A Change In The Horizon || The Lost One AU

10. Depths

Feeling a shift, Miesall stumbled out of the portal in the dastardly hot landscape. His vision was clouded with unidentifiable shapes of red and orange, and two white-ish squiggly rectangle-like shapes. He lost footing of the ground, neither of his feet touching without him intending to. He extended his wings as one of the rectangles grew in size, losing its shape.

He felt Xel grab ahold of him, trying to call out above the sound rushing in their ears. The former human held him there for a few seconds as the influence of the portal lost hold, the eerie quietness of the Nether coming into focus along with the horrific landscape, the white spots assembling themselves into the Watchers respectively.

Steadied on his feet now, Miesall gently moved Xel's arms off of him.

"Welcome to the Nether!" Xel exclaimed, spinning around with his arms extended to gesture to the entire place. "What do you think?"

"It is hotter than I thought it would be." Miesall replied. He had heard that it was hot of course, but he never imagined that being this hot could be possible. Even though he had only been here for a minute, he already felt hotter than he had already been in his entire life. Absolutely dreadful.

The temple had always been temperate, and even the Overworld did not have too much drastic changes in temperature. The sun would beat down on him at noon, and while it was uncomfortable, he could deal with it. Now, barely having walked in, he couldn't stand this place already.

Xel himself had forgotten just how hot it could get here. He resisted the urge to take off one of his robes, or at least undo one of them. Even though they were relatively lightweight, it was almost fully covering him from his neck down, almost concealing his hands and feet, trapping their body heat inside. He opted instead to roll his sleeves as high as he could. Miesall sucked in a breath to scold him for it, but he changed his mind and copied the motion.

Next, Xel rummaged through his inventory. He first took out water bottles and then two necklaces, handing some of the supplies to Miesall. "They're made of gold, so the pigmen won't bother you if you wear it." He explained.

"I knew that." Miesall huffed before taking it and putting the jewelry on. Of course he didn't need it, but it would be rather annoying to be followed by a crowd of not-so-loving supporters wherever he went. "Now let us get going. We don't have time to lose." He said, taking a swig of water.

Xelqua nodded as he himself put on his own necklace. He watched his friend spread out his wings before beginning to fly over the barren and dead landscape. Xelqua was quick to follow suit.

Flying around the Nether proved to be quite difficult. Floating pieces of netherrack jutted out from all sides in unpredictable ways. Cascades of lava flowed freely from the ceiling all the way to the pits of the dimension. Darkness protruded in the rare corners in which lava was not present. A red foggy mist hovered in the air, obscuring the path.

To a Watcher under normal circumstances, it shouldn't matter. They could just escape the poor visibility by dedicating more of their eyes to watching themselves and their path, putting them far ahead of themselves. To these two, however, their few eyes could not go very far. They were much more helpful than a human's, but they still usually only had a second to see what laid up ahead.

The stubborn one of the two paid no mind to this. They had a mission, and if he did a little dip in lava, so be it. Xelqua decided that it was best not to argue, keeping pace with him.

It was less than a minute before the leader of the two clipped the first ridge. He gave a gasp as he felt his wing drag against it, causing him to lose balance. He quickly began tumbling down, blood flowing from his wingtip and smearing into his feathers. He could see lava in his future, and a lot of it.