The Watchers

 Nyssa grimaced and gingerly pulled her leg towards her chest for a better look. Hot, sticky streams of blood poured over her fingers from the gash. Pain coursed through her limbs and her chest heaved for want of air. Her head tilted back to the stone behind her as she steadied her breath, pacing herself with each inhale and actively silencing superfluous thoughts and fears that attempted to race around her mind. Her eyes fluttered open and she gazed up at the sheer cliff face she had just tumbled down. 

"If only I had been a Healer," she groaned under her breath. Her sight flicked down to a brace on her arm where some of the Mind Stones lay dormant. 

"A healing stone would not help you." A somber, soundless voice wafted over the air from somewhere nearby. 

"Who's there?" Nyssa started to her feet, but the searing pain in her leg shot through her once more and sent her toppling down involuntarily. She braced herself and regained control, looking cautiously around as she scrambled to return herself to an upright sitting position. Her hand wrapped around the cold handle of the knife at her thigh. 

"Stones will do nothing for you if you have not already mastered their gifts without their aid. You possess fortitude, but you are no healer. You have trained your mind, but you do not command your lifeblood. Yours are the Mind Stones. Healing stones would not answer you."

It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once; from within and without. It was softer than a whisper, but the ground beneath her and the air around her seemed to resonate with it. 

"What are you," she steadied herself, knife in hand, head level and eyes scanning intently around her. She calmed her breathing and felt the warm glow of the stones on her arms hum to life. 

There was no panic. No fear. No contempt. No resolve nor desire. This presence had either mastered the art of enshrouding its motives or else was so existentially vague that even the Mind Stones could not capture its intentions. Whatever it was conveyed only a subtle hint of .... curiosity? Or was it faint amusement? 

"We? We are not you."

"Thank you." She had surmised as much. The warmth of the stones grazed her arm and pressed against her thoughts. The hint of a laugh.

"We are not your kind. We are the Whisperers. The Unseen. The Unheard. But you hear us."

"Yes, that much seems to be true," she replied. Her eyes still scanned the area around and she slowly rose to her feet, supporting herself against the dusty stones of the cliff wall. She did not expect to see the source of the voices, but she was beginning to suspect their origins. 

"Others cannot hear you?" she continued.

"We have tried. None will listen," said they. 

"Yet you speak to me?"

"You have heard, so we speak." 

"And what would you say?"

"Ours are not words," said they. 

Whatever voice she had sensed permeating the area was instantly silenced. The echo of their words had been cut off. Instead there was a growing sea of knowing---something that could not be put into words even if words sufficed. An ancient sorrow, a burden, a solitude, an oath, an unyielding commitment. Thousands of years of toil and joy and purpose and loss, and all the time and space between, conveyed without a word. It felt akin to discerning intentions in others with the Soul Stones but amplified by a thousand. She had never experienced anything like it. 

Slowly, subtly, so quietly that she was not sure when it began, the voice returned. 

"We are the Watchers," it said. "And we are many. We have waited, and you have come." 

"You waited for me?"

"We waited for now."