"Who do you think would win?" Doxi turned to him and asked on the way back to her castle. Xelqua furrowed his eyebrows.

"Wh-?"

She was gone before he could finish the one word question. Oh, she meant a race. Xelqua grinned and charged forwards after her. His wings worked fast and his mask protected his eyes from the wind as he looked forwards and saw that he'd nearly reached her already. The sharp edges of his feathered wings cut through the thin void air like a needle and he overtook the Highest.

After maintaining his lead for thirty more seconds, he slowed to land, shortly followed by Doxi. He tried to ignore that it was not quite as shortly as he'd usually expect - they'd raced once before, just before he joined Hermitcraft, and she'd been quite the competition. He also tried to ignore that she quietly picked up a staff at the door to lean on as they walked through to her quarters. She sat down on her throne, and he drifted as she summoned a book into her hands. She opened it.

"This is a sort of notebook I keep of things I've done and need to do. I'd recommend you get one when you take over to help you to organise things. Sometimes there's not a lot to do, but sometimes there's lots to manage in which case writing it down can be helpful. It doesn't necessarily have to be a physical thing, but I like it to be because it can show people what I do with a tangible copy. For example, sometimes Crevia helps me with jobs when I'm really overloaded, so we can use it to see what each other have done and what needs doing.

"Also, I have a couple of things for you since we won't be able to get through absolutely everything." She continued and summoned a book, Guide for the Most Powerful. "Coria, the previous Highest, wrote this for me when I was taking over, but it'll be useful for you as well." She summoned another book, History of Admins and Watchers. "I expect you'll know this all anyway, but it's probably worth refreshing your mind if you have the time." She summoned another, The Point of the Highest, and another, Below Notch. "These ones are quite... anti-Highest and anti-Watcher, written by rebellious admins quite a while ago, but it's worth knowing a bit about other viewpoints so that you know how to avoid giving rebellions reason to grow. And lastly," she summoned one last book, The Greats. "It talks about previous Highests and what has made them good or bad. As I said, I imagine you know all of this inside out already, but I'm just trying to say that you should try and keep yourself informed on these things. Don't worry if you can't read all of these immediately."

She handed the pile of five books to him, and he allowed four to float in the air by him as he flicked through the pages of The Greats, glancing at the Galactic words.

***

When he arrived home with them, Daixr looked over.

"What are you doing?" They asked curiously.

"Training to be a top secret spy." Xelqua replied, before going up to his room and dropping the books onto his bed. He flopped down and began reading.

***

The next day, Xelqua joined in another meeting. This one was between Doxi and three other Watchers who were working on some quite important servers. Unlike the one on the previous day, which took two hours, this one was only half an hour and was much more casual; they were updating her on each respective servers' recent activities and plans. Then she had another meeting with two Watchers and two admins, who told her about ideas for the next update and how they would execute them. It took one hour.

After that, Doxi took Xelqua out a little into the void and taught him about mending border code, which could sometimes get torn. "Most of the time, Watchers can deal with it themselves, but sometimes they're quite complex in which case I help." She had said. Then, they went back to the castle and Doxi told him about different smaller jobs that the Highest was generally expected to carry out. They broke up after that and Xelqua went home to read.

Every day for a week after that was different, but similar. Doxi would show and familiarise Xelqua with new things, before he would go home and read. He slept for a few hours each night, mostly just for pleasure though because Watchers didn't technically need sleep.

Xelqua watched Doxi as flames flew about her hands. He didn't want to think that they looked slightly dull. She was still powerful, she was still strong, but she was less so. She was less so even than the day before. He glanced at Crevia, the Watcher on the other side of her, and he could tell that she was thinking similarly. Crevia was Doxi's partner (a partner in Watcher terms is not the same as in human terms. They can be romantic or not, but work and live and do many things together. It is often said that they are joined by the soul, but that's really just a fluffy, fancy metaphor. Tencia and Daixr are partners. He was partners with Taurtis and Pearl, which was more of a triplet really but whatever, and they generally considered themselves to have a partners (triplet) in crime kind of relationship.), and he could see in her eyes what she was feeling, despite the mask. But she kept composure; as did he.

He went home that evening and sat on his bed in silence. He didn't reach for his current book.

He knew what the future held, and he knew that it had both good and bad. He knew that he would have to remain calm and composed. He knew that he wouldn't be able to feel the emotions he would want to feel immediately, because he would have to help others that were feeling them and he knew that he would have to keep the universe ticking no matter what. He hated knowing things.

The wall seemed to be very interesting. So interesting that he was able to stare solely at it for what must have been at least ten minutes before he dragged his eyes away. He sighed and picked up his communicator since he wasn't in the mood to continue reading. He was instantly bombarded with messages from various hermits, though he hadn't opened it since leaving so really that was no surprise. He chose only to reply to one message, though, because he didn't have the capacity for much else.

<PearlescentMoon> idk where you are but Xisuma's called a meeting tomorrow morning and he really wants everyone to be there

<Grian> I'm in the end, but yes I'll be there

Then he messaged Doxi to tell her.

***

"Doxi." The Watcher, who was sitting on a sofa, looked up from her communicator and Crevia approached her. Crevia took her pale hand in her own, and their eyes met. "Please tell me, how long do you think you have left?" Doxi's gaze drifted away.

"I don't know." She replied. Crevia looked down, before sitting down next to her, still holding her hand, and leaning onto her shoulder.

***

"Hello X-eye-zooma, sorry I haven't been on." Grian apologised, and the admin looked up.

"Good to see you. But who are you really? Because the Grian I know is never early." Xisuma greeted. Grian smiled in response.

"What's this about? I thought we weren't due a meeting for another two weeks." He asked. There were a lot of meetings recently, he must be getting quite good with this rate of practice.

"Just something that's come to my attention. It's probably nothing though." The admin said. Grian nodded, noticing Beef approach and land. He sat down on the floor.

"So..." he said. "What do we do now?"

"Wait." Beef said.

"But I thought early people did things." Grian questioned.

"We just... wait. And chat." Xisuma said, checking his communicator.

"But..." Grian protested thoughtfully, "I thought there was like a club or cult or something." The other two turned to him.

"What? No?"

"But then why do people bother being early?" He asked, sounding slightly offended. They chuckled as a couple more people arrived. When Pearl joined them she went to Grian.

"Where've you been?" She asked.

"Around. Taking up a career in, um... painting. Yeah, painting. I'm quite the artist." He replied.

"I have seen three year olds that can draw better than you." Pearl said.

"Must be some quite sophisticated three year olds." Grian replied, and she chuckled, before they looked to the admin who had motioned that he was about to begin.

"Okay hermits, thanks everyone for coming. Hopefully it's nothing too serious, but recently I and a few others have noticed a significant increase in glitches." Grian went silent (or, silenter than silent), and a few other hermits nodded in agreement. "I've looked through the server code and I don't think it's anything to do with us, and I've messaged local servers and they're having the same problem, so there's nothing I can do because it's an issue caused higher up. I thought I should warn you to just be a bit careful. So far, the glitches have been harmless, pigs mooing, grass colour not matching to the biome, you know, small things, and hopefully stroke probably they'll go away soon, but there's a small chance they might get worse so I thought I should just warn you all, in person so that I know everyone is definitely aware."

"Good call." Cub said.

"What do you think's causing them?" Scar asked.

"Honestly? I don't know." X replied. "They'll probably clear up soon on their own, things like this do happen occasionally. I just want to highlight, though, there's no need for anyone to worry. Even if they don't clear up, I'll sort it."

Pearl glanced at Grian. He didn't meet her gaze. Doxi was already losing her grip, even if only minorly.

"That's pretty much it. Sorry for dragging you all here, as I said I just wanted to make sure everyone definitely knew, and if I did it over communicator then some people might not have seen." X said. "If anyone has any questions, feel free to stay and ask them."

Grian checked his communicator for the time; he needed to go soon. Unfortunately, he was not lucky enough for subtlety because a few hermits came over to him as the meeting ended.

"G! Where've you been? I haven't seen you in ages!" Scar said.

"Oh, you know, finally pursuing my life long dream of becoming a chess grandmaster." He answered.

"Oh, uh, good for you Gri." The former mayor replied as a couple of other hermits listened to the conversation. His communicator buzzed and he saw that it was a message from Doxi.

"Oh, sorry, I have to go now and keep up my kalimba practice. Bye!" He said as joyfully as he could before logging off and letting his jumper phase into black and a cloak materialise around him. He placed his mask over his eyes, and flew to where Doxi would be waiting.

***

As two more weeks went by, Xelqua finished reading the books and got new ones. Doxi continued to mentor him, and as her hands shook after the quantity of spells, Xelqua began to cast some of them himself. Then he began to cast most of them.

"Finished." Xelqua said one morning, giving Doxi back four more books. She picked up her staff and went over to some shelves to pick more for him.

"It's beyond me," Crevia said when they were next alone, "how you can control the entire universe yet don't have the strength to summon a couple of books."

"I need all of my magical capacity to be focussed on the universe right now, not trivial things. You know that." Doxi replied.

"Why don't you just give him the control now? He can handle it." Crevia said, with worry in her eyes.

"Because," Doxi sighed, looking down at the hand on her staff, "he's barely more than a child, Crevia. I don't want to take his life away from him any sooner than I have to." Crevia looked at her sadly, and she left the room to join Xelqua, who was waiting outside. She leant slightly on her staff as she walked; her body was tired. Her magic was tired. "Right." She said cheerfully, before taking off into the void. Xelqua followed and came to her side. She let the void air seep under her skin and freeze her blood, somehow feeling more connected to the cold being of darkness than ever before.