The Temptation of Power ||| Hermitcraft Watcher AU

Epilogue

He'd lost a lot. He'd gained a little.

If he'd had a choice, he wasn't sure exactly what he'd change. He would want Oリᒷ and T∴𝙹 back, he'd want to keep his magic and identity as Xelqua the Watcher. But he would also want his friends on Hermitcraft. The two things clashed, and even if he'd had any sort of control over his experiences he wasn't sure how differently they would've played out.

But, when it came down to it, it didn't matter. It didn't matter what he wanted or how he felt about the situation because nothing could change now. It had happened. Even he couldn't do anything about it, and according to Xisuma's book he was the most powerful ever Watcher (although he doubted it; in reality he was probably just the most powerful Watcher the humans knew of).

It was five weeks later and he still couldn't quite believe that Oリᒷ and T∴𝙹 wouldn't be waiting for him in their obsidian temple. He'd even gone back a few times to clean up the damage a bit, but the feeling was still always nagging at the back of his mind. They'd been there for so long, so how could they possibly be gone? But as each day went by without them, he slowly began to accept the truth, or at least, get used to it. Besides, he couldn't exactly not.

Xelqua watched from a distance as the collection of humans discovered the portal he'd set up for them. He watched as they read and deciphered the signs he'd left for them. He'd watched as they first met, as they slowly gathered resources and started to build and have fun together, he'd watched with T∴𝙹 as they grouped up to defeat the Ender dragon, he'd watched with Oリᒷ as they built their bases and learned to fly. And now he watched alone as they stepped through the portal into their next worlds - separated from each other and to be watched by other Watchers.

He let his wings lift him into the air and destroyed the server with the familiar purple fog offhandedly before taking another portal to travel between dimensions. It had been the last world he'd finished off for Oリᒷ and T∴𝙹. Of course, he would still watch ones on his own, he was still a Watcher after all, but this was the last one with memories of life before... before T⍑∷ᒷᒷ had happened.

And then Grian stepped out into Hermitcraft.

He took off his mask, cloak and dark jumper and replaced the latter with a familiar red one. He glanced around at his base, smiling at the buildings that were popping up one by one. His building pace was a lot slower than normal this season, but he was fine with it. In fact, he was enjoying the relaxed nature of building in small chunks whenever he felt like it. If he wanted to make it more impressive, he could use magic, but he didn't. He still enjoyed the satisfaction that came with sitting back and looking at what he'd made.

Besides, he's promised the hermits he would still do things by hand to keep it all fair, that he'd gather resources the long way round and collect xp in the Enderman farm and dig out holes one block at a time. He only used his magic when he was in other worlds doing Watcher things, when he was Xelqua. He kept his wings out though, which significantly reduced his outgoing diamonds and every rocket shops' income.

As the gremlin looked around, he spotted a wild Mumbo Jumbo gliding down into the open-topped cave.

"Hey Mumbo," he greeted.

And that was how Hermitcraft went; normally. Mumbo invited him to a get together, and half an hour later they were at Iskall's, along with Pearl and Scar. They hung out, raced each other around the mountainous base, talked, played games and even said hi to Etho, who was setting up some kind of redstone-y thing (Grian felt an undeniable pang of guilt at seeing the still prominent bruise on his head, but was happy to see it was at least healing).

About mid afternoon, the group of hermits parted ways and the gremlin went back to his base to build. It was peaceful... nice. Like for the first time in his life he could actually be himself, and for the first time in his life he actually knew himself. This was where he belonged.

His life wasn't perfect, nor was it bad, it was just life. Life, in all it's fucked up, horrible, beautiful glory.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!