[pixie_shimmer]: 19.The Watcher - Setting the Mood

Concept Sketches - The Watcher Sketches

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A man was walking down the street. Quickly. He was nervous. Alone. Nervous and alone. He didn’t like this neighbourhood. It was a bad neighbourhood. These were bad streets. Not many people hung around these streets at this hour. The people who did were out of their minds. Some with the drink, some with drugs or those like him, who were lured there by greed. He was sweating. He was paranoid. He could feel someone watching him. He spun around but no one was there. He told himself to calm down or he’d blow it. He breathed out slowly and started walking again, not noticing the flash of white on the top of the building he’d just passed. 

Lilith gasped and slid quickly back into the shadows. The man paused for a few seconds and regained his composure. He started walking again, this time at a more leisurely pace but he still looked like he had somewhere to go. Or someone to meet.

Lilith cursed her wings, and not for the first time. It wasn’t that she hated them, though for a long while she had. They were unnatural and sometimes cumbersome. They made hiding in shadows difficult, because of the pristine whiteness of them. Sariah had made a cloak, especially for sneaking around in situations like this, but it didn’t really do the whole job. It just made things a little easier.

The man was moving faster now and Lilith spread her wings and with a run and jump, she glided over to the next building where she immediately became one with the shadows and pulled her wings as close as she could to her body and covered them with the cloak. They had been following this guy for about a month. They had first heard about him on the street. The urchins were talking, about the new powder. The powder that was so fine, so sweet and it made everything all better, they said. Then they started disappearing. It was only really the young ones, the ones who had no homes to go to. The ones who people thought would not be around for much longer anyway. The ones people normally didn’t notice. That was where the mistake was made.

They thought no one was watching. They thought that nobody would care. They didn’t know about the Watchers. Lilith was a Watcher. She belonged to a group of Watchers. They had all found one another, and supported each other when support was needed. They were a like a small family, united through the actions of one man. A man who eluded them, and who all felt a great pity for. It was not in them to hate him. Instead of dwelling on the fact however, they banded together and decided to use their misfortune to help those who could not help themselves. And so it was that The Watchers had come across this particular man. He was the one providing the urchins with the magic powder. The Watchers could have had him, but they knew he was not the one they needed. They knew the man was meeting the leader tonight.