The Chained Watcher

Backstory: Injuries

16k words, I didn't bother to split it up into shorter chapters this time though. I find it so interesting to do the backstory segments because I have the beginning point (normal Watcher) and the end point (Grian) but what happened to lead up to that is still a mystery. And with the extended lengths of in-universe time in between the backstory chapters, I don't have to worry very much about things from the last chapter having unexpected influences.

Sorry for taking so long to post another chapter, but inspiration has been pointing just about everywhere except where I actually want it to go.

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The Watcher huffed out a pained sigh. This is why he doesn't like leaving his retreat.

Most of the time he's careful when venturing out to gather resources, but nooooo, he just had to detour to get a rare herb he found along the way. Just look where that got him, with none of the stuff he'd gathered on this trip and a plethora of injuries to boot. He can't even use magic to heal himself, having strained it when he realized he couldn't win the fight.

Massaging his temples, he grimaced as he was reminded of his newly broken mask. The fight had been a close one, but his enemy had had reinforcements on the way and he had not. He hadn't had enough magic left to teleport back to his base, so he'd just pushed the intent of 'away' into the destination of the spell instead. It had taken him away alright, but not before his opponent got one last hit in and not without using more magic than he'd had left.

You might be asking yourself, if he didn't have enough magic left for the spell, how did it work? And the answer to that would be, very painfully. Watchers, being innately magical, can draw out more magic than is safe for them when under enough duress. This, naturally, has some nasty side effects, but when the other option is dying he'll take the side effects any day.

Now he's in the middle of an uninhabited forest with no signs of civilization anywhere he can see, with a broken wing and a killer headache. For a brief moment, he considers trying to push magic towards the broken wing to heal it, but almost immediately his headache throbs in protest. So that's a nope. Straining his already-strained magic could genuinely kill him in this state.

Briefly surveying his surroundings, he finds an empty cave that could serve as a resting spot until he recovers. As low as the chances are, it's not impossible for some sapient to fly overhead, and he does not need the Listeners snapping at his heels when he's like this.

Sure, he's not entirely helpless, but the amount of strength he can currently bring to bear should another fight break out is much less than ideal.

Checking out the cave, he's only a little disappointed to discover that it does not connect to a wider network of caverns below the surface. While that does mean one less direction to worry about enemies coming from, it also means his only exit is the way he came in. Not quite what he'd prefer, but he can work with this.

Trudging to the back of the winding cave, he settles down against a wall, facing back the way he came. Carefully, he arranged his broken wing to rest in the least painful position he could find. It's not like physical pain incapacitates him or anything, but there is no point in suffering more than is necessary. Mending the bones will be his first priority once his strained magic recovers and his rock returns.

He'd dropped his rock during the fight, which means he has two weeks where he shouldn't use magic, lest the Listeners somehow find the traces of it and track down his hiding spot. Whatever they use to detect Watcher magic shouldn't be sensitive enough to pick up small spells or internal magic, but he should avoid blatant uses of it like manipulating the stone around him for now.