The Chained Watcher

Backstory: Troubled Thoughts

~~~

Watching the group of children frolic in the mud puddles left over from last night's rainstorm, the Watcher observed the innocent play with a faint hint of a smile on his face. This may not further any of his projects, but it's surprisingly relaxing to watch children at play. Some of their carefree attitude is simply contagious.

The one he's decided is his main target of observation is around seven, with an almost hyper personality he finds rather amusing to watch at work. Definitely an extrovert, what with the large posse of other children it inevitably ends up gathering when playing, but when it gets tired it practically crashes almost instantly. The abrupt shift from tireless ball of hyperactive energy to borderline sleepwalking just tickles his sense of humor.

One of the teens the child looks up to asks for an errand to be run, and the child happily agrees, picking up the empty bread basket and running off in the direction of the nearest bakery selling loaves of bread. Then they hurry back, face beet red, and accept the handful of coins they need to purchase the bread that they had forgotten to grab from the laughing teen.

On the way back from the errand, he freezes, senses focusing in on the higher Tier Watcher currently directing their servants to collect mortals from the city. They haven't noticed him, since his rock so thoroughly hides all traces of his magic, but he can't scare off a higher Tier by saying he already has plans for this city.

As for fighting... Maybe if he had time to prepare, he could take on a Watcher a Tier higher then him, but he doesn't have anything set up since he was only observing things here. The only thing fighting would accomplish would be ticking them off and maybe getting himself killed.

It doesn't register in his mind that, even if for but a moment, he had considered fighting a higher Tiered Watcher for a couple of mortals.

Biting his lip, he made a decision and reached out, scooping up the child he'd been following and disappearing from the city before he could risk being discovered by the other Watcher.

The child is understandably quite frightened about being snatched up like this, but it wouldn't be even remotely safe to leave it in the city when the other Watcher might just decide to abduct the entire population. That would include this child, so better for him to take it somewhere else instead.

He's doing his best to be gentle with the child as it tries to escape, and in an attempt to calm it down he starts humming quietly. The way he has it held against his chest means that it can feel the vibrations his humming produces, and hopefully that will ease its panic slightly.

Eventually, its frantic squirming calms down, and he swaps from holding it in his hands to nestling it in his arms. Looking down at the poor child, he feels a little guilty for some reason, taking it with no warning like that. This is certainly better for it than the fate that would have awaited it at another Watcher's hands, so why the little twinge of guilt?

Just look at it, the poor thing nearly exhausted itself trying to get away.

Even now, he can feel the fear of the child. Maybe that's why he feels guilty? He certainly doesn't like inspiring fear in a child, that's for sure.

Still, he shouldn't keep the child, even if that would mean it would be safer. But where to put it? Outsiders aren't easily accepted in places like this, so just leaving it at another orphanage would result in it being driven out onto the streets within the year. Maybe dump it on a Listener's doorstep? That would certainly be mildly amusing, and the child would be taken care of.

Yes, that sounds like a good plan. As with a lot of his more minor problems, he'll just have to trick the Listeners into solving it.

As a matter of fact, he happens to have discovered where a semi-retired Listener is pretending to be a normal mortal, which would be the perfect place to dump a displaced child. Leaving aside how it's partially his fault that this happened, Listeners feel compelled to help those made into victims by Watchers. A child abducted and then discarded? No way they'd turn their back on it.