Watching and Listening - An Empires SMP AU

Mind games

           Grian wasn't even sure what he was doing. He'd sworn to never use his Watcher powers unless it was an emergency or to use it against the other Watchers. And he wasn't sure if looking at Jimena's memories counted for either. And he wasn't entirely sure he knew how to do it properly either.

           But as soon as he started, the magic flowed through him easily as if he was used to it. The red aura stretched out and wound around Jimena's head; her eyes suddenly glazed over as if asleep. "That looks pretty," Scar marveled. Grian secretly agreed but all the same he still hated it. The power that was given to him by those he detested. 

           Soon Grian could access her mind. It was almost overwhelming. He could access her memories as easily as if it was his own. He could see both the real world, in which he was still in front of Jimena and simply touching her head, and the mental world, where Grian was trying to find the missing memory. 

           But her memories were in a confusing jumble. Flashes of broken 4d images that represented experiences kept on coming. Memories connected to other memories connected to other memories. And the images weren't in chronological order. Grayed out pictures were ones Jimena had forgotten. Grian focused his attention on those. He scanned them, looking for the one that had happened before Jimena woke up in Cogsmeade.

           There! Grian thought, and he saw a huge clump of gray images hobbled together. The ones that were together meant that they were connected, and since those gray ones were connected as thoroughly as a spider's web, he could only assume that they were probably about the same subject. A glimpse of one flash told him what that subject potentially was. The Watchers.

           Grian took the clump and tried to gently pry it apart, looking for the one he wanted. Even if he wasn't an expert on psyches, he could tell Jimena's was badly broken. The whole confusing mess of images were fraying at the ends and some images would crash into each other and fracture. It was a wonder the girl was still sane. 

           Wait... Grian trailed off. He eyed a fractured memory flashing by him. It was blue. No, the memory wasn't blue. It was surrounded by blue, keeping it tightly together. Watcher magic. Qiron's magic. He was helping keep Jimena's psyche intact. Grian wasn't sure what he thought about that, or what it meant. 

           He went back to prising the gray clump apart. But more colors caught his attention. There was more blue magic in the group of woven memories. It was fighting off purple magic that was trying to access them. Grian blinked in surprise. Jimena's words echoed through his mind. Mine's purple. That was Jimena's magic. More of Jimena's words came back. I tried to use my magic to bring my memories back. 

           Grian tried to make sense of what he was seeing. So that's Jimena's magic trying to get her to remember these events, but the blue magic... Qiron's magic... is trying to stop her? Why would he not want her to remember this? This is about her time with the Watchers, isn't it? What happened that Qiron wants her to forget forever? Grian frowned. Is Jimena right that she's not with the other Watchers?

           Grian pushed those thoughts away at least for the time being. He focused his magic on helping Jimena's break past QIron's. Red lines came out and wove itself through the purple, and together it slipped through the knots of blue webs. Slowly, the grayed images sprang to life and began to regain their color. 

           Suddenly, Grian felt pain flood through his body, but it wasn't physical. Grian turned in horror to see Qiron's dark blue form floating there, glaring. <Keep away from those,> He ordered, pointing to the clump of memories. <Why?> Grian asked, readying his magic in case of a fight. <She doesn't need to remember that,> Qiron said menacingly. <And you don't need to know about what happened either.>