Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He woke up to a quiet world, everything had stopped, auto farms, passive mobs, even the day and night cycles.

He opened his comm, staring at the empty list where his fellow Hermits were meant to be.

He’d slept through the server world hop.

He’d been…left behind?

It had to be an accident, Xisuma promised that Hermits stick together.

”Hello Welsknight,” An unfamiliar female voice called from above his bed.

He looked up and saw a teenage girl, about 15 or 16, with light purple wings behind her. One of her eyes was covered by her long dirty blonde hair, the one eye he could see was a vibrant crystal like blue. A grin was settled on her pale face as she sat on one of his rafters.

”H-hello?” He asked confused, “Who are you?”

The girl slipped off the rafters, wings flaring to soften her fall, something every winged hermit, including him, had done over and over. She used the momentum to dip into a flourishing bow, “You can call me Chance.”

She stood back straight, hair had fallen out of her eyes revealing a matching crystal blue, pink semi-see through square framed glasses sat on her nose.

Her clothes were…odd, a purple jacket overtop a light purple dress that went just past her knees, and light purple sneakers. The oddest part was definitely the fact that her light purple clothes perfectly matched the color of her wings.

”Well Chance, why are you here?” He asked, looking back into her eyes, she was a good 6 inches shorter than him.

She hesitated for a moment before answering, “I’m here to offer you a place to stay.”

He narrowed his eyes, “I can reach out to my admin and go to him.”

Her eyes were sad as she shook her head, “Someone on the new server has to reach out first.”

He paused, “H-how do you know that,” Then he realized that this was an intruder, “How did you get on here?”

She looked away from him for the first time in the conversation, “For the first one, I know someone on Hermitcraft and nothing is going through to him, even if I’m not expecting responses.”

Chance looked back at him, “And for the second, my…uhh…colleagues have managed to whittle down the security now that Xisuma isn’t here to keep it up, I just..have a bit of a leg up on them.” A slight smirk made its way onto her face.

He stared at her for a few long moments before asking, “What do I get if I come with you?”

”A place safe from my colleagues to ride out your server mates realizing they have to reach out to you,” Chance said, “I have a few conditions though.”

”What are the conditions?” He asked.

”One, me and my crew have a number of rooms within headquarters and I will not allow you to leave them as that will reveal you to my colleagues,” She began, “Two, the moment one of the other Hermits reaches out I’m bringing you there.”

He thought for a bit.

”Are you sure I’m in danger if I just stay here?” He finally asked.

Chance immediately nodded, “Yes, within the next couple days to weeks they’ll make it onto the server and take you, without asking or possibly saying anything at all.”

“I’ll go with you but I have a condition of my own,” He said, moving to grab the things that were important to him.

“What’s the condition?” She asked him.

”Any questions I have you answer truthfully.” He said, looking her dead in the eyes.

She hesitated before conceding, “Within reason, I’ll answer any questions you have truthfully to the best of my ability.”

He smiled, “Okay, first one, how old are you?”

She sighed with a fond tone, smiling fighting it’s way onto her face, “16, I’ll be 17 at the end of August.”

He frowned, a 16 year old with what seemed like a mountain of responsibility on her shoulders, “And where are we going.”

Chance looked away, “The realm of the Watchers, where I’m the holder of the highest title there, I’m not well liked but, yeah.”

“You know the reputation of the Watchers,” He asked.

She seemed to become smaller inside his bedroom, “I do, I’m fully aware, I’ve been a Watcher for two years and was in one of their games for a year before that. Well Watcher for two-ish years.”

He turned to her face aghast, holding his helmet as he was mostly in his armor now, having stepped behind his dressing divider, “ 13?! ”

She nodded once, eyes sad and upset.

There was also betrayal in her crystal blue eyes but he didn’t know what was going on with that.

”Do you have everything?” She asked.

He grabbed his final few things, shoving them into his enderchest before confirming, yes.

Chance offered him a hand.

He took her hand and the world swirled around him.

When his vision settled, Chance was pulling off the nearly white Watcher mask that had covered her glasses.

She gave him a mildly strained smile, “Welcome Welsknight to the Watcher Headquarters.”

Chapter Text

He’d met Chance’s crew, two Watchers, one partly turned back into a player, whatever that meant, and other was Half Born, again whatever that meant.

The partly turned back was called Uron by the other Watcher but Chance called him Taurtis, or T, or her right hand, or idiot, or any number of things. His title, which was a Watcher thing started from The Creator, aka the deity who created the first Watchers, was The Traitor, which he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

The Half Born was called Surin by the other Watchers, Chance on the other hand called him Sam, or idiot, or various insults, lots of swear words. Chance refused to tell him Surin’s title, apparently she hated it so much that she locked down the Hall of Windows and just gave pictures to new Watchers of their windows.

Chance’s title was the Rebel but she also wore the title of being basically The Runaway’s or Xelqua’s younger sister as a badge of honor.

Xelqua, who he found out about two months in was Grian , which did make a few things about the avian make a lot more sense.

He just felt bad for Grian after all the questions he’d asked and gotten answers to.

There were a handful of questions Chance wouldn’t answer.

1) Her name, Player or otherwise, only saying Chance.

2) How exactly she knew Grian.

3) How she knew Taurtis and Sam.

4) Anything to do with her game.

And finally 5) How she knew so much about the Watchers when she’d barely been one (and she was just Half Watcher, like Grian apparently) for two years.

Then once he’d felt like he'd exhausted every question he could think up he asked a question that was answered very differently than every other one.

“Can you Turn me into a Watcher?” He asked.

”Yes but I’m not going to,” Chance answered.

He blinked, “What? Why?”

”Because I’m not going to, that’s not why I brought you here,” She said finally turning to look at him, tearing her gaze from her screen where she was Watching Technoblade, other one of her almost brothers, which had him asking if she could beat Technoblade the first time he saw it.

She couldn’t by herself but with her almost twin, yes they could.

He frowned at her response though, his sky blue eyes meeting her, currently, glowing light purple eyes, “I’m the one asking though.”

Chance sighed, “Wels, I’m not turning you.”

”Why not?” He asked.

”You don’t know what you’re asking,” Chance said.

”I literally do though, you’ve told me,” He argued.

Her expression turned firm, “You’ve barely been here two and a half months.”

He sighed, backing down, “Fine.”

Her expression softened before she returned to her screen and many, many books that were laid out in front of her.

He turned back to his own book.

Hermitcraft was up on Chance’s main screen and most of her smaller screens as well which confirmed his theory that she woke up at midnight to get through the security of the server.

She was the only Watcher who could Watch Hermitcraft and she only went through the process required to about once or twice a month because ‘it was boring’ and ‘it wasn’t necessary’ which he guessed was fair.

Neither Surin or Uron were up yet, not a single morning person among them.

He sat down next to her with a quiet, “Good morning.”

She glanced over at him with a warm but tired smile, “Morning Wels.”

“Anything interesting going on?” He asked.

She shook her head, “Not particularly.”

He nodded as she turned back to the screens.

They sat in silence for a bit before he asked, “Can you turn me into a Watcher?”

Chance sighed, “Wels.”

“I’ve been here over three months!” He defended.

“No,” She said, “I’m not going to.”

He’d asked a few times now and the answer was still the same, she could but she wouldn’t.

He frowned.

“It’s nothing you’ve done,” She said, barely glancing over.

“Does that mean there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” He asked.

She chuckled softly, “That’s not what I said.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “How can I change your mind?”

Chance looked over at him, finally, a little amused smile on her face, “Write me an essay about the Watchers.”

He scowled at her, “You want me to write an application letter? ”

She grinned, “Ooo that too, an essay and an application letter.”

He scowled further.

She shrugged, “You asked Wels, I gave you an answer.”

Which is all she was required to do? He sighed, he would not give in, he would not write the papers.

He’d started the papers, he wasn’t proud of it, and they had about a paragraph each because then he got annoyed about having to write them in the first place and stopped.

Surin and Uron were arguing in a language he didn’t understand while Chance typed something out on her normal screen, main large screen off.

He walked over to Chance and asked, “What are they arguing about?”

“Assuming I know the language, huh Wels?” She teased.

“Don’t you?” He asked.

“Sam ate Taurtis’ last cookie and they’re arguing about who should bake more,” She said with a laugh.

He chuckled before letting himself fall silent, the two Watchers arguing back and forth and Chance’s typing being the only sounds in the room.

If there’s something to say about Uron and Surin it’s that they could drag out  an argument about anything .

The argument continued until Surin burst out something that sounded defensive which proceeded to shut Uron all the way up, black eyes wide. Chance’s head had shot up and around, looking at them.

You could hear a pin drop in the responding silence.

Surin even seemed surprised at whatever he’d said.

Finally Uron gained his voice back, the first of them to do so, “Sam.” It was a single word full of so much worry.

“Don’t,” Surin said, tight, strained, “I’m sorry for eating something of yours.”

Uron shook his head, “I’ll make more.”

“Take a day, both of you,” Chance said, her voice finally coming back to her.

“Yes ma’am,” Uron said with a nod.

Chance made a disappointing face but didn’t correct him.

Surin just nodded and left the room. Uron left soon after.

Chance turned back to her typing after letting out a deep sigh.

He stared at the door to the living areas where the two Watchers had left to.

“They’ll be okay,” Chance assured.

He turned his head to look at her, “How do you know that?”

“They’ve been through a lot together and honestly Taurtis isn’t nearly as mad as you might think he is, I’ve seen him mad and that’s not it,” Chance said.

“He seemed pretty mad,” He said, “Till Surin said whatever that last thing was.”

“They both need therapy,” Chance said with a chuckle, “Lots of it, but they’ll get over it, they always do, even if they really shouldn’t. Like I said, lots of therapy.”

He nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him. He finally actually looked at what she was typing, it seemed to be a message to someone, an email if he dared. It was also in common which wasn’t what the Watchers used.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“I’m reaching out to the last Watcher that Plays to Watch because he should be sending me his reports and he hasn’t been,” Chance asked.

He blinked, he didn’t expect her to actually answer.

She caught his expression as she glazed over, with an amused smile she said, “I promised to answer your questions with the truth.”

He glanced down, right yeah , “Are you mad at this Watcher?”

“Absolutely not, he helped me when I first got turned and he’s not been back to HQ since so it’s not his fault, I’m just informing him basically,” Chance explained.

He looked back up at her, “Who is the Watcher?”

She hesitated, glancing at her message, before answering, “I would like to talk with him before I share that.”

“Okay,” He agreed, sliding that into the number six slot of questions Chance wouldn’t answer.

Then he realized fully that she’d said a Watcher was Playing to Watch but that wasn’t the important bit, “Will you turn me into a Watcher if I Play to Watch like the Watcher you’re mentioning?”

Chance blinked in a bit of surprise before, “If I did turn you that was gonna be the plan but no. How are your papers going?”

He scowled, “I’ve started them.”

She grinned, mischief in her eyes, “Wonderful.”

The conditions of him staying at the Watcher HQ had changed, just a bit, when Zedaph reached out to him it didn’t count because Chance had told the sheep hybrid he was with her.

Zedaph, a full Watcher, who’d been a Watcher for a pretty much his entire life. A second generation turned who’s title is The Kind , which absolutely tracked for Zedaph.

Zedaph kept in contact, alleviating his insecurity about being left behind by sharing that the other Hermits had been talking about how they were getting concerned that Wels hadn’t reached out yet.

He’d been asking about how playing to Watch works, the answer was usually two, how it used to be and how it was now. He added those chats to the two papers he’d fully given into writing.

If he could convince Chance to turn him without the papers though, he absolutely would, so he kept asking, not every day but nearly.

Uron and Surin simply found it funny at this point, knowing them for the four-ish months he had they had bets on whether he’d give up or Chance would give in first.

Chance was about to leave for a meeting as he asked, “Will you turn me into a Watcher?”

She turned to level him an exasperated look as she held her Watcher mask in her hands, ready to put it on, “No.”

“Come on!” He exclaimed.

“You finished the papers and we’ll see,” Chance said, sliding her mask over her eyes.

He sighed, he thought it was stupid to have to write a paper to convince her.

And an application letter!

They said their goodbyes for the day and Chance left while making an annoyed face.

It was far earlier than he would have left for the meeting but she had issues with time and doing things at the same time multiple days or weeks in a row. Something about her game, she didn’t talk about it much.

He’d basically finished both the paper and the application letter, just had to add a few more sentences and then double check his work.

Him and Zed had been talking a lot and he might have accidentally mentioned he missed his twin and he fully expected Zed to slip that into conversation with at least one other Hermit so he was already planning around it.

Chance had recently, aka within the past two days, brought a golden watch and black over ear headphones with a blue and red alternating four square pattern on the over ear part.

The headphones were Uron’s and he was ecstatic to have them again.

The watch on the other hand was Grian’s and Chance put it in a velvet bag, an orange velvet bag, “It’s a piece that’ll help my point later.”

He’d just accepted that.

Uron had the headphones on his favorite, new (to him), way to tell them not to bother him.

Surin had been having a few bad days in a row and so was holed up in his room, of his own accord.

Therefore it was basically just him and Chance in the room.

Aka the perfect time to ask his most repeated question, “Will you turn me into a Watcher?”

Chance chuckled, “Your papers done?”

He groaned, “Almost.”

She gave him a mischievous smile that would be at home on Hermitcraft’s resident Parrot Hybrid’s face and said, “Gotta get those to me first.”

“I thought I was done with school,” He half joked.

“Oh the learning has just begun young dragon knight,” Chance said in a faux posh voice.

“I’m older than you!” He exclaimed.

She laughed, a genuine smile on her face.

His stupid essay was done as was his application letter and he was extremely happy about it because he knew what he was asking the first time.

Did he understand it better?

Yes but that wasn’t the important bit here.

He almost slapped down the two papers in front of Chance.

She looked up at him, smile amused as ever, “Finished?”

“Yes, will you turn me into a Watcher?” He asked.

“Let me read them,” She said, teasing undertone in her voice for his impatience.

He nodded and went back to his book.

A while later Chance called, “Wels come here.”

He did, setting his book to the after placing a bookmark in it.

“So?” He prompted once he was at her side.

“I’ll turn you,” She said.

He punched up into the air, he’d won.

“But,” Chance continued, “I have conditions.”

He sighed, he shouldn’t be surprised, “Okay, what are they?”

“One, if it comes down to it you’re too choose the Hermits over the Watchers including me,” Chance began.

“But-” He tried to protest.

“These aren’t negotiable,” Chance said firmly, “You agree or you don’t get turned.”

“Okay,” He relented.

“Two,” She continued, “Once the Hermits reach out and you go home you never step foot here again unless I tell you I can.”

He stared at her a bit, “Okay?” He finally said more as a question.

“And three, I’m only half turning you,” Chance said, continuing before he could say anything, “Not because of you but because I don’t want to test if even me turning someone fully would mess with their head like any other Watcher doing it would.”

That was a valid reason and was also for her which he could see and he didn’t want to make anything worse for her.

“Okay,” He agreed.

Her face had been serious throughout the conversation but it finally broke into a bit of a smile, “Alright.”

She stood up and placed her hands on his shoulders, spoke in Galactic and he felt no different.

He furrowed his eyebrows confused, “I don’t feel any different.”

Chance grinned, “That’s good, means I did it correctly.”

“How do I know it worked?” He asked.

“Trust me,” She teased before, “Joking Wels, first I’m talking in Galactic and so are you, and second think about some you want to see.”

They were speaking in Galactic, he didn’t know how he didn’t notice before it felt different in his mouth.

Someone he wanted to see, excluding anyone on Hermitcraft, only one person met both those criteria, his brother Helsknight.

Something warm bubbled up inside him before it was like his eyes had opened and he was greeted to an image of his brother cursing out some piglins as he ran from them.

He blinked the image away, letting the magic go, as he smiled, being met with a beaming smile from Chance.

“Welcome to the Watchers Innoth, The Knight,” Chance said.

He laughed at his Title.

She chuckled, “It can be very literal.”

“I’m more surprised it hasn’t been used before,” Uron called over.

Chance hummed before shrugging.

“Now we teach him what we know?” Surin asked.

“Yep,” Chance agreed.

“Sounds like a plan,” He said.

“That’s the spirit!” Uron said, far too excited for this.

Chapter Text

It’d been about six months since Season Six ended and Season Seven started, since Chance had plucked him away from the other Watchers’ sight.

And it’d been about a month since he’d been turned into a Watcher.

They were playing a card game Chance taught them when his comm buzzed.

He raised an eyebrow reaching for it.

There lit up on his comm screen was what he’d been waiting for,
‘Renthedog: Hey Wels! Hope you’re doing well, we just realized that people outside can’t message us -_-’

A second message soon came through, ‘Renthedog: Here’s the server address ’

He typed out a response, ‘Welsknight: I’m great currently! Thank you for the server info! See you soon!”

“They reached out?” Chance asked.

He nodded, “How do you know?”

She chuckled, “I can taste your giddiness.”

“Ah,” He said, "That would make sense.

“I’ll reach out to Zed about picking you up,” Chance told him.

He nodded, setting his comm back to the side.

“Your turn,” Uron said.

“Oh void!” He said in surprise.

Laughter filled the room.

It had been two days since Ren had reached out with the server address and pretty much every Hermit had reached out at this point. Xisuma with far too many apologies for his liking but X would be X with his massive guilt complex, which is why him and Zed had decided to not tell X where he actually was, no need to cause any more panic for their admin or Grian.

He’d collected his things, said goodbye to Uron and Surin, and took off into the air following Chance to the main hub portal.

When they passed through the portal Chance changed, her wings disappeared, her clothing turned into light purple dress and purple jacket he’d met her in, and her mask disappeared and was replaced by a nearly white face mask.

The portal looked unassuming in the line of other private servers, you’d never know that Watchers existed on the server just by looking at the portal, other than a small Watcher symbol on the left side of the portal, carved into the obsidian.

“Let’s go, you got the map,” Chance said, smile in her voice.

He brought out his comm where he had his gps up pointing toward the newest Hermitcraft portal.

They walked together following the gps until he could see Zedaph waiting at the portal, bouncing from the balls of his feet to the heels and back.

“Zedaph!” Chance called, waving.

Zedaph’s lilac eyes slid over to them, grin breaking out on his face, “Wels! Chance!”

They finished their walk to him.

“We’ve missed you,” Zedaph said to him.

“I’ve missed you guys too,” He assured.

“I hope Xisuma isn’t taking this to hard,” Chance said, that same tone he heard over and over when they talk about the Hermits and Grian specifically, face mask off now.

Zedaph sighed, “He’s taking it harder than we’d like but we’ll take care of him and he’ll be alright.”

“He takes everything harder than we’d like,” He said.

Zed nodded.

“Xisuma’s exactly the type of Admin the Watchers were created to help,” Chance said.

They both turned to her. “How do you know that?” Zed asked.

“Old books,” She said flippantly.

Aka she wasn’t gonna tell them.

“Well anyway, ready to come home Wels?” Zed asked him.

“Been ready,” He responded.

Chance chuckled, “I’ll see you two, let me know if you need anything I can do.”

“Once a month reports?” He checked.

“Yep,” She confirmed with a nod, “Looking forward to it.”

“Bye Chance!” Zedaph said.

“Thank you,” He said, “Goodbye.”

Chance smiled, “No problem. Goodbye, both of you.”

She left, disappearing into the crowd after pulling her face mask back up.

Zedaph grabbed his hand and pulled him through the Hermitcraft portal.

He was home, with his hoard, with his family.

“Welcome home Wels,” Zed said with a soft smile.

“Thank you,” He said, grinning as Xisuma and many other Hermits landed at spawn.

Chapter Text

Zedaph had been teaching him more about his new Watcher powers, he’d been a Watcher much longer than Chance, Uron, or Surin, so that was, mostly, fun.

He slipped up again about missing his brothers to multiple other Hermits so it absolutely had gotten back to Xisuma at this point.

So it really shouldn’t have been a surprise when on his birthday his comm buzzed and a server message stood out to him.

‘Helsknight has joined the game’

He chuckled and took off to spawn.

Xisuma was there re-running through the rules of Hermitcraft and whatever conditions Hels had agreed to to be there.

He waited till X was done to race forward and call out, “Hels!”

X’s head turned to him while Hels turned fully to face him.

He managed to surprise Hels with a hug, their armor clanking together.

Hels patted his back, which was the best he’d get with Xisuma right there and them being out in the open.

He pulled back to Xisuma beaming, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Xisuma said with a smile, eyes crinkling, “Happy Birthday Wels.”

He pulled Xisuma into a hug.

Xisuma hugged him back before pulling back and saying, “Have fun, I’ll leave you two be.”

“Thank you again, bye ‘Suma,” He said.

“Bye Wels,” Xisuma said, “Bye Hels.”

Xisuma took off into the air.

He turned back to his brother whose red eyes were scanning him with furrowed brows.

“Everything alright?” He asked.

“Why do your wings shimmer fucking Watcher purple?” Hels asked.

He tried not to freeze but only half managed it.

“Wels,” Hels’ voice went a touch more aggressive.

“Let me explain!” He exclaimed, “Can we go to my base first please?”

Hels narrowed his eyes and said, “Fine but no funny business.”

He nodded and took off into the sky, Hels took off a moment later and followed him to his base.

They landed and he held the door for Hels.

Once he’d also entered and closed the door behind him Hels prompetted, “Explain.”

“The Hermits thought I’d gone on the break I was talking about before the season started and didn’t realize they had to reach out first,” He started.

Hels raised an eyebrow.

“I didn’t, my name just glitched a bit and they couldn’t tell I was on the server still just asleep,” He continued, “A teenage girl came and took me somewhere safe because the Watchers were trying to get onto the server. She was also a Watcher but she refused to turn me over a dozen times and in the end it’s half, it’s only half and no one outside people loyal to her know, let alone that I was there .”

Hels stared at him before asking, “You asked for this?”

“I wrote a damn essay to prove I knew what I was asking for,” He said.

“It was only half?” Hels asked before asking his real question, “You’re still you?”

“I’m still me,” He promised, “Barely feel different.”

He nodded, “Okay.”

He grinned, that was taken care of so, “I’m so glad to see you.”

Hels snorted and smirked, “Heard you missed me.”

His cheeks burned a little bit, “I might have slipped up here and there.”

Hels chuckled at that.

Hermits came and went with various gifts, for both of them it was Hels’ birthday too, throughout the day.

By dinnertime they were both out of their armor, down to their much softer tunics and pants.

He put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher and as he turned back around to face where Hels has been he was pulled into a hug.

He hugged his twin brother back with a small chuckle.

“Happy Birthday Moonstone,” Hels nearly whispered.

He smiled into Hels’ shoulder and returned, “Happy Birthday Sunstone.”

Hels hugged him together, “You were safe the whole time?”

He nodded, “So so safe.”

Hels pulled back and said, “The purple looks good on your wings.”

He let the smile stay on his face, “Thank you.”

In all he’d definitely put the day on his top ten birthdays list.