The One Who Watches

by The Psychopath

Rating: everyone
Tags: Original Character, Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 1461

The world is watched by an eldritch entity of lower existence. It ponders its purpose, the one of those like it, and the world it watches.

High, high above the world on a mountain peak hidden by an infinite sea of clouds sits an eldritch entity of a lower order gazing upon the world and its inhabitants, in particular the ponies. A few of them in particular have caught its attention, but as the years go by and it watches the world decay and evolve, it ponders its own purpose and those of its fellows, having never truly understood these 'lesser' beings on the order of reality.

Art is Remiel by Peter Mohrbacher. Source when you hover over the image.

Published 2025-01-28 00:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2025-01-28 15:08:45 UTC

Sights Beyond

But the silence was broken. A much greater entity, beyond its understanding, came within and delicately took the world out of the Watcher's grasp and hugged it close to it. In many movements, there were more of the new entity, all wiping off the crust of the old world. The sensations wouldn't be the same, but they were bringing such sweetness, reignited old memories and efforts of the past.

It watched as the newcomers reshape and grow the world, its form glowing and shining. It wasn't as bright nor was the shape recognizable, but it had its own existence all its own. The old reality still existed, as did all the alternate existences that branched from it and so on, but this one. The Watcher saw the wall split and the seas part, as Watchers old and new arrived, curious as to what they could see the things doing. Already there were some pushing their forms into the world, pulling out branching paths, as meek and thin as they were. They hadn't yet finished recreating and reshaping the reality, but the strongest were already pulling alternatives to the surface of the sea, and the others surrounded it, curiosity and hunger consuming them.

The sea was filled with the same noise as before, created by new voices mixing with the old.

It slumped upon its mountain peak. These memories blossomed into something new from something old.

Such a melancholic and enjoyable sight. It leaned forward, impatient. It dipped itself into the sea. Perhaps it would be able to find a reality to pull to the surface this time. A lovely purpose for such strange beings.

Sight Transfixed

High above the world, beyond the perceptible plains of science and belief, stood a mountain top coated in white light from the sky above, sitting within a sea of soft, fluffy whiteness. Sitting atop the stone was a strange entity with a seemingly imperceptible form. It looked at the sea beneath, swishing the current one way and then another, always looking for different things. Its sight had latched onto a new world, one filled with colors and odd entities within. Sapient quadrupedals that built their society on emotions and magic. It was a strange thing to see, as many other worlds the Watcher had found itself transfixed by had a long and healthy past, but this one...the past was mired in doubt and mystery. Only a few words spouted here and there by the inhabitants gave the vaguest of insights, and the existence of ancient beings also aided in piecing together a past that could not be viewed.

The sea parted in sections again, showing windows into the world below. Colorful blurs darted this way and that, several stopping at each other to speak and exchange thoughts. The Watcher surveyed everything quietly. Intently. As it watched, its own facsimile of a mind comprehensible to these lower plane entities burned with thoughts and theories. For some reason, it found itself enamored by this one world and would stare for long periods before moving the windows. As it watched events unfold and drama build up, ideas of it changing things for the better would inundate its being. It had the power to do so. It wasn't a mystery to it to change the threads of fate to better its own preferences, but it did no such thing and kept to itself.

The Watcher peered around it, seeing the white depart and reveal many more mountaintops occupied by several of its ilk, each looking through their own holes into different realities. It looked on, seeing many of different shapes and sizes, as to the comprehension of those it watched through the holes. The Watcher hummed pensively, wondering what it's kin thought of as they observed their own interests. They kept to themselves. Silent. Staring. Oblivious. Their only purpose seemed to be looking into these holes and watching, just as it did. Repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating...

Several windows closed as The Watcher turned to adjacent realities, observing the many different events that could change one timeline into dozens of others, producing many miniscule windows around this one and around even those. The ability for reality to warp and change like that always fascinated these entities, causing them to become somewhat addicted, in a sense.

It peered through a window. A green cloud of death rose from the land. A branch attached to this reality breaking off from a dimension the Watcher could not see. It was only focused on this dimension and its universes and no other. Meshing and melding wasn't uncommon, but it always produced odd results. The world stretched far and wide to the Watcher's perceptions, and for nary a moment, the walls weakened, and the gray shape turned to face it. How enlightening.

It slid this window to the side and peered through another. A world sliced in two, divided by deities with lost forms. A half choked by smog and industrialization and scientific progress. The other side breathing healthily and heartily, but its inhabitants hold no medical nor productive advances.

Another. Bipeds being forcefully transformed by 'well-intentioned' beings. So many realities branched off this one.

The Watcher leaned forward once more, its essence clasping at itself as it peered further. There were many, many incomplete realities. Others were poorly constructed and collapsing from it. The unfortunates of existence meant that not all things could be completed or impressed upon by the creator. These universes mostly collapsed under their own weight, becoming nothing and feeding the dimension that held them.

A wave of self and the blurs came into focus, and the Watcher felt a sense of euphoria wash over it as it saw its kin and ken take realities they found interest in and weaved new things with them. New light. New shapes. The fortunate few that garnered the interests and found themselves being improved upon and developed from, and many more would watch and intake. Writing within their crude selves as their passions and curiosity took over.

It watched, as always it did, as always it wanted. Seeing what reality could conjure up, to bring in the perceptions of all those that surrounded it and those even its kin could not perceive. How many layers of reality did they gaze through? How many things were perceived and woven into the fabric of what they perceived here?

There were others in this sea of fluff, melding and reshaping the clouds and meticulously shaping what they could perceive, and more surrounded them to take in the perceptions and displays actively brought before them. Many, many more. Some were rewarded by their kin, others were lambasted. Many more were left alone to peer into their own little perception of worlds, with very few caring, but the beings within had no awareness and lived on.

An oddity, to see such things. To see such perceptions with such effort put to bring them to the surface and be ignored. To see the Watcher remain there, still, and carve the reality as they willed it. What knew of the things that lurked within when attention was taken elsewhere, usually by the ones who had pulled forth popular distortions that sang to all.

Stranger still were realities hated and loathed, but whose concept spawned many alterations that brought their own adoration, much to its confusion. A concept so popular that the original revelation was considered heinous and needed to be fed to the ever-changing realities of the dimension that held it.

Unfortunately, nothing could last forever, and the thousands upon thousands of Watchers started to dwindle as they broke the barriers to swim in another sea and see what lurked within. Some even rose high, beyond any form of perception, many being ignored, but others adored and cemented by what they had pulled to the surface of the white sea.

The Watcher watched in melancholy as the swathes of its kin dwindled to almost nothing, and, in one unfortunate moment of awareness, it realized it was alone. A sea all to itself, windows left behind with the inhabitants completely unaware of their abandonment, but it watched. Carefully. Calmly, and it reached out to the source of them all: A precious gem that lost its splendor to the outsiders and those that came before and others that left after, and it looked upon the world, rewinding and unwinding its multitudes of 'time', as the inhabitants understood passing. Ever it would end once more, the same again and again. Such precious memories in the sea of foam. Where once there was raucous existence, there was but the one, the it left behind, clinging to all it ever was and could be.

Such sorrowful silence and colors.