#i shouldnt be allowed watchers rights dkfjvhn

[sleepless-in-southlands]

This the Head. This the Tail.

Ao3

Summary: This is a story that begins after the beginning. This is a story that never ends. It's not inescapable. Maybe that's the best part. Maybe it's the worst. Content: 3L au, referenced death; inevitability, watchers, open/bittersweet ending Ship: Ambiguous Desert Duo

~

    There’s an argument to be had if the first time is the best or the worst. It’s an accursed cycle the first time begins, but it’s never a small thing that begins such a cycle.

    This prompts the matching question of the last time. Is the last time the worst or the best? Is the cycle worth its pain? Is the end worth its loss?

    These aren’t arguments Grian can have, questions he can’t answer. Neither beginnings nor ends are his specialty. He’s not the one of middles either.

    He’s not even Grian, not really. It’s a name for stiffer tongues to address him by, but that doesn’t make it his.

    Until it is.

    “I do not understand why you are doing this.”

    Grian’s feet sink into the desert sand the longer he stands in place. Blood drips off his knuckles, staining the cliff edge. He should be alone. That’s how this scene goes.

    When Grian doesn’t reply, doesn’t turn, sand crunches under foot as the other approaches him instead. Each step shifts the ground as it isn’t meant to be. If they weren’t already so close to the end, Grian would protest. As is, he supposes he can let it slide.

    Swirling purple barely contained to a player’s form comes to stand before him, eyes looking everywhere but mostly at Grian. “How long have you been here?”

    Anyone else would have lost count. “One thousand, six hundred and seventy-four times.”

    “This is excessive, even for you.”

    He’s sinking further into the sand. Too far. “Why are you here?”

    “We know how you get about your… loops. I am here to end this one.”

    “Leave, and it will end.”

    “Watchers stand out of time.” Grian’s companion tells him, as if he would somehow not know. “For us, your loops do not end until they end.”

    Grian doesn’t respond to that. Sand moves around his feet, resettling into the proper places. Grian’s walked this mountaintop enough times to know where everything lays, how to set it right.

    “Why do you not just save him?” The other asks, eyes shifting to the side of Grian, looking back towards the cactus circle. “Set things as you see fit. Let him live, win. Avoid ever meeting him. Free both of you from this cycle of chosen inevitability.”

    “I can’t save him.”

    “We will not judge. Some players always slip through our cracks. It is allowed.”

    Wind blows sand off the cliff edge. Grian resets them before they fall more than a block. “If I alter this loop, I alter all that resides within it. I can only save the player, not the one who belongs to this loop.”

    Every eye is on Grian now. He meets them all. “So I see. This player, in this loop, in this world. I thought you would know better.”

    Another breeze comes through, disturbing nothing even as it builds in strength.

    The poorly cut edges of his companion’s form constrict and stretch, eyes opening wider, purple skin becoming multi-hued. “You would doom him, yourself, us all, just to relieve the exact same moments over and over again? Refusing to change so much as a single grain of sand, so dedicated are you to him.”

    The malice in the words are sharp. The wind picks up in response. Nothing moves. Nothing changes.

    “The power of worlds, the fate of servers, in your hands, and you would disgrace it all for this? For him? Tell me, Ouroboros-”

    The wind howls. Grian’s eyes open where they hadn’t been and they are burning violet. If this is what is wanted, this is what he will provide.

    “I am Ouroboros.” He confirms, and in the other’s many eyes Grian sees the fear Watchers purport to never harbor. “I am the tail and the head. I am the destruction and the renewal. I am the beginning and the end. This is my loop, my cycle, my dimension. You don’t belong here. Go.”

    The storm dies away. Grian’s eyes close. Time moves back, the intruder removed, no longer obstructing Grian’s purpose. He steps up to the cliff edge, letting out a breath.

    “Begin again.” Grian speaks out to the world, tipping off the mountain as soon as the words leave his lips. By the time he hits the ground, it will once more be the grass of the starter zone, in a world filled with life unaware of what is to come.

    Cycle one thousand, six hundred and seventy-five.