The Chained Watcher

Portal Closes

~~~

Grian lets out a quiet breath, sitting atop his base and enjoying watching the square sun rise over the horizon. It really is nice to come back to this.

Isn't it weird? He's a Watcher, a being so old there've been entire languages created and lost and found and lost again, all within the span of his life. And yet, something as simple as sitting on a giant rock he built and watching Minecraft's silly square sun proudly mimic the colors of a real sunrise can give him this strange feeling of contentment.

But he finds he's not averse to it. There's very little in the way of genuinely stressful situations here, even knowing there's a pair of Listeners who study his every move with suspicion, trying to find a mistake in his 'mask of innocence'. It's kinda funny actually. Watching them puzzle over everything he does and get more confused when none of it is evil. He does still hope they'll accept he's friendly, but until they do, he has no problem having a good laugh at their expense.

Spotting a figure rapidly approaching, he simply leans to the side, letting the arrow thunk into the moss behind him. Can't quite say he missed that, but it's amusing enough he'll have to forgive Scar for his antics.

Scar circles a couple times, attempting to land next to him and instead plowing straight into the side of a block.

"...Ow."

Chuckling, Grian offers the accident-prone wizard a hand, helping him up to sit next to him. "I suppose some things never change. Happy to finally be back on Minecraft?"

Scar grins. "Yeah! I bought a bunch of magic stuff out there, and I wanna see if I can figure out how to make my crystals better with them."

"Oh? Care for a tip?"

"Only a small one, okay? I want to surprise you when I do figure something out."

He smiles, ruffling Scar's hair. "Okay then. How about... Try playing around with the aesthetic a bit."

"...You want me to change how my crystals look?" Scar puzzles. He just nods, still smiling. "Glass isn't easy to shape though. It tends to break, and silk touch doesn't help if you're trying to mess around with less than a full block. Why... No, don't answer that. I'm gonna at least try to figure it out before you give me the answer."

His smile grows, and he praises, "Good. This is something I figured out around the time I moved into my old retreat, and while it still sometimes surprises me, it's actually pretty intuitive once you figure it out."

He goes to say more, but startling him out of his peaceful conversation is a soundless snap, Scar reeling back like he felt it too.

His eyes immediately flare a dark violet, catching a glimpse of a cord of divinity rapidly retracting into its host, binding the boon it's connected to permanently to the planebound being who received it. Who- No, it had to have been Quaxel, but when? Why? And- No, he didn't...

He turns his head slowly to look at Scar, voice becoming dangerously calm. "Scar? Is there something you forgot to tell me?"

Scar shakes off his disorientation, expression betraying his guilt. He knew. "Uh... I might've ran into your friend while shopping yesterday?"

"And would you like to explain why I just sensed a boon snap? Because I would have thought something like that would have been something you would have mentioned before Minecraft left the plane and severed the boon from its source."

"Kwazzle might've... given me a little boon to try to balance out whatever you gave him."

"Why?! I already told him he doesn't need to give me anything!"