Chapter Text
Dream blinks to an unchanging scene of his cell. The obsidian walls, the lava curtain, the shattered clock that never stopped its ticking, the lectern with a book that will never be filled, the chest filled with blank books, the cauldron filled with water and blood, and his wrecked hands slowly healing from punching the almost indestructible confinement he is in.
He let out a heavy sigh, hopefully, the people outside are at peace. If he concentrated enough he can hear Wilbur’s clanging on his cell, at least he’s not in total isolation, not covered in dripping obsidian and lava, but instead only separated by an iron door, at least someone can hear the former president, unlike him, a labeled monster of his own world is condemned to be locked alone forever. Dream swipes in the air to open his administrator window, the cracked screen hovers in front of him shining green light, intelligible strings of code, windows, and buttons. Being an inmate does not excuse him to abandon his work as this world’s admin, he lets out a sigh of relief, the code of his world is stable at least because if ever, he won’t be able to fix it inside the solitary, not when the blocks that bounded him inside prevents him to access the commands and code to do so, it was to prevent him from escaping he understands, and it is a part of the compromise. Dream closes the administrator window and lets his chained wrists down. Forever is a long time, especially when the canon lives rule cannot apply to you. Dream admits, without the access to the green screen he would have broken a long time ago, between the horrible treatment inside and the lack of good contact, if the world suddenly said that it doesn’t need him he would gladly fade away-
“Now, don’t say that,” a voice that sounded familiar yet not makes Dream turn up where it came from, the admin meets a gaze from a porcelain mask that hides its wearer's eyes a symbol of dots and angles that form a square on the white thing, a halo of purple illuminates dirty blond hair, “Not when you’ve come so far, Dream,” robes of silky violet swished despite the lack of breeze inside the solitary,
“You’re a watcher,” Dream croaks, of course, he knows of the Watchers, individuals who are said to be immortal, guardians of worlds or destroyers of it, a society that is so powerful and runs in a meritocracy, yet they find a way to keep themselves a secret to the most, some say they have ascended individuals who found a way to weave the code of the universe to their own accord, but that sounds too much like the admins of the world just in a larger scale. A watcher’s signature appearance is their purple halo, white masks, and purple robes- The watcher opens their wings- and their amethyst wings,
“You can’t be properly initiated in this small room, no?” the watcher now also summons a staff that is slightly shorter than themselves, “And according to my observation, your people here will most likely kill and spawn trap you than to let you out,” the watcher snaps the chains and pulls Dream up, Dream notes how taller he is than the watcher, as the watcher opens up a window similar to his administrator one, but unlike his window, the watcher’s light up with a soft lavender light, letters of galactic appear and disappear in a conversation, the watchers tips their toe and rocks back down,
“That solves our problem, X says you’re welcome in our world, as long as you don’t grief and steal valuable resources,” the watcher cheered,
Dream bobs his mouth open only for the watcher to giggle at it,
“Stop impersonating a fish, you’re a watcher now!”,
A vibrant purple ray of light engulfs both of them.
When the purple washes away, Dream finds himself surrounded by sandstone and sounds of water from above, he winces at the new environment, and he can feel a thick robe draped on him dimming the light that goes into his eyes that he slowly opened.
As his confidence to take the brightness arrives, Dream lets his eyes flutter open, to see a blur of red and purple,
“Welcome to Hermitcraft, I’m supposed to introduce myself as Xelqua earlier, but I hate using the name,” Xelqua walked away from Dream, a button pushed and something popping was heard ahead, Dream scrunches up his memory to remember this familiar person in front of him he is sure this man’s name really isn’t “Xelqua”,
“Who are you?” Dream asks, and Grian goes back to where Dream is standing, handing the newly recruited watcher a spare armor,
The blond smiling wickedly at him, "Grian, the one who beat you up in the Championships' Survival Games,",
Grian panics as he saw Dream started to cry. For Dream he was just happy to see someone that isn't the Warden, the watcher hugged the other man to console him,
"I don't really know what is happening-" Dream choked on a sob, "But- thank you, please don't beat me up,",
"I won't, you're safe here now,".
Back in Dream SMP, the alarms of Pandora’s Vault blares. A harried warden jogs along the labyrinthian corridors of the prison, behind the creeper masked warden is a demon and a cat hybrid,
“Ant, make sure Wilbur stays in his cell, Bad, come with me,” Warden Sam hollers over the bells and pings from their communicators, the cat separated from them as they met an intersection, and soon Bad and Sam arrives at the control room of the solitary cell. The warden orders his subordinate to take a pearl to the now opened lava curtain, the demon pops to the cell. Veins of purple spreading from the drops of the crying obsidian to the otherwise neat cell, if you call a bloodied cauldron clean. The demon inspects the chest as nothing in the open would give him any clue of what could have happened to their incarcerated admin. Bad turns to where Sam be and shakes his head, wherever their admin is they might never know.