That night, the mysterious feeling embedded in Miesall's chest made itself very known. With every choked sob he heard, it twisted his stomach. With each sniffle, his chest ached. With every whimper, he felt almost as though he was in the Void itself.

To this day, he did not know what this sensation was, what it was that was hurting him, and why even though it did, he wanted to keep it. All he knew it mimicked masochism, but of course not sexual in nature as he was celibate.

In a way, he almost felt ashamed because of that feeling. He tried to bury it within himself, but it sprang right back up stronger than ever. He admittedly quietly enjoyed it in the shadows, however for the life of him, he would not dare tell Xelqua about this feeling, or how it was directed at him.

He decided it to be best to not bring up what he heard and felt that night, and seemingly, Xelqua decided the same.

~🌤~

The next morning, the two had a quick breakfast before they began their seemingly never ending journey.

'We should change it up.' Xelqua suggested a half hour into the journey. As much as he loved feeling the wind in between his feathers, he had enough of it yesterday already.

'We are not taking any significant detours.' Miesall signed, a sigh exiting his lips which the wind quickly took. Usually, although he wouldn't admit it, Xel's redrailings were charismatic in a way. Not this time— they really needed to keep the pace moving, even if he had agreed to stop and smell the roses every now and then.

'No, no, I don't mean that we're going to stop. In fact, it'll make the journey faster!' The blonde signed quickly, excitement evident on his face. This perked Miesall's interest, although he didn't voice it. Of course the other Watcher noticed this regardless. 'Eight times faster, in fact.' He smirked.

'You mean for us to travel to the bowels of the Nether itself?' The leader asked, flapping his wings a little bit faster. It was an intriguing idea, and he had thought of going there earlier, but he never voiced it. Traveling faster was better, yes, but the Nether was crawling with even more annoying mobs like ghasts, that could shoot you right out of the sky a lot easier than a skeleton could. He was unfazed by burning in lava, but he had to notice how his robes were beginning to be holy in a different way than they were supposed to. He was afraid the lava would burn his clothes right off his body.

Outside of those inconveniences, there was one other main reason he had decided against it. 'The compass won't work. We could go right past spawn without knowing.' He argued.

Xelqua thoughtfully stayed quiet. That was indeed a very good point. However, he was determined to take a detour, and so he was sure to find a way to convince the curly-haired Watcher. 'So what if we travel there for an hour? A half hour, even? We'll make great time, and once the time is up, we can peak our head back in the Overworld. If we overshoot, then we still would take less time than we would continuing to travel here."

Miesall had to admit, for Xelqua, this wasn't such a bad idea. He tried to think if it really was worth it to take a small trip to the Nether after all.  In the end, any counter arguments he could think of seemed rather minimal. 'Alright,' he signed, heaving a sigh as he did so. 'Just for a small while.'

'We should save our magic and find obsidian ourselves.' Xelqua suggested, as if they would be able to create a stable portal to begin with.

Once he spotted an open pool of lava, Miesall tilted himself down towards the ground, prompting Xelqua to do the same. They landed in a clearing a safe distance away before approaching it. Upon being a few feet away, he stood there, appearing almost to be frozen.

Xelqua rummaged through his inventory, grabbing his water bucket with one hand and a pickaxe with the other. He knelt down towards the edge before letting the water go, lava quickly cooling to obsidian as a result. He spun his pickaxe between his fingers with a grin before beginning to cut into the obsidian.

It was harder than any material than he had cut before, and even though he knew that going in, he was still caught by surprise with just how tough it was. As the stone slowly began to crack with each tap, his mind began to wander. He thought about what the portals were like back in Evo.

There were the ones that they had created themselves, ones that linked them to Nether. Then there were the magical ones, ones that could only be created by the Watchers themselves. The Evolutionists had spent their days chasing and dreaming of finding these ones, the ones that promised freedom. Well, that's what their hopes had projected onto them, anyway. Just how long had they spent playing the Watchers' games, chasing a dream they had merely imagined?

He shook his head as the second block broke.

Admittedly, he hadn't really spent too much time in the Nether. He mostly used the area to travel from his base to spawn, and to gather food.

He breathed a laugh as he remembered that. Pigmen would give him pork after they died. Therefore, he had made the obvious choice and attacked every single one he saw, even if that meant swarms of them were always running at him. His friends would scold him whenever he began attacking pigmen in front of them, not wanting to get caught up in the crossfire. It only made him want to do it all the more.

There weren't many times that the group of them was in the Nether together, but the few times there were, it was a lot of fun. (Even besides the pigmen.) Like the time he hid Netty's diamonds. He could almost hear her voice right then and there screaming about how much of a naughty boy he was being. He laughed to himself quietly as he picked up another piece.

He thought about how fun it would be to do that again, but then he caught himself. No, he could never do that again, because Netty was dead. Everyone else was dead too, for that matter. His breath hitched.

"Xelqua, that is enough." A voice interrupted. It belonged to Miesall, of course, who had been watching him this entire time. He wasn't going to comment on what he had seen, deciding it mostly likely was related to the night prior. At first Xelqua worried that he had spoken out loud, but then he realized that the Watcher was only referring to the blocks.

"Oh... right." He replied. He climbed back out of the rocky hole and onto the dirt where Miesall stood. He felt his robe pull at the motion, a little too restricted to be doing such, but gladly it didn't rip. standing fully up now, he forced a smile as he tried to brush away the thoughts he was having just a few seconds ago. He threw all that he had collected on the ground by his friend's feet. "Here, you make it!" He insisted.

The natural-born Watcher frowned, tapping one of the obsidian pieces with his foot. He looked as though he might scrunch up his nose, but he did not. "No." He replied before toeing the piece back towards Xel.

"Oh come on..." Xel pleaded, frowning. Even though his comrade had agreed to do new things, he was still far too reluctant to participate in anything it seemed.

Xelqua could sense Miesall's eyes studying the obsidian, mulling the offer over in his head. After a long while, the Watcher wordlessly picked up the pieces and began to create the frame to house the portal in. He worked slowly, moving the pieces around until he felt them nearly click into place like a puzzle. The steps were unfamiliar to him, and it showed by his overly assert concentration and wavering hands. At long last, it was constructed in the center of what formerly was the lava pool.

Once completed, the Watcher turned his gaze towards Xelqua. At first, the blonde was confused as to why, but then he realized that Miesall was looking to him for confirmation to ensure that he did it right.

He forced a smile. "Perfect." He assured with a nod, stepping closer to the portal box. "Now all we need to do is light it."

Miesall stepped to the portal, touching the inner edges of the frame. He hesitated, unsure if he wanted to go further. With an extra nod of support, he continued running his hand down its side. As he took a deep breath in, he took notice of the magic running through his veins. It was weaker than he was used to, but it most definitely was there. He began to activate his magic, his hand glowing dimly at first and then gradually brighter. With his guidance, he managed to start a fire, causing the entire portal to light.

He quickly stepped back as the portal began to sing, covering his ears. He hadn't realized quite how loud a regular portal could be, how it rushed to his ears and messed with his mind. He barely registered how Xelqua rushed over, grabbed him by the hand and pulled him back into the portal, where the sounds only got increasingly loud and his mind continued to unravel. His eyes drew into him. Whether it was out of impulse or because the portal itself forced him to he wasn't sure.