Words Unspoken - A Hermitcraft Story

The Fight

Wels watched Xizara shut his eyes forcefully. If it was anyone else, Wels would question their sanity. But this was Xizara. He always had something else up his sleeve. And today, he definitely didn't disappoint. When he opened his eyes, his normally bright blue irises near black. Or purple? Wels couldn't tell, and Xizara's eyes were not what Wels needed to be focusing on.

Xizara looked down at his dagger, a movement that was most definitely off-putting. He smiled, his teeth shining in quite a predatory manner. This was not the Xizara Wels knew.

"Who are you?"

"Oh, just your old pal Zara." The stranger said, his smile laced with venom.

"You're not Xizara." Wels pointed his sword at the stranger's chest. "Who are you?"

Not-Xizara chuckled, and pushed the sword down with a gloved hand, making sure he only touched the flat surface and not the sharp edge.

"You may call me Ex."

"That still doesn't answer my question." Wels tone became impatient, angry even.

Ex rolled his eyes and turned his head. Notch, this guy was arrogant. What if Wels decided to attack?

"I'm a fallen Watcher." Ex spat.

"A what?"

"A Watcher." Ex looked back to Wels, staring deep into his eyes. "Being of immense power sent to protect certain humans."

"I know what a Watcher is. But they're just fairy tales. Stories parents tell young children." even to Wels, his voice didn't sound convincing.

Ex laughed again. "Yeah right."

"But even if you are a Watcher, they aren't supposed to take to humans, just look after them."

"I did say I was a fallen Watcher. I was never very good at following rules." Ex grinned as if he had just gotten a brilliant idea. "Hels?" He stretched out the "e" so that the word was a whole lot longer than it should have been. "Come out and play!"

Nothing happened.

"Fine. We'll do this the hard way." Ex moved faster than Wels thought possible, knocking over the knight with a single blow. He held Xizara's blade to Wels' neck, drawing a thin line of blood from where he pressed the sharp metal. In the next second, however, the pressure was gone and he heard a crash across the room. The knight looked up to see Ex on the floor, groaning.

"Wha-"

Ex coughed and then pointed beside Wels with a motion from his head. The knight looked up, and saw a clone of himself. He gasped and tried to scramble away, but the clone knelt down next to him and put two fingers on Wels' neck. A cool feeling crossed the wound, and the clone moved back. Wels brought his hand up to his neck, not even knowing what he expected. But instead of finding something, he found nothing. His wound was healed.

Wels looked back up to his clone, now realizing that he wasn't a perfect copy. His skin was paler, his hair darker. Darker armor and his helmet's plume flickered like real fire. Wait. That was actual fire. How was that possible? And his eyes. They were purple.

"My name is Hels. I'm your Watcher."

"Go on Helsie. Tell Wels why they kicked me out." Ex spat.

"It's not my fault you can't respect authority." Hels whispered, still looking at Wels.

"Respect is earned."

The room stayed silent, the flickering of Hels' plume casting dancing shadows across the dark room.

Ex snorted. "Not even you can deny it. The Great Hels. Might as well be as bad as me."

"I'm nothing like you."

"Come on Hels. The only difference between me and you is the fact they took my magic."

For the first time, Hels looked at Ex, his purple eyes boring into the ex-Watcher. "I'm nothing like you."

Hels broke his eyes away from him and brought them back to Wels. "Need anything?" Wels shook his head.

Hels nodded and his eyes glowed bright. His hands exploded with warm fire, light purple tongues licking at his arms.

Wels backed up until he hit the wall behind him. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing his mess." Hels replied simply. Ex huffed, but didn't deny. The Watcher moved close to Wels, who pressed himself further into the wall. "It's okay, Wels, I'm physically incapable of hurting you. And even if I could, I wouldn't."

"What are you gonna do to me?"

"It's a simple memory wipe spell. You'll wake up in a couple hours with no memory of any of this, just that Zara knocked you out."

"No! I have to go help Prince Grian. He's in danger."

Hels and Ex looked at each other with knowing expressions.

"You wanna know why I showed you all this?" Ex asked, a hint of regret in his voice. "To buy my boss time. If all went to plan, nothing you can do now will help your prince."

"No." Wels whimpered.

"I'm sorry, Wels. I wish things could be different, truly."

And the world went dark. 

824 Words