A Change In The Horizon || The Lost One AU

9. Into the Nether

That night, the mysterious feeling embedded in Miesall's chest made itself very known. With every choked sob he heard, it twisted his stomach. With each sniffle, his chest ached. With every whimper, he felt almost as though he was in the Void itself.

To this day, he did not know what this sensation was, what it was that was hurting him, and why even though it did, he wanted to keep it. All he knew it mimicked masochism, but of course not sexual in nature as he was celibate.

In a way, he almost felt ashamed because of that feeling. He tried to bury it within himself, but it sprang right back up stronger than ever. He admittedly quietly enjoyed it in the shadows, however for the life of him, he would not dare tell Xelqua about this feeling, or how it was directed at him.

He decided it to be best to not bring up what he heard and felt that night, and seemingly, Xelqua decided the same.

~🌤~

The next morning, the two had a quick breakfast before they began their seemingly never ending journey.

'We should change it up.' Xelqua suggested a half hour into the journey. As much as he loved feeling the wind in between his feathers, he had enough of it yesterday already.

'We are not taking any significant detours.' Miesall signed, a sigh exiting his lips which the wind quickly took. Usually, although he wouldn't admit it, Xel's redrailings were charismatic in a way. Not this time— they really needed to keep the pace moving, even if he had agreed to stop and smell the roses every now and then.

'No, no, I don't mean that we're going to stop. In fact, it'll make the journey faster!' The blonde signed quickly, excitement evident on his face. This perked Miesall's interest, although he didn't voice it. Of course the other Watcher noticed this regardless. 'Eight times faster, in fact.' He smirked.

'You mean for us to travel to the bowels of the Nether itself?' The leader asked, flapping his wings a little bit faster. It was an intriguing idea, and he had thought of going there earlier, but he never voiced it. Traveling faster was better, yes, but the Nether was crawling with even more annoying mobs like ghasts, that could shoot you right out of the sky a lot easier than a skeleton could. He was unfazed by burning in lava, but he had to notice how his robes were beginning to be holy in a different way than they were supposed to. He was afraid the lava would burn his clothes right off his body.

Outside of those inconveniences, there was one other main reason he had decided against it. 'The compass won't work. We could go right past spawn without knowing.' He argued.

Xelqua thoughtfully stayed quiet. That was indeed a very good point. However, he was determined to take a detour, and so he was sure to find a way to convince the curly-haired Watcher. 'So what if we travel there for an hour? A half hour, even? We'll make great time, and once the time is up, we can peak our head back in the Overworld. If we overshoot, then we still would take less time than we would continuing to travel here."

Miesall had to admit, for Xelqua, this wasn't such a bad idea. He tried to think if it really was worth it to take a small trip to the Nether after all.  In the end, any counter arguments he could think of seemed rather minimal. 'Alright,' he signed, heaving a sigh as he did so. 'Just for a small while.'

'We should save our magic and find obsidian ourselves.' Xelqua suggested, as if they would be able to create a stable portal to begin with.

Once he spotted an open pool of lava, Miesall tilted himself down towards the ground, prompting Xelqua to do the same. They landed in a clearing a safe distance away before approaching it. Upon being a few feet away, he stood there, appearing almost to be frozen.