#perhaps like…. watcher grian trying to save scar from his world of hurt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hermits-that-craft · 4 years

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so i came up with a basic story plot on discord if anyone wants to use it (under the cut)

Basically - Fantasy ish au where stress, grian and joe were kidnaped by watchers and there’s a rebellion

have fun, if you want to write it tag me i would forever be in you debt

So, Stress right? She's a princess of sorts, her family rules over a small area and is kind, though their powers are ice and the area is too far north to produce stable crops year round. She's raised with her siblings, and she loves her area with more of her heart then she can ever say. Visitors - friend and foe alike - say that the frozen lands are the kindest and most peaceful areas around.

However, it doesn't stay that way.

Watchers come and ransack her home, kidnapping her and her siblings before anything can be done to stop them. Stress' parents, although not nearly strong enough to fend off watchers, try their hardest to stop the group from taking their children. Nothing comes of their efforts, but the thought is kind and the price is high. Stress won't know what happens to her parents and people for years, but she knows deep down in her heart that there is nothing left of her home.

The watchers train the teens, or they attempt to. Stress was the only one who did not take her leave through unconventional manors. She survived not through perseverance but through stubbornness, and a fear of dying. Her siblings had one or the other, but not both. None of them would bow to the watchers, but Stress played a careful act of pretending that she did.

The watchers, after deciding that Stress had been trained enough, allowed her to share a room with two other people. Those people were two men who had suffered a similar fate as she did. They had survived where others had not, and now they were chosen by the watchers to room together.

The first few months were tough, Stress had no way of knowing if Xelqua or Poet shared her views and it was clear to her that they didnt fully trust her or each other as well. It was only when, in a moment of stupidity or forgetfulness, Stress sang a song that her sisters would sing that the group stared to warm up to each other. They spoke freely as they could, Poet knowing enough magic to block off the watchers control and Xelqua know enough magic to block any noise from their rooms. Stress told them her real name, and she discovered that Poet is a man named Joe Hills, who hails from a small island that doesn't have a proper name, though he calls the town 'Tennessee' and his house 'Nashville'. He was of noble decent and was a powerful wordsmith, so when the watchers came and ransacked his home they took him as well.

Xelqua, she discovered, was a man by the name of Grian. Grian was chaotic, a prankster and a thief who lived in a large city. His family was rich but not noble of character, and the avian took to stealing things from his home and reselling it to gift the money to any poor people he came across. He was taken as a teen as well, and taught by watchers in a similar way to Stress, with some people who were kidnapped from the streets with him. He struggles to call those people 'friends' after Taurtis and Sam, his closest confidants and best friends, betrayed his thoughts to the watchers, and fell for the watchers propaganda. Grian refuses to talk about what the watchers did to him, but Stress can tell from the scars on his back and his clipped wings that it was something that shouldn't be repeated.

The group holds fast to each other, trying desperately to both stay alive and stay themselves in the hellscape that is the watchers home. Stress plays her role well, as the only person who was raised in royal courts she knows how to bow to someone who does not deserve it. Joe and Grian both struggle, their morals overtaking their abilities to keep themselves out of harms way. It is only after the watchers realise that to hit them where is hurts, so to speak, would be to hurt someone they care for that they learn to act.

Stress doesn't lose hopes, though she knows that the world outside is different to how it was, she refuses to lose her hope. When Grian questions her about it, she tells him that its the only way to stay herself in a place like this. Joe only listens, nodding along but not saying anything, though when he is questioned on it he agrees with Stress. He had been with the watchers for less time than Stress and Grian had, having been taken as an adult, but he also lost his entire family to the watchers.

Stress finds herself considering the two men her brothers, her found family that is there for her, and she begins to worry about losing them. She doesn't want to, she finds it so unfair that she should lose another brother, another friend, to the watchers that killed her family, that she withdraws from them. Of course, they notice, and it doesn't do anything except to make them worried for her. Eventually, through either necessity or through accident, Stress tells them about it. The two men understand, telling her that they consider her a sister as well, and Grian jokes about finally having siblings. The group holds onto each other, that night, letting each other talk over how they feel.

News doesn't come to the group often, the watchers trickling news to them as though they are children that needn't hear about the negative things happening in the world. However, news of a rebellion reaches their ears through the whispers and mutterings that echo throughout the keep. They hold fast to the hope of a rebellion, to the idea of freedom. They don't speak of it often, nor do they think on these ideal, but at night they find themselves dreaming of freedom. Stress sings more, Grian offers to show the two around his home city, and Joe tells tales of the vineyard that he grew up in.

While tales of the rebellion spreads, the small group is forced through tests and experiments that give them more powers that they cannot fathom to use. Stress wakes one morning with wings and the ability to control plants. Joe wakes, a week laters, with wings and the ability to see snippets of the future. Grian wakes with the ability to control water and, to an extent, others minds. The group prays for freedom to come soon, to let them leave without the watchers finding them, or hurting their siblings in their absence.

That freedom comes sooner than expected for Joe, who disappears in the night, leaving his siblings behind without a word. It's too dangerous to take them where he was going, so he kisses their foreheads and disappears into the void-like mist surrounding the watcher's home.

The watchers never mention Joe again, not even blinking when he doesn't appear at the breakfast. They don't bring up 'poet' or hold Stress or Grian accountable for his sudden flight from their cell. Stress and Grian can't, don't, won't try to understand why the watchers dont ask them anything, as the only answer that the pair can come up with is that Joe is now one of the people they lost, part of a seemingly ever-growing number of dead.

Stress stops dreaming of freedom, letting herself harden under the pressure of the watchers. She will not become one of their weapons, nor will she become one of their diamonds, but she cannot let herself sleep while Grian could disappear. Grian stops asking her about tales of her home, and Stress stops singing. Tales of rebellions no longer fall into their ears.

The tests all but stop, and Stress finds herself falling into a dreamless sleep the second she makes it to her bed. She doesn't lose hope, but she doesn't gain any. There is seemingly nothing that can calm her until her head hits her pillow.

It's during one of these sleeps when Grian leaves, a note tucked under her pillow telling her that he'll be back, that he loves her, and that the rebellion is still around.

Stress cries when she reads the letter, holding it close to her before burning it. Once more, the watchers don't mention her brother, and Stress is alone again, dreaming of a freedom that she can't believe will happen for her, of a rebellion she refuses to believe will come for her. Stress can't fall into work, can't do anything as the tests stop happening and she is confined to the room that she was trapped in, food delivered to her by the watchers. Stress draws, grows plants and summons ice that she sculpts into her siblings, biological or otherwise. She lives like that, her life in limbo as she waits for the watchers to decide what to do with her. Whatever the answer is, she will walk towards it with her head high. She doesn't fear death anymore, though she doesn't want to die. She does, however, fear what will become of her if the watchers decide she isn't worth their resources.

One day, news of the rebellion reaches her ears. It's from one of the watchers who brings her food, the one that wears black headphones with blue and red checkers on them, not the cruel one with the rabbit ears. He tells her, an unsettling smile on his face, that "all of the watchers here are leaving to finally squash the rebellion. you'll be safe, once we're back we'll ba able to make you a full watcher as well. congratulations, you're the the only one of your class to succeed!". Stress cries at those words, and the watcher takes them as happy tears instead of the mournful tears that they actually are.

The watchers leave that night, the rabbit eared watcher providing her with three days food an instructions only to leave her rooms if the food runs out. She doesn't believe that the food will run out, but she thanks him anyways. She needs to make a plan to escape before that watchers come back.

The next day, the watcher's building is silent, save for the few rooms that Stress occupies. She sings for the first time in months, perhaps in years, in the empty castle. Any song is worth singing, as it fills the time and the unsettling silence. She sings songs from her home, tunes Grian taught her that the street performers would sing in his city, and ballads that Joe wrote for his home before he was abducted. Her plants flourish as she sings, and her sculptures almost appear to move.

The only thing thats stops her songs and revelry is an explosion, close by the wing of the castle in which she is imprisoned. Footsteps, loud, heavy and armoured, echo down the halls as people run through the castle. Stress falls silent, fear eating at her brain as she tries desperately to hide in a place that neither the watchers, nor any intruders, could find her. Joe had once shown her a small corner in which the stones were loose enough for her to wriggle her way into the wall, and Stress flees into the hiding place, praying that no one will look for her.

The footsteps stop in front of her door and voices echo indecipherably through the hall. Stress can't properly understand what they were saying, but she doesn't have to wait to find out as the door is thrown open, falling to the ground with a loud clang. Stress spies through the crack in the stone as people enter the room, their backs towards her.

There are five people in total, two women and three men. One of the women has blonde hair tied into a long plait down her back, brown pants and a green jacket on. A leather strap goes around her head and Stress assumes its goggles. The other woman is a zombie with green patchwork skin and flame like orange hair, wearing shorts and a blueish jumper than falls off her shoulders. One of the men wears armour thats green, the only thing that Stress can properly decipher from him is that his helmet glows from the front. A different man IS green, with a metal arm and leg and a lab coat over his chest. The final man wears a bright green jumper with a brown vest, and jeans on. The group talks amongst themselves, looking through the room for something thats Stress can't decipher. The man in the armour turns around, and Stress can properly see his eyes through the blue visor. They appear to be purple, marking him as a powerful void walker. Stress holds her breath, praying that he can't see her as the man brings his wrist up to his face.

"We can't find her, can you come here and look for her yourself?"

Stress feels tears in her eyes as the man speaks into his communicator. The two women sit down on the seat that Stress and her brothers would sit on, and Stress can see how the women look. The group, for people breaking into a watcher building, a watcher castle at that, appears remarkably calm, the two women joking around and laughing as footsteps echo through the halls. The green man, along with the the man in the green jumper, lean on the wall, talking to each other as though they had met on the streets and wished to catch up. Stress finds herself longing for that sort of interaction, though she knows that these people could be naught but dangerous to her even if they weren't hunting her.

The footsteps make their way into the building, two people in cloaks entering the room. The cloaks are drawn up, making them indecipherable to Stress, though she knows that they aren't watchers as one of the cloaks is a vibrant red, with the other one being a bright blue. The person in the blue cloak walks to the man in the green armour, as the one in the red finds their way to the two men leaning against the wall. The person in the blue cloak turns around, removing his cloak hood as he looks at Stress, and the woman in the wall chokes out a sob, startling the people in the room.

Joe is alive.

Joe helps Stress out of the wall and she throws herself into a hug with the man, wrapping her wings around the man. The group looks shocked at the pair, and Joe mumbles to her that he's refused hugs from them even after Grian found them. Grian joins the hug as well, the siblings finally reunited. Joe tells her about the rebellion, and how they are fighting to take down the watchers as they make their way to the ship that Xisuma, the man in the green armour, runs. Stress asks where she can join the rebellion. Xisuma laughs and tells her that she already has.

Stress, one day, asks the hermits if she could find out what happened to her home. Joe and Grian both exchange worried looks, though the hermits all agree to go to her the Frozen Lands to see her home, taking Grian and Joe's silences as agreement. Joe didn't tell the hermits that his visited Nashville before he joined them, though he spoke to Grian and Stress of the devastation that was left on his home, how the only thing left of the house his family lived in was the flooring, burnt and bloodied and faded with age. Grian has also confined in Stress and Joe that Evo, the city in which he lived in, wasn't the same when he returned, the people either close to kneeling over due to starvation or unnaturally healthy, glowing in a way that didn't seem normal nor natural. Stress doesn't care for their concern about her home, false hope screaming at her that her cousins or other family members would be there, ruling over the town and lands.

When the hermits arrive, Stress rushes a head of them, ignoring the concern and fear that falls from the groups mouths. But instead of running into the loving embrace of her families arms, Stress arrives to a wasteland covered in ice and ash. Stress bolts down the streets she played in as a child, sliding on ice as she makes her way to the manor that she grew up in.

Instead of the familiar structure that she expected, nothing stands except the door the main entrance. Her families crest, a simple snowflake, that was carved into the spruce wood doors is burnt into the crest of the watchers, a clear message to anyone who found their way to the manor.

Stress collapses at the door, wailing at not only the loss of her family but at the loss of her home.

The hermits find her their, her wailing subsiding into sobs as her new brothers help her to her feet, helping her to make her way to the ship that she had been living in. Nothing feels real, not for a long time for Stress, her hope waning as she realises what had happened to her family. Stress finds herself helping Joe in the medical bay of the ship, her healing magic far more potent than his was, and Stress finds herself enjoying the work. She makes fast friends out of Cleo, False and Iskall as the three of them visit her often, either with injuries or with anecdotes. For most of the hermits, what had happened to Stress' home was something they had only heard of in the stories of refugees, as only Etho, Wels, Grian, Joe and Xisuma truely understood what had happened to her home.

The hermits, the rebels, knew that they had to free more people, and Stress often accompanied Xisuma and Wels on their more diplomatic missions, her title of Princess aiding them as they gather allies. Wels also teaches her how to fight, and jokingly suggests that she should knight him as the knight for her kingdom, as his kingdom is ruled by a tyrant that wants nothing more than to watch her people suffer. Stress does knight him, giving him the status that he needs to get them respect of other knights as the champion of the Frozen Lands.

The next few years are spent in careful planning, Stress, Wels and Xisuma being the kindhearted faces of the rebellion as Cleo, False, Grian and Joe being the hard hitting fighters who invade watcher buildings and burn them down, as Iskall, Cub and Scar gather information about watchers through means that Stress doesn't know and doesn't care to find out.

One day, at a party that Stress, Xisuma and Wels were invited to, and that Grian, Joe and False had tagged along to the two watchers that fed Stress appear, not only looking for a fight but for victims to bring back to the watchers.

Stress didn't feel anything at the sight of the watchers, simply stating that they had been the ones to feed her, though Grian's eyes flashed purple as he laid eyes on them. Of course, the group fought the watchers, Stress helping the people to evacuate the building before she joined the fray.Grian fought harder than anyone else did, throwing himself into the fray when he shouldn't have. The rabbit watcher taunted him, and the one that wore the headphones laughed as Grian struggled to fight them, not letting anyone get close to them. The rabbit eared watcher threw a spear through Grian's wing, grounding the man. Grian doesn't saying anything as the rest of the hermits join the fight, Stress focussing on healing his wing.

"Why would you fight them alone, you dumbass." She asked him, tears in her eyes. "Thats Sam and Taurtis." The second the reply hit her ears, Stress stands, her wings flapping. She holds the spear in her hands as she flies up, summoning ice and vines to the room. Joe helps the hermits to a corner of the room as Stress traps the two traitors in vines and ice. "What do you want me to do with them, Grian?" Stress asks, and the man shrugs, a dark look in his eyes. "They're watchers, they've already sealed their fates."

Stress doesn't remember what happened next, though according to False and Wels it was 'the most badass' thing that they had ever seen. According to Xisuma, however, it was a safety hazard. Stress doesn't really care, though she's prefer that the next time she grow plants in peoples lungs and explodes their veins with ice she wouldn't wake up in the blood and ice of her victims.

The group becomes folk heroes in that kingdom, and they soon find themselves becoming better known in other lands as well as they defeat more and more watchers, before the only ones left are the ones that kidnapped Stress, Grian and Joe.

It took a while to find the last watchers. There was so few left of them that no one, not even Iskall, Scar and Cub could find information on the group, and while Stress, Joe and Grian were being heralded as heroes who defied the odds and survived the watchers, they couldn't rest. Stress would often find Grian planning intricate traps with Mumbo and Iskall, and she'd always have to make sure that Joe wasn't wordsmithing disaster onto their course. Of course, everyone would find Stress fussing over any injured people, to the point where it was obvious that she was too nervous for her own good. It was during one of these sessions with Cleo where the zombie worked out - or perhaps told the ex watcher - exactly what Stress what thinking.

"You hate them." Cleo smiles. "I want them locked up, where they can never hurt anyone ever again." Stress spits, trying to calm herself down. "You want them dead, don't you?" "I never said that!" Stress protests, though in her heart she knows it's true. "Don't worry, I think that they deserve it."

It took Stress a while to convince herself that she wasn't evil for wanting that. Or more so, it took False, Iskall, Grian, Cleo, Wels, Joe and Xisuma a while to convince Stress she wasn't evil for wishing death onto the watchers. But she was never fully convinced, and just when the hermits believed that she had finally believed them, Stress vanished into the night just as Joe and Grian had left her, a note being the only thing she left behind.

She knows where the watchers are, she knows exactly where she needs to go to finish this, and she knows that she cannot loose anymore people to the watchers, to that building, the one that the watchers had first held her and her siblings in. The one hidden in the frozen wastes beyond her home town. It's a long fight, one that she battles alone until she's near dead, captured by watchers once more. When all seems lost, her brothers appear, tearing down the doors and saving her before the watcher can deliver the final blow. Grian tore into the watchers as Joe heals her, and Stress spies the hermits from the corner of her eyes. The hermits battle as Stress struggles to breath, the curse that was placed on her slowly eating away at her energy. Tears prick at her eyes, too tired to even fall out of her eyes. She watches, almost as though she isn't in her body, as False and Cleo deliver the final blow, killing the watcher with a well placed spear to the throat. Energy floods back into Stress as she bolts up, the curse dying with the watcher that placed it.

There are celebrations throughout the world as the hermits make their way across, telling everyone of the good news. Stress, Grian and Joe are shown some of the survivors of their homes, and Stress makes her first speech as queen declaring that the island 'Tennessee' and the city 'Evo' are now states of the Frozen Lands. Soon, the lands that the other hermits were from join the Frozen lands, and Stress makes more announcements welcoming places into her ever growing country. The world changes as people make their way to the Frozen Lands, hoping for the home that is boasted about.

Stress' last declaration as queen of the frozen lands is stunning, a hope filled promise of home.

"I do not claim to know that the future holds, nor do I promise that it will be good, but today I speak to you all, not as a queen, but as a friend. The Frozen Lands is no more. Today, we join the Hermit States. You will chose your leader, not born of blood but of your decisions."

It was not a surprise to anyone but Stress when she was voted in as Empress, with Scar as her second in command. Joe finds home in books of poetry and song, and Grian finds life in regrowing his home into a better place.

Stress finds a family in the hermits, and the hermits find hope in Stress

#stressmonster101 #grian #joehills #joe hills #hermitcraft #hermitcraft au #story ideas

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