The air was warm, Grian knew that, it was the hottest day of the year so far, and yet the heat didn't touch him. It was a stranger that passed by him in the street, not stopping for conversation, not knowing who he was, and he didn't know them either. They were unimportant to each other. They exchanged an accidental glance and went on with their day.

He could hear the summer breeze but it didn't run through his hair or brush against his skin. His body felt cold, unaffected by anything past the barriers of his skin. The ice that explored his body and blood and set up camp was created in him and trapped in, the hot air trapped out in just the same way. He felt completely separate to the grassy lands that surrounded him.

The external world and internal mind were independent. He was disconnected from everything, yet also placed directly in the middle. He was an onlooker. He watched. A Watcher, it crept into his mind as an uninvited guest.

It made no difference, but he pulled his winter jumper over his head instead of the usual, thinner summer one. He wore a thick pair of socks in an attempt to warm his numb toes just a tiny bit. He felt like he was high up in a snowy biome suffocating in powdered snow with nothing but a t-shirt and shorts on.

Something in the code of the universe had changed. Something had gone wrong. He no longer felt like his instinct was warning him because the Watchers were already there. He knew it, he could feel it, any doubt - or, hope - that maybe it was something else had dissipated. There was no point lying to himself. Grian knew the Watchers were there, all he could do was wait for them to make their move. 

The cold was a side effect, although he wasn't sure exactly what it was caused by. Maybe the Watchers were doing something to him, maybe this was their way of announcing themselves. Maybe they were scaring him, or trying to convince him to come back in the hope they would stop the cold.

Maybe he was regaining the side of him that was a Watcher.

Once that last thought occurred to him, he was truly scared. If there was one thing he remembered from his days as a half-human-half-Watcher, it was the cold. The cold and the dark.

Maybe was never a certainty, though. But saying it over and over again didn't calm him.

Taking a deep breath in to prepare himself for another cold day, he opened the door and stepped out into the air that barely laid a finger on him. The still-recovering unsettled dirt on the ground stood out as a reminder of why he was out in the first place; to retaliate to Mumbo Jumbo's retaliation. A smirk spread across his face as his plans replayed themselves in his mind.

Even with the Watchers around he needed to get on with life; he couldn't just stop. It simply wouldn't work. Shenanigans were always afoot and people were always there to interrupt what would otherwise, without them, be a very uneventful life. He needed to think things over; find a plan, determine what would happen to his friends, decide what to do. Staying inside, isolated from the world, wouldn't help. He wouldn't be able to keep an eye on things locked away.

Grian tugged his jumper sleeves down as though it helped his body temperature in any way just before arriving at another hermit's base.

"Pssst, pssst, want to join a war?"

* * *

Of course she'd never say no. One reason being that, well, who didn't want in on a bit of mischief? And the other being... it was Grian. Pearl had thought he was dead, or at the very least gone forever, never to be seen again. The day she'd arrived she certainly hadn't expected to see his face. He hadn't spoken to her - properly, at least. He didn't even seem to look at her. He wasn't avoiding her, nor was he paying much mind to her, he was just casual. He didn't recognise her.

She saw a friend, he saw a stranger. From what she could tell that was the case, at least.

When he turned up at her doorstep offering a war, a tiny spark of hope lit up in her that maybe this was the time he'd bring up the events of Evo and the Watchers. Maybe he hadn't really forgotten her and maybe he simply didn't know how to bring it up until now.

But as she placed another log on their monster and glanced up at the hermit, he was in his own little building world, face showing the cogwheels in his brain turn as he tried to get the shape right of part of the arm. He was showing no signs of bringing up anything other than possible names for the build.

Pearl sighed. Maybe all of their time together really was forgotten to him.

* * *

The cold lingered, and, with each day, it got worse. Grian got colder, and colder. After a couple of weeks, he could no longer sleep because all he could do was shiver beneath his pointless duvet.

His fear of the Watchers was growing, if that was even possible, and he was starting to spend his time simply waiting for them to do something.

As he traded with the villagers, his mind wandered to places equivalent of the dark, dodgy, dirty back alleys of a city at three in the morning. Bad thoughts flooded his head and acted like prison guards that stopped his usual optimism from being heard. The problem was, his optimism was rooted from the idea that nothing could ever be worse than the Watchers, but now the building blocks of his normal behaviour had been pulled away.

They were here and could do anything to him and his friends. They probably wanted him back. They would do anything. They weren't limited by the human boundaries he was imprisoned by.

"Grian?" A familiar voice broke his train of thought. He turned suddenly and saw his moustached friend.

"Hey," he said, pushing aside the chaos of his imagination.

"Dude, why are you wearing so many layers? It's July." The redstoner asked. Grian shrugged, trying to be casual.

"What brings you here?"

"Well, there's a creeper in my base and it's near my chests and..." he trailed off. Grian rolled his eyes in false annoyance before chuckling.

"Hm, and what could you possibly need me for? After all, you would never want to see an innocent creature die, even if it wasn't by your hands, because clearly you care so much about peace, l-"

"Shut up," Mumbo interrupted his sarcastic speech and the blond hermit broke out into a small laugh instead.

"Since you were so nice about it, sure, I'll help." Grian said before they made their way towards the base.

One green monster death later, the sun was setting and Grian went to his starter base in favour of going back to mindlessly trading. He opened the door, but, instead of going inside, he stopped.

Suspended in the air about a metre and a half above the ground, was his mask.

His Watcher mask.

It was surrounded by purple flame, hovering up and down slightly. It was waiting for him. It seemed to talk to him, asking for him to take it back. It was in the centre of the open-plan interior, and was at least 3 metres away from him, yet Grian could feel the warmth radiate off of it.

He took a step towards it, and the door closed behind him. Anyone else would've described it as moving on it's own accord, but he knew it was the mask. The magic. It wanted him. It called to him. The Watchers wanted him.

He stared at it for another few minutes, his eyes glued to the way the fire flickered, it's movements different every time. It glowed and sparkled, it's texture smooth and warm. He wanted it to surround his hands once again. He wanted to feel the warmth of it. He wanted it's strength, it's power. He wanted to feel the magic flowing through him.

He wanted the safety and security it brought, and the friend he'd found in it for many years in the darkness. He wanted to feel the way he felt when it was just him and the magic and when nothing else in the world mattered but the purple flames. He wanted it so, so much.

But the Watchers wanted him to want it.

Before he could give into temptation he ran outside and took off, spamming more rockets than was necessary. His body was getting further and further away from it, but his mind wasn't travelling so quickly. His mind felt like it was being pulled back by a rope.

The Watchers had finally done something.

It was only a few minutes later when he realised he didn't know where he was going. He didn't want to leave the continent because he didn't want to be too far from others in case... the Watchers, but he didn't exactly have any ideas.

After a small debate in his head and finding himself near to the large cliffs, he landed in Etho and Iskall's base and asked if he could stay there for the night, making an excuse of losing track of time and his elytra being on low durability, which happened to be true.