubCity and back again 5 (five) times over, not that he'd ever done that but he imagined that it would feel like how he feels now, like every single muscle in his body had been covered in paper cuts, rolled in salt, and dumped into a vat of hand sanitizer.

In short, Grian was not having a good time.

+---+-----+---+

Grian pondered his existence as he stared up at his ceiling, unblinking as he considered what his dreams meant, the memories of them already starting to fade. He scrunched up his face as he tried to recall the dreams, he felt like they were important but they were slipping from his mind like fish darting downstream, never to be thought about until you get thwacked by one and your memory gets jogged.

He should really have invested in a dream journal, it would have made remembering what the heck he dreamed about last night a lot easier, he had a few flashes of memory and the faint smell of smoke lingering in his mind but besides that there was nothing.

He shrugged, if it was important then he would have remembered it… right?

+---+-----+---+

“Hey Grian, you know that I trust you but, why the heck does your room smell like smoke?”

Chapter Text

He took one last glance at Taurtis’s place before setting out with only one thought in his head, that he needed some way to repay Taurtis’s kindness and he was thinking that the best way to do that would be to get a job.
Looking back on this moment in time, he wondered why the heck he thought this was ever going to be easy, he’d figured that it’d be fairly simple to find a place in need of extra help, he was so so wrong.

+---+-----+---+

It wasn’t even noon yet and he’d already lost hope.

Don’t get him wrong, he was trying to find a job that’d accept him but everywhere he looked there was either a sign saying that he wasn’t qualified enough for it or that he was just too far away to be reasonable for him.

He sighed as he marked off another name on his list, looking into the bookshop window. It would have been a decent job if not for the fact that he’d have to have several years of job experience when he’d never really had a job before, that was starting to be a real problem for him.

He continued to meander down the busy street as he peered into the different shop windows, looking for that sign of hope.

+---+-----+---+

Looking at job after job and there was no place that he could reasonably work at, like there were so many places that would have been great if not for them requiring a birth certificate, he supposed that he could have probably convinced them to accept his interdimensional passport as proof of identity but it would have taken quite a while to convince them and he wasn’t exactly fond of jumping through hoops like some one-trick pony either.

He sighed before mentally checking off every job that needed a
+---+-----+---+

Okay, just because he lacks a “Formal Education” that doesn’t mean he’s uneducated, it just means that it makes job-hunting 20% harder than it needs to be.
Now that he's thinking about it, even if he could prove his identity with his passport, how would he have been able to explain not having any formal education? He had absolutely no clue.

He just… Never really got the chance to be a real human, to be able to experience stuff like going to school, going to dances, staying up til dawn with his friends, and just missing out on the whole growing up thing in general.
Shaking his head to leave the pity party in his mind, he decided that it would probably be better for him to not dwell on the past…Right?

+---+-----+---+

He wanted to scream, the coffee shop had seemed like the perfect job, it wasn’t super picky about its employees and their pasts but he’d have needed to have the ability to make something other than craftibles, now there was nothing wrong with that but Grian lacked the ability to make anything but craftibles without it catching on fire.

Same thing happened with the potion shop, he could theoretically make potions, but with his amazing ability to catch almost anything food-related on fire he wasn't going to risk accidentally killing someone.

He was suffering, why he hoped that he could not mess up something as simple as making non-craftible without it ending in disaster eluded him.

+---+-----+---+
Grian was on his last hope of finding a job, and even that was swiftly slipping away. In fact the particular job offering he was looking into seemed like an impossible fit. Yet there was a help wanted sign on the door, and eventually the dice had to roll in his favor, right?

Well he hoped that at least.

And so he entered the building containing the most reputable tailor in the world. The Interdimensional Taliory (he was pretty sure tailory wasn’t a real world, but that was the name on the sign.). Grian knew how to sew and edit garments to fit. Tailoring, basically. Mostly taught to him by Ochav, and then learned in practice when he had been living with Herobrine. It was a practical skill, learned mostly for the sake of practicality, and years out of use.

There were no notes anywhere confirming his skill, no certificate of graduation from a school that taught the subject, no workable portfolio aside from the small edits he had made to the clothes he was wearing. And really, no reason he should be hired to, what he had to stress, was the world's most reputable tailor’s shop.

And yet, he walked in, was directed to a waiting room, and sat down for a job interview, and then was welcomed into the office.

The “Interdimensional Tailory” was well known for being the occupational site of a very old individual who had been one of the world's first people to spawn in with the knowledge, skill, and drive to start making new clothes. And that had stayed. They had the mistquie of an older player, the sort of accumulated knowledge of people who had been around since almost the beginning of time. And then the artisan who had been the first to master the craft of tailoring, who had become a reclusive legend to most, was sitting at a desk in front of grian with a pad of note paper, ready to conduct an interview.

It did start surprisingly normal, compared to the slew of unsuccessful interviews given so far. Questions were asked and answered, slowly revealing the lack of any provable skill or worthiness for the position on Grian’s part. Just like the last few weeks of his life. Until something about it started to feel different.
“You don’t have any of your work, Grian. You don't have any proof of education, any practical proof of your skill or suitability for this job. I have no reason to hire you, not practically anyway.” the Tailor observed. Grian just nodded and moved to get up. “No wait, stay. I’m being dramatic about this.”

“I have been around for a while and you gain a bit of an ability to get a read on people after that long. I see hundreds of people everyday who would want a job like this, but I see very few people who seem like they really need it. The world likes stories though, and just from our little interaction I am willing to bet that you are at the head of one. And my life has been quite boring of late so I'm giving you the job. Don't mess it up.”

And that had been that. Grian had a job, and he left the building with a sort of relaxed feeling that maybe, just maybe, he could manage to make this work.

+---+-----+---+

Grian couldn’t sleep, his mind was still filled with the events of the day; How ecstatic he was to finally get a job, with how excited he was that he could finally try and repay Taurtis for his kindness. And how it hurt for the lack of a better word to know that if he was anyone else he would have gotten a job a lot easier.

He really hoped that he wasn't some sort of “pity case” for the tailor and that they’d actually meant it when they said that they had high hopes for Grian’s time working at the shop. At this point in time, Grian still sucked at telling if someone was talking in doublespeak or not.

He felt nauseous like the world was spinning around him but he was being held in place by some invisible force, not wanting him to move on with his life and instead wanting him to feel every second of this.

He suddenly felt like he was going to puke and hastily pulled the covers off of himself before quickly stumbling his way towards the toilet feeling like he was going to hurl. Before collapsing to his knees and dry heaving over the toilet bowl, wiping his mouth clean on his sleeve he hoisted himself up using the counter to hold onto.

He looked in the mirror and decided that he looked like shit, his hair was hanging down to just a little below his ribs and hanging like a curtain over bloodshot eyes with bags under them. He glared at his reflection deciding that he didn’t like the look of the man in the mirror, the person that looked too much like Ochav to not pass for anything but a human at first glance but the person who looked too much like a monster to truly pass as being human.

He hated it, he hated it so much that he wasn’t human, that he never got to be human.
He grabbed fist fulls of his hair like he was about to rip it out but managed to stop himself at the last moment before forcing his hands to his sides so he couldn’t, wouldn't hurt himself anymore.

He wasn’t breathing, he couldn’t bring himself to breathe. He knew that he should but… He wasn’t thinking straight and he discovered that he didn’t care enough to think, he just wanted to do something, anything.

He brought a shaking hand over to where the scissors were kept and grabbed a pair. He held it in front of him and looked at it before looking back into the mirror and deciding to say fuck it.

He held out a length of hair before taking the scissors to it before he could talk himself out of it. He wanted to laugh as the hair fell to the ground, he didn’t know why he found it so funny, watching something that had been a part of him fall down like it was nothing.

Grabbing some more of his hair with more force than necessary he started roughly cutting it, not caring about the mess or if the cut was even. He just wanted it gone.

Ending up surrounded by his own hair on the ground was not something that Grian had expected to come back to his senses to but he wasn’t going to complain about it. He pulled down another bit of hair and saw that it only came down to eye level, it was far from the nicest haircut he could of done but it did its job.

But it still wasn’t enough. He still looked like Ochav but with worse hair. So he started to rummage through Taurtis’s cabinets to see if there was something to change his hair color, the closest thing he found was some dark brown dye which he quickly decided would work fine before ripping open the package and rubbing it on his hair, not caring that it was staining his skin or clothes, he cared enough to keep it from getting on Taurtis’s stuff but that was it.

It burned but he didn’t care, the bathroom was poorly ventilated, and breathing in the dye stung his lungs but it was so much better than looking anything like Ochav. He knew that there was parts of him that would always look like Ochav due to them being his parent but this was a step away from looking like them and he loved it.

Deeming that enough time had passed for the dye to take effect, he started to wash out the dye, seeing the dark water in the sink wash down the drain. Rinsing out the rest of the dye he looked up into the mirror and saw that instead of having a head full of burnished lavender hair, he was now a dirty blond. He didn’t leave in the dye long enough but it still worked, he now looked more like his own person than just the spawn of his parents.

Deciding that the mess he made was tomorrow Grian’s problem he toweled off his hair and stripped himself of his now stained clothing before being overtaken by the feeling of tiredness and stumbled over to his bed which he then collapsed into. Asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

Chapter Text

Grian had a job! That was great actually! There were skills that were taught to him by his parent that once were unused were now in full use. And sure, his hair was short and dyed to the color of dirt and straw, but the job he had now tied him closer to family than he would like it, a reminder of something he would still rather forget staring him in the mirror everyday. Literally actually, his eyes were one of the most distinctive parts of him. One marked him as an outcast, the other part of something he would never wish to be. And that was something he wished to ignore till it finally disappeared.

Unrelated, but he had a salary now! Money! To spend however he liked (which he had tried to spend to get himself an apartment to which Pearl and Taurtis had responded by inviting him to come hang out with their friends about some experimental server instead of trying to help him pack). And that included on strange magical trinkets from a family-owned corner shop near the tailor that happened to have a rather peculiar set of glasses originally designed for cosplay.

There were other things money could be used for too. Like getting a wardrobe with actual variety that you didn't have to make yourself with handmade needles or borrow from a charity or friend!

Besides, it would be a bit of shame not to get more clothes for oneself, given the extra bonus of the job grian had been hitherto unknown of, a magical key to a personal pocket dimension (closet) that was supposed to transcend servers. A very handy trinket that probably should have been in the job advertisement.

Life was great now! Really it was.

He hadn’t set any boiling water on fire again, even managing to make 1 (one) palatable pancake.

A true life achievement!

It was all, 100% looking up Grian. Things were great, and he had started collecting these really nice gloves to wear over the prosthetic arm so that he didn't have to see it. It was honestly all great and fine and this meetup of his friends friends (the evolutionists, they were called, and he might be one of them now) was going to go great!

—--------

Grian felt strange walking up to the house where the evolutionists had agreed to meet. He felt nervous for a myriad of reasons; some more reasonable than others. A certain part of the nervousness definitely came from the grandeur of the house itself. Calling it a house was honestly a disservice to it, as it was most definitely a mansion. Not only that, but its location in the hub world only added to the effect.

It was located in one of the few natural, mostly un-modified areas of terrain in the hub world, and sat atop a hill covered in a thick oak forest. It reminded him of his old home, although the house was clearly of much better construction and larger scale. As he walked up the winding path anxiety swelled more and more until when he reached the door he almost didn’t knock on the door, and instead run back to Taurtis’s home and hid in his room and deal with his friends' disappointment. Perhaps it was that thought itself that led him to lift the heavy golden knocker up and let it strike the door. And wait.

However, he didn’t have to wait long. The door was opened by a tall woman in a light blue formal uniform. She eyed him for a second, a look of confusion coming over her face.

“What is your business at the Little Wood manor?”
Yeah, Grian was definitely in the wrong place.

“I-” Grian stubbled to find words in the face of the extreme awkwardness he found in being in the wrong place, especially such a fancy one. He didn’t have to finish his sentence however, because Pearl came running down the hallway.

“Oh! Grian! You're here!” She said brightly.

“Yeah. I was a bit confused by the general air of formality though.”

“I mean, happens to the best of us.”

“Yeah.”

“I may assume that this is one Of Inveet’s guests then, Khanoilranee?”

“Yeah, thanks Noihkhee.” Pearl thanked the individual apparently known as Noihkhee and then promptly grabbed Grian’s arm and attempted to drag him behind her down the hallway. They got a few steps in before Grian sharply pulled his arm away from her, quickly bringing it to his chest.

“Ow!” Pearl exclaimed as the arm was pulled away, probably giving her hand a bit of a friction burn. “Whydja do that?” she questioned.

Grian fidgeted with the glove he had recently gotten, pulling it back down over the partially revealed prosthetic after it had gotten pulled off a bit from how quickly he had pulled it away. Pearl noticed this and her expression quickly turned from annoyance to apology.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize”

“It's fine. Just- don't do it again, okay?”

“Yeah, I-, sorry. I will.” Pearl promised.

“Okay. Let's go meet everyone. I guess”

“Yeah, come on!” Pearl said a smile creeping back onto her face as he headed down the hall.

As it turned out it was not just as straight as just walking down one hallway to get to the meeting room, rather turning from one to a staircase that while Pearl simply flew above it, Grian had to trek up it by foot. Then down another hallway, and to a large pair of double doors that had been left open.

The room in question was a large room, it was filled with sunlight that came in from the giant glass doors on the far end of the room that overlooked a terrace. The room itself contained a large table, with nine chairs placed around it, and now including Pearl and Grian, one person corresponding to each seat. Not to say that everyone was in a seat, but that the number of people and chairs were equal.

As they got closer to the room a few greetings could be heard in multiple languages, English, Galactic, and Watcher Script. It took a bit for Grian to recognize the language, he hadn’t heard it in 30 odd years now, but as soon as he heard it he began to refocus his world for a bit.

He looked around the room and saw eyes with black sclera and wings and a certain feeling of psychic power more than had vaguely found his notice in a long time. And it was at that moment that he realized that this was a friend group composed entirely of
watchers.

Well almost, except for him.
Sort of anyway.

That was when the panic attack hit.

It was honestly only a matter of time, he had been exposed to a number of stressors in a short time. From the strangely familiar location of the house to the growing anxiety of meeting new people, the embarrassment of thinking he was in the wrong place, pearl grabbing his arm, all the new people, and the fact that they were all watchers, it had really been quite inevitable.

Grian wasn’t really thinking through all of that when the attack set in.

It started with five seconds of silence that seemed to stretch on forever. Nothing happened and for a blink, he knew what was about to happen in his brain, just as one dimly awaits the pain of a stubbed toe.

Then the panic set on, a feeling that screamed throughout his body that he wasn’t safe and that there was nothing he could do about it.

He stayed frozen in place for a few seconds that felt like hours, his heartbeat growing louder in his chest and his breathing speeding up before he darted away.

He didn’t know where he was running, just that he should be getting away as soon as possible. He heard a familiar voice calling after him, but he ignored it. They were one of them too, weren't they? A small rational voice in the back of his mind told him everything was fine and that he needn’t worry, but it was drowned out by much louder panic.

At some point as he ran, where he was began to blur with where he had been in the past. Architecture blending together with memories of white and purple arches and dark windows. And for some reason he couldn’t parse, above it all, he smelled smoke.

Eventually, the breath in his lungs began to feel cold from the exertion of running, his pace subsided, and he began to wonder what had ever gotten him so worked up and scared. The clarity did not come with calm, however. More a weight of more rational feelings crashing down combined with the momentum from before.

As his pace slowed he became more aware of everything around him, and especially himself. How fast he was breathing and the sound of his own sobbing and how much he was shaking as he slid down with his back to a random wall and curled into a ball. And still the faint smell of smoke.

He was somewhere unknown in a near stranger’s house. He had taken one look at them all and ran away crying. Maybe he had been in the right place after all, but even now he could tell that he had outworn his welcome anyway. He had been invited to a special little friend group of watchers for goodness sakes, and he wasn’t one. He wasn’t. He had no right to be there, honestly. He was there because he had been taken in by people who had worlds better things to do and now he forced himself into all their business. Seriously there was no way they didn’t pity him, they had literally found him drenched in the middle of a park.

“Hey, buddy, what's up?” One of the people from the room was standing five feet away or so. One of his hands was behind his head running through his light blond hair nervously, the other idly picking at his jean pocket. Grian turned his head away. “I’m the host, as that is I should make sure all my guests are okay. I would feel pretty bad leaving you in the middle of the hallway anyway.”

“Sorry to be a bother.” Grian mumbled.

“It's not on you man. Look.” the person crouched down resting his arms on his legs, without moving any closer to Grian. “I don’t know why you ran off. I can only assume you have had a rough day or whatnot. But it's none of my business. But what is my business is not leaving my guests curled up against a wall in the hallway, so I'm gonna find a couch for you somewhere and get you some water or something, and then I’ll let you sulk around on your own. Okay?”

Grian nodded and was guided up a flight of stairs back the way he came, and he couldn't help but notice small scorch marks on the floor from where he had stepped. He tried to ignore the guilt bubbling up from damaging the expensive flooring and rugs. The host (probably Inveet from the door guards wording) brought Grian to a side room near the room where everyone else was.

The room itself looked like a spare guest bedroom, decorated with the same blue and gold as the rest of the house. Grian was guided to an armchair in the corner.

“So I guess I should get you some water… uh Grian, right? That's what Pearl called you when we were talking before.”

“Uh yeah. Your name was Inveet, wasn’t it? That's what the person at the door called you.” The person in question laughed at this.

“I mean, I guess you could call me by that. If you really wanted to. It's really formal though, most people just call me Martyn.”

“Oh.”

“I'm gonna go get you that water now.”

It only took Martyn a few minutes to get water, it was probably just taken from the room where everyone else was. And while the small amount of time did allow Grian to call down from the panic attack, the guilt from interrupting everything and being where he didn't belong swelled.

“Here’s your water, lemme know if you need anything, okay Grian?” Grian nodded faintly, clutching the glass of water in his hands. Martyn began to walk out, and just as his foot touched down in the hallway was when Grian spoke up.

“Um, Martyn, I actually had a question.”

“Oh?”

“Why am I here?”

“What?”

“Why am I here. You all seem like close nit friends, and you are all watchers. Why am I here? I’m not one of you guys, you don't know me, and I just showed up here to freak out and leave scorch marks on your flooring.”

“Well, I… hmm,” Martyn considered for a bit “well, first of all, don't go thinking we are some sort of super special watcher club, cause we aren't. It's just a coincidence, really, and besides, we aren't all that watcher. Like I'm like, what, one quarter? Some even less. We are just a bunch of friends, and there’s no harm in adding one to the group. You’re Taurtis and Pearl’s friend, you have known them for like five years or something now, and we all just wanted to meet you. And as for the scorch marks on the floor, there’s something I want to show you.”

“Okay?”

Martyn led Grian around the house to a large central seeming room. It was grand, with two staircases going up the sides of the room to a large upper section balcony sort of area that Grian and Martyn now stood on.

“This room is like… 700 years old. Maybe more.” Martyn explained, gesturing around the room.

“That would make it like... Almost as old as the universe, wouldn't it?”

“Yep, this is the hub world after all. There's a bunch of really old stuff here.”

“Why did you want to show this to me though? So far it just seems like a reminder of how badly I messed up some really old stuff.” Grian said, leaning on the railing and drifting his hand across it, picking at what seemed to be the edge of where a poor repair job was done after a piece of it had broken off in the past.

“That.” Martyn said, pointing up to a spot on the ceiling. Grian looked up to see a giant scorch mark on the ceiling, a small bit of rusted metal chain could be seen hanging in the center of the mark, looking at the rest of the design of the room it seemed that that bit of chain had been used to hold up a chandelier.

“Wow, that's a big scorch mark? What's the point of showing me this”

“It's to show that no one will notice your little burns on the floor with this here. It will just kinda blend in. I didn't even really notice it if I'm being honest. There are other marks in this house, this is just the most impressive one I could think of.”

“How did it get there?”

“About like… 670 years ago at a party, sometime around when watchers were created. Like 20 years after or so a party was hosted and some young watcher decided it would be a fun idea to blow up the chandelier. They did and broke the railing in the process pushing my Sehveeir who had been giving a speech at the time out of the way of the falling chandelier and causing the watcher to be crushed under the chandelier. No one ever bothered to fix the ceiling. Or replace the chandelier.”

“Wow. That's quite the story.”

“Yeah, I mean the house is full of them.”

“What does the person who blew up the ceiling think of you keeping that story around?”

“We don’t know who it was, but I would like to think that they would be proud. Or maybe really embarrassed, although that isn't as fun.”

“No, I suppose it isn't.” Grian said, chuckling a bit. “You know what, I think I’m feeling a bit better now. I think I’m ready to go meet everybody. And you said you had some kind of crazy server idea?”

“Oh, just you wait, Grian. It's the craziest idea anyone ever had.”