Chapter Text
The Watchers weren't cruel. That was one of the first things Grian learned, upon being taken to Their realm and remade in Their image. They weren't sadistic, They didn't wish pain on the humans They Watched.
The Watchers were just so removed from the human experience that They hurt people anyways.
How can a being as vast and incomprehensible as a Watcher understand something like pain or grief? How can They know how tragic death is for a player when They have no concept of it Themselves?
That's why They took Grian, he thought. To understand the players more. They had tried before, and never quite managed it. The difference between a player and a Watcher was too vast. Their solution was to make a player one of Them.
It almost shattered his mind, when They took him. One moment he was a normal player, on a server with friends like he should be. The next, he was nowhere and everywhere and he couldn't breathe but he didn't need to in this non-place. Everything hurt, but at the same time, he couldn't feel anything at all. His mind stuttered, trying to make sense of it all. And that was before They showed Themselves. Or rather, before he noticed They had been there all along.
They were vast, incomprehensibly so. Grian couldn't see where one's body- if it could even be called that- began or ended, not with player eyes. But a part of him was aware, all the same, of the way Their beings stretched towards infinity. For just a moment, he was aware of how he was cradled in one of Their hands, but his brain locked that thought away as quickly as he had it. He would remember later, when his mind was no longer that of a player, and more able to handle the enormity of what he'd experienced.
The Eyes were the next thing he noticed. Countless Eyes, numbered like stars in the sky. They pointed in every direction in this strange plane of existence-non-existence. And many, to his horror, were focused on him.
PlayerGrian-LittleTrickster, Something said in his mind. It wasn't loud at all- it was just a whisper in his mind. But it was in every language all at once. Every spoken language that had ever existed or would ever exist, all in one overlapping Voice, and in that moment Grian understood them all.
He screamed, clutching at his ears, even though the Voice was in his head. There was something dripping from his eyes. He wasn't sure if it was tears or blood.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The Eyes were still there.
Careful, another Voice said, much less overwhelming than the first. It only spoke in one language. You are going to break it.
I am not going to break it, argued the first, still with infinite languages layered in Its speech. Grian cringed at the sound. He barely noticed himself curling into a ball, his entire body shaking.
Oh, the first said again, but in one language now. Grian slumped in relief. Players, such fragile things.
Grian didn't know where he found the courage. He was trembling, and his mind felt like it had melted just from being in this place. But he forced himself up, and asked: “What do you want from me?”
We Watch, but We do not understand, said one.
The players, you are so different and small. You feel things, do things, and We do not understand.
We are meant to Watch.
But what use is Watching without knowing?
What use is seeing without understanding?
You will teach Us
And We will teach you. We will know what it is to be a player
And you will understand what it is to be a Watcher.
And before Grian could protest, or even process what they meant by that, he felt a pull at his very being.
Players were not meant to feel their own code. That was why Admins existed, so the awareness of such a thing didn't drive players mad. Code was the soul, the life force of a player, and to feel it was impossible.
Grian could feel his code.
As the Watchers touched him, he felt an Awareness. He knew his own code with a horrible, sudden certainty. Millions of strings of pure information, things he had barely known existed seconds ago, were now as second nature to him as his own name.
And then.
A pull.
His code s t r e t c h e d.
And he was a player no more.
Even after years of being a Watcher, that memory never fully returned. The only thing he could remember of his transformation was the way he had screamed, and that there was so much pain.
When he finally came to, he was He, and He was a Watcher.
The two other Watchers still towered over Him, but not nearly as much as before. He could feel Them, now, reaching out to brush against His mind. There was curiosity and eagerness as They reached out to Him. It was instinctive to reach back, sending His own horror and fear at what He'd just experienced.
They were confused now, and worried. And this was when Grian, soon to be renamed Xelqua, realized just how little Watchers understood players. They hadn't meant to hurt Him; They had meant this as a gift.
Grian became Xelqua, and learned what He could from the Watchers. He tried to show Them how players thought. They tried to learn, but They would never understand players. They couldn't even understand Xelqua, even as much like Them as He now was.
They never quite got why Xelqua was so upset upon being turned into a Watcher. They didn't understand His grief at never interacting with any players, with His friends, again. They didn't understand that Watching could not fill the hole in His heart.
They cared about Him, in Their own strange way. But They would never, could never understand Him. And so, Xelqua left.
It was years of solitude and Watching before Xelqua found something that sparked hope. In a way, He had the Watchers to thank for the way he intrinsically knew His own code. He also had Them to thank for mutilating Him into no longer being a player in the first place, but He'd decided to stop being bitter years ago. (The feelings never truly left.)
It was a long shot, and a tricky enough procedure that He'd destroyed several empty worlds just testing it out. But in the end, Xelqua learned how to twist His code. He made himself a new body, and stuck His entire being safely inside.
It was strange and limiting, frightening even, experiencing reality as a player again, but it was worth it. Because He could speak without blood leaking from anyone's ears. He could walk without shredding the world to pieces. He could see without His Eyes piercing into every piece of code on a world.
He could live as a player again.
And so, Xelqua became Grian once more.
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