The Chained Watcher

Backtracking (Chained Watcher POV pt 1)

What was our mysterious Chained Watcher thinking while all this was happening?

Silence. 

Then, a disturbance.

Something had changed.

Was it worth checking?

The disturbance drew closer, stale air flowing and swirling as it pushed through. 

It was quite close now, and the emotions leaking off of it tickled a nearly forgotten sense of curiosity.

Lifting his eyes for the first time since he had given up struggling against the chains, the Watcher met the curious gaze of what seemed to be a... mortal? A human. What was a human doing in here?

The human recoiled in fear, terrified eyes locked onto the Watcher's own.

Ah, it seemed to be afraid of him. Almost amusing, considering the state of his body.

It was back at the door now, trying to grasp the handle without breaking eye contact. Shame, something was actually interesting in here for once. He let his eyes fall back down to the same patch of floor they had stared at for time immeasurable.

The emotions tainting the air around the human shifted, a new emotion tainting the others before overtaking the previously all encompassing fear. Sadness? Pity? For him? It didn't matter. Nothing with magic could bear to so much as touch the chains binding him.

Determination. It spoke, though more to itself than out of a desire to be heard. "I shouldn't be doing this. This is a terrible idea." Footsteps sounded out at a brisk pace, until they stopped behind him, where the chains could be seen clearly.

Hesitance, before the Determination takes back over. One of the chains shifts slightly as the human touches it. He waits for the inevitable hiss of pain when the chain stole the magic from the hand that dared touch it, but... it never came. Not even after several minutes had passed.

Pain surges, before fading as one of the chains is detached from its anchor. In a daze, he hears that voice again, this time tinted with surprise. "Well, that was rather simple." Simple? The anchoring system of a chain designed to rip the magic out of any who touched it was... simple?

This repeats several times, and he can feel the moment the threshold of the remaining chains has been reached. They can no longer take his magic faster than he can replenish it. Color slowly starts returning to his wings, as more and more chains are detached by the strange human. Its emotions are currently focused intently, and it probably has not yet noticed the returning magic coloring his wings. 

One of the torches on the wall, no longer being fed magic, his magic, flickered unsteadily before extinguishing. The human's focused emotions shift to surprise and confusion as its intent single minded state broke with the distraction. Good enough.

He gathered as much magic as he could, before blasting it through the anchors at the remaining spikes. Alarm. Fear. The human seems to have been caught off guard by this. The remaining torches go out as the chains snap and snake off into the newly formed darkness at the edges of the room. Wounds rapidly close, using the magic saturating the area around them as fuel to knit back together damaged wings and limbs.

His wings, now that the wounds have been healed, flush with the unique shade of purple his magic carries with it. The outer edges of the room crumble away, dropping down into the void as a last-ditch failsafe to prevent escape. Only the center remains intact, held up through non-physical magic constructs as various pulses of magic travel through the walls in predefined paths. Alarms.

A feeling of fear tickles his senses. Looking back over, he sees the human on the ground staring at the void below. It looks back up, freezing when it notices his gaze. Considering how it had freed him, he at least needed to know its motives, so he gently pushed a couple of thoughts to the edge of its mind. Why free him?

The human blinks for a moment before stuttering out an answer. "I-I-I don't really, I mean, I couldn't just w-walk away, y-you know?" Well that answered nothing.

His confusion had apparently leaked into his projected emotions, as the human seemed to be slowly weakening its overwhelming fear. No matter. If it truly did this with no expectation of reparations, then all the more reason to repay this favor. Guiding another question over, he asked the human for its wish. What does it seek of him?

It seems like it wasn't expecting this either, and mumbles quietly, "A favor from a Watcher. No pressure or anything..." Well, wasn't that amusing. It then continued, louder this time. "D-Do you know how to get out? Me and some others escaped from a g-gladiatorial arena a-and w-we were trying to f-find a way back home..."

The exit? He could probably find his way to the front door just fine, though the pursuit would be quite difficult to shake. Maybe a different exit? A thought faintly echoed from faded memories. A manifestation of the freedom and wonder of the universe, bound to the fort. A portal hub. That should do nicely.

He nodded to the human, and started walking towards the door. While he could have flown over the gap, his wings were still rather weak from extensive magic drain, and the human most likely didn't have a proper method of crossing it. 

Channeling magic into the floor around him, he found it surprisingly responsive to his manipulations. A moment's thought gave him the answer. They had used his magic to power the entire fortress, resulting in everything but the chains slowly becoming saturated with it. Ironic, that everything responded so eagerly to his will, yet the ones that really mattered remained steadfast.

The human starts to say something as he brings the floor up into a bridge, "T-the floor isn't... there..." trailing off as it watches the bridge twine railings out of stone, struck speechless by the sight. "Oh." was the only sound that it managed to get out.

Raising an eyebrow in amusement, he looked at the human and pushed over another question. "Are you coming?"

The human's attention snaps back into focus, and it responds quickly, seemingly afraid of being left behind. "Coming, I'm coming!" It starts going over the bridge, keeping its gaze firmly set ahead. Oddly enough, its focus slips a bit near the end and it glances down at the void underneath the bridge. It pauses, staring down into the depths of the void as its emotions start leaking terror again.

Pulling its eyes away from the pit, it stumbles over to the end of the bridge while breathing shakily. Why would it look down if it was that scared?

Apparently he was broadcasting a bit, as the human tried to defend its reaction, saying "I-I'm fine! J-just a l-little startled by the amount of n-nothingness is all. T-that's a lot more of n-nothing than most people usually see." Ah.

The human picks up on the amusement, and stands up straight in an attempt to disguise embarrassment. It then marches out the door, saying "Well let's get going! No time to lose, right?" and turns... the wrong way. It is now marching confidently away from the exit.

He projected his amusement at the human, watching it look back uncertainly. Raising his eyebrows, he points down the hall the correct way, feeling almost giggly at the realization dawning on the human's face when it processes what he meant. It walked swiftly back to his side, avoiding eye contact by staring at the ground.

Continuing down the correct path, he resolved himself to get back into the habit of restraining his emotion leakage before someone not intended to feel it notices.