Chapter 1: Very important musings
Chapter Text
In the early days, before the Universe had created the Hub, before the Updates expanded worlds and even before Players could learn to create those worlds, there were the Voidwalkers. As the very first Players, they traveled through the Void between worlds without need for a Hub or protection from the raw Code of the Universe, thus earning their name.
While some still exist to this day, Watchers are known to hold a visceral hatred toward their kind, and so those that remain live in hiding.
All this to say that Xander, a Voidwalker, wasn’t particularly happy with his current situation—trapped in a cell in the heart of a Watcher observatory. While his brother Xisuma was happily living out his cottagecore dreams in his not-so-cottagecore bases in his super secret hidden server full of eccentrics, Xander had never been good at staying in one place. So—he wasn’t doing so well at the whole ‘hiding’ thing, and now lately he’d been getting worse at the ‘avoiding the overpowered beings who want to kill you’ thing too. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried sneaking up on one of the famously all-seeing Watchers.
Alas, the consequences of his own actions.
“Where do you come from?” The Watcher in front of him asked, all long draping robes and oversized ego.
“Where you found me. Do you not remember the coords?” Xander intoned. He tried his best to copy the Watcher’s voice—just for giggles, really, he wasn’t good enough at intimidation or mind games or whatever. He was bored, okay? There wasn’t much to look at here besides bedrock, bedrock, and more bedrock. Watchers had a very specific interior design sense, and it was the same as their exterior design sense—stuck back in the Universe creation age. Ugh. So last millennium.
Xander was kindly broken out of his very important musings by the abrupt burn of wither attacking his bones and muscles. How courteous of them to remind him that he was being interrogated! His limbs twitched uncontrollably with the wither as Xander stared back at his interrogator, like they knew he wanted to raise a few very specific fingers in a very specific direction.
Sadly they were unable to follow through, as his limbs were paralysed by a festive little combination of slowness and mining fatigue, leaving him unable to move but still able to think clearly. A combination they had learned, of course, from experimenting on Voidwalkers.
Even outside of the whole having his family massacred for no reason thing, Xander wasn’t a huge fan of Watchers. Go figure.
“Where are your kin?” The Watcher asked, moving right along while Xander’s body continued to rot away from the inside out. Instead of answering, Xander blinked slowly back. He would sigh if his chest wasn’t currently seizing.
Now, see. As a self-declared expert on Watchers, Xander felt he had an obligation to educate. His students were a little limited here in the unforgiving expanse of the Void, but there was something very important that Xander felt all Players should know about Watchers, even the ones who didn’t know that Watchers were real.
Watchers are really, really stupid. Those face-like masks? There was nothing behind them.
Literally. They had no heads. It was just the mask.
…He was getting off-topic. But, okay, look. This was the third time they’d gone through this script. The Watchers would ask the same questions every time and every time they would be surprised when they didn’t get an answer. Xander was feeling rather generous and had given up the silent treatment once he’d gotten bored of it, but then he was a gracious exception. And then they asked questions like this! He dared the Universe to look him in the eyes and tell him, with complete seriousness, that ‘where is your family’ was not a stupid question.
“Are you insane?” Xander asked, with totally earnest intellectual curiosity, “Or are you just the dumbest one in the group and that’s why you got stuck with interrogating the Voidwalker?” Why would anyone ever truthfully admit to where they were hiding their family? For that matter, why would the Watchers, famously dedicated to destroying every Voidwalker they came across, assume that Xander had any family left—?
Ah, fifteen more seconds of wither. And with some nausea on top this time! How kind of them.
“Our time together is over, for now,” intoned the second Watcher. It was always—hah—watching these little sessions each time, and Xander thought that it might be the leader of this group.
(The official term for a group of Watchers was an audience, but there was no way Xander would use something that sounded so cool.)
“We will return.” Xander would rather swim through lava while being chased by ghasts. He would have loved to tell them this, but unfortunately the withering had eaten through the muscle in his jaw and he was sentenced to silence until his body’s natural regeneration kicked back in. Very inconvenient.
The Watchers left without any further conversation, and Xander was left alone to shake through the lingering status effects and count the stripes in the bedrock of his cell.
(And maybe, finally, figure out how to open his cell from the inside.)
“A Player?”
Xander woke up instantly. His vision did not, though, and it felt like his eyeballs were vibrating in his skull as they struggled to adjust from blissful darkness to mind-numbing bedrock patterning again.
“We would not afford any common Player such attention, Xelqua. Do you know of Voidwalkers?” A Watcher’s voice boomed. Ah yes, self-obsessed Watcher rhetoric at its finest—
“...Voidwalkers…a myth?” The voice was quiet, and the words faded in and out of Xander’s hearing. This distantly registered as strange, since Watchers all kind of had the same volume setting.
“Speak up, Xelqua. You know that volume level is unacceptable.”
“I thought that Voidwalkers were a myth,” the smaller voice repeated, steadier, “That looks like an ordinary Player.” The voice came across younger, somehow, despite the fact that all Watchers sounded pretty much the same and were all the same age. Maybe it was the strange lack of echo.
“Players have long forgotten Voidwalkers, due to their dwindling population—”
“Caused by Watchers,” Xander interjected sternly, finally recovered and able to look up at his unwelcome visitors. One of them was the leader Watcher that always came (ew), but the other was new. And much… shorter.
Huh.
Watchers all generally looked the same, aside from small differences in outfit and wing size, in Xander’s experience. And he could, again, confidently say that he was the most experienced when it came to seeing Watchers and surviving. While this new Watcher had the same robes and full-face mask where its face would be if it were Player, it was also three and a half heads shorter than the Watcher beside it.
That wasn’t normal.
“You… kill Voidwalkers?” The short one asked. There was something else strange about it, aside from the height, but Xander couldn’t pin it down from where he was looking, lying on the floor. While his body had healed enough to talk again, it wasn’t enough to stand or even sit up. It might have been poor manners to stay down when there were visitors, but Xander didn’t particularly mind being rude to these guests.
Xander entertained a brief daydream of a Watcher knocking on his front door and him slamming it in its face.
“We will teach you why they need to be erased, Xelqua.” Xander bristled instinctively. The genocidal superiority complex wasn’t anything new. What did this new Watcher think it was going to achieve, pretending like it was?
“Then, uh—why is this one still here? Actually, how do you even know this is a Voidwalker?” This Watcher—Xelqua? Awful name, by the way—was it playing dumb? If it was, it was trying too hard. These were things that every surviving Voidwalker and Watcher knew.
“You are young, Xelqua, and have much to learn. We need this Voidwalker to tell us where its kin are before it dies,” the leader Watcher explained as simply and inconsequentially as a Player would say zombies burn in the sun, “As for your other question, it is in their code. Look, and you will see.”
Then, in an absolutely horrifying move, the Watcher raised a hand and placed it on Xelqua’s head.
Its hand dwarfed the smaller Watcher, extra-jointed fingers dangling down past where its ears would be and pointed tips grazing its jaw. Xander continued to boggle at this completely out of character behaviour—the sight of a Watcher holding someone’s head like an apple would haunt his dreams and his nightmares—as Xelqua went abruptly still. The broken portal symbol on its mask glowed, light flickering like a nether portal.
“Ah.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The leader Watcher removed its hand. “You will be accompanying Six and I in the future interrogations. This is not something that we anticipated being able to teach you for some time, but the opportunity has arrived earlier than expected.”
“Yes,” Xelqua agreed, moving again, “I can See on my own, now. You did not need to for—guide me.”
“You are still young, Xelqua.” The leader said, turning away from Xander’s cell.
“You were the one who taught me, One,” Xelqua insisted quietly, “You know that I have learned.” Xelqua followed after One hastily, the both of them leaving Xander to panic over the last parts of that conversation.
Most importantly, there were at least six Watchers in this observatory. Watchers didn’t actually have titles or use any kind of names like Players did, instead numbering themselves in a hierarchy as needed. A Six could leave one group and join a different group as a Three based on the situation—they never had any kind of preference. But they never left a number unused, so if there was a Six then there had to be a One to Five. Not to mention Xelqua, which was a weird exception he didn’t know what to do with.
He’d thought there were three, at most four Watchers in this group. But if there were six, maybe more, then he had no chance of getting out of this on his own even once he got past the cell. He would have to call for help.
(He really hadn’t wanted to call for help.)
The Watchers came back.
This time Xander was ready for them, since it was around their usual interrogation torture appointment time. Watchers were nothing if not punctual when it came to times they’d set themselves and not told anyone else.
“Be sure to watch closely, Xelqua,” The lead Watcher—One, if that last interaction was anything to go by—said.
Xelqua didn’t say anything, just nodded silently.
“Voidwalker,” One continued, ignoring Xelqua’s comment, “Why were you following us?”
Xander felt the now-familiar mix of slowness and mining fatigue being applied to his still-withered body. What did they think he was going to be able to do when he couldn’t move anyway?
But—ah, Nether. He’d been busy with that last conversation between Xelqua and One. He hadn’t had time to think of any fun responses for this time around.
“Well you were just so interesting, I couldn’t help but want to watch what you were up to,” he drawled, “It was entertaining, I’m sure you understand.”
Ten seconds of poison for that. He must be losing his touch. Definitely should have prepared.
“Where do you come from?”
He’d already used ‘your mom’ for this one before, so, “The Universe. It creates all things. Loves them, too. But again, you already know that—oh wait.” Xander widened his eyes for dramatic effect, but he wasn’t sure how well it got across through the helmet visor.
Fifteen seconds poison, and wither on top! Much better feedback this time.
“Where are your kin?”
“Busy beating your mom at hunger games,” He blurted instantly. Someone made a scoffing noise, and it must have been him because Watchers didn’t make that sort of sound. He grinned.
Ten seconds poison and nausea. Pity. Now they would leave like usual, leaving Xander to - “Who were you trying to contact?”
What.
“What?”
“Who were you trying to contact?”
Had they actually noticed? That distress signal was designed to be untraceable. Granted, it was the first time he’d had to actually use it, so he could have messed it up— “What do you mean?”
“A message was sent, originating from this location. What did you send?” So they’d noticed it go out, but couldn’t read or trace it. Okay. He could work with that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yeah, that worked. Stick with the classics.
More poison and nausea. Great.
“Xelqua.”
“It’s a general distress signal, a call for help,” Came a voice, louder than he’d heard it before. It still sounded smaller somehow, not echoing as much as the other Watchers’ simulated voices. Again, Xander was struck by the fact that Xelqua was definitely different from the standard Watcher—but he hadn’t decided if he wanted to care yet.
Then he realized that Xelqua had read his distress signal. “Wait, how—!? There’s no way you can read that!” He’d been sure of the encryption, at least. He’d tested it with other Watchers. None of them could read it, it directly countered their code makeup.
“It seems that is correct. Xelqua, who was it directed to?” Witherspit. If it could read the message, then Xisuma—!
“No particular group. It was set to go to the Main Hub, then disperse to several of the largest populated servers. However, it stopped at the Hub.” Wait. That wasn’t right.
“A useless attempt, then. Perhaps it will stop fighting now that it knows its message did not reach anyone.” Yeah. As if.
“Yes.”
The Watchers, One and the one that was probably Six, turned and left. Xelqua lingered for a moment, staring at Xander’s sprawled form. Then, curiosity sated, it too turned and left Xander alone.
It hadn’t been long when Xander was rudely awakened by another unexpected visit. This time not by two Watchers loudly gawking at him like he was a zoo exhibit, but by the slowness and mining fatigue abruptly vanishing. He’d gotten used to sleeping it off after every questioning session, and it should have lasted at least another fifteen minutes.
Ugh. Why was he complaining about less misery again?
Blearily, he blinked his eyes open to see little Xelqua standing outside the one barred wall of his cell, the rest seamless bedrock. Xelqua didn’t move or make a sound, but in another moment, the familiar soothing feeling of regeneration filled his body.
“Wha…” He slurred, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Xelqua jerked silently, then disappeared.
…Had he dreamed that?
Creepy. Xander decided to put nonsensical Watchers out of his mind, and set to work rewriting his distress call to his brother, triple checking the address and encryption this time.
“Why were you following us?”
“Felt like it,” Xander was getting very used to the feeling of wither layered with slowness, mining fatigue, and nausea. A couple more goes and it would barely phase him. Torture was such an efficient training method.
“Where do you come from?”
“Wherever I feel like,” Hm. That was actually getting a little too close to the truth. Better dial it back.
“Where are your kin?”
“Ate ‘em.”
“...What?” Heheh.
“Nom nom.” Would licking his lips be too much?
“Perhaps less wither next time. It has become hysterical.” One definitely didn’t know what hysterical looked like. “It tried to send another message. Did it succeed this time?” It better have. Xander was getting very bored of all this.
“No,” What? “It’s the same result as the last one. You can’t read the encryption but you can still see that the content is the exact same here, see? It would have done the same thing.” No, no, he’d checked this time. He hadn’t been distracted by slowness or fatigue, in fact it had been easier to concentrate with the regen, and he’d been sure to put the address in correctly. It would have either reached Xisuma this time or Xelqua would have seen the target location.
Something wasn’t right. What was going on here?
Xander was once again woken by the feeling of slowness and fatigue dissipating earlier than it should. He opened his eyes to see Xelqua standing in front of his cell bars.
“So it was real.”
Xelqua’s shoulders hitched. It vanished.
Xander felt the regen relax his muscles and wondered if he was becoming a conspiracy theorist.
“Where are your kin?”
“Dunno, my parents haven’t been born yet.”
Poison, nausea, blindness.
Waking up to an unexpected clarity in his mind and vision, Xander squinted.
“It’s you again. Xelqua?”
Xelqua stiffened and shuffled back. Regeneration replaced the pain in his limbs, and the small Watcher vanished.
“Where do you come from?”
“The Void, obviously. Someone never read the manual.”
Wither, poison, blindness.
This time, Xander tried to stay awake for as long as he could. Even so, he never heard any footsteps before the blindness suddenly lifted and the pain lessened from an active pulsing to a dull ache.
He raced to blink into focus to see— “Xelqua? Why do you keep doing this? What’s the point?”
A sharp intake of breath. Xelqua vanished. This was starting to get old.
“Why were you following us?”
“What can I say, I kind of had a crush. Not on you, of course. But bedrock… you know what I mean?”
Wither, wither, wither.
Hehehehe.
Regeneration. “Xelqua? You’re back again.”
Silence. Then, “You’re a Voidwalker.” Xelqua’s voice lilted uncertainly, almost like a question but not quite. Xander paused, surprised to finally get a response.
“Wouldn’t you know? You saw my code.” That was what the creepy apple-hand thing with One was, right?
Xelqua’s shoulders hitched like an aborted shrug, “But you’re also a Player?”
Xander’s face scrunched in confused offence, “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Watchers aren’t.” Oh.
“That’s… true, I guess. But yeah, Voidwalkers are Players. Your buddies didn’t tell you that?”
Another stilted shrug. Xelqua disappeared into the shadows.
At least one of them was getting better at their dramatic exits.
They were on interrogation number, what, nine? When the Watchers arrived and said, “Your resistance is inconvenient. Answer, or the punishments will increase.”
This didn’t bode well, but Xander still acted on autopilot when they started their questions, “Why were you following us?”
“I have been answering. Not my fault you don’t like the answers.”
Blindness—wait, no. The black in his eyes was obsidian. In his face, in his arms, in his legs, in his chest. So they were going for suffocation. He could still move, but like usual, moving through solid blocks felt like grinding his flayed bones against rough granite and dragging burned flesh through gravel at the same time. It was not a pleasant feeling and Xander liked to avoid it whenever possible. Most Players did.
The obsidian disappeared and he gasped for air like a fish out of water.
“Where do you come from?”
Xander caught his breath. “Not obsidian, that’s for sure.” And yet, the obsidian was back. They never listened, did they?
“Where are your kin?”
“Also not in obsidian. Haven’t you been listening?”
Obsidian, obsidian, obsidian. If it was only getting worse from here, Xander wasn’t sure how well he’d perform.
(Xander also wasn’t sure how he was getting out of this.)
Regeneration.
Xander peeled his eyes open to stare at Xelqua. “Why did it get worse? Did you say something?”
“Wha—like what?” Even quietly, Xelqua somehow managed to sound offended, “What would I say to make them hate you even more? ‘I went to talk to them without your permission and they told me that Voidwalkers are Players - you know, basic information that you already knew?’ Where’s the point in that?”
“‘Without permission’?” Xander picked out, immediately interested.
“I—well of course, do I look like the other Watchers? Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.” Xelqua retorted, putting its hands on its hips. Its overlong sleeves bunched awkwardly around its hands.
“I just figured you were weirdly small. Do Watchers have runts?” Xander asked only half-mockingly, eyebrows raising at the immediate response.
“Excuse me!? I am perfectly average-sized for a—” Xelqua stopped.
“...For a what?”
“...For a,” The Watcher hunched into itself and checked over its shoulder. Which was completely unnecessary, considering Watchers can always see in all directions, “...Player.”
The last word was whispered so quietly that Xander had to strain to hear it, and even then he questioned if he’d heard it right.
“You’re a Player?” Xander asked incredulously, part insulted that it would try to fool him and part horrified that that was a possibility in the first place.
“Shhshshh!” Xelqua hissed, crouching down and flapping its sleeves at him, “Not so loud! They get so bad whenever they hear that!”
“That you’re a Player?” Xander repeated obstinately, but reluctantly quieter this time.
“I used to be. They changed my code,” Xelqua bit out, unexpectedly vitriolic, “And supposedly I’m not a Player anymore. But I don’t quite look like a Watcher, do I?”
“No,” Xander agreed, still in shock, “You’re small.”
“I’m average—!” Xelqua sighed. “Anyway. Don’t call me a Player, because they will get mad, and it will be at both us, and it will suck more than it already does. Okay?”
“I don’t know why you think I would tell them anything.”
“Just. Letting you know. Okay bye.” Xelqua stood and disappeared, once more leaving Xander to reel over what he’d just learned.
Watchers were supposed to have a limited number. They couldn’t reproduce, the Universe wouldn’t let them. So it seemed they had turned to creating more Watchers.
But it didn’t sound like Xelqua was very happy about it.
The next torture session - he wasn’t bothering calling it an interrogation anymore, it was just straight up torture at this point - had Xander waiting more anxiously than before. The possibilities of what could happen had extended past status effects and into the unknown, and he didn’t like it. And as far as he could tell, there was no help coming.
Thankfully, or unfortunately, One and Six stuck to suffocation in obsidian again this time. Like all other times, Xelqua simply stood between them, mask pointed at Xander’s prone form. Just watching.
In the short periods between suffocation, Xander sucked in breath like he’d lost his helmet in the Overworld and stared back at Xelqua. Did it know what it was like to suffer under the Watchers’ games? To spend hours under painful status effects or suffocate in obsidian? Did it know that the Watchers had systematically eradicated the Voidwalkers to the point that they were near extinct? Did it know the reasons why Xander would hunt down and kill any Watcher he came across in return?
Did it know why being a Watcher was such a shameful thing?
He wouldn’t be afraid to admit that he had seriously considered revealing Xelqua’s secrets to the other Watchers after suffocation number two out of three. Shout out that it had been healing him after each session, maybe just call it a Player and see if it had been bluffing. Even if it hadn’t been lying and the other Watchers did actually get upset, it would serve it right after just watching Xander suffer like this for so long when it could do something about it.
But thinking about that had made him realize - he was only alive because of Xelqua’s regular healing after every visit from the Watchers. With the first few sessions he’d been deteriorating faster than he could naturally heal, regeneration limited in the Void as it was, and the other Watchers hadn’t seemed to notice. There was the possibility that Xelqua had been instructed to go and heal him, but it hadn’t acted like it was doing something it was supposed to do. Xander himself had never scared it, but it had run away every time he noticed it. It was scared of getting caught.
He’d give it one more chance, he decided. It had earned that much.
“Where are your kin?”
“Just leave me alone.” Gasping for air, Xander decided he was rather done for the day. Of course, the Watchers weren’t.
Obsidian, obsidian, obsidian.
Once the Watchers had had their fill of suffering for the time being and left, Xander allowed himself his first moment of weakness since being captured and held here. Curling onto his side and hugging his arms around himself, he shivered. Sure, he’d gone without seeing another Player around for months at a time. And sure, he’d been through worse pain before, and been left to deal with it alone. But usually, at the end of it, he could drop by his brother’s server for a quick hug and a few well-received pranks on his Players.
But here, the Void was cold and dark and vast and full of unsympathetic enemies. He was surrounded by unbreakable bedrock and the hopelessness that came with knowing no help was coming. Could he even help himself?
What could he even do?
Tap-tap.
Tap.
A soft rustling of clothing. A presence next to him.
“Are you okay?”
Xander was too tired to bother moving. “What do you think.”
“You look worse than usual.”
“You look shorter than usual.”
A huff. “I’m not actually that insecure about my height, you know. And you’re not even looking at me.”
Xander dragged his eyes over to where Xelqua was crouching next to him. He didn’t bother asking how it had gotten into the cell. “You look short.”
“Thanks,” It said, voice thick with sarcasm, “And you look like you’re in pain. Do you mind if I—? It’ll be stronger this way.”
It took Xander a second to realize what it meant, hand gesturing towards his shoulder. “Oh. Sure. Why not.”
“Great.” The hand made contact with his shoulder and regeneration flowed through, easing muscles and smoothing out trembling nerves. True to its word, it was stronger this time. Xander relaxed into the first semi-friendly contact he’d had since a month before he was captured and asked again.
“Why are you doing this? What’s the point?”
This time, Xelqua answered. “Regen is better for the body than instant healing,” It said, like it was an indisputable fact that had been beaten into badly healed bones, “And I can’t fully top you up because they’d notice. They don’t really check if the health bar is the same as when they left it, since they know Players heal naturally, but it’s pretty obvious to them if you’re at a hundred percent. It tends to make things worse.”
“But why heal me at all?” The Void suddenly seemed so cold. Voidwalkers had a natural resistance to it, but Xander had been there for so long… even through the armor he always wore, Xelqua’s hand felt three times warmer than anything else in the Void. If he focused too hard on the feeling, it almost burned.
“Why suffer when there’s no need to? Especially when I can help. Besides, you’d die,” Xelqua said like it was obvious, and maybe it should have been. Xander just blinked, head foggy and warm.
“But why…?”
Xelqua shrugged, hand not moving from his shoulder, “Look, I’m not here because I want to be, and they know it. There’re a lot of restrictions on me. I can’t get you out. But I can make it more bearable, and if you’re anything like me… I know I would have appreciated it.”
Xander watched, eyelids heavy and mind focused on his shoulder, as Xelqua hesitantly gave his arm a final pat before taking their hand back. He felt the loss immediately.
“I’ll let you get some sleep. I’m sure you’ll need it.”
Xander drifted off more peacefully than he ever had since waking up in the bedrock cell, listening to Xelqua walk away.
In visit eleven, because he was keeping track for some reason, they switched to lava. Burning in lava was something every Player experienced, but that didn’t mean it was a good feeling. And a quick accidental dip was very different from a long swim that he couldn’t escape.
When Xelqua arrived an hour after leaving with the Watchers, Xander was still trying to find a balance between shaking in pain and staying still because every movement hurt. Xelqua moved to his side without a word, and regen rippled over the burned and bubbling skin.
“Can I?”
“Please.”
A hand settled on his chest once the skin was healed enough to tolerate it, increasing the regeneration. Xander just focused on the contact and ignored the rest of the world, taking comfort in the quiet for once.
They sat there in silence as Xander healed. They both knew it wouldn’t last.
“I can’t do anything about the cell,” Xelqua said eventually, hushed in the quiet, “I said it before, but I think you were asleep? They’ll know if I so much as touch the bars, and I don’t have the access to open it or anything. Sorry. I wish I could do more.”
“How do you get into the cell, then?” It wasn’t accusing.
Xelqua still flinched, ducking back into themself for a moment before resettling their shoulders in a practised movement. “I can’t do it for you. And—you can’t tell anyone. Please.”
“I haven’t been telling anyone about you being here.”
“I know but—this is bigger. It’s—they know I have compassion, still, and this could just be brushed off as a defect, a moment of weakness. But if they knew I could move around on my own, without their knowing,” —a shudder— “they’d try to take it away. And I don’t think they can.” Meaning pointless pain. And didn’t Xander know all about that.
Xander turned his head to look at Xelqua’s mask. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He tried to project his sincerity as best he could through his helmet, because he was. Sincere, that was. This clearly wasn’t a trivial fear that Xelqua had, and they had proven to be both Player and a Player that cared. Xisuma’s server alone, full of wonderful people with reasons to hide, was proof that that was rarer than it should be. Xander owed it to them to have a fraction of the consideration Xelqua had shown him. It hadn’t escaped him that Xelqua had finished funneling regeneration into him, and yet had left their hand on his chest as a comfort.
Xelqua paused, looking for something in Xander’s face. They must have found it, because they drooped a little and shifted to sit on the floor. They sat in silence for another while, before Xelqua took an audible breath.
“It’s my feathers,” They said, picking at one of their unusually corporeal wings. Xelqua was the only Watcher he’d seen with actual physical wings, the dull purple feathers oddly defined and making the limbs look like large bird wings where other Watchers simply had wing-shaped energy billowing out behind them. “They’re—well basically they’re a part of me, even when they’re not actually attached to the wings. If one of my feathers is there, it’s like I’m already there. I can just bring the rest of me to wherever the part of me is.”
Xavier’s exhausted mind parsed through the ramble and came up with: “So you can teleport to wherever one of your feathers is?”
“Um. Basically. Yeah.” So they hadn’t been teleporting like a Watcher or even an admin with /tp, like he’d thought. More like an ender pearl that didn’t break. It would be harder to track since it wasn’t a command, which is probably why they’d been using it.
“You throw a feather into the cell every time you come?”
“I left one here after the first time. It’s hidden, the others won’t find it.”
“Where is it?”
“Um,” They pointed to the corner opposite the cell bars, too far for the light to reach, “Back there.”
He couldn’t see it. “Shadows won’t hide it from the Watchers.”
“I’m a Watcher too. I can hide it.”
“If you say so.” Xander sighed, then, “That doesn’t help me at all. How am I supposed to get out?”
“I don’t know. Sorry.”
“It’s fine, I know. Since when can Watchers even do that? With their wings?”
“They can’t? At least I don’t think so,” Xelqua went to fidget with their hands, realized one was still on Xander, and switched to playing with the hem of their robes. Their feathered wings flexed and brushed over the floor. “I mean, you’ve seen them. They don’t have feathers. And they can just /tp everywhere, they don’t need it.”
“Can’t you just teleport wherever too? Why would you need it?”
Xelqua shrugged. “They code-locked me. I should be able to /tp, but they won’t let me. Can’t even go through portals. And I just. Have feathers. They don’t know why either.”
“They don’t? Didn’t they know what they were doing when they made you into a Watcher?”
A strained hum, “I’m their first attempt at it, so no, they didn’t have any clue what they were doing when they tore out chunks of my code and randomly replaced them with Watcher parts.” Xander could tell that Xelqua was trying to stay calm, probably for his sake. But while their voice was quiet, it shook with a cold anger that wouldn’t fade any time soon.
Xander was honestly impressed at the restraint. He had decided to hunt down and kill as many Watchers as he could after Watchers had killed his parents. But to have your body and soul torn apart by clumsy hands pawing through your code like they were sifting gravel for flint with a sword? To then have it put back together but inside out and upside down and with the wrong pieces, to be presented the scrambled mess and be told, look we fixed it?
They weren’t something that could be compared, Xander knew. But it was a loss all the same. They had both faced mythical, ego-tripping, super-powered beings and been found wanting. And the Watchers had hurt them for it.
Xander put a hand over Xelqua’s, still on his chest, and their mask turned to face him. “We’ll get out of here,” Xander promised.
“Get some sleep,” Xelqua returned, and Xander saw no reason to protest.
Number twelve is lava again, which is strangely comforting in its familiarity. Xander is worried he may be starting to lose it a little. It is worse this time though, time spent in lava seeming to double - though that may just be his mind. Maybe he’d ask Xelqua if he was right. He might be left. Or. Wait…
Xander waited until Xelqua appeared, instantly feeling better just knowing they were there. “That was worse,” he slurred, “It was, right? It’s getting worse?”
A hand settled on his chest. “It’ll keep getting worse every time. The first eight are status effects only, and then for the next eight it just keeps getting worse. ‘S their rule. I’m sorry.”
So he was right! “You can’t do anything about it,” Xander dismissed, “D’you know what’s next? So I can be ready.”
“Not sure how ready you can be for these things,” Xelqua muttered sardonically, but, “It won’t be lava again. It’ll be something new. Dunno what.”
“Yaaaayyy,” Xander droned, entirely done with all of this, “‘What a time to be alive!’”
A huff, “I guess so—”
“‘A Player said that once’,” Xander continued quoting on a whim, “‘But aren’t they alive at all times?’”
“Um. What?”
“I heard a Watcher say that once,” Xander explained, shoving down the urge to giggle like a maniac, “Sounded like a robot. Didn’t get it at all. Ew. Hate those guys.” He blinked hazily, “Sorry. I think I’m starting to lose it.”
“That’s… understandable.” The regen pulsed a little more. “Hold on just a little longer, though. I’ll get you out.”
“How?” Xander asked, healed and suddenly feeling much more lucid.
“I—I don’t know how I’ll get you out of the cell,” Xelqua stuttered, quiet and unsure, “But once you’re outside of the observatory, portals will work again. You can just leave. I would have done it long before you came if they hadn’t locked portals for me.”
“Wouldn’t they just—follow? Watchers can use portals. And they don’t give up if you just leave the Void.” Xander would know. He’d been caught off guard by it the first time, and used it to set a trap the second. But he didn’t have a trap ready this time, and he was too weak to put up much of a fight. Their best bet was to just run.
“Not if you go to the Main Hub.”
“The Hub?” The Main Hub was the connecting point between the various servers and worlds that Players lived on and visited. It was constantly filled with Players moving to and fro, and it linked to every world and server that had ever existed. There was no way he was bringing a Watcher there. “Are you crazy—?”
“—Watchers can’t access the Hub,” Xelqua murmured, like saying it too loud would make it untrue, “It’s too—Player, too woven into the fabric of the Universe. Watchers are a part of the code, like all things are, but they’re not—not loved, not like the Universe loves Players.”
And if Xander had had any lingering doubt that Xelqua was a Player, it would have been washed away at that. Because unlike the Watchers, who repeated things they’d heard from Players without comprehension, Xelqua said loved like they knew it. They’d said the Universe loves Players with the hint of wonder that came from knowing that something as big as the Universe knew you and loved you individually, and that all you needed to do to earn that love was to exist.
It was a knowledge that Watchers had chosen to abandon; something that only a Player would know.
“Okay,” Xander relented, tension seeping out of his shoulders, “So get out of the cell, get out of the observatory, portal to the Main Hub. Then we’re safe.”
“Then you’re home free.” Xelqua nodded.
“Sounds like a plan.” And Xander felt just a bit more grounded, with something to hold on to. They could do this. They would.
Chapter 2: Why it is so desirable to be
Notes:
Chapter-specific warnings: derealization/not knowing if what you're seeing is real or not. Starts at "and the world dissolved" and ends at the line with "incandescent", summary at the end if you need it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thirteen, lucky number thirteen, was anvils. Get an anvil dropped on your head and lose half your health in one go, anvils. Drop an anvil from high enough and die in one shot, anvils.
Stub your toe on it and feel it for the rest of the week, anvils.
If he were on an infinite respawn server (Void, he missed his brother and his idiots right now…) where pain was dulled and fear didn’t exist, this had the potential to be hilarious. Anvils had the makings of the best pranks.
But with Watchers, it was just terrifying.
They’d dropped an anvil on his arm for failing the first question, and the limb lay shattered and immobile at his side. They’d dropped one on his chest for the second question, and if the way he was struggling to breathe was any indication, at least one broken rib had punctured a lung. His vision was getting dark around the edges, and it wasn’t the blindness effect - he was on maybe one heart.
He wouldn’t survive another anvil.
“Where are your kin?”
Xander glared up at them, eyes wild. There was no way he would ever tell them where Xisuma was. He didn’t even know if he could gather the breath to speak right now anyways.
The third anvil was already hovering above his head. Would he die here—?
“You never really told me much about Voidwalkers,” Xelqua suddenly piped in, voice shaking in near-imperceptible desperation and fear, “Do they have more health than the average Player?”
“This is a strange question to ask, Xelqua. It does not affect our ability to exterminate them.”
“Just, a normal Player would have died by now, right?” Xelqua hedged, “Anvils do a lot of damage.”
“It is alive.” Even so, Xander felt a flash of instant health boost him back up to about half-healed, ribs yanking out of his lungs and cracking back together. The anvil lowered a few blocks in the air.
“That’s true. Um, One, anvils seem to do a lot of damage for not much result. Should we try something else?” Xander caught his breath and tried not to look like he was staring at Xelqua. Did they have a plan here or were they just panicking?
“It is good that you are becoming more invested, Xelqua. Anvils are part of the interrogation process as inscribed in bedrock. Do you have any better suggestions?”
“Uh,” Xelqua stumbled, mask swivelling to point at either Watcher, “Is there anything that has worked well in the past?”
“Anvils.”
“Well, like, that we haven’t already tried on the—it. That. You’ve seen work?”
“Use coherent sentences, Xelqua.”
“Are there any strategies that you have found effective in the past, One,” Xelqua repeated, exasperation leaking through the trembling fear, “That we have not yet tried on this particular Voidwalker?”
This could go wrong, Xelqua! Xander tried to communicate from his position playing and also just being almost-dead on the ground, This could go really, really wrong!!
The Watchers paused.
“I have only ever followed the guidelines,” Six provided, not moving but audibly handing the conversation over to One.
One’s mask stayed fixed on Xander, and Xander squeezed his eyes shut like it would hide him from the all-seeing gaze.
“Players ‘care when someone else is in pain’,” the Watcher mused eventually, the sounds of the words forming strangely like it was imitating a foreign language it didn’t understand. Beside it, Xelqua stiffened.
“How would we achieve this?” Six asked, following the leader.
“Where are your kin?” One repeated instead.
Xander just panted, “Whuh?” And the world dissolved.
“GO! I’LL HOLD THEM OFF!” A shout burst through the air and Xander jerked his head to look.
The cell had disappeared and he was on an End island somehow, five small figures running towards him in the distance. Behind them were three Watchers, flying along unbothered. As he watched, one of the figures stopped and turned to face the Watchers, sword appearing in one hand and purple energy swirling around the other.
That was Voidwalker magic—! Xander tried to run to help, but his injuries kept him motionless on the ground.
The ground? But he had been standing. Hadn’t he? He was still standing on the End island, so how could he feel the perfectly flat bedrock beneath him…?
The first figure fell to a barrage of fire charges. The remaining figures had gotten close enough for Xander to see their faces when one of them hissed, “Go, go, go! I’m right behind you! Go!” and pulled out a shimmering bow and arrows.
The second Voidwalker managed three shots before the fourth arrow was released into an End crystal that suddenly appeared right in front of them. There was nothing left after the explosion.
The third Voidwalker’s face was full of grief as the group passed him, and again Xander moved to help. But there was nothing but bedrock behind him.
The third Voidwalker stumbled backwards into Xander’s view, eyes wide in horror. “Xestri! Varda! You…” They whirled to face the Watchers, now painfully on their own, “YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS!! I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN WITH M—”
Lightning.
Lightning. Lightning. Lightning, Lightning, Lightning—
A charred lump fell to the ground and scattered into ash.
Xander stood, lay, petrified and horrified. “What…? N-no, I… Why…?”
The world dissolved.
“This does receive more engagement than the previous methods. Good work, Xelqua.” Xelqua said nothing. One paused for a moment, watching Xander, then turned and left. Six and Xelqua followed.
Xander lay, disoriented, confused, terrified.
Hours later, Xelqua arrived in a flurry of robes and feathers, regeneration already at their fingertips.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…!”
“What was that?” Xander rasped, “—Why did you take so long…?” He added after a moment.
Xelqua paused. “It’s been twenty minutes,” they informed him gently.
“Oh.” It had felt longer.
“That was a memory,” Xelqua continued, regeneration pulsing stronger than it ever had, “It’s a side effect of their Sight—Watchers can project memories of what they’ve seen into the minds of others. It’s usually meant to share information. I couldn’t see what memory they showed you, but it must’ve been bad.”
“It was so real.”
“I know.” Xelqua stopped, hand shaking. “It always seems so real. But—you have to remember, okay? You have to remember what’s actually real. Those are memories. They’ve already happened. You can’t do anything about them.”
Xander nodded weakly and grabbed at Xelqua’s hand. Xelqua held it, and squeezed back. “That—I can’t tell if that was worse or not. But—thanks for saving my life there.”
“Of course.”
“Is that…? Are they gonna do that again next time?” It would hurt less. Right? His body would be fine. That would mean less pain.
Xelqua heaved a rough sigh. “Yes. Yeah, they’re planning to do it again next time. It’s—it’s that or anvils, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop them again.”
“It’s—okay. I can handle pictures. As long as I don’t die.”
“It—you—you need to remember, though.” Xelqua insisted, bringing their other hand up to clasp both over Xander’s in a tight grip, “Okay? It’s not real. You’re not there. Feel the bedrock, the way you can’t choose where you want to look. You can’t do anything. It’s already happened. Find a, an anchor. Something that would never be in a Watcher’s memory, something you know they’ve never seen.” Xisuma. They didn’t have him. They never would, Xander had made sure of it. “And I’ll be there between memories, okay? If you’re not sure, you look at me. Okay? Don’t say anything. Just—just look.”
Xelqua was making it sound bad, Xander thought. But they had no choice now. “Okay.”
“I’ll get you out, okay? I’m working on something. I’m gonna get you out.”
Xisuma, Xelqua, hope. Xander had three things to hold on to.
“Okay.”
Xander wasn’t sure why he’d been counting the visits in the first place, but he’d lost count now. It was visit Who Cares, and the Watchers came and showed him more memories of Voidwalkers being hunted down and dying and it sucked.
It just really sucked. A couple torn apart, tearfully reassuring each other in their last moments. Another family being hunted down, picked off one by one, this time with young children who watched their parents die for them. That one had been hard.
The third one, though, the final one was the worst. Another solitary Voidwalker, trapped in a cell like Xander, interrogated with the same steps as Xander had, begging to be let free. They mentioned a dead sister, so Xander was able to keep a grasp on reality, but it was so very easy to imagine Xisuma in that Voidwalker’s place. To imagine Xisuma in Xander’s place, alone and hurting and—
He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Xelqua for the entire session.
As much as Xisuma had been his anchor during the memories, Xelqua had been his anchor outside of them. They hadn’t been exaggerating when they had warned him about these memories, and he was anxious to thank them for it when they came to heal him this time. He may not have lasted otherwise.
But Xelqua never came.
Xander waited for hours. He was pretty sure it was actually hours this time. The standard slowness and mining fatigue had long since worn off. Xelqua had always come by now. They would be earlier some times over others, but never so late. Had something happened? Had they been caught? Maybe they were just busy.
“Xelqua…?” He whispered, hoping nobody else was around to hear. Deafening silence answered him. Maybe they were invisible? Or they just forgot to come. Would calling them even do anything?
Maybe Xelqua had decided not to come this time since he wasn’t actually injured and didn’t need healing. That could be it. Xander had gotten used to Xelqua appearing for a chat, but maybe it had always just been to heal him and now it wasn’t needed. Maybe he should just sleep the mental fatigue off like he did originally.
Or maybe he was already asleep. Those memories had been like dreams. Maybe they actually were, and Xander had made this whole thing up, and Xelqua wasn’t even real and Xander had made them up to deal with the crushing loneliness that came with being trapped in the empty Void with no one but your worst enemies for months with no escape—
Was Xelqua real? They had to be real, right? He wouldn’t make up something as crazy as a Player turned into a Watcher. A Player turned into a really short Watcher that didn’t come out quite right. Why would Xander imagine a really really small Watcher with feathered wings and more kindness than the average Player?
Feathers! That’s right! Xelqua said they’d left a feather here, right? If Xander could find the feather, that meant Xelqua had been real. Right?
Xander scrambled to the shadows at the back of the cell, scrabbling at the floor with numb hands. If it was all in his head, he wouldn’t be able to hold a feather. He wouldn’t be able to feel it. If he could just find the feather—
There! A barely visible outline, a spot just a bit darker than the rest. Xander snatched it up.
It was a feather. The same purple as Xelqua’s wings, the length of his palm and less than two fingers wide. It was small. It was real. Xander trailed a finger down the side, watching the purple ripple around his fingertip. It was real.
Xander curled around the feather, trapped in a bedrock cell in the middle of the endless Void, and focused on reality.
“Silence. We are approaching the questioning.”
“Why can’t you just tell me now, then? It’s not much! Just tell me why!”
Xander woke to voices, taking a moment to remember what was happening—Watchers. Questions. Memories, reality. A feather. He quickly checked to see if—yes, it was still there. The purple feather lay cupped between his hands, tucked under his chin. It was real. This was real.
“You are young. The answer is no.” The voices belonged to Watchers, and they were steadily growing louder. Xander wasn’t sure if he’d accidentally negated the hiding effect Xelqua had put on their feather by hiding it. If he put it back, would the Watchers see it? Did he even have time to put it back?
The voices came closer. Xander quickly shunted the feather into the limited inventory Voidwalkers were gifted with outside of worlds and servers and inched back towards the front of the cell, where he’d been when the Watchers left last time.
“You always say that! That doesn’t mean anything! Aren’t I supposed to learn? What’s a better way to learn than Watching a server I’m already familiar with? I would progress faster—”
Xander felt a thrill run down his spine. That was Xelqua’s voice! They were here! And alive, and real!
“Silence.”
Xelqua quieted.
“Voidwalker. Will you speak? Or will you watch yet more Voidwalkers die?”
Now that he knew Xelqua was fine, Xander was feeling a lot more confident. “Keep trying, you cliched bastards.” He grinned with full teeth.
The world dissolved before they even asked a question.
“Close your eyes, and it’ll all be over, okay son?”
“Dad?”
A Watcher loomed over the pair from behind. An End crystal exploded. Nothing remained.
The world dissolved.
“Why were you following us?”
“You’re a plagiarizing hack who can’t write rhymes without a thesaurus—” The world dissolved.
“Big brother?” Xander’s sneer faded. He looked down. “Big brother? I’m scared. What do we do?”
A boy looked up at him, eyes big and teary. He held a chipped stone sword that looked far too big in his hands.
Two hands reached to support the little ones holding the sword. Only one made contact. “We run.” Said a new voice, “We run and then when we can’t run anymore, we fight.”
“I’m not very good at running,” said the little boy doubtfully, “Or at fighting. What if we lose?”
“Then,” The other voice broke, “Then we lose. But we’ll lose together. It’ll be okay. Okay?”
“Okay!” The little boy smiled shyly, innocently, full of unquestioning love, “I trust you!”
“I’m—I’m glad,” Said the voice Xander couldn’t see, tremulously, “Let’s go.”
And Xander watched as two boys, one mere inches taller than the other, ran out the door of the ramshackle hut. The door closed, and for a moment there was nothing. Then, there was a flash of purple through the window and an ear-piercing wail that seemed to go on for eternity.
The world dissolved, and Xander went straight from horrified to incandescent.
“I hope you live in such horrendous boredom and torment that dissolving into the Code would be a mercy!!” He snarled, “The ones and zeroes that make up your being are more valuable as rotten flesh! One Player is worth more than your entire RACE! You could carpet the Universe with your flayed skins and it would STILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!!”
“Woah,” Xelqua observed, “What did you show th—it? That’s a pretty strong reaction.”
“Nothing particularly special.”
“Shove a spider leg down your throat,” Xander seethed, “The suffering and torture you insist on putting Voidwalkers through for your depraved, misled, self-centred idea of justice is despicable and abhorrent, but what’s even worse is that you think you can fool me with these low-res visions. What, are you not powerful enough to make it more convincing?”
“Well, something sure pissed it off.”
“Perhaps that means it was effective. We shall continue—” One raised a hand.
“Go ahead and try another daydream,” Xander challenged mockingly, struggling to sit up against the slowness and mining fatigue that always accompanied these visits, “See if that gets you anywhere. I’ll let you know right now that it won’t.”
“Hm. This has been the most effective by far, however…”
“Gonna hide behind a picture?” Xander was on his knees, “Too scared to do your own dirty work? It’s all fun and games until you have to actually do what you say you’ll do, huh?”
“You pissed it off a bit too much,” Xelqua observed, a hint of bitterness seeping through, “If physical punishment wasn’t working, and memories aren’t an option anymore, what’s left? You might have tripped up a bit, One. Why don’t we just leave it alone for a while and come back later, when it’s calmed down a little from your—hgkhh.”
Xander paused in his quest to stand. One had grasped Xelqua’s head from behind, similar to when it had done so before. This time, however, the clawed fingers curled aggressively around to dig into the mask in front, one finger fully circling Xelqua’s neck.
“You are young, Xelqua,” One repeated coldly, “You seem to understand Players perfectly, and yet lack the respect befitting a Watcher. Perhaps it is time for another lesson on why it is not so desirable to be a Player.”
The fingers tightened and, suddenly, slung Xelqua into the bars between Xander and the Watchers with a crash. The small Watcher tumbled to the floor with a thud, and Xander fell back onto his knees purely from the suddenness of it.
“It seems that this is ‘real’ enough for you, Voidwalker,” One intoned.
“What, I,” Xander sputtered, “That-that’s a Watcher, why would I care about—” Xelqua? He very much cared about them. But the Watchers wouldn’t know that. Why were they hurting one of their own?
“It is Player-shaped, is it not?” Xelqua, struggling up from the floor, crumpled back down into a heap. The familiar coloured hazes of weakness and poison shimmered into existence around them. “That is all you care about.”
“That’s not—”
An anvil appeared in the air. Xander followed the trajectory to see that it would land directly in the middle of one of Xelqua’s wings.
“So you see.” Said one of the Watchers. Xander wasn’t sure which.
“What—”
“Where do you come from?”
“I don’t—” BOOMMM. Xander jerked his gaze back from the Watchers to see the anvil, still in pristine condition despite having dropped to flatten Xelqua’s dull purple wing to the smooth bedrock floor. Anvils couldn’t be damaged in the Void, after all. Xelqua themself was still as stone, and Xander realized they hadn’t made a sound since One had grabbed them. He desperately hoped they were unconscious. It might have been a futile hope.
“Where are. Your kin.” Xander stared at the Watchers, One and Six, careful not to say anything yet. They were apparently very trigger happy right now—Xelqua must have said something that pissed them off. Xander had made sure to learn all the good, Watcher-specific insults though, and Xelqua hadn’t said anything that would normally set them off. Not like how Xander had been gleefully and furiously provoking them.
He would have to be careful here. He was pretty sure he was reading the way Xelqua spoke about the Watchers correctly, and that Xelqua would understand if Xander got another anvil or two dropped on them. They’d shown that they could heal quickly too—practically speaking, he should just continue as he had been and tell the Watchers off again.
But. But. The thing is, seeing Xelqua hurt, wing crushed and countless delicate bones likely shattered, made Xander pause. It put a very familiar panicky tightness in his chest that usually only came with the idea of Xisuma in danger. For the first time since being captured, Xander considered—not telling the truth, but providing something that the Watchers might actually believe.
If being a Player is to care when someone else is in pain, then Xander was nothing if not a Player.
Xander pointedly did not look at Xelqua, and turned to the Watchers. He opened his mouth to say—
And Xelqua hissed. It was not a loud hiss, but in the sucking silence of the Void it reached Xander’s ears like an explosion. The Watchers had no reaction; maybe they’d dismissed it as a whimper of pain, or maybe they just didn’t care at all. They never were good at listening. To Xander, though—Xander recognized it for what it was. He’d made the same sound enough times that it had weathered paths through his airways and etched the meaning into his bones. It was the sound of injustice, of determination, of fury, of being so righteously angry that all your insides boiled and the steam you couldn’t contain escaped through your teeth. It was a war cry.
So Xander said, “You could try for an eternity, and you would never earn the right to learn that information.”
BOOOMMM!!! Went a new anvil that Xander hadn’t even seen, landing solidly on Xelqua’s motionless legs. It echoed with a crunch and a metallic ringing, but the Void swallowed the sound far too soon for it to sound like the Watchers’ victory. Xander grinned with all his teeth.
“You will return when you have understood the lesson,” One instructed Xelqua, turning and leaving. Six followed like a lost puppy dog. Xander tried to keep his sniggering inaudible.
Then, he moved into a better sitting position and waited.
Eventually, the status effect hazes disappeared and Xelqua groaned tiredly. “That was so annoying.”
“You okay?” Xander, knowing it was safe to talk now, leaned back and ran his eyes over the broken wing critically.
“I have several broken bones,” Xelqua deadpanned, not lifting their face from the bedrock, “It’s fine. They’ll heal.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Pffhh, couldn’t be avoided,” Xelqua waved off, punctuated by the sound of a bone snapping back into place, “I was coming up on another ‘lesson’ for a while now, with the way I was pushing things.”
Pushing things? Was it for Xander? Or something else? “Is that… normal?”
Snap. Click click click. “Preeeetty much? Sometimes they do the memories instead.” Xander grimaced. The memory that had set him off, the two young brothers, still played in the back of his mind like an afterimage.
“That sucks.” Xander offered.
A scoff. “Sure does.”
They sat in silence for a while, Xelqua’s bones occasionally making little pops as they returned to their proper places and glued back together. At some point, Xander’s thoughts wandered to escape, and then past it.
“Where will you go after we get out?” He asked.
“Dunno,” Xelqua pondered, propping his chin up on his arms, “My old server isn’t really an option anymore, and my old Players have probably moved on to other things while I’ve been gone. Maybe I could join one of them, if they’ve found a new server? Or just chill on a solo world for a while.”
“You could try applying to my uh—friend’s server,” Xander offered contemplatively. He wasn’t about to mention having a brother here, even if the Watchers who were a threat couldn’t hear it. “I don’t control the whitelist, but I could put in a good word.”
“That’s—very kind of you,” Xelqua grunted, finally pushing themself up to sit. “We’ll, uh, we’ll see, I guess. Have to get out first. Speaking of—” Xander felt a familiar rush of regeneration, “You’ll need it. I gotta go.”
“Oh—okay.” Xander watched Xelqua as they stood up and staggered away, clearly not completely healed yet. Xander hadn’t really been injured this time around, though. It had just been Xelqua. All this extra regen was doing was bringing him to fully 100% healed. What had they meant by you’ll need it?
“Be careful.” Xander called belatedly, probably too quiet to hear. All he got in response was a huff, just loud enough to hear.
“Xander?” Xander looked up from his usual position staring off into the endless Void to see—more endless Void. For a second he’d thought maybe Xelqua was calling his name, but Xelqua was kind of hard to miss considering the flowing robes and eye-catching wings and general non-bedrock colour scheme. There was no Xelqua. There were no other Watchers, either. Had he imagined it?
“I’m outside the cell. Invis. Can you hear me?” Came the whisper again. Not imagining it. Good, he wasn’t up for a repeat of that just yet.
“Um. Yes…?” He squinted. Would that help with seeing through invisibility?
“Xander, you derp. It’s me. I got your message?” Message? But his messages hadn’t gone through. They had been directed to Xisuma, but—wait. They’d said derp. He knew that voice!
“X?” He whispered back, still hesitant to even say Xisuma’s name out loud.
“Yes, silly. I wish I could say I wasn’t surprised, but I am surprised. That this is the first time you’ve been caught. I don’t suppose this means you’ll stop now?” Yeah, that was definitely his brother. Xander felt a smile tug at his lips.
“No way. Let’s get out of here?”
A sigh. “Fine. Opening the door in three, two, one—!” Shnnk. The bars of Xander’s cell slid out of the floor and rose up to the ceiling, leaving the entire wall empty. Xander stood and waved a hand through the space. Nothing.
“Nice.” The confidence he’d gotten from that last interrogation bubbled up further, past his gut and through his heart and up his throat, pulling his face into a feral smirk. He was out. “Let’s go.” He said, and confidently left his cell to go—
“Now hold on just a second. Do you know where you’re going?” Uh. Xander pivoted to look in the general area in front of his cell.
“You wouldn’t happen to… know how to get out of the observatory?” He asked, trying really hard to keep his smirk on his face.
“Of course I do, you derp. How do you think I got in?” The air beside him said, ignoring the way Xander jumped a foot in the air in surprise. “And here.” The muffled chink of a splash potion being broken open, and the cold trickle of potion being poured over his head—Xander checked his hands and couldn’t see them.
“Thanks. Lead the way?”
“Sure. We’ll start by going the opposite direction from the way you were going.”
“Hey!”
Xander begrudgingly followed Xisuma through intersection after intersection lined with bedrock walls, marveling at the Watchers’ lack of creativity all the while. There were literally no other blocks in the entire observatory.
It seemed like they had built the place in a basic grid pattern too, which meant they didn’t have to worry about making too many turns. Each direction change meant Xisuma frantically whisper-shouting at Xander and swinging an arm around blindly to make sure Xander was still following. For a non-fighter, Xisuma had a strong arm. Xander could only manage getting winded like that so many times.
Eventually, though, they made it out of the observatory. Xander muttered at Xisuma to set up a portal to the Main Hub, which he started without question, and Xander turned to keep watch.
It was a good thing he had, too. Because not a minute later, when Xisuma was only halfway done the portal, a voice boomed through the Void: “THE VOIDWALKER IS NOT IN ITS CELL.”
Xander could easily recognize the Watcher magic forced into the words, sending the message straight into the heads of every being within range. The Void would have eaten the soundwaves within blocks if the message had just been shouted.
Either way, it meant their head start was over. Invisibility worked on Watchers as well as it would on a Player if the Watchers didn’t know you were there, like Xisuma. But if a Watcher was specifically looking for you, it would find you no matter what kinds of protection you had. He’d tried invisibility to fight a Watcher, once, and had rarely bothered since. You hit it once and suddenly all your potion effects are disabled.
Sure enough, Xander could feel his invisibility melting away. A few more seconds, and two Watchers had teleported to the outermost walls of the observatory. Another second and two more appeared.
Xander drew a quick barrier around them with a burst of Voidwalker magic and waited. “Keep going,” Xander murmured. Xisuma didn’t reply, but the sound of the typical Hub portal grew louder behind him.
Two more seconds, and Xelqua appeared before the Watchers, stumbling over their own legs mid-sprint. Right on time.
Xander had known they wouldn’t make a fully clean escape without being noticed. That wasn’t how it worked with Watchers, super-powerful beings named for how much they paid attention to things. However, that meant you could make them pay so much attention that they miss other things. Like, say, bringing your trainee pseudo-Watcher to the Voidwalker’s escape route and not noticing how easy that made it for said baby-Watcher to also use the escape route.
He was sure Xelqua would catch on. It would be close, the Watchers already closing in and Xander’s rough shield only enough to last one or two blows, but they could make it work. They were both so done with the Watchers, so ready to leave and never come back—
Xelqua turned around.
Xisuma was almost finished with the portal, Xander could feel the magic coming together like closing a circle. The Watchers were mere blocks away from his barrier, and that would barely stop them for a second. They needed to go now.
Xelqua was still facing the Watchers.
“We need to go, NOW!” Xander screamed at Xelqua, hoping it would carry far enough.
But at the same time, another broadcast came from one of the Watchers: “YOU WILL FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR THIS DISRESPECT, XELQUA.”
“I’ve wanted to do this for just, such a long time,” came the broadcasted response, from a noticeably milder voice. Then, turning and screaming in a painfully Player way, Xelqua shouted back to Xander, “I can’t go through portals! You were the only one who could ever leave this way! GO!!”
Then Xelqua whirled back to face the Watchers again, and Xander stood frozen in uncomprehending horror. He barely even noticed Xisuma grabbing him by the collar of his armor and dragging him through the portal—he was far too focused on the sight of four Watchers looming over a very small Player, glowing almost-but-not-quite the same colour as a Voidwalker.
…Well. There were many important decisions to be made here.
Like if Xander was going to build a base on Hermitcraft. Or if he was just going to set up in a little hole in the dirt, hidden from Xisuma’s intimidatingly-talented Hermits, and prank them all twice over and then leave. Like if Xander wanted to interact with any kind of sentient life in the next month or if he just wanted to hide in the woods with a couple of dogs. Like if Xander was going to stop thinking about it.
“I might stick around for a bit,” Xander had told Xisuma, after they’d escaped to the Main Hub and then retreated to Hermitcraft. And after Xander had blown up at his brother for pulling him to safety without Xelqua. And then after Xander had actually stopped to think about things and realized that Xelqua definitely had said that they couldn’t go through portals and Xander was just an idiot. And then after Xander had apologized to Xisuma for yelling at him.
Basically, Xander was going to stay on Hermitcraft for a while. Because unfortunately, being captured and imprisoned and tortured and isolated by your worst enemies had consequences. It was all very inconvenient, but given that Xander couldn’t go a day without checking on his brother (at first it had been every twenty minutes, and thank the Void that hadn’t lasted) this was just easier.
Now if only he could do literally anything without thinking about Xelqua.
Did Xelqua get to drink regeneration potions or were they stuck using the Watcher-induced beacon effect? Was Xelqua able to eat or drink anymore or was that no longer possible as a Watcher? Did Xelqua remember how to punch a tree down like a Player?
Were they suffering the consequences for saving Xander and Xisuma? Were they still alive, or had the Watchers finally had enough with their little experiment? Had Xander doomed Xelqua to death or worse just because he hadn’t wanted to die himself?
Fun little questions that all inquiring minds wanted to know! Because Xander was on Hermitcraft, and Xelqua was still out in the unforgiving Void, at the vicious whims of genocidal maniacs.
He’d remembered their conversations once he’d calmed down from the escape: Xelqua couldn’t teleport or use portals. Even after uselessly worrying at the problem for hours instead of sleeping, Xander hadn’t been able to come up with anything that could have both gotten Xelqua away from the Watchers and safely kept them away for good. They’d been right when they’d said only Xander could escape, and Xander hated it.
Sighing, Xander took out the dull purple feather sitting in his hotbar and twirled it between two fingertips. He’d taken it out before, on the insane hope that maybe Xelqua would feel it and transport themself to their feather, but nothing had happened. It had been a week since the escape. Xelqua wasn’t coming.
Xander stooped and placed the feather on a carefully lain carpet beneath a nice tree, protected from the elements. Even if it wasn’t an escape route, it could still serve as a memory to Xelqua.
Xander turned and left. Behind him, he could hear the fizzling static of a growing glitch. He’d have to let Xisuma know.
But after that, he had some mining to do.
Notes:
huh I wonder who told them that Players care when someone else is in pain
Anyways the hardest part of this chapter was finding thematically appropriate insults to throw at the Watchers, please appreciate Xander's ingenuity
Derealization summary: when Xelqua convinces the Watchers to try something else, they show Xander visions of Voidwalkers being slaughtered by Watchers. Xelqua later explains that these are the Watchers' memories that they can project into others' minds, an ability originally meant for communication. After a second session of visions, Xander waits for Xelqua to appear but this time they don't show, and Xander starts to wonder if Xelqua had just been a hallucination all along. Luckily he remembers the feather Xelqua uses to travel to his cell, and finds it as physical proof that Xelqua was real. He hides it in his inventory. The Watchers try using the visions a third time, but one vision, featuring two brothers, pushes Xander over the edge.
Chapter Text
In the earliest days of the earliest days, before the Universe had created worlds, before it had gently sifted through the fabric of its own being and assembled together the first Players, there were the custodians of the code. Nameless beings, they guided the code into place as the Universe wished and eased the transitions between changes.
But then the Universe created Players. Some of the custodians saw the Players and scoffed, thinking themselves above those Players. They abused their ability to manipulate the code, toying with the Players and doing as they pleased. The Universe called them to return to their duties, but the prideful custodians ignored it and continued their games.
For this, the Universe abandoned them. And so those custodians who chose to turn their backs on the Universe were called Watchers, for they thought Players to be nothing but entertainment to watch. And those who remained were called Listeners, for they had listened when the Universe said to the Players: I love you.
Or at least, that’s how Players knew the story. When the Watchers had told him the story, it had sounded a lot more like we were just minding our business and then the Universe suddenly dumped us for no reason >:(.
As someone who has known both the love of the Universe and the tender attentive care of the Watchers, Grian could confidently say he would side with the Universe on this one. In the current moment, Voidwalker prisoner safely through the portal and out of the Watchers’ range, Grian could also confidently say that he was about to participate in a hands-on demonstration of why.
“XELQUA.”
Grian scrunched his whole face up in a wince. (Probably. He couldn’t quite feel his face properly these days, what with the mask. Some days he wasn’t sure if he had a face at all, anymore.) “Thaaat’s me?” He hedged. Would innocently batting his eyes help? Did he still have eyelids?
“YOU HAVE TAKEN DIRECT ACTION AGAINST US. YOU HAVE ALLOWED THE VOIDWALKER TO ESCAPE.”
“That, uh, yeah, it sure looks like that, huh?” Grian managed, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking. It would really ruin the kind of vibe (not guilty) he was trying to give off here.
“Xelqua,” One repeated, speaking normally again, “Just as you were Player-shaped enough to evoke sympathy from the Voidwalker, perhaps you are still so attached to your past Playerhood that you retain sympathy for Players. We will rectify this.”
The fear was probably still messing with his brain, because Grian was struggling more than usual to interpret One’s weird pompous speech patterns. “Um. What?”
“A reminder that you must act with respect, Xelqua,” One reprimanded tonelessly, then, also tonelessly: “We will remove your attachments to your past. It is long overdue.”
“UM. WHAT? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN.” Grian said, clearly understanding perfectly. One must have thought so, at least, because it reached down with one huge hand and clasped it over Grian’s face. He might have made some kind of movement, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He’d tried before—all the Watchers were surprisingly fast for being like twice his size.
Grian hated when they did this, grabbing him by the head and forcing him to Watch. It took away almost all of his control, directing his entire brain to Watching and away from things like feeling and having control over his own body. If Grian fought hard enough, he could get just enough leeway to breathe and maybe speak a word or two.
(He wasn’t sure if he needed to breathe anymore. He wasn’t about to try to find out.)
He would honestly prefer the memories to this kind of Watching. Despite his completely reasonable concerns, however, his Sight continued to zoom off into the distance and away from his body.
Grian’s vision zipped past world after server after world, blurring through the millions of stars in between and making him dizzy with the light show. One guided his Sight with a focused intent, not pausing once along the way like they would during his ‘lessons’. Eventually, the journey skidded to a halt in front of a very familiar world.
It looked the same as the last time he’d seen it, if much more crumbled and tattered at the edges. Evo.
He’d only ever looked over this world of his from the outside once before. It was a view only a Watcher could see, and the first time, he’d been overwhelmed in awe. Now? He was used to it.
The Watchers had shown him this sight in hopes of persuading him to join them, but he’d only accepted after they’d agreed to rescue Grian’s Players from Evo’s deteriorating code. Three and Four had been off delivering them to a safer location for a while now. But while Evo was nostalgic to him, his real home was with the Players who had lived in it with him.
If the Watchers thought Evo was what attached him to his so-called ‘Player sentiments’, then Grian wasn’t about to tell them otherwise.
But then Grian’s sight was zoomed in further, plunging through the clouds and down to the dirt and stone below, finally landing at an unfamiliar clearing surrounded by trees. And there, in the one place where they were not supposed to be, were the Players of Evo.
“W…hat?” Grian managed, horrified. Had they decided to come back for some reason? He’d made sure that they all knew that the Watchers’ interference had started pulling the server apart at the seams and keeping them from logging out normally. The dragon fight had been his last ditch effort at finding a way to leave. They knew it wasn’t safe, and Three and Four would have told them where Grian had gone so they wouldn’t miss him. There was no reason for them to want to come back.
And yet his Players were cautiously filtering out of the trees, Martyn leading the charge with a wary look on his face. They all looked unsure, but there was no nostalgic or lost tint to it that should have come with not seeing a place for a while, new as the location may be. Instead, Grian was strangely reminded of the times they’d go to investigate the Watchers’ clues together.
Frozen in confusion and the iron-clad grip One had on his consciousness, Grian Watched as the Players gathered into a circle in the center—watching each others’ backs like always. Grian missed it.
More wary looks were shared between them, before Martyn finally called out. Or it looked like he had. The technique One was using on him was meant to guide a fellow Watcher to focus on a point of interest, and then the Watcher could tune in to the sound and everything else through their own skill. Grian had eventually learned how to do that, through lots of trial and error and flexing muscles that shouldn’t have existed and One and Two telling him to ‘just do it’, but he was still weak at it. And of course he couldn’t do it when One was holding him down with heavy, unwavering mental claws.
So the Players’ shouts of surprise didn’t reach his ears when Three and Four appeared inside their circle. Neither did the announcement Three made when it raised an imperious hand. But when the Players’ eyes all widened in terror in the same breath, he knew what was happening.
No.
A few hasty signals, and the Players all scattered in different directions as the world started to shake.
No.
The ground trembled and cracked apart, creating a wide ravine and toppling trees into the darkness within. The dirt and stone on either side crumbled inward, and a bright blue blob went with it. Jimmy.
“Nno…” He wheezed.
More trees collapsed. More cracks tore open the earth. Grian’s vision was zoomed out to show the more familiar parts of the Evo server, and he Watched as buildings splintered and crumpled like a child had crushed them between their clumsy fists. Water cascaded into dark pitfalls, and broken debris flowed in with it.
But most importantly.
“No!”
Most importantly. His friends, his Players, the ones he had promised safety and care. One by one by one, crushed by falling blocks or tossed carelessly into the opening Void below, they disappeared. Dead. Gone.
“NOOO…!”
They’d lied. They’d said that his Players were safe, that they were away from Evo and all its dangers and would never see those perils ever again. They’d said if Grian went with them then his Players would live and thrive and once again be fearless, that Grian would no longer have to worry endlessly that each day would be their last.
The Watchers had promised. They’d promised.
But they never did keep their promises, did they?
They’d promised Grian that they wouldn’t hurt him. That he would enjoy his time with the Watchers, and he would do only what he wished to. But the moment he’d agreed to join them it had given them access to his code, and they’d torn it apart like starving wolves. It had been the worst pain he had ever felt, and even just the memory of it burned.
They’d promised he would become powerful beyond his own comprehension, and yet he spent every day feeling smaller and weaker and pulled tighter and tighter apart under the overbearing demands of what were supposedly his peers.
They’d promised that Watchers were so powerful that they could move his Players to a new server in a mere instant, and yet he had somehow believed them when Three and Four had told him things were taking longer than expected. They’d been gone for what must have been months.
Maybe he should have caught on sooner.
“...no…” Grian managed, one last time. It was nothing but a thready whisper, and Grian wondered if it was because he was out of breath, or out of strength. When was the last time he’d breathed? Did it matter? Did he even deserve to keep trying?
After what felt like another eternity, One released Grian’s Sight. His vision returned to endless bedrock, and his body collapsed to the smooth floor. There was no use holding it up. What was the point?
“Return when you are able to continue your lessons appropriately.” One commanded above him. At some point they all must have left—none of the Watchers had ever had much patience for Grian’s Player-ness. And at some point Grian must have started breathing again, because for a long while it was all he could focus on.
Maybe it had all been fake. Maybe Grian hadn’t just watched all his friends be crushed beneath the very world they had created together. Maybe the feeling of being forced to Watch had been a product of his imagination, and it had really just been one of the memories the Watchers so loved to show him. Maybe it was all a lie and this was just another promise the Watchers had failed to keep.
But. Just like he’d told the Voidwalker, when they were all stuttered breaths and trembling limbs after their first memory, the Watchers could only show what they had already seen. Everything had already happened. There was nothing that could be done.
Real or not, his friends were dead, and he hadn’t been able to do anything but Watch.
…What could he possibly do now? He had joined the Watchers for his friends, and when he’d realized he couldn’t leave, he’d clung to the knowledge that they were safe now. But his friends were all gone now, and Grian was still here. He’d tried every way he could think of, and the Watchers had locked him out of every possible escape method. He was trapped between bedrock and an endless, open Void that should have been his to command, had the Watchers kept their promises. Was he just doomed to exist here forever?
Time passed. It could have seconds or days or years, and Grian wouldn’t have known. He laid there and breathed, and thought and tried not to think, and cried and tried not to cry.
One of the first things Grian had learned, after he’d joined the Watchers, was that Watchers didn’t feel the need to express emotion. As beings of pure code, they were physically incapable of it. They could not cry.
Grian wasn’t a Watcher. But he also wasn’t not a Watcher. He didn’t know if he could truly weep anymore. Maybe he could. He wouldn’t know. He was too numb to feel if tears were streaming down the face he might not have anymore.
All he could feel was bedrock and breathing.
At some point in the middle of that blank forever, though, there was a tiny pinprick of light. A small, small speck of his own presence flickering into existence like the dying embers of a torch coming back to life.
Somewhere on the other side of the Universe, there was a little part of Grian. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know where. He couldn’t gather the energy to wonder how. But it was somewhere that wasn’t here, with Watchers and bedrock and torture and death and dull, dark pain.
So Grian went.
Between one blink and the next, he no longer existed in the Watchers’ compound. All of him joined to be in one place. It was euphoric, in a surging, bright way that contained no happiness. There was light, and a distinct lack of brain-dizzying bedrock. For a moment, he felt light. Airy.
And then there was pain. Ah, so it was waiting for him on the other side too. Maybe he should have questioned it after all.
Still worth it.
Grian felt fuzzy around the edges, even outside of the all-encompassing pain, and after a couple tests he was rather certain he couldn’t move. But he could still look. And Void, he might not have seen anything so beautiful before.
Lush, green grass. Bright, shining sun. Towering trees that rustled in the same wind that pushed along the clouds in the open sky. It was daytime, wherever he was. Maybe there would even be mobs when it got dark! Was he perhaps on a survival world? Maybe a creative one? Oh, even if he couldn’t move he was so excited to see a real world again!
Real worlds had more than just Watchers. Real worlds were what Grian loved. The wandering, the exploring, the finding and creating. The building and eating and dancing and living freely. The only bedrock was buried deep underground, and the Players were alive. Like those ones over there.
Ah, there really were Players over there. Huh. Were they getting closer?
“—elqua!” One of them shouted out, Grian’s hearing cutting in and out in time with his vision and the pulsing of his soul, “—re you rea—y here!?”
Grian’s code was really struggling to hold together right now, and it was starting to get worse. Hmm, he might not be able to stay like this, no matter how much he might like to. It felt like his soul was shuddering in and out of existence. Very inconvenient, especially for hearing things right now.
“Hol—on!” Then, quieter, “—suma, why—like thi—?”
“—on’t kno—” Said the other one, Grian assumed, since they were both wearing helmets that covered their faces. Their voices sounded a little different at least.
Then one of the armoured figures opened a window into the raw Universe—an admin screen—and started fiddling. An admin, or perhaps a moderator. They’d probably been attracted by Grian registering as some kind of glitch.
Grian wasn’t a huge fan of being the center of attention. If he could feel anything other than pain right now, he’d probably be feeling rather nervous. He wasn’t particularly interested in being sent back to the Watchers. Could they even send him back? Was that something they could do? Maybe they would just ban him out into the void. Either way, not too fun.
Also, his vision was getting worse. That might be a bad sign.
“Ah—it!” His hearing was getting worse, too. Figures.
Snap.
“He was blacklisted, for some reason,” Came a voice, suddenly clear, “But it wasn’t by me. It looked almost automated. I couldn’t imagine how that would happen.”
Grian, some seconds late, catapulted back into his own body. Oh Void, was this what having sensations felt like? Multiple sounds and feelings at once? Eugh, he was not used to this. Limbs? What were limbs. How did he move them. Were they supposed to move?
“Xelqua? Can you hear me?” Oh that was loud. He could definitely hear again. Unwittingly, Grian let out a strangled groan. Everything still kind of hurt, even if it was like a lingering shadow of what it had been before.
“Okay, I’m assuming that was a yes. Are you hurt? What’s going on? Why are you finally here? What do I do, uhh—”
“—Here,” One of them interrupted the other, “Let’s get them inside, they can lie down on a bed and not the dirt, and you can sit down instead of near collapsing where you’re standing.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. Xelqua, it’s nice to meet you. Is it alright if I help you up here?” Grian huff-groaned. He didn’t wanna move yet. “Hopefully that’s a yes, and you can tell me off once you can speak if it wasn’t. Up we go!”
The world tilted. Wow that was a lot of colours. It would be very pretty if Grian wasn’t still adjusting to being corporeal in a world with more than just bedrock. Wasn’t focusing a thing? He should focus. With his eyeballs. He still had those, right?
“Xander, a little help here?”
“Oh! Right!” Oop, more world tilting. Very fun. Very—oooh they were moving, that was a lot of motion. Okay. Grian would like to kindly suggest that they not do that anymore.
His suggestion came out as a pained whimper. Not helpful.
“It’s alright, almost there.” Not the point! Where were they going, anyways? Why were they even moving him—Ah, darkness, his old friend. How Grian had missed it.
The world came back into focus in pieces. A door squeaked closed behind him, and Grian was lowered clumsily onto a soft bed. The room wasn’t quite dark but dimly lit, especially compared to the sky outside. It was wonderful.
“Xelqua?” Right. There were people here. Social interaction—not so wonderful right now.
“Y-yeah,” Grian managed, “Where…?”
“This is, uh, Hermitcraft. My friend’s server I mentioned.” That did sound vaguely familiar, but there were a few other things Grian was more concerned with.
“How—did I,” Grian coughed, “How did I get here?”
“I, ah, accidentally brought one of your feathers with me when I left. I left it out so you could teleport to it if you wanted to. Did something happen? Why did you take so long?” Haha. Something sure did happen, alright. But—Grian tilted his head suspiciously. Those helmets really did look familiar. And he’d only ever told one person about his feather teleporting thing…
“I couldn’t really tell the colour in the Void—is one of you the sad sassy Voidwalker?” He blurted out.
The green one barked a laugh. The red one, though— “‘Sad sassy Voidwalker!?’” They sputtered, putting their hands on their hips, “I was not sad! Why wouldn’t you just call me by my name?”
Grian’s throat bubbled up with amusement. “Why didn’t you just call me by my name? Instead of calling me short. Besides, you were so sad. And I don’t know your name.”
More sputtering. “You are short! I was perfectly justified. And why wouldn’t you know my name?”
“...Because you never told me what it was?”
“...Didn’t I?”
“...No?”
A pause. Silence, if you ignored Green’s chuckles in the background.
“...Well. I’m Xander. Nice to meet you again, Xelqua.” Xander said confidently, like the timing of the introduction was totally on purpose and they hadn’t just forgotten for weeks.
“Hi Xander, nice to meet you outside of a cell.” Grian took in the sight of his maybe friend standing in front of him, alive and distinctly not dead or deleted. “And my name’s not Xelqua, it’s Grian. Xelqua’s just what they called me.”
Xander stilled, processing. Then, “You never told me YOUR name either!”
Grian laughed for the first time in a long time.
Grian had fallen asleep shortly after, the adrenaline rush and the glitching and all the events before that catching up to him. He’d tried desperately to stay awake, but had only lasted long enough for Xander to finish introducing himself and his brother Xisuma, and for Xisuma to tell Grian that he was safe to stay on their server. Grian wasn’t sure how long that promise would last, but it was much more likely to be kept than the Watchers’ promises, and he was happy with that for now. He could figure out the rest later.
When he woke up again, he could have cried with the knowledge that it hadn’t all been a dream. Feel the bedrock beneath you, he’d told Xander back then, remember that this isn’t real. But all he could feel beneath him now was the softest bed he’d ever been in.
There was no bedrock in sight. Only wood plank walls dimly lit by a couple of nearby torches, a chest to one side, a door in the corner of the room. No cell bars. No tortured Voidwalker. No imperious Watchers standing silently, Watching, waiting for Grian to mess up again. No strained ache from anxious, secret naps snatched between lessons because Watchers do not sleep, Xelqua. Only quiet, syrupy contentment.
Grian felt like smiling.
After a few long moments of stillness, Grian carefully levered himself up to sit. The world was quiet save for the rustling of bedsheets and his own breathing. He was breathing. That was a good sign.
He was here. On a server. Not in the Void. He smoothed his palms over plain white sheets wonderingly, feeling the fabric wrinkle under his gloved hands. He was in a bed. And he was allowed to be.
Grian sat and marveled for as long as he could. Alas, he was never one to stay still, and if he was allowed to move then he would be going everywhere he could possibly get into. No nook or cranny was safe from him. Carefully padding across the little room, through the door, down the hall and—aha! There was his sad sassy Voidwalker friend!
“Aha!” Grian repeated, out loud. “I found you!”
“Oh!” Xander, standing in the middle of a barren room and peering into a shulker box, gave a full-body flinch visible even through his armor. Grian felt a curl of amusement swirl through him. “You’re awake! How are—are you doing better now?”
“I’m doing much better now.” Grian told him, entirely sincere.
“That’s good.”
Silence. Grian stood as casually as he could, taking in the little house he found himself in. Very basic—wood planks, torches, the occasional glass window punched into the wall. Maybe it was still early in the game for Xander, given that he’d just escaped. Or maybe he just wasn’t a builder. Grian wouldn’t judge!
Eventually, though, he got tired of the quiet. Grian wasn’t quite sure what to say, even though there was surely much to be said about everything he and Xander had just been through. And Xander didn’t seem ready to talk either, given the Voidwalker had just been standing there and fiddling with his hands. A change of topic, then? Oh no, did Grian remember how to have conversations?
“...This is rather awkward.” Grian eventually managed, turning his head to face more of the house. Behind him, he could see Xander’s shoulders slump. Grian’s wings twitched in return. Ah, he’s just made things worse, hasn’t he?
“Yeah, there’s no good way to go about this,” Xander mourned, before straightening up. “Just… I want you to know that you’re safe here, okay?” Ah, so they were going to talk about it. “Xisuma takes good care of his server, it’s fully Watcher-proof and everything, and he’s said you’re free to stay as long as you need to. We both know how the Watchers are.”
Grian felt like smiling again. He wasn’t really sure where he would go after this. As much as he hadn’t wanted to stay with the Watchers, he’d never really expected to escape them either. Funny how that worked. But it was very generous of Xander and his brother to welcome him in, he was perfectly happy to stay for a while, and “‘Watcher-proof?’ How did you do that? I thought I’d tried everything back on—I didn’t think it was possible!”
It was like he’d flipped a lever that drained away all the awkwardness in the room. Even with all the armor on, Xander managed to look like he’d perked up. Ah, he knew that look. Grian had befriended yet another nerd. “It’s pretty simple actually—! Well, in theory. Once you get a hold of a Watcher’s code, you can design a defense to specifically counteract it.” He said, like that wasn’t absolutely insane. “Of course, that depends on getting a look at a Watcher’s code, which can be pretty difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Maybe the awkwardness should have stayed. Would that be better than learning his new friend was crazy? Perhaps Grian hadn’t heard properly. “You sound like you… see Watchers often?” Why would you want to do that. Then he realized, “Is that why they caught you? You were trying to hunt down another Watcher?”
“Ye—”
He interrupted with a much more important question— “Wait—Why?”
Why would you hunt down the super-powerful beings that could see everything? When you knew they had more than enough power to destroy you, torture you, hunt down everything you know and love and obliterate it just to make a meaningless point—?
“Grian.” Xander’s voice became serious, cutting through the panic Grian hadn’t noticed. Grian sucked in a surprised breath and nearly choked on it.
“They hate Voidwalkers—” Grian tried, not sure what point he was trying to make.
“I know.” Xander stopped him, gentle and firm. He took a step forward, “And I hate them right back. When they showed me those memories, the ones you had to snap me out of, they showed me the Voidwalkers they’d killed. Over and over again, slaughter after slaughter. I know they hunt down all the Voidwalkers they can out of some petty grudge over something we didn’t even do. My brother and I are the only Voidwalkers we know of. I’ve never met any others, because the Watchers killed them all.”
Xander took another step forward, and Grian had to tilt his head up to face him. Xander was taller than he’d thought. Maybe that was why he thought Grian was short.
“There are no new Watchers,” Xander said, and Grian knew it was true. He was living proof of it. “Every Watcher that dissolves back into the code means one less Watcher out there slaughtering innocent Players, and that’s nothing but a good thing. So I find them, and I kill them. This time was an exception. I can handle myself, I promise.”
Grian wasn’t sure how to feel. A Player that killed Watchers and averted hundreds of possible Player deletions every time sounded like a hero. Void knows Grian would have appreciated someone coming to rescue them when the Watchers were knocking around the Evo server like a dog with a bone. And it wasn’t like killing Watchers was even wrong in any way. They were shapeless clusters of code draped in robes and narcissism, and they couldn’t even feel pain or emotional suffering. The Universe had abandoned them in a way it hadn’t any other being, which meant that even the Universe, which made up all things, couldn’t find a shred of potential goodness in a single one of them.
But there was still that hint of fear prickling at him. Maybe it was because Xander could have mistaken Grian for a Watcher and killed him instead, and all of his surviving for so long would have been for nothing. Maybe it was because Xander could have been discovered much earlier, and nobody would have been caught and held in a place where Grian could meet them and regain a glimmer of hope. Maybe it was just because it was Watchers.
Watchers, Watchers, Watchers haunted Grian’s every step and overshadowed every decision he made. Every idea he thought in his mind was tainted by a fear of the Watchers.
What had they done to him?
“But you got caught, this time.” Grian managed eventually, probably looking like a weirdo just staring at Xander for minutes on end.
“And it was a fluke. It won’t happen again.” Xander said firmly, before trying with a lighter tone, “And besides, I think there were only so many because they were guarding you. I’ve never seen a group larger than five before, and even that was rare. How many even were there? Six? Seven?”
“I didn’t feel special.” Grian muttered bitterly, then, “There were six. Seven, if you include me. Nobody did. Three and Four were away, though, so there were only four there. Only reason I was able to hold them off at all.” He’d only managed to slow the Watchers down for a few seconds as Xander and Xisuma escaped, using his limited abilities to pile status effects on them the same way the Watchers had tortured Xander. In hindsight, it was a pretty little bit of irony.
“Well I’m glad you did.” Xander raised a hand hesitantly, and when Giran tilted his head in a nod he dropped it on Grian’s shoulder. “Thanks for that, by the way. Thank you for getting me out. It might as well have saved my life, getting me out when you did.”
“Of course.” Grian replied, fervently and more genuinely than Xander seemed to understand.
“Welp!” Xander patted his shoulder once, then turned to walk off to another room, waving him to follow. “I have no clue what time of day it is, but there’s always time for breakfast. How do you feel about some food?”
“I would love some food!” Grian enthused, trotting after Xander, “I haven’t eaten in months!”
(“You were joking, right?” Xander asked later over pancakes, “About not eating for months?”
“Of course I was,” Grian waved off, “Wheat grows really well on bedrock, didn’t you know?”
“...No it doesn’t,” Xander returned dubiously. Then, “Does it actually?”
Grian laughed and didn’t answer.)
Notes:
every time I put in an exclamation I have to wrestle "what in the thickest sunday gravy" back into its box. it haunts me. help
Chapter 4: Get it back
Notes:
Chapter-specific warnings: past non-consensual body modification
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Grian stayed with Xander in the little wood house. He wasn’t sure how long he had been on the Hermitcraft server, since someone kept skipping the nights before they even started, but he slept when he felt tired and ate when he felt hungry and it was the best he’d felt in a long time.
Xisuma came over again at some point, and Grian learned that he and Xander were twins. Xisuma had made the house for Xander in a rush when they’d returned from the Watchers’ compound because ‘he wasn’t going to live in a dirt box if I had anything to say about it!’. Xander had been hilariously offended and Grian resolved to offend him more often if this was the result.
The visit was a nice change of pace, and of course it was lovely getting to know the admin of the place where he was staying, but even with the entirely new world Grian was starting to get antsy. He managed it well enough, fiddling with Xander’s spare things and admiring the view out of the many little windows in the house. Eventually, though, Xander caught him fidgeting with his hands with nothing to do.
“Those are gloves?” Xander asked, watching Grian pull and twist at the fabric covering his knuckles.
“Mhmm,” Grian confirmed, tugging at a pointed fingertip.
“The Watchers don’t wear gloves, though,” He sounded confused, and Grian tried not to think too hard about why Xander knew that, “Why did they make you wear them?”
“Another hiding being a Player thing, I suppose,” Grian shrugged. Why did they make him do anything? He wouldn’t know. “Was just part of the outfit. I didn’t bother asking.” He’d had other priorities.
“Fair enough,” Xander conceded, tilting his head to look at the draping robes. There was a long pause, and then, “Can you take all your clothes off?” Grian’s hands froze mid-fidget, and he slowly tilted his head to give Xander the best version of a side eye he could manage without a visible face. “I—no, like—like are you physically capable of removing them because I thought they were just kinda part of your body…?”
“Why would they be—yes of course my clothes are not part of my body.” Grian watched Xander incredulously as the man stuttered. Apparently he didn’t even need to try to mess with Xander, because the Voidwalker would just do it to himself. What was happening right now?
“Well I would have offered sooner if I’d known, sorry, but would you want to take them off?” Xander asked casually, recovering quickly from his previous embarrassment when, considering what had just come out of his mouth, he really didn’t deserve to.
“You are not helping your case here, buddy.” Grian crossed his arms, judging side-eye posture intensifying. “Why would I take all my clothes off?”
“It—no!” Xander immediately returned to being flustered. Grian watched in amusement as he started to wave his hands wildly, trying to explain, “I-I meant, replace them. Take your current clothes off and put on new ones. Because you can do that. And because your current clothes are kind of—uh…” Watcher-y? Pretentious? Excessive? Incredibly inconvenient? “...purple?”
Well, that too, Grian supposed. His Watcher robes were very purple. Entirely purple, in fact. There was no other colour on them.
There was a long pause where Grian just sat there, letting Xander squirm. Then: “It’s not my favourite, no,” Grian agreed slowly, graciously letting Xander off the hook. For now. He flicked distastefully at a decorative little dangly bit, and then pushed his long sleeve back out of the way when the movement unfolded it. “But I’m not sure what I would change it to? I don’t really have anything—”
“—Oh, that’s fine.” Xander dismissed, jumping to dig through a nearby chest, “There’re a bunch of Hermits who would happily make you something to get you out of that monstrosity.”
“…Thanks?” Grian said, not sure if he should be offended. Even if he hadn’t chosen to wear said monstrosity, it still felt like a judgement of his taste. Maybe he should change soon, after all. He didn’t want people thinking he liked wearing something like this. It would ruin his reputation. If he had one.
Maybe he should get a reputation.
“Okay!” Grian jumped as Xander slammed the chest closed with a bang. “Let’s go!” Xander marched purposefully out the door with no explanation. Grian, with absolutely nothing better to do, pulled his wings in to fit through the door and followed him.
They walked for a few minutes, Xander striding forwards with intent. Grian trailed after, fiddling with his overlong sleeves and listening to his robes shff, shff, shff against the grass as they dragged over the ground. The sun shone bright through the trees, the sky was a vast blue full of fluffy white clouds, the wind rustled through the long grass. It was a beautiful day—but Grian thought that he would be just as happy if it had been thunderstorming instead.
This was his first time outside on the server, actually, after the initial glitch that had landed him on Hermitcraft and gotten him carried into Xander’s guest bedroom. He’d tried going out after he’d regained enough energy to stay awake for more than an hour at a time, but something about the line between sturdy wood planks to soft grass had felt like a solid wall. He didn’t really have anywhere to go, after all. Nobody was expecting him. What was the point of leaving the house? It was a perfectly good house.
But with Xander, Grian hadn’t even noticed that he was going through the door.
“So where are we going?” Grian asked, still placidly following along.
Xander didn’t stop for a second. “We! …are going to Xisuma’s because I don’t know where to get clothing here.” He announced, abruptly taking a sharp right turn into the forest. Grian snickered under his breath and turned to follow, only tripping on his robes a little bit when they bunched up under his feet.
“Where did you get your clothes, then? I’ve never seen armor like that. Is it modded?” Grian asked, flapping a sleeve at Xander’s dramatic red armor.
“Me and Xisuma make them, actually.” Xander explained. Grian tilted his head, surprised. “These are a spare set I’d left with him when I went off and got caught, so I didn’t need to spend forever fixing up the old set before I could breathe again. Those ones were… a little worn out.” The anvils hadn’t been kind to it, Grian remembered.
“I didn’t really think you were the type to make your own clothes,” Grian mused, ignoring Xander’s affronted ‘what’s that supposed to mean!?’ “But what’s this about breathing?” He asked, taking a big gulp of air after just in case he’d been forgetting to breathe himself.
Xander’s steps stuttered for a moment before continuing on steadily. “Right, you don’t know anything about Voidwalkers. We’re called that because we have some level of power over the Void—we can travel through it on our own without help, and we don’t have to worry about too much exposure or anything. But that’s because worlds used to be much more connected to the Void. It was just everyday life for us. Now, though,” Xander swept both arms out, as if showing off the trees around them, “Now the worlds are kept separate from the Void. The air is thicker, the sky is brighter, and the bedrock—” Grian twitched for some reason, “—is supposedly unbreakable. Meant to keep worlds apart. And Voidwalkers aren’t built for that.”
“...So the air is too thick?” Grian asked when Xander didn’t continue.
Xander spun around to point at him. “Exactly, my friend!” Then, spinning back around to point that finger ahead of them, “And we have arrived! Perfect timing if I must say so myself!”
“...It’s just trees.” Nice trees, auto-generated trees, but trees nonetheless.
“It’s—hold on it’s just a bit further—” Xander speedwalked further into the trees, and Grian tried not to think too hard about the warmth in his chest at being called my friend.
Grian had actually seen more than just trees where Xander had been pointing, and in short order they had found and gotten lost in what Xander swore was Xisuma’s base. Which he lived in? It didn’t look particularly homey.
Regardless, Xander seemed to be a professional at finding his brother, and deftly fixed the problem by yelling as loudly as he could. Xisuma found them before Grian could even uncover his ears.
“Hello Grian, it’s lovely to see you again.” Xisuma greeted, “What brings you to my humble little build here? Xander isn’t annoying you too much I hope?”
Hearing a harrumph beside him as Xander opened his mouth to complain, Grian quickly replied, “He’s been just a wonderful host. He dragged me here without telling me where we were going, can you believe it?”
“I—”
“Well now, that’s just awful! I’ll have to get on him for that. Do you even know why you’re here or did Xander not tell you that, either?” Xisuma kept his visor firmly focused on Grian, pleasant as can be.
“Hey—”
“Something about clothes? Since mine are—well.” Grian kicked at the mass of robes falling over his feet, making the fluttery layers fly up much higher than expected. He may have whacked Xander in the face. He may have also whacked Xisuma and himself in the face. “You see?”
“He—”
“I do see.” Xisuma buffed a smear off of his helmet visor that definitely did not come from Grian’s grass-stained robes, “And I can absolutely help with that! There are a number of Hermits who can sew and would be happy to make you something you’d like better. I could give you a list?”
“You—”
“That would be great! And—”
“YOU GUYS AREN’T ALLOWED TO TEAM UP ON ME!” Xander finally burst in, making both Grian and Xisuma jump, “I see what’s going on here!” He continued petulantly, “What’s next, secret strategy meetings in the dead of night? I won’t allow this mutiny! There will be no hidden alliances under my watch!”
Grian watched Xander’s accusing pointed finger swing between him and Xisuma, then turned to Xisuma. “Hey, wanna form a hidden alliance?”
“Sure, sounds fun.”
“Hey! I’m watching you!”
“Oh, no you’re not, silly! It’s a hidden alliance, you can’t see us.” Xisuma sagely informed his brother, and Grian’s whole body trembled with glee and suppressed giggles.
“...You’re too powerful together.” Xander sighed, shaking his head. “Anyway, we really did come here to ask about where to get Grian some new clothes. You’ve got a list of Hermits we can talk to?”
“Ah, yes, I’ll message you a list of all the Hermits who can make clothes and you can ask one of them to help you out.” Xisuma and Xander kept talking, but Grian stopped listening as he realized something: they’d have to talk to other Hermits. Grian would have to talk to a Hermit besides Xander and Xisuma.
He wasn’t sure why that felt like it was a problem. Back on—well, he’d been friends with tons of people, and it wasn’t like he was shy. Meeting new people wasn’t something to be afraid of. Nether, he’d been isolated in the Void for so long that he should be ecstatic to meet more people! Was he just nervous because it’d been so long since he’d met someone new? Or was he worried that it wouldn’t go well? The Watchers had been ‘someone new’ once—
But Players weren’t Watchers. They were different, so different that Grian couldn’t predict how they would act like he could the Watchers. Because the Watchers all wanted the same thing and did the same things and they all thought Grian was weak and slow and not good enough and they wouldn’t let him leave—and. Grian knew how to hide from them, how to steal naps when they were distracted and how to hold on to reality when he couldn’t see it. Players all had different personalities and passions and motivations and loves and it was beautiful—it should be beautiful. They were his kind. Grian had never understood how wonderful it was to be a Player until they’d tried to take it away from him.
So why did he want to hide from them? Why did he want to run away and curl up behind a bedrock wall and hope they didn’t notice him?
“Do I—” Grian blurted, cutting off whatever Xisuma was saying, “Do we have to…talk to someone about it? There isn’t like a—um…” Grian didn’t know what he was trying to say. Xisuma would have mentioned if there was a store or something more official where they could just put in an order without talking to anyone. The Hermits were being plenty kind, letting Grian stay on the server and potentially even making him clothes. He didn’t really have any right to be picky. “It’s—it’s okay, never mind, I can—”
“I keep a stash of spares for emergencies,” Xisuma interrupted gently, seeming to understand something when not even Grian knew what was going on.
“I couldn’t take your clothes—!”
“Oh, they’re not mine, don’t worry.” Xisuma laughed, “What with all the world-breaking that goes on in this server, sometimes not everything survives a respawn. Usually everybody keeps their own spare outfits, but I keep some basics around just in case. It’s come in handy. There’s not much of a selection, but I’ve got plenty of sizes so there’s sure to be something that fits you. You’re welcome to anything you’d like.”
“If—that’s okay…”
“Of course! That’s what I have them for, I’m glad they’ll be getting some use.”
Xisuma ushered them to a room full of chests and shulker boxes, and Grian and Xander watched as he dug a shulker box out of a series of other shulkers shoved into a back corner. Grian could practically see the dust on it, dustless storage dimension or not. He plopped the shulker down at the edges of Grian’s tattered robes.
“There we are! Take your pick! If you’re comfortable, you can try things on around the corner, there’s a little room there. Xander and I can wait here for you.”
Not sure what to say, Grian just nodded and scooped up the shulker box. Wandering around the corner Xisuma directed him to, he found a basic starting set up—bed, chest, crafting table, a couple torches. It was likely where Xisuma crashed when he was too busy building to properly go home, not his main bed, but something about being given access to where someone slept felt… significant, to him.
Respectfully keeping his distance from the bed, Grian opened the shulker to find more shulkers. Inside those, a rainbow of plain tee shirts and hoodies in different sizes, sweatpants, and jeans. Pulling out one of the hoodies, Grian couldn’t stop a delighted noise from escaping. It was so soft. Even through his gloves, he could feel the plush fabric squish between his fingers. It was like the blanket on his bed that surprised him every time he went to use it.
He immediately ignored the purple and black options. He’d worn enough purple for a lifetime, lived surrounded by unending black for another. The grays were on thin ice. He could swear they were made of bedrock if he looked at them from the corner of his eye. The blues—a blob tumbling into the darkness—nope. Green? He’d worn that back then, when—never mind.
That didn’t leave much left for options. Grian took his time holding each colour up to the torchlight, just admiring them. There were so many things to look at, here on Hermitcraft. So many different colours, things he could hold and feel and see at the same time. Things he could choose to see.
They were all wonderful colours. Grian was sure he’d be messing around with dyes much more after this. But ultimately, the warm, vibrant red hoodie stayed in his hands the longest, and he snagged a tee for an undershirt before pausing. He couldn’t exactly… put them on just yet, could he? He had to take off the robes.
Grian’s hands hovered over the fabric for a moment. He’d never actually taken the robes off before. He’d just woken up with them on after the excruciating process of the Watchers poking holes into the complex weaving of his code and seeing what they could shove into the gaps. He actually… didn’t know what was underneath. Did he look different? Were there scars, little pieces missing from the Watchers’ clumsy work? Judging from his gloved hands he had arms, but were his legs different now? Or was he floating everywhere and he’d just been imagining the feeling of using his feet to walk?
One hand hesitantly took a fistful of the fabric pooling in his seated lap and lifted to reveal… more fabric. Grian’s heart dropped. Another handful of layers lifted—more robes. He scrabbled through layers upon layers of cloth, tossing layers back only for them to fall back into place, before—
Oh Nether, End and Overworld, he had legs. And feet, and knees that bent the right way, and—no shoes, actually, he might have to figure that out eventually, were those socks? He wasn’t sure. But they were legs and they were his and the Watchers hadn’t taken them away from him.
It felt like such a silly fear, now that Grian was no longer worrying about it. Why would they delete his legs? He needed those to walk! He’d been walking this whole time! His wings rustled over the floor as his shoulders slumped in relief. The Watchers had seemed to be much more invested in giving him more limbs as opposed to taking them away, anyhow.
Well. Now that he knew he had all of his relatively important body parts still—his hands gleefully reached for the nearest dangling ribbon and yanked.
Layers upon layers upon layers—when he’d finally managed to get all the robes off, the pile of crumpled fabric stood almost as tall as him. It was hard to believe he’d been carrying all of that around this whole time, let alone that he could move in it. Quickly switching out the black full-body suit underneath for the shirt, hoodie and a pair of jeans, he stood back and admired the new look. It was, successfully, much less purple.
Well, except for the mask and gloves. The mask was pretty stuck on, he’d tried to pull it off countless times and it wouldn’t budge, but he could take the gloves off. Tugging the first one off felt like peeling off a layer of skin, and for a moment Grian worried that it might be glued on or something. Soon enough, though, the glove came off, tossed haphazardly into the pile of fabric beside him.
There was some kind of second layer to the glove, making his hand look smooth and uncalloused. It was practically transparent up until the fingertips, where it slowly transitioned into a solid black tipped with short points on every finger. It was like a baby version of the Watchers’ huge clawed hands, meant for precision when sifting through the code of the Universe and meant to be kept away from Players entirely, despite how that had turned out. Grian pinched at the thin material, trying to get a hold to pull it off, but it just felt like skin. He tried the dark fingertips—nothing. The claw tips felt like he was tugging on his own fingertips.
Digging his fingers into the areas at his wrist, knuckles, palm, anywhere resulted in tiny prickles of pain and no fabric. It was almost like there was no glove to begin with, and—this was just his skin. Wasn’t it.
The Watchers had changed it, like they had everything else they didn’t have the right to touch. It didn’t use to be darkened at the tips like the Void had given him frostbite. It had been a normal skin tone. He had had five fingers with three joints like all other Players, with rounded ends so he could touch others without hurting them. He had had tough skin and calloused palms earned by creating with his own two hands and nothing greater.
Grian’s gloved fingers pressed hard into the naked skin of his exposed hand, silk-smooth cloth sliding over silk-smooth skin like he was a doll and not a living thing. A toy to dress up and not a person. How much of the Grian from before was left?
They had taken his hands from him. Were the claws the only difference? The torch above him crackled out of time with his thoughts, shifting flames casting dark blurs over the rest of his too-smooth skin to match the claws. Maybe Players weren’t supposed to have three joints in each finger, two in the thumb. Maybe it was less. Maybe it was more. How would Grian know what a Player was supposed to be like, after all? His right to that claim had been long since stolen from him.
Grian needed to leave. Go where, he didn’t know. Just away from wherever he was now, to some place where he wasn’t alone in the dark surrounded and painted in the work of Watchers. Out and away from his problems and his questions and—
“Grian?”
Xander. Grian’s feet had started to carry him away without him even realizing it, bringing him out into the larger storage room and into brighter lighting. Grian halted for a surprised moment, watching Xander uncross his arms to prop his hands on his hips.
“Looks good! And hey, you’ve got hair! That’s a surprise. I—”
Xander was a Player. He was a Voidwalker, one of the first Players. He would know what Player hands were supposed to be like, right? Grian rushed over and pulled at one of Xander’s hands, unfurling the five fingers.
“Uh. Grian?”
One, two, three joints in each finger. Two in the thumb. No more, no less. Rounded fingertips. The armor made it harder to tell, but Grian held his own hand out next to Xander’s and they looked similar enough, except for the claws. The fingers flexed the same when he moved them.
“They’re the same.” Grian breathed, relieved, even though that didn’t fix anything.
“Grian, what? What’s happening here?”
“They’re—they’re the same but—I don’t—I didn’t have—claws, they made me—” Grian let out something like a whine and twisted a clawed fingertip until it hurt.
Xander seemed to understand the stuttered mess, because he sounded a lot like Xisuma when he finally said, like an epiphany, “Oh dear.”
“There are definitely some differences in your code,” Xisuma said diplomatically, seated on a chest next to where Grian had been half-carried to curl up on top of a shulker. “Thank you for letting me look at it. I know it must be difficult.”
“I just want to know what they did,” Grian muttered, playing with the cuffs of his new sweater, “They locked me out of seeing it myself.”
Xisuma made an understanding sound, somehow managing to portray sympathy despite his helmet covering his face. Xander, similarly radiating protective support, asked, “Can you change anything?”
Grian huffed miserably. “Players can’t alter Player code unless it’s to fix a glitch. And this isn’t a glitch, it’s the physical makeup of my body. I’m stuck this way—”
“Ah, well, not quite.” Xisuma interrupted gently, “I’m seeing quite a few changes here that were never finalized, or were never properly integrated and are being registered as glitches. Sloppy, really.” He added with a hint of humor that Grian almost didn’t notice.
He was a little distracted with, “You could change me back?” His heart felt like it was rising out of his throat, and he thought maybe he would choke on it soon.
“Not entirely, unfortunately—” his stomach dropped, and his heart stuck in his throat. The emptiness left behind ached. “—But we could change some, yes. As a Voidwalker in charge of the server we’re on, I have a little more control here. And—I hate to ask you this, knowing what you’ve gone through, but—with your new abilities, you’ll probably be able to do things with the code that I can’t. If you’re okay with it, we could work together and change some things you don’t like about your code?”
Grian fell back into his body with a violent jolt. “I—yes, of course, please. Please do! Please, yes, please, I’ll do whatever you need, please fix it.”
“Of course,” Xisuma said, like it was easy to say and not completely world-changing, “I’m absolutely happy to help you.”
They traveled back to Grian’s room in Xander’s little house, Grian bouncing between hanging on Xisuma’s every word as he described what he’d seen in Grian’s code and practically clinging to Xander, who seemed confident enough for the both of them. Grian knew Xander the best out of everything on this new server, and as great as seeing the trees and the sky and the grass that had been kept from him for so long was, sometimes it was just easier to stay where he knew it was safe.
Grian didn’t remember feeling like this before—back then, everywhere he looked had just been a new adventure. Sure, he could be hurt, but that was just part of the journey. Now, the world was a stranger to him. At times, the sky was too open and vulnerable. There could be holes hiding beneath the floppy green grass, waiting to pull him into the Void and never let him out again. The blocks he could use and the way he moved with the physics of the world had changed ever so slightly now that he’d missed a couple of updates, and it felt like he was using a mod that he hadn’t learned the rules for.
Grian plopped onto his bed at Xisuma’s insisting, in case of the very rare possibility that their changes affected him before they actually implemented them and he did something weird like pass out. To Grian’s quiet relief, Xander stayed in the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed like a brooding lone wolf type who wasn’t actually all that cool.
(Grian informed Xander of this, and Xander just scoffed and shifted until he did look cool. Not that Grian would ever tell him.)
“We’re not going to do everything today,” Xisuma warned him firmly, cutting off any protests Grian could have made, “We’ll make a few changes and see how it affects you. You know how code works, you change the smallest detail and it throws everything else out of order. This is your Player code, we can’t risk damaging that.”
“Not sure how much worse you could make it,” Grian mumbled, but leaned in anyways when Xisuma passed over an admin screen.
His code really was a mess. Grian was tempted to agree with Xisuma when he’d called it sloppy. While the Universe organized the code that made up all things and translated it for Players to understand, the Watchers made code instinctually and didn’t bother to make it orderly. The result was hundreds of lines of simple language with random chunks of corrupted text in a completely different language, crossing between lines and leaving empty gaps between letters. It was like trying to make a cake where one half was perfectly baked and iced, and the other half was just eggs and sugar splattered on the floor.
“Wow. Um. Let’s just… start from the top?”
Grian was very glad that he had listened when Xisuma had pushed him to lay down when they’d implemented the code changes they’d made. He had no directional vision, he saw everything that could be seen within a certain distance around him, and yet the world still felt like it was spinning.
Xisuma had left to go back to whatever he’d been doing before Grian and Xander had interrupted him for clothes—Nether, that felt so long ago now—but Xander had stayed, still leaning against the wall and tapping his heel against it with a nervous energy.
“Soooo, uhh…” Xander started, “Do you… wanna talk? About it?”
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Grian returned, body buzzing and head still swimming, “You don’t sound very certain.”
“Well—that’s what people say, isn’t it?” Xander defended, then: “But I do want to listen, if you want to talk about it. This is kind of a huge thing. Your literal existence being edited and then re-edited is… a lot, and I’m not even the one who was changed. I’m just saying, it’s not crazy to want to put your thoughts out there. Scream a little, even.”
“I don’t think I’m the type to scream,” Grian said, amused, “I don’t even know what I would say? Like, yeah, obviously this sucks, I didn’t like the Watchers going in and messing with my code the first time, and changing it back isn’t gonna be pretty either, but at least we’re getting it changed back. It’s… I know it won’t be all of it. But anything is better than nothing.”
Xander didn’t reply, and Grian assumed he’d gotten the answer he’d been looking for. Grian wasn’t having a breakdown over this, or anything. They’d both suffered under the Watchers, it had been awful, and it was over now. They were fine now. Grian didn’t see Xander needing to talk about it, why did he think that Grian did?
Grian lifted his hands to show off the fading black stains on his fingertips, thought better about it, and dropped the trembling limbs back onto the bed. “It really scared me,” he blurted suddenly, “When I saw my hands, at first. I was ready to peel my skin off if it meant being a Player again. And if it grew back, I’d do it again. For the rest of my life, if I had to. Why would anyone want to be one of those things?”
Xander was silent. Grian wasn’t focusing on any particular part of the room, but he knew he was still there, helmet turned towards the bed Grian was shivering on top of.
“They just said they would teach me some admin things,” Grian said plaintively, like maybe if he explained his choices it would absolve him of the guilt of what had happened, “They said I needed to learn to save E—” his breath, because he was sure he was breathing now, caught in his chest. “They said I had to. They said—I believed them. Why did I believe them? Why did I say yes!? I was such an idiot! These stupid—they come onto our server, build a bunch of statues of themselves like they own the place, take over my coding and slowly destroy the place from the inside out and I just went with them!? Why did I even believe that they would teach me to fix it when they’re the ones who destroyed it in the first place!?”
Grian had almost forgotten that Xander was there. But for a moment the Voidwalker had shifted, moving the leg propped against the wall down to the ground to stand steadier, and Grian snapped his head toward him, ignoring the way his vision wobbled.
“Xander, if you ever meet a Watcher again, never agree to join them in any way, even just for a-a drink, or whatever.” Grian insisted desperately, “Even if you’re just lying to buy time. It gives them full permission over your code, considers it consent to give the Watchers any access they want, change anything they want. Please. Please. It hurts so much. Nobody should ever—please.”
“Okay, I promise.” Xander said softly.
But Grian kept going, “I’ll write a distress call command for you that actually works, just take the cell, if you send the message right away we’ll easily be able to get to you in time. Just don’t—nobody should have to feel them digging through your code like that, changing you like that.”
“I will.”
“I can’t get it back,” Grian breathed, forcing the words out in a thready whisper, “I said yes, like an idiot, and now I’ll never get my life back. I will forever be just a little bit Watcher, no matter how much we fix or change or put back. They took myself away from me and I couldn’t do anything to stop them.”
Xander was silent again. Grian focused on breathing, inventory of words finally lost to him. It made him want to try crying again, but they might not have fixed that particular ability yet, and finding out that he wasn’t allowed tears would actually break him.
As Grian’s breaths quieted from strained panting to shaky sighs, he realized that he could hear Xander’s breathing too. It hissed, sounding tinny coming from the helmet, and Grian had the sudden thought that he’d never heard Xander breathe before. It wasn’t usually the main focus of their interactions—to be fair, most people wouldn’t pay much attention to each others’ breathing. But in the Void, sound dissipated near instantly. Grian and the Watchers had used regular audio speech with an overlay specifically meant to separate it from the Void so that the sound could travel at least a few meters. Xander had had his helmet, and maybe he’d had some Voidwalker talent that helped his words travel. Regardless, the sound of breathing hadn’t been a priority when it took so much effort to make regular communication work.
Breathing was good, though. Breathing meant they weren’t in the Void anymore, and breathing meant they were alive.
They’d survived, and they’d gotten out, and they were alive. Grian listened and matched Xander’s breathing to his own.
Eventually, when the buzzing was gone and he could see clearly again, Grian decided he’d had enough of lying down like an invalid. He pushed himself up with his hands, newly rounded fingertips digging into the blankets beneath him. The black had fully faded.
“Grian? Are you feeling—” Xander started, then cut himself off with a “Woah!! Hey!” and darted forward to steady Grian when he started tipping off the bed.
“I’m alright, I’m alright,” Grian assured, waving Xander off, “It’s passed now, I just sat up too fast. I’m good.”
“If you’re sure,” Xander agreed slowly, helping Grian to his feet anyways.
“It’s gonna be annoying if it’s like that every time,” Grian muttered, then added, “Thanks for listening, by the way. I just threw a lot at you there.”
“I told you I wanted to listen,” Xander said wryly as he followed Grian out of the bedroom, “It sounded like you needed it, anyhow. You went through a lot, back there.”
“You did, too.” Grian paused. “Actually, did you want to talk about it too? Or maybe it would be better with Xisuma—”
“He—doesn’t need to know everything that happened there.” Xander interrupted hastily, shaking his head, “And besides, you went through much worse—”
“Xander,” Grian said, incredulous, “They tortured you. I just stood there and watched.”
“I can handle pain fine, it’s part of the job—”
“Once again ignoring how dangerous fighting unsympathetic higher beings is, that’s not the same as prolonged mental and physical torment. I was there, remember, I saw how it affected you. You were not okay.”
“We’re out now, they can’t hurt me anymore. I’m fine now, I’m managing!” Xander insisted.
“And I thought I was fine until—how long has it been, fifteen minutes—?”
“More like an hour,” Xander said under his breath with an audible wince.
Grian blinked. “Even less fine than I thought—either way, they hurt you. And as we just found out, some of it follows you home, whether you want it to or not.”
“I—look, it’s fine, okay?” Xander threw his hands up in surrender, “I appreciate the concern. I get it, it sucked and yeah I still think about it sometimes, but I always knew I was gonna get out. The message got to Xisuma, or I could’ve gotten out myself eventually. I just had to wait it out. I always knew there was an end to the pain. You didn’t have that.”
Grian wanted to say something about comparison again, but he was struck silent by the sudden understanding that Xander didn’t know.
Swinging around to face him, Grian interrupted whatever Xander was saying now and said, “Xander.” Swallowed around a lump in his throat and persevered, “Xander, you did not have time. They were going to delete you.”
Xander stilled. “...What?”
Grian reached out a hand, unsure where to put it, and settled on the awkward shoulder pat they’d been passing back and forth since they’d both escaped. “They were about to delete you,” He said with a gravity he hadn’t felt since he’d told Xander to leave without him, all those weeks ago, “Watcher protocol is to delete the victim in the sixteenth torture session. You had just finished number fifteen when I got you out.”
Xander looked like he was still loading. “When you… but, Xisuma…”
“I had to manually direct your message for it to reach Hermitcraft,” Grian said gently, watching Xander carefully, “It’s why I didn’t show up that one time—it took a while. I’d been hoping that he would visit the Hub and run into the message there, but… you were running out of time.”
“But… delete? Me?”
“Yeah,” Grian agreed, “Delete you. The Watchers did horrible things to you that they shouldn’t have done to anybody, and they were going to do even worse.” Deleting an entity, a sapient one especially, was the worst possible thing that could happen to anyone or anything. Taking a soul and tearing it apart pixel by pixel, taking the binary 1s and 0s of its code and ripping them in two, until less than nothing was left behind and not even the Universe could remember that you had ever existed. “You need to know that what happened wasn’t okay, wasn’t even manageable. It was awful and it shouldn’t have happened.”
There was a pause, and then Xander jolted back to life with a full-body shudder.
“Well it did.” Xander sighed shakily, finally seeming to grasp what Grian was trying to tell him. “It was—they were going to… delete me. Okay. Wow. That’s, uh. That’s a lot. I’m—” He ran a hand over his helmet, then froze, “I think I need to... talk to Xisuma. I’m gonna—are you okay? Here? If I go and—” Xander waved a hand in the general direction of the door to the forest outside.
Grian tilted his head, mildly surprised. “Of course I will be. Go talk to your brother, goodness.” He gave Xander’s shoulder a pat and urged him on, watching as he bolted out the door.
Maybe he should message Xisuma, let him know that his brother was coming his way. Xander was clearly shaken up by the news, and Grian didn’t know how good a distressed Xander was at navigating. But when his hand went to his pocket—well it actually reached a pocket, which was new. The joys of non-Watcher clothes. But there was no communicator, because Grian didn’t have one.
Ah. Hm.
Should he… follow him? Or something?
Grian hesitantly shuffled through the door to see… no Xander, because it had already been a couple minutes and Xander had been running. Grian maybe should have thought about that. And also about the fact that he couldn’t quite remember the way to Xisuma’s base.
Ah, well. He could just… sit here.
Notes:
no that's not actually Xisuma's base yes I had to check where it was, he just made a lil spot for himself near Xander's house
Chapter Text
Grian was bored. Grian was so bored, and it had only been like five minutes.
The clearing Xander’s house was in was nice, but it was mostly randomly generated birch trees and grass. Grian had walked through it twice now, seen it through the windows many more times, and that was enough to have seen it all. It was very plain.
Grian wondered what Xander had been doing all this time on the server, if he didn’t build like his brother did. Did he really spend that much time traveling through the Void looking for Watchers to stab that he didn’t do anything on a regular server? Grian would have at least decorated the clearing a bit.
In fact, there was this one tree that was really bugging him, now that he was looking from where he was sitting on the ground. It was just the most awkward shape, in the worst spot, and the leaves were interfering with another tree. It wouldn’t be so bad if he just… got rid of that one, right? It wasn’t like Xander would care. He barely seemed to notice the forest around them.
Grian would just take down that one tree. He could—well he didn’t have any tools, and he didn’t want to use Xander’s good ones in case he broke them. He’d just—Grian punched the tree with a bare fist.
Ow.
Was this how you were supposed to do it? Had Grian remembered wrong? Splotches of his clenched hand were turning a light pink, stinging with pain. He was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to hurt like that. Grian rearranged his fingers, and tried again.
And again. And again.
At some point, it clicked that it wasn’t the fingers that were messing him up, but that he needed to tap into the code the way all Players did to interact with the world. It took him some effort to recover that hidden reflex, but once he did, he had the tree down in less than a minute.
Success! The clearing looked so much better. Grian collected the fallen wood and leaves and turned to return to his sitting spot by the house—and then he saw it.
The tree he’d just taken down had been the worst of the lot by far, but now that it was gone it made the other problem trees that much more obvious. They just looked so wrong! And he could easily fix it, it wouldn’t be hard. Grian was sure Xander wouldn’t mind if he just…
Three and a half trees (the half was necessary, okay?) later, Grian stood back and gazed around the clearing, finally satisfied. His wings ruffled in the gentle breeze, and Grian stretched them out as far as they could go before he plopped back down into the grass.
Aaaand he was bored again. How had he managed this before today? He’d thought he’d be exhausted by this point, considering how much had happened in the past, like—four hours. But no, Grian was practically buzzing with energy. Where was this when he was trying not to pass out in front of the Watchers, huh?
What to do, what to do… well, he didn’t really want to go inside in case he missed Xander returning, and he couldn’t just start walking away for the same reason. He tossed one of his newly harvested sticks into the air.
He could take a nap where he was lying right now? The grass was comfortable enough. But he wasn’t really tired, so trying to sleep would just be a chore.
The stick pinwheeled back into the sky. Maybe if he like… ran a few laps around the clearing first? Tire himself out, sleep to pass the time, wake up in time to make sure Xander got back alright? That could work. Grian remembered how to run, probably. Hmm, but did he want to? He didn’t really feel like—the stick landed on his mask, bounced, and stuck into the ground above his head.
Huh.
No, wait. There was an idea. Grian scrambled to his feet, mind already spinning with plans.
Some unknown amount of time later—Grian hadn’t bothered to count, and it wasn’t like he had a clock or anything—Grian stood before a tall post extending out of the ground. It was shaped like some kind of whimsical curled vine, as detailed as he could manage with only birch wood, with structured fence posts hanging from the hook. And attached to those fence posts was a wide, shallow basket.
Grian leaned a hasty ladder against the side to reach the basket and bounced excitedly before dashing into the house. He returned with a blanket, yanked from his bed, and all but flung himself into the basket.
Ahh. His very own special spot. Grian wrapped the blanket around himself along with his wings, snuggled into a comfy corner of the basket, and relished in the feeling of being high above the ground for no reason other than that it was fun.
Maybe he could fall asleep, after all…
“Oh—Grian?”
“Goodness, is he up there?”
“I see a wing tip on the edge there, see? He’s not moving, I think he’s asleep.”
“Well I’m not asleep anymore, not with you chatterboxes down there,” Grian grumbled, tucking in the dangling wing, “Why are you both watching me sleep?”
“Ah, well—”
And then Grian finished waking up. “OH—everything’s okay? You talked, and—and stuff?” Grian hauled himself over the edge of his basket to get a proper look at the brothers, his all-sight vision not reaching far enough on its own.
They both looked fine, not disheveled or rumpled like you would typically expect people would be after learning they almost died and having a crisis about it, but maybe you couldn’t dishevel armor like that. Xander and Xisuma seemed to be acting completely normal, too, Xisuma with one hand on his hip and Xander with his arms crossed appraisingly.
“Everything’s fine, Grian.” Came Xander’s voice, “Thanks, by the way. I see you were busy while I was gone.”
“I was bored,” Grian defended, shrugging, “What can you do? I fixed your clearing, by the way. This is just the wood left over.” He had a sudden thought. “It’s okay that I built this here, right?”
“Yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry. I was just surprised you built something out of the blue. What is it, exactly?”
“I am a perfectly good builder, thank you very much!” Grian informed Xander, almost offended, “And this is my spot! It’s where I can sit and be tall, as required by basic Player instinct. Like a treehouse, but without a tree because I’m horrible at custom trees.”
“You do need all the help you can get to be tall,” Xander agreed, sounding amused, then, “How did you even get up there? Did you fly?”
“Don’t be silly, Xander, I can’t fly,” Grian dismissed, “There’s a ladder right there—ah. Well. There was. See?”
Said ladder was now abandoned on the grass below Grian’s basket, where Grian must have kicked it away in his hurry to get into his spot. His basket was a decent distance from the ground, not enough to kill him but enough to hurt a bit if he fell. But without the ladder, there really was no other way down.
“Hmm. Guess I’ll just have to—” Grian swung a leg over the side of the basket and prepared to jump.
“Wait! Wait, wait, what do you mean you can’t fly!? You have wings!” Xander stopped him, pointing at Grian like he was reminding the winged man that he had wings.
“Well yeah, but they don’t work,” Grian dismissed, wishing he could roll his eyes, “I can flap them all I like and they wouldn’t lift me an inch off the ground. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“When did you try? …Was it in the Void?”
“When I first got them! Of course I was in the Void, what does that matter?”
Xisuma, who had thus far just been watching the conversation like it was a very entertaining minigame, made a little “ah” sound.
Xander made a much louder “AHA” sound. “There’s no air in the Void, idiot! No air resistance means no lift! Of course you weren’t gonna be able to fly there!”
“I—” Grian spluttered. Xander was probably right, as much as Grian didn’t want to admit it. “That doesn’t change that I don’t know how!”
“Just spread your wings and flap them! How hard can it be!?” Xander shouted back, spirited, waving his arms up and down in the world’s worst demonstration.
“The air is a standard density on this server,” Xisuma chipped in finally, “If you’d like to learn how to fly here, you are very welcome to. We have a couple of other fliers on this server, I’m sure they’d be happy to offer some tips.”
“I—um, ah, thank you?” Grian stuttered, struggling with the switch between Xander’s aggressive encouragement and Xisuma’s gentle offer. “Maybe—maybe later?”
“Sure.”
“Griannn! Just jump!” Xander said again, giving up on the flying demonstration and instead making a wide beckoning motion with both hands, “Open your wings and give it a try! Why not?”
“Fine! I will!” Grian shouted, swinging his other leg over the edge of the basket, “But I was going to anyway! Not because you told me to!”
And then Grian spread his wings and carefully did not think about it before he jumped.
Whatever flying was supposed to feel like, it had better not be this, because all Grian could feel was falling but sideways. His wings caught the air, sure, but it whistled through the feathers uncomfortably and Grain was struggling to keep the limbs open. As it was, Grian landed awkwardly on one foot and tumbled down onto all fours.
“You flew! See, not that hard!” Xander enthused, offering Grian a hand up.
Grian took the hand, “If that was flying, then I’m a chicken. No way that was the right way to do it.”
“You’ll get there soon enough, poultry man. Just you wait.”
“I don’t like how threatening that sounded.”
“Good!”
“Hello, Grian!”
Grian perked up. “Xisuma?” He placed one last block before scurrying to peek over the roof of his new little hut. He reveled in the ability to rely on his line of sight—they’d managed to give Grian a toggle for the everywhere-sight with their latest code fixes, and he almost always kept it off.
Xisuma waved up at him. “Your build is looking lovely! Are you planning to move in when it’s done?”
“Well—” Grian paused, “Hold on. No use shouting.” With a quick hop, he descended to ground level where Xisuma was standing, spreading his wings awkwardly. He hadn’t tried very hard to learn how to actually fly, and so far all he could do was clumsily slow his fall. Xisuma still clapped in appreciation.
“You’re getting better!”
“That doesn’t really mean much. The only way to have done worse is if I’d fallen flat on my face.”
“And you didn’t, did you?”
Grian groaned, looking away (he could do that now!). “Well, anyways! What did you come over for? Did you want a tour?”
“Can I not just come and say hello?” Xisuma said casually, cheerfully, suspiciously, like there was nothing wrong, “But yes, I would love a tour.”
“It’s not much right now,” Grian warned, waving Xisuma to follow him anyway, “I’ve only done the outside, and it’ll be a while before I finish that.”
After his hanging basket, which Xander had later pointed out was his very first foray into building since he’d left the Watchers, Grian had gotten the itch to create more. More than just birch wood, with detailing and colour variety and a story. Xander had helped him clear out an area next to his house and now Grian was free to build whatever nonsense he wished.
“Building takes time,” Xisuma agreed, “Is the outside finished?”
“Oh, Void, no,” Grian grimaced, “I’ve barely got the roof on, see! That’s what I was just working on. And there’s barely any detailing. And—you know what, there’s a good place to start.” Grian spread his arms wide. “Welcome to my house! It is small because I felt like it, and it isn’t detailed yet because I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s got most of a roof on, and it’s even got windows already! I consider that progress.”
“It already looks fantastic, Grian.” And Grian couldn’t see Xisuma’s face through the helmet, but he still somehow knew that Xisuma was smiling. Voidwalkers were just like that. “I love how much you’ve been able to do with something so small. The colours just go together so well. I would never have thought to do something like this myself!”
“Aww, Xisuma, you’re gonna make me blush!” Grian stuttered, fanning his masked face with a hand.
Xisuma laughed. “I speak only the truth, my friend.”
Grian’s chest warmed at the title. He was naturally closer with Xander, considering their history, but Xisuma was quickly becoming someone he trusted. All those code fixing sessions had to count for something, after all. “Then thank you—friend! Oh! And here, take a look at this, I decided to try a new thing with the fence posts, I want to know what you think—”
Grian and Xisuma chatted about Grian’s build for a while, and then chatted about other things, wound up on the topic of TNT at some point—
(“—The things they do with a simple explosive! Sometimes it’s not even TNT, it’s something that’s not even supposed to be able to explode, but they find a way!”
“I don’t know if you’ll want to hear about the things I’ve done with TNT then—”)
—and eventually landed on the topic of the server they were currently on.
“I really do think you would be a perfect fit for Hermitcraft, you know,” Xisuma said, leaning back on his elbows to watch the sky. They had migrated up to sit on Grian’s barely finished roof, Grian having stopped a few times to plug up the remaining holes. “Like, in an official capacity, with all the other Hermits. They’d love you.”
Pushing down an immediate, instinctive ‘no’, Grian asked curiously, “You never actually said what Hermitcraft is. Obviously it’s survival, but your build is enormous for a regular survival. It’s not a hardcore, is it?”
“Did I really never say? It’s not hardcore, it’s unlimited lives. I don’t like the idea of locking people out of their home if they’d just died one too many times. I could never run a hardcore server.” Xisuma chuckled.
“That’s good to know, in case I ever do end up falling on my face when I use my wings.”
“We would never kick you out for that.” Xisuma laughed, “Hermitcraft is—well, it’s just one great big psychotic dysfunctional family. That sounds bad, I’m realizing, but it truly is wonderful. We build, we do redstone, we play pranks, we blow stuff up, and at the end of the day we’re all still friends.”
“That—sounds nice…”
“It is! We’ve got some fantastic builders here, I’m sure you’d fit right in. But there are some Hermits who can’t build at all, and they still manage to find their niche. As long as you’re happy here, you’re free to do whatever you love. Everyone supports each other.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I am very lucky to have the Hermits.” Xisuma agreed. Then, in a move that Grian really should have seen coming, he asked, “What was the server you were on before like?”
Grian froze.
Xisuma must have noticed—something, Grian wasn’t even sure what he looked like right now, but Xisuma hastily added, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, of course.”
“It’s—nothing bad,” Grian shook his head, staring out over the horizon, “It was a great server. It was—it was a lot like Hermitcraft, from the sounds of it.”
“Was it?” Xisuma asked quietly. Grian barely noticed, trying to find a safe way to word it.
“The—we weren’t all builders, we could build, of course, but we weren’t all on the level of your base. Or, it sounds like some of the other Hermits have built even bigger? We didn’t do much like that. But we were all friends, and we hung out together, and we pranked each other but we cleaned up after and everything was just fun. Survival, unlimited lives, it was home for some of them and I could never dream of locking someone out either. It was… it was great. Yeah.” Grian curled up, hugged his bent legs. It was a bit awkward on the narrow stairs of the sloped roof, but they’d managed to sit comfortably enough that he didn’t have to try too hard to find a new balance.
“That sounds lovely. Did it run for very long, or was it a temporary thing?”
“It was, ah, we did have a goal in mind, a set end date, but we were taking our time to get there. We were—I’d found a way to roll back updates, reinstate them manually, so we went back to Beta and played through each update. For the nostalgia, you know?” For the nostalgia. If only missing old updates had stayed their greatest concern.
“That’s incredible!” Xisuma’s voice was awed. “You discovered a way to code that? I’m sure the Players loved it.”
“They did, yeah. It was fun.”
“Grian, ah, tell me if this is too much but, did they—were they with you? In the Void? Did the Watchers—”
“NO!” Grian whipped his head up to look at Xisuma for the first time since Evo had come up. “I would never have let the Watchers take my Players. Never. I went because they said it was the only way to save them, but I was the only one who went. They never had to—to deal with them. If—” Grian choked. If only—But that was a dangerous thought.
Xisuma seemed frozen under Grian’s gaze. It made Grian wonder if he was seeing right, or if he’d managed to mess up his vision again. “That was an incredibly brave thing for you to do, Grian.” He said with a calmness that battered against Grian’s rib cage. “It must have been hard to endure that alone.”
“I—Xander was there. For a while.” Grian forced out, frozen statue-still under the eyes of a predator he couldn’t find, “I chose to go. It was my choice, I had to deal with the consequences.”
“I think we both know that wasn’t really a choice. Not when the only other option was abandoning your Players.”
“I would never.”
“I know. And neither would I. But the Watchers made that choice for you, Grian, it was never your fault.”
There was a pressure building up, in his head, in his throat, in his shoulders, in his chest. Grian felt like he was going to burst. But he wouldn’t, because he couldn’t. He never could. It would only make things worse. He took a single, shaky breath.
“But it was.”
“Grian, you can’t blame yourself for the Watchers hurting you,” Xisuma insisted, “I wouldn’t even have blamed you if you’d chosen yourself in that situation—that’s a terrifying choice with no right answer. But you can’t punish yourself for saving your Players—”
The pressure burst. Grian broke.
“I DIDN’T!”
He swung his fists down as hard as he could, hands hitting the unfinished edges of the stair blocks they were sitting on. His arms trembled from the shock and from the rage.
“I DIDN’T SAVE THEM! THEY’RE DEAD! THEY’RE ALL DEAD!!” Grian went to slam his fists down again, but Xisuma caught one in his own hands. Grian ripped it out of his grasp to tug at his hair instead. “They tore it apart and made me watch. I watched them all DIE!”
“Grian—” Hands tugged at his wrists again, trying to pull them away from his hair. Grian tore away again, reverting to an old habit—he curled his fingers around the edges of the mask that covered his face and pulled.
Of course, it didn’t do anything. Days, weeks, of stolen moments, curled up in corners or huddled away behind his wings, trying to take that mask off. Pulling, scratching, prying, anything to get rid of the thing locked to his face that marked him as belonging to the Watchers. Nothing had ever worked.
Even after escaping, Grian would forever be trapped behind this forsaken mask. It would be sealed to his face as a brand, that he had failed to protect his friends, no matter how hard he tried. A reminder that he hadn’t been Watcher enough, and that he would never again be Player enough.
“I was too Player,” Grian sobbed, digging in short, blunted fingernails to no avail. The hands stopped pulling at his arms and wrapped around him instead. “I did everything they wanted, but I couldn’t let them delete him, and they killed them.” The arms around him stilled, and Grian tugged again. It didn’t hurt. He’d never been able to feel a thing. “They tore the server apart with everyone in it and they held me down and made me watch.”
“Grian,” Xisuma said as Grian fell limp in his arms, “You did everything you could and more. You loved them and I know that they knew it. Nothing you did was in vain.” Grian breathed in, and then out. “And, it may be selfish of me, but thank you for saving my brother. Thank you so much.”
Xisuma held him tighter, and Grian wailed.
Grian woke up in his bed in Xander’s house, beneath his usual red blanket as well as a new dark green blanket. He felt well-rested in the way that came with crying your eyes out, even if he probably hadn’t cried at all when he’d collapsed dramatically into Xisuma’s arms. Dramatically and on top of a roof, he remembered, which wasn’t the safest.
Cringing, Grian made his way out of bed and into the hallway. Hopefully Xisuma was still around so Grian could apologize for screaming at him.
When he entered the main room, now properly furnished after Grian had gotten impatient and made couches to sit on since Xisuma kept visiting, the air was swirling with pink-purple energy. And—Xisuma and Xander weren’t wearing their helmets. Grian turned his head away hastily.
“Hello…” He tried.
“Ah! Grian! You’re awake. Are you feeling better?” Xisuma asked.
“Yup. Uh—can I look or is this a private thing?”
“Private thing?” This time it was Xander talking, and Grian was only barely able to tell. The brothers sounded very similar without the helmets distorting the audio, and Grian wondered why Xander’s audio normally sounded so low. Had he set the helmet to deepen his voice?
“Your, uh,” Grian motioned a hand around his own head, “Your helmets.”
“Oh!” Xisuma again, he was pretty sure. “No, no, it’s fine. Thank you for checking.”
“‘Course.” Grian moved to sit in an empty armchair next to the couch the brothers were on. Curling up and fiddling with his fingers, he took a breath—
“So, Grian—“
“Sorry for yelling at you, Xisuma.”
They spoke at the same time, and then stared at each other for a second.
Grian wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but Xisuma’s face looked like any other Player’s face—no special Voidwalker-ness standing out. His eyes reflected a bit of the fluorescent purple-pink energy flowing through the air, but for some odd reason it just made him seem even more normal. He turned to look at Xander, and Xander was just the same. A perfectly normal person—who had saved Grian from the Watchers, yes, but nothing supernatural.
“Sorry for yelling at you, Xisuma,” Grian repeated once it was clear that Xisuma wasn’t going to say anything, “I think it was pretty obvious by the end that I wasn’t angry at you, but you still didn’t deserve to be screamed at. So.” Grian shrugged awkwardly.
“Oh it’s quite alright, Grian, I’m just glad you were able to let it out. It sounded like that had been coming for a while.”
“Yeah. Probably.” Silence. Grian cast around for something else to say. “So, uhh… what’s the light show about?”
Xisuma’s smile grew—and while Grian was used to hearing it in his voice, seeing it was going to take some getting used to. “Just some Voidwalker magic—it’s lowering the air density here so we can take the helmets off for a bit. You should be fine since you’re, ah, acclimated to the Void.”
Well. At least his time in the Void had been good for something. Grian would take wins wherever he could. “It’s pretty.” He complimented.
“Thank you!”
There was a pause, and then Grian realized, “Sorry, was I interrupting you guys?”
This time Xander smiled, and Grian tried not to lean back too obviously. Too bright. Maybe they wore the helmets to avoid blinding people—Grian might not be able to survive both of them smiling at once. “Nah, just hanging out. Actually—now is a good time for breakfast! Are you up for some food?”
“Uh, sure?”
Xander bounded off to the kitchen, waving a hand in acknowledgement when Xisuma called out a request for food too. Grian watched in fascination as some of the purple-pink wisps followed to swirl around his head.
“Voidwalker magic is so cool,” Grian breathed quietly, “I still can’t believe that Players can have magic.” He’d only had the smallest clue when he’d arrived on Hermitcraft, having seen the shield around the Voidwalkers as they made their escape. Xander had mentioned using magic a couple times, but it wasn’t like Grian had any experience with magic outside of the Watchers, whose magic was strictly code-based and similar to the abilities of an overpowered admin. He had no idea what it looked like.
Xisuma chuckled. “There are many more Players with magic than just us, you know,” he said, apparently having fun completely overturning Grian’s worldview, “Some of them are even on Hermitcraft. And you have some magic of your own, too.”
Skipping over the concept that Players could have magic, Grian scoffed, “You can barely call it magic. I could do more when I was just an admin, considering how many of my permissions they’ve locked. Besides! Yours is prettier anyway.”
“I will accept that it is prettier. Thank you for the compliment. Though you really should be telling Xander that, he’s doing most of the work here.” Xisuma’s smile grew again.
“Really?”
“Oh yes, he’s always been the best at magic, between the two of us.”
“And Xisuma’s always been better at code!” Xander reappeared, setting a platter of bread and fruit on the small coffee table Grian had built between the main couches. “What are we talking about?”
“Your magic is pretty.” Grian waited for both brothers to grab something before snagging an apple and tossing it between his hands.
“Thanks, you already said that.”
“Well, that’s what we were talking about.”
“Boring,” Xander declared, “You should have more interesting conversations when I’m not here. Like wondering what I look like under the helmet.” He raised his eyebrows in an amused look at Xisuma.
“I can see what you look like under the helmet,” Grian said confused, while Xisuma just groaned. “Why would we wonder—?”
“The Hermits keep placing bets on what I look like under the helmet,” Xisuma narrowed his eyes back at Xander, “Even though half of them already know, and I would show the rest in a heartbeat if they just asked. Xander keeps egging them on.” He took a pointed bite of his bread.
“Huh.” Grian paused, absorbing his apple through his hand the way all Players did when they just wanted some quick nutrients instead of having to deal with the full digestive process. “I think Xisuma’s got pointy teeth under the helmet.” He said, staring right at Xisuma’s not-pointy teeth.
Xisuma just sighed, and Xander barked a loud laugh. He stopped laughing when Grian added, “And I think Xander’s hiding a poor attempt at a moustache under his helmet.”
It was Xisuma’s turn to laugh as a decidedly non-mustachioed Xander gasped in faked outrage. “Well I think that Grian’s hiding that he’s got no eyebrows under his mask!”
The mirth leaked out of Grian at that. “I probably don’t,” he agreed, quieter, not quite as happy as he’d sounded before. His legs curled back up on the chair. He wasn’t sure when they’d come down.
The sounds of laughter and exaggerated outrage cut off at that. “What do you mean?” Xander asked, alarmed, clearly aware that something had gone wrong but not sure what.
“I probably don’t have eyebrows,” Grian repeated, “I probably don’t even have a face anymore. The mask doesn’t come off.”
Xander blinked slowly, an overwhelmed look appearing on his face. He turned wide eyes to his brother, but Xisuma was already looking at Grian in concern.
“You do,” Xisuma said with finality, and Grian’s head spun with a mix of emotions he didn’t know how to name. “There is something under your mask. I’m not sure what, but your code isn’t missing the huge chunk of Player skin code that would mean something as big as your face is gone. And,” he added in a conflicted tone, “Yesterday, when you cried, there were tears coming from under your mask.”
Grian trembled, the pressure in his head spilling over. Maybe it was dripping out from under his mask again, but he wouldn’t know. All he could feel was the air in his lungs trying to come out in a sob and getting caught on the hope in his throat. “I could…take it off? And look like me again?”
“We could do the fix now, if you’d like,” Xisuma offered immediately, setting down his half finished bread and shifting towards Grian.
“Y-yes—please,” Grian managed, pulling his wings tighter around him. It was awkward with the armchair in the way, but his wings had always found a way when he needed them to make him feel a little bit calmer. “But—f-finish your breakfast f-first. I can w-wait a few minutes so you don’t s-starve to death.”
Xisuma laughed, picking up his abandoned bread in one hand and opening an admin screen with the other. “I’ll get right on it, don’t worry about a thing.”
Meanwhile, Xander appeared in his still-limited field of vision. “So I hear you like magic, huh? Do you wanna see what else we can do?”
Grian knew what he was doing—Xander was being very obvious. But even so, Grian mustered up a laugh for his friend and said, “Sure. Show me what you got.”
And so Xander showed Grian glowing fireworks and little shield bubbles and spectral swords until Xisuma interjected with a “Done!” and then a “Ready?”
Xander lowered his hands he’d been using to produce magic and stepped away to give him space, but Grian caught one of the hands as it fell and squeezed it for a moment in thanks. Letting go, he said, “Ready.”
“And…code has been updated. You should feel it soon.”
Grian wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, maybe a lightning strike or the mask suddenly exploding off his face, or even for nothing to happen at all, but it felt like all the other updates they’d done. A wave of sensation came into existence around the front of his head, and suddenly he could feel the edges of the mask digging into his cheeks and temples. There was a strange pressure coming from the middle of his face, and it took Grian a second to realize that it must be his nose pressing into the mask. There was a wobbly feeling around where his vision was on one side—was that one of his eyes?
Slowly, slowly, matching the rising of hope in his chest, his hands reached up and curled around the edges of the mask. Would it still look like Grian underneath? Or would there be a stranger? Would Xander and Xisuma still like him afterwards, or would they recoil in horror? Grian breathed out shakily.
“Grian?”
Grian tugged.
The mask came off easier than expected—his hands flew forward, leaving Grian staring into the smooth white interior of the mask. It looked so plain and innocent from this side, with no brand in sight. Grian pushed his fingernails into it until it cracked soundlessly, spiderwebbing in from the sides and cracking down the middle.
No going back, now. Grian was never putting that mask back on, no matter what he looked like. He hesitated over the mental switch that would turn on his full vision and let him see his own face. Would his friends have been able to recognize him, if they were still alive? Did he even look like a Player anymore? Or did he just look like a discarded toy, dragged through the mud and torn apart and put back together so many times none of the original remained?
He looked up at Xander, still standing close by. “How do I look?” He tried to sound teasing. It came out flat.
Xander stared at Grian’s face, tilting his head this way and that, looking to be scrutinizing carefully. Finally, he nodded, saying decisively, “You do have eyebrows.”
Grian blinked for the first time in months. Then his face scrunched in a smile for the first time in months, and he laughed, the steady stream of tears coming from his unglitched eye never stopping.
(“To be honest, I didn’t even think you had a head at first, so this is way better than I expected.”
“Why would I not have a head? What??”
“Well, ‘cause Watchers don’t have physical heads, it’s just the mask—”
“They WHAT!?”
“Wait did you not know that—”)
“Hey Xander, are you—what is that.”
“Mm?” Xander glanced up at Grian from where he was sprawled on the ground, weaving together long strands of grass. He looked completely innocent, like he was about to do something that he absolutely should not get away with. “Oh, just seeing if I can make a blanket.”
“Sure.” Grian squinted at him with two newly Void-black eyes, which used to be one shining purple and one glitched hole punched into his face, which used to be two bright blue. They were actually just windows into the Void, his pupils and irises fully missing from his code, but nobody needed to know that. And if they wanted to know, well—nobody would ever believe them. “Want help?”
Xander’s head tilted in the way that meant he was smiling. “I think I’m just about done. Why don’t you pick our target?”
Grian grinned.
An hour later, Xander and Grian fled several loudly startled Hermits, dragging the grass blanket bush disguise with them. “I cannot believe that worked!”
“Bushes are easy,” Xander called back as they ran, “Wait till you get to the real disguises. It takes them ages to notice anything’s happening at all.”
“I didn’t know you were one for pranks! It’s fantastic!” Grian laughed back. They reached the little clearing between their houses, and Grian stumbled to the center to flop down and finish his laughing fit. Xander joined him.
“Messing with the Hermits is one of my greatest joys in life,” Xander announced, hand on his chest in what looked like complete sincerity until you took his helmet off. Grian sniggered and flicked the hand away.
“Do you do this often?”
“Oh, all the time. Whenever I visit, always a few pranks. I gotta remind them that I’m around, you know. Can’t have them getting complacent.”
Xander leaned back to lay on the grass, and Grian blinked as he remembered his original mission. “Oh, by the way.”
“Hm?”
“We finished fixing my code last week.” Grian flexed his red, yellow, blue wings proudly, smiling wide with the mouth that hadn’t been there when he’d first taken off the mask.
“Congrats! But—you’ve still been doing code stuff since then?”
“We made you something,” Grian said, dropping a little strip of fabric onto Xander’s chest in response.
“Um—?”
“Distress signal that actually works. Wear it like a bracelet and it’ll integrate with your Player skin, so nobody can take it away or deactivate it.” Xander didn’t move, just running the strip between his fingers, and Grian continued, “And then you can activate it at any time, without interference. We based it on your anti-Watcher code, Xisuma says he helped you develop it the first time.”
“He’s better at code.” Xander said immediately, like it was something he’d said a hundred times before. His hands hung frozen in the air for a moment, then jerkily started wrapping the band around one wrist. Once the circle closed, the fabric glowed and shrank, changing to look like the armor underneath. “So this is just in case, huh?”
“Just in case,” Grian agreed, “And preparing for an inevitability. If it’s happened once odds are it’ll happen again. You didn’t call for help until after the first few sessions, this time. I don’t like the idea that you might not ever call for help if it doesn’t seem as bad.”
“I know how to—”
“I know you can take care of yourself, Xander.” Grian cut him off, voice quieting. His fingers curled into the grassy dirt they were sitting on. “But Xisuma said this was the first time you’d ever called for help. That means it was the first time you thought it was bad enough to need help. There’s no way you’ve never struggled with a Watcher before. If you ever get caught again, I don’t care if it’s one Watcher or twenty. Call, and we will come, and we will win. But don’t ever suffer like that again. Please.”
“You don’t… need to deal with them again.”
“And neither do you. And neither does anyone else. And yet.”
Silence. Then, Xander sighed. “Fine.”
“Good.” Grian huffed, and flopped down to lay beside Xander on the grass. One wing wrapped around him like a hug, feathers reaching past him to buffet against Xander’s helmet until he pushed them away.
“You know I’ll be leaving at some point, then?”
Grian huffed again. “Of course. I’ve seen you, you’re getting antsy. You don’t like staying in one place. You can go and surf errant code strings in the Void again, or whatever it is you do. Hunt Watchers. Weirdo.”
“You’re okay with that?”
“What did we just have a whole conversation about. Use your distress signal when you’re in distress, and I won’t have to worry about you.”
“With me leaving, I mean? I know everything’s still new for you. I don’t want to just abandon you…”
“You’ll visit, won’t you? I know Xisuma too, and he’s going to introduce me to some of the Hermits soon, see how I like it. Says they’re starting a new world soon, and I could officially join then—Season Six? Odd name.”
“So—”
“Waauuughhh I’ll be fine, you dummy!” Grian flailed, flinging torn grass bits at Xander’s helmeted face. “Go, have fun killing headless masked gods, and I’ll tell all the Hermits horrible lies about what’s under your helmet so you have to come back and tell them why I’m right.”
“Okay, okay!” Xander laughed, helplessly trying to shield himself from the grass onslaught, “I can tell when I’m not wanted! I’ll go soon!”
“Good!” Grian shouted back, throwing more grass. He swatted Xander over the head with his wing as a final parting shot and flopped back down. The wing spread over both of them like a blanket, tip extending just past Xander’s shoulders.
“And if all else fails, you’ll still have this.”
His wing fluttered just a bit, feathers brushing over armor where underneath, Grian knew, there was a red feather on a cord hung around Xander’s neck.
Notes:
Fun fact I made Grian's eyes holes into the void before they were canon
Thanks for reading!!