Watcher (Stormlight Archive Fanfiction)

[Ravenclawjedi42]

I had always wanted to write a Stormlight Fanfiction, but never did until now. The working title is Watcher. The main story takes place during the same period as Oathbringer and Rhythm or War, but the prologue is significantly earlier.

Prologue (spoilers for Rhythm of War):

Spoiler

“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” Astrainva spoke in Tfisn’s mind, invisible to all others. When he didn’t respond, Astrainva continued, “I know this is what we planned for, what we wanted. But now, it just seems so…so real, more than ever before.”

Tsifn grunted in reply, keeping his eyes focused on their destination. He hadn’t expected to feel regret for the choices that they’d made but…was it true that this would kill Astrainva? She had been one of the few against their descision. But Tfisn knew that they had to do this.

The Elsecallers, at the front of the three orders that were marching together, had reached their destination first. He saw them all in unison summon their Shardblades. Tfisn used his Truthwatcher resonance to see the details of what was happening, though he was in the far back. He zoomed in on Morama, his friend in the Elsecallers with her dark hair and light eyes, a determined expression on her face.

And all at once, the Elsecallers plunged their shard into the ground.

”No…” Astrainva said. “No!”

Tfisn felt the same pain that his spren did as he thought of Midnight, Morana’s Inkspren, and how they and Astrainva had begun to love each other in a way that Tfisn had once assumed that only humans could. He thought of how he would never see Morana again.

As the Truthwatchers, including Tfisn, began marching again, he heard Liona, the only current Singer Surgebinder, hum to what Tfisn recognized as the Rhythm of Mourning. He felt the same way.

Tfisn forced himself to look away as the Lightweavers, too, summoned their shards. Instead he looked at the sky and pondered how insignificant this must be to a god like the Almighty. Yet perhaps this event had some significance to the gods. The end of the Knights Radiant. Nobody knew what would come next, in a land without Surgebinding, a land of common people.

Tfisn was still looking at the sky as the Truthwatcher’s marched to take the Lightweaver’s place. And so he missed the Shardblade in the ground where he was walking. And so he tripped over the blade, freeing it, before getting impaled.

Pain. Lots and lots of pain. “Astaimva!” he called out as he felt his life slipping away from him. “Astrainva!”

And then there was relief, a lack of pain. Tfisn took a shaky breath, thinking somebody used regrowth on him. But he soon became aware that he was floating on an ocean of beads.

An ocean of beads…that was how Morana described Shadesmar to him. So he was there now…but why?

A figure stood over him, with dark skin and white hair, not grey, but the same color as Tfisn’s long eyebrows, with a light behind him. It occurred to Tfisn that this man…must be the Almighty himself.

”Almighty,” he said, bowing over the beads. “Did I save her? Astrainva? By dying?”

The Alimghty nodded His head. “Yes, but she will have to deal with insanity for an age as a result. You were of the fourth ideal, and the longer a bond is, the harder it is for a person to die.”

Tfisn accepted this response. “Why didn’t You help us? Perhaps if you did, we would have needed not to kill all our spren. We could have used Your help.”  

“But the Dawnshards…you will destroy Roshar. I know it.”

“No, Tavast. Not necessarily. But know this. I am a Vorin no more.” And Tfisn stepped into the light.

I’ll try to posted chapters daily. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Ψιτιsτηε Βεsτ]

I am interested to see where you’re going with this.

[Ravenclawjedi42]

Chapter one

Spoiler

1,893 Years Later
Outside, the Parshmen danced, a dance of sadness, of dejectivity. A dance that would end in death for all of them. Yet they continued to dance it, every day, forever, no music as their guide.

”Son,” a voice said, from the doorway. “Why do you care about the Parshmen so? You’ve been staring at them working for almost two hours.”

Work, his father called it. It was not work, Uqan had figured out over a year of trying to understood how they did work so exactly, at the same time as each other. He had since figured out that they heard some sort of music in their heads, making their “work” not truly work, but a dance. He had since had an obsession with the Parsh, and had read the reports of the intelligent Parshmen, the Parshendi, in the east. For a day Uqan had wanted to go n a research trip to the Shattered Plains, but soon realized that they were the people that the Alethi were currently in a war with. Stupid Alethi. Had to ruin all of Uqan’s plans for research. But the reports…. Uqan had since come to the conclusion that the Parshendi heard those complex rhythms that they mentioned often in the early reports, but in their cousins there was a faint rhythm, but there nonetheless.

Uqan believed that the Parshmen were much more intelligent then they seemed. He had began collecting information, things that just didn’t add up about them. Once he had enough information, he planned to submit it to the viziers, and possibly the Prime himself, as a request to free the Parshmen. But…recently, something had given him pause in his plans. Jasnah Kholin had written a paper saying that the Parsh were Voidbringers.

Uqan was a huge fan of Jasnah Kholin. And so, while most of the viziers had called the paper nonsense, Uqan had believed it. Because if Jasnah Kholin said something, it probably was true. So Uqan had shoved his research into a drawer, and tried to forget about his dreams of freeing the Parshmen. Yet his mind kept returning to them.

”Uqan,” his father said, still at the door. “You’re supposed to be studying right now. If you truly wish to be a scribe, you must study.”

Uqan nodded absentmindedly and pulled out a sheet of paper, listening to rain fall on the roof.

“Antav!” One of them said, addressing Uqan’s father. “A Highstorm comes! It just hit New Nanatan!”

”A Highstorm? But it’s the middle of the Weeping!”

”I don’t understand it either. It’s likely nothing, but it can’t hurt to get everyone inside.”

Uqan’s father nodded, and the man left the room. He moved to follow him, but before he did that he turned his head to Uqan. “Keep studying. Like he said, it was probably nothing.”

It turned out to be not, in fact, nothing. And that night, a different storm, red, from the west, swept through Azir. And in the morning, the Parshmen were slaves no more.