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“Love” is only 4 letters long. It shouldn’t be this difficult to say.
Everyone has a different way of saying it: he’s heard so many, in this paltry existence. Some shout it up to balconies, as if to dare anyone passing by to say otherwise. Some whisper it quietly, sheltering it from the ears of others as it slips out and gets away from them. It doesn’t have to be the word itself. It could be a name, said in the quiet of the night under a full moon. Names could be a form of love.
Some say it as a means of deception, a false promise brimming with hypocrisy. “Love” from the lips of evil means nothing.
Some never say it at all.
---
Her forehead feels like fire.
The absence of that bitter aroma had been the first sign. The Wanderer had known something was wrong one step into the Sanctuary. There had been a strange stillness in the air. That slightest bit of preparation had allowed him to act.
He had found Lesser Lord Kusanali in her room. There are two things he soon came to realize, staring that slight, unmoving form.
- Something must have happened to Irminsul.
- She’s not getting up.
Lesser Lord Kusanali is a small god. Asleep in the bed, swaddled by blankets, she looks tiny. She’s too light, when he picks her up and bundles her to his chest, head falling against one of his shoulders. He can feel the heat she’s giving off all the way to his core. The Dendro Archon is powerful and capable in her own right- he knows this: so why does she feel so fragile?
The Wanderer doesn’t like fragile things. Fragile things snap like twigs under the slightest pressure, and keep bending no matter how you tape them together- she’s not like that. She should never be like that.
He flies when he can. The wind shrieks against his ears, harsh and angry, and he forces himself into the air again and again until his arms tremble, and the vision gives out. He could drop her. Haha. That would be bad. There’s static playing in his ears and the rest is all silent. He needs to look down every so often to make sure she’s still there.
He somehow makes it to Vanarana, landing funny on an ankle to stay upright no matter what. It’s an atrocious landing, and the first Aranara he sees in the distance begins to waddle toward him, concerned. He calls out something- it comes out a garbled mess to his own ears, but somehow they understand him because he’s ushered to a house where he can set her down.
That little body, lying on the leaf-like greenery of the bed, does not stir save for the faint rise and fall of her chest.
The Wanderer feels useless, being sent out by the Aranara to be aired out like a dirty piece of laundry. He doesn’t like staying in there, waiting by a bed for something to happen. The edge of the pool is no better, but at least he can scrub away that haunted expression in its surface. He’s restless, a strange energy writhing under his skin and turning his muscles taunt, so he wanders around until he finds life.
“You’ve come to the wrong place, stranger,” a Fatui skirmisher calls out as the Wanderer approaches their camp.
There’s a rifle pointed in his direction, and it’s perfect. Just what he needs: he lets a mockery of a smile slip onto his face and charges at the first of the Fatui grunts. Wretched vermin.
“Aren’t you-” He wrenches the book from the mirror maiden’s hands and shoves it into her half-opened mouth. When she falls, he stomps down, hard. Slamming them against the ground, kicking their heads around, kneeing their faces- it’s all senseless violence: brutal, senseless violence, but it gets rid of that festering feeling that had been welling up earlier. It feels like a return to form, staring down coldly at their unconscious bodies and pants flecked with blood. It reminds him of what he is.
Lesser Lord Kusanali could not tolerate something that did this. To her, violence is a cruel necessity, never an indulgence. He can wipe his hands on his shorts, blank faced and ready to honor their agreement.
---
Nahida probably won’t tell anyone this. He’ll remember, though, because that look, when those green eyes regard him, is one of the few times he will ever see her furious. It had been the first time Scaramouche had awoken after their fight. The last time they had spoken, he had attempted to supplant her, kill her first sage, and rip her gnosis out of her chest. 168 times, apparently. If she hadn’t been angry, Scaramouche would start to wonder if she’s more inhuman than he is.
“Buer. Wanted to finish me off yourself?”
“I’m not going to kill you yet.”
Scaramouche laughs. “Too soft-hearted? How weak. Maybe you do need a replacement.”
Something in her expression shifts, a new coldness. He wonders if she is imagining him dead; but then it breaks into anguish, and that’s when he knows she is too compassionate for her own good.
“Do you want me to hate you?” she asks.
As if you don’t already. Her anger fuels him, feeding the part of him that has kept him alive for centuries. “Is it working?”
The threat of death is nothing new. Benevolent as she is, Buer will kill him if he poses a threat to her nation: that is one of the conditions that makes its way into the agreement, if unspoken. Scaramouche is good with clear cut deals, working within set boundaries. In the future, he’ll help her people with their menial chores. Pour over Irminsul’s records. Do whatever tasks she lays out for him like a good little soldier. Right now, all Scaramouche wants to do is drag her down to where he is.
She’ll inhale deeply, turning to leave, but he can hear the response in the silence. Yes.
But then-
She comes back, a little less angry, and much more determined. “Let’s try this again.”
Forcing her to kill him would be the quickest way out. It would be easy, Scaramouche thinks, she would make it quick and painless, and it would hurt her, too: leave a little festering seed of regret in her heart. He could haunt her, immortalized as a failure. If Kunikuzushi had not worked with his mother, then Scaramouche can try her- it is an ugly, satisfying thought, that this be his legacy. How fitting.
But-
Is that what you truly want?
She keeps trying, and he’s so, utterly lost. This game she’s playing is a dangerous one. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?
Don’t do this to me again-
---
He returns to the hut to regard Lesser Lord Kusanali with a contemptuous stare. How is it she can sleep so easily now, but none of the other times when she needs it? This is her fault in some way- he’s not sure how, yet, but it’s her fault for pushing herself night after night. It has to be. She’s asleep, so she can’t say anything to defend herself. An ancient feeling rises in his chest, and he shoves it down quickly.
Great, she’s caught some weird tree disease they’re going to have to solve. He just hopes the Traveler isn’t off in the middle of god knows where, because the list of other people to turn to is barely a list at all. It’s a choice, and both are terrible. Irminsul wasn’t common knowledge.
Untrustworthy humans, absent gods.
What a headache.
Several Aranara are gathered by her bedside, so he must be careful where he steps. As the Wanderer bends down beside her, a little doll slips out from one of his pockets and tumbles to the floor. It lies there pathetically, with that little tear hanging from its eye. He should toss that useless thing aside one of these days. Abandon it in a ditch somewhere.
Some hours, he looks over to Lesser Lord Kusanali to see her sleeping peacefully. Others, she’s writhing, face twisted in pain no matter the cool cloths placed over her forehead. They can’t force feed her water, so they’ll be a killer headache waiting for her when she wakes up.
Puppets don’t need water. Puppets don’t get sick in the first place. Maybe the Electro Archon has something going there with the shogun puppet. The Wanderer doubts Nahida would ever transfer her consciousness though, despite her love of hanging out in other people’s heads. Something about “overriding a free will,” typical. He doubts his “sister” had cared either way.
When the fever does not die by evening, the Wanderer stands and prepares to leave.
“Sad-faced Nara, where are you going?”
“I’ll be back.”
Help is also a four-letter word, and it’s much easier to say. Scaramouche had been prideful, yes, but he had not been above begging- and neither is the Wanderer. First, he heads to the adventurer guild in Sumeru, leaving a message for the Traveler with the bionic puppet. Briefly, he wonders if he should stop by the Akademiya too, to say- what, exactly? Your god’s on sick leave? Those humans can survive unsupervised for a few days.
Then it is to Inazuma.
The Wanderer cannot fly over the ocean in full, and the trip might take several days if he were to go by boat, so he compromises. There are several boats that go regularly between the islands and the mainland: crashing onto the deck of one after a prolonged flight is not an issue. If the passengers reel back as he lifts himself off the planks, swaying, he pays them no mind. His vision is starting to blur, so he slaps his head a few times to right himself and takes off again. The side effects are inconsequential, he knows his limits extend far beyond this. Time is of the essence.
As expected, the nation remains unchanged. The Wanderer can see the outline of Tenshukaku all the way from here, two black devil horns on the horizon. The same, gnawing in his chest begins again, as it does whenever he returns home. It is not a home, has not been in centuries. It’s idiotic to let it affect him this much. The violet landscape, the sickly scent of the blossoms, it all comes back, when he’s here, only heightened in his ascent to the Grand Narukami shrine.
“YAE MIKO!”
The shrine maidens milling about the terrace give him a startled glance, but the Wanderer calls out again. One of them comes up to him, hesitant, and says:
“Excuse me, sir, but what is the purpose of your visit? The Guuji is a very busy woman-”
The Wanderer steps around her to scan the surroundings. It’s dangerous, to come into the heart of her territory. The Sacred Sakura looms over him with a watchful eye. It’s the same gaze as the last time he’d been here, if there was ever to be an indication this was indeed the “land of eternity.” He tries not to let his disgust show too obviously.
He catches the flash of pink before he hears her voice. It’s her.
Yae Miko, standing before the tree, turns to regard him with a piercing eye. The shrine maiden who had spoken earlier eyes the two, and with whatever sense left, makes herself scarce.
“It seems I have an untimely visitor. How wonderful,” Yae says, with and undercurrent that suggests it is anything but. “You know Ei has no interest in seeing you.”
Her horribleness is only outweighed by his own horribleness, and the Wanderer’s just surprised the universe doesn’t fucking implode every time they’re in the same room. Two negatives do not add up to a positive, no matter how many angles you want to see them from, Nahida. Granted, Yae Miko has never attempted to murder him outright, although he knows she’s wanted to, and that’s reason enough for him to despise her. It’s the same sort of logic he’d apply to himself- and he’s far more confident in his own chances of success.
The Wanderer steps forwards, crunching onto the gravel. “I’m not asking her.”
There’s a glint in her eye. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get inside Yae Miko’s head to know what exactly she thinks of him. She’s following him with her eyes, without a word. He’s learned a few things about people, over the years; but Humans are much easier to read than Youkai, and Miko is especially adept at hiding her thoughts.
Damn it, damn it all.
He is arrogant. He is proud. He had been that and more, and now, he is but a wanderer lingering in this world. Across the ocean’s breadth, a goddess is burning up, feverish and bed-ridden. He has nothing left, so he might as well be useful.
He sinks to his knees, bowing his head to the back of his hands.
---
“Have you heard the saying: Time heals all?” The wooden pieces go scattering across the board. He’d lost track of the score around seventy games ago.
“Yeah, and it’s a joke. It only lets things fester,” he replies.
He’s white this time. Nahida looks up from their game of shogi and considers his words. “Maybe it’s not how much time passes, but how you spend it.”
It’s futile. Even if he’s no longer furious, Scaramouche will hate until those false stars burst and the moon comes crashing down to flatten them all. He’ll embody that “Eternity” his mother seeks so desperately and stay spiteful and bitter to the end. That hatred will never die. She doesn’t realize there’s nothing else left in him.
---
He brings her things he has no use for. He shouldn’t have accepted them in the first place, but it was easier than declining- and it seemed to make those humans, young and old, happy. Kusanali will have a use for them. Some part of him hopes he can bribe her into giving him a hint. She’s surprised, but delighted by the sweets. He’ll have to bring more next time.
“At least give me a metaphor to help figure it out. Why you’re making me help you,” the Wanderer says.
She lets out a little hum, like birdsong, as she pops the chocolate into her mouth. “I never intended to force you to do anything for me. I request things of you, yes, but I hope you realize you can refuse without consequence.”
“That would break the agreement.”
It’s like a guessing game, to see what she would want. Trying to think of what more she could want, to make her happy. What a habit to build, pleasing the gods. It amounts to nothing, and he still does it.
“I know if I’m not useful to you, there’s no point in me being around.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of? Not being able to win me over?” Nahida’s grin is cheeky, but the joke’s on her, she doesn’t realize there are now chocolate smears on her face. He chucks a napkin in her direction, shaking his head. Too close, way too close. He has to be careful with his thoughts, otherwise she’ll read his mind like one of the children’s books littered around her room. She wipes her cheek. He points to the other cheek. She wipes the other cheek.
“You’ve done a lot for me, Lesser Lord Kusanali. I simply want to repay the favor.”
Nahida sets the napkin down, and begins to fold it carefully. “Some people view the act of gift giving as a transactional one. If someone gives you a present, you are obligated socially to return it with another present. However, a present in the truest sense is given without expectation of reciprocation. That is how I intended the Wanderer to be for you.”
“Besides, you’ve helped me more than I think you realize.”
The napkin has been folded into the shape of a crane. She presents it in her palm. “What do you think? Only 999 more to go.”
Nahida would never use that wish for herself. The 1000th crane would go to someone else, one of her people, probably, and they would love her for it. He can hear it now: Please grant them lovely dreams, and what a gift that would be.
It’s rather lovely, chocolate stains and all. The Wanderer scoffs and turns away. “You’re on your own there.”
---
He can feel Yae miko staring down at the back of his head. He wonders what sort of expression she is making right now. The shame of it burns, but that is a useless emotion. It is merely an emotion, as are all the others. He’s serving himself on a platter; the only thing more obvious he could do is tape a sign to his head reading Kill me now! Strike me down!- Heh, but that would only tickle at best.
The Wanderer raises his head ever so slightly. Her gaze still holds the same distain; but there is a flicker of curiosity too, and that will be his salvation. Technically, he supposes this is a request for Sumeru, so as a foreign diplomat, he should have brought a gift.
“Yet again I have you down on your knees. Is it really that comfortable?”
Or maybe this is the gift. There are many things he wants to retort. How dare you. But there’s one thought, rising above all others, that turns his insides to shreds and puts bile in his throat- wow, he sounds desperate. It’s a long shot for Yae Miko, but maybe it’ll be more convincing that way.
“Lesser Lord Kusanali is sick. Please. I don’t know what to do.”
“Gods do not get sick.”
Heaven’s above, she’s deduced the obvious. That much is true: Something must be affecting Irminsul, and he tells her as much. “You’ve tended the Sacred Sakura for centuries, clearing corruption from its roots. You must know something.”
She’s silent for too long. That calculating mind must be turning over, seeing every angle to decide whether this be ruse or genuine. It’s not like he wouldn’t do the same.
Yae Miko says finally, “There are things I can try. I’m not nearly powerful enough to tamper with the heart of Dendro itself, so don’t get your hopes up. I’m assuming you’ve had enough sense to contact the Traveler?”
“Yes, he’s out. According to the Guild, might not be back for a while.”
Off to save another Nation, probably. Oh goody. The Wanderer’s going to have fun explaining this one.
“Well that’s certainly convenient. Hmph. If all fails, perhaps it will be enough to allow Lesser Lord Kusanali enough respite to search for the problem herself. Otherwise…”
She sighs.
“Well, don’t just sit there. Time is of the essence, no?”
The fastest way back isn’t by boat. The Wanderer doesn’t know what deal Yae Miko struck with the Anemo Archon to be able to summon one of the four winds, but the anemo vishap soars to the top of the mountain, perching around the cliffs laden by Sakura trees. It’s a beautiful creature, grand and majestic, and he’s left wondering how a being like that could have been brought down by mere insects.
Traveling by air is always pleasant, even the Wanderer cannot find fault in it. The roar of the wind overriding every other sound, much less conversation, the cold slap of air against his cheeks- it’s the closest thing to freedom you could get in this world. In added benefit is Yae Miko’s disguised misery, ears tucked flat against her skull, and he uses all of his self-restraint not to grin at her.
“Connections can take you far,” Yae Miko tells him, on the way back to Sumeru, and it feels like a slight. With his ties severed with the Fatui, The Wanderer has none. He stares down at those iridescent scales, and remembers that insects had always found their strength in numbers.
They land in a clearing in Vanarana, bending a few giant fronds in the process. The Aranara won’t be too happy with him. Slipping off the vishap’s back, the Wanderer guides Yae Miko to the hut where Lesser Lord Kusanali rests. As soon as he sees the doorway, his stomach begins to churn. Once started, it doesn’t stop, and his footsteps slow. Yae regards him out of the corner of an eye, impassive, as he grips the edge of one of the wooden fences along the side of the path.
The Wanderer doesn’t want to walk through that doorframe. If he doesn’t, then whatever’s waiting for him in there hasn’t happened yet.
---
“You’re back,” she says.
Wise god. Nahida. She’s smiling at him again, and he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want the smile to fade, and he doesn’t trust a word out of his mouth to not make that so. His nose twitches. The bitter aroma of tea brewing is coming from somewhere further within, as it always does when he stops by.
Lesser lord Kusanali loves like it is her mission, like she has nothing more to do than to keep giving. She thinks it’s not enough. If she were keeping him around for his utility only, it doesn’t add up why she would go through this extra trouble to…comfort him. Maybe it’s to make him more pliant. Her interest in his well being seems utterly genuine as far as he can tell, and he doesn’t know what to do with that information.
Usually, this is the part where he heads to the kitchen to chop up… something: there’s usually something that needs chopping. Maybe check the pantry stores, to make sure there’s something edible besides candied Ajilenakh nuts in there. If not, it’s to the market. It’s not that Nahida’s picky, it’s more that she’ll never say if she doesn’t like something, unless she’s the one that makes it. It’s a little infuriating. This time, however-
“I need your help with something,” Nahida says, so the Wanderer follows her, shrugging. She flits around the room, first over to the desk on tiptoes to grab a pencil, then over to stand back against the doorframe, beaming. She holds out the pencil.
When he takes it, she straightens up, straining her neck as far as it will go. Anymore and it might get stuck there. That would be amusing.
“That’s not going to make you any taller,” the Wanderer says, but he bends down to level the pencil over the top of her head anyways.
“I don’t think it’ll make me any shorter.” An impish grin comes across her face. “We can do you too, afterwards.”
That little- Nahida only laughs as he looks down at her, scowling. The mark is made, a faint streak of black against pure white paint. A child’s first attempt at vandalism. He’s not going to apologize: it had been at her request. He doesn’t care if he’s ruined her doorframe.
“Is a skunk striped black with white? Or white with black?”
What? She’s stepped back to regard the smudge on the wall. “That’s a meaningless question.”
“Exactly! Are we bad people who do good things? Or are we good people who do bad things? You know, I’m not sure there is a definite answer. I think we are by what we do, period. We’re just people.”
“I don’t know about that,” he says quietly.
“Then keep learning,” Nahida says, turning to him, eyes bright. “See- that’s the wonderful thing about knowledge, you can never run out.”
---
There must be something wrong with the Wanderer’s lungs. He doesn’t need to breathe in the first place, so he doesn’t know why it’s even an issue. He’s shaking. Stupid lungs. Stupid, faulty body. He’s not even strapped to the bench this time.
---
The puppet is only a puppet, without a single experience or name to call his own. He is a small, soft thing with extravagant clothes and is wholly innocent. Of course he’s easy to love.
His best memories of Katsuragi take place on a sun-faded beach, after a day of work and dance. They walk by the shore, letting the water lap against their feet, and Katsuragi lets out a sigh of pure contentment. The puppet wishes to say something, but it is still learning the language of Teyvat. He does not know the word to describe Kasturagi, and Niwa too, until much later when it is too late.
The people of Tatarasuna are everything, filling his chest with a near inexpressible warmth. He loves, and loves, and loves and the world takes and takes and takes- He came to them empty and he will somehow leave them emptier still. He comes away knowing how to make a meal out of leftovers and sew everything from sail cloth to children’s toys. He tries to burn for them. It’s not enough.
The child is his. He had not created him, he wasn’t even of his kind, but the child is his. He knows this with a bone-aching certainty, that he must not let this fledgling go. The boy hugs the doll close when he is away, sweating through sweltering fevers and violent chills. He dies, of course, and the puppet tries, but the love does not die with him. There is no use telling a corpse these words, so he burns it all and moves on once again.
He kills; things that love ‘others’ do not kill ‘others’, so he cannot love. Don’t you know? Hatred and love are two sides of the same coin. He’d killed the person who had told him that too.
---
“One, two. Breathe in.”
It’s spinning. Nothing is focusing.
“Three, four. Breathe out.”
He tries to focus on that voice, irritating and soothing all at once, but it’s distant. Yae keeps talking, and it’s like the sound of falling sand, right into his ear canals. He tries anyways, and his shallow breaths gradually lengthen. The Wanderer exhales, slumping his shoulders, and finally, it all drains out of him. He turns to see an unreadable gaze sweep over him.
“Which house?” Yae Miko asks, and as he points, begins to head in that direction.
This is ridiculous. Aside from leaving a foreign envoy to her own devices, the Wanderer was humbled by something he doesn’t even need. It’s beyond pathetic, and self-disgust soon follows to fill him fully. He lets it. He catches up to Yae miko by air, scowling as he skids to a stop in the dirt beside her. She snickers and he doesn’t hear it.
He takes her into the room. A few of the Aranara squeeze past them to head in and out of the door, handing off baskets of wet cloth. A few more are around the bed, fanning the still breathing lump on the bed. Her silver hair clings to her flushed face, scrunched into a pained expression.
If the Wanderer collapses against the side of the hut, it is because he is leaning on it, nothing more. He folds his arms and watches as the sea of Aranara part for the newest visitor. Yae Miko stoops down by Nahida, peering over her, before pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. The Aranara peer at her curiously.
“I’ll start the purification ritual,” she says, pulling away. “Then we’ll see if it does anything.”
“What do you need?”
The Wanderer says this, but he really has nothing to offer, and that includes for whatever ‘favor’ Yae Miko will ask of him in compensation for all this. A selfish part of him hopes it is not his life. Knowing her, it will likely be something humiliating. It still feels as if he is waiting for something, perhaps for her to turn around and mock him for thinking she would ever help the likes of him. It would be pure stupidity to drop his guard now.
Yae Miko turns to look at him then, a smile twisting across her face. “Only time.”
---
“Yae Miko cares about you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We usually associate care in a positive sense, to care about someone’s wellbeing, but in its base definition, it merely means that she has attached importance to you: whether it be caution, or concern, or interest. You exist in her mind. When it is absent, I think it’s natural to grieve a lack of attention, positive or negative.”
“She despises me.”
“Maybe- but have you heard of this one: that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference? I don’t know about you, but I think I would rather be hated, than forgotten. Being forgotten is like never existing at all.”
“Spoken like someone who has never been hated.”
“Mmm. But for much of my life I had not been loved either.”
“…Well, they sure adore you now.”
---
The world no longer looks at him with hatred, and he is still evil. When he dies, it will be a thousand times over.
---
“Can we talk?”
The Traveler looks up, almost surprised, before it quickly settles, and his floating companion is sent away without another word. The exact “when” of the encounter is of little consequence: they’ve talked before, of course, for updates on Irminsul’s records and their estranged sibling. The only thing different is the Wanderer’s never sought him out like this. Those conversations have never been more than passing jabs, a flitting fancy for amusement.
If the Traveler was annoying as an enemy, he’s even more intolerable as an ally. He’s never going to apologize, and the Traveler knows this. Or if he does, it will mean nothing. The Traveler is nonchalant about it all, and it… it confuses him.
“Am I useful to her?” he blurts out. He knows the Traveler wont sugar coat things. He doesn’t care to spare the Wanderer’s feelings, because on some level, he knows the Traveler hasn’t forgiven him. Good.
“Useful? Well yeah, but I don’t think she’d care either way,” he says, steadily, “Nahida cares for more than what you can do for her. And I think you know that.”
“Well-” Stupid voice, breaking at a time like this. “She shouldn’t.”
“Maybe?” he shrugs. “Who am I to be a judge of that? I’m friends with some morally dubious people. I think you can only live for so long without acquiring some skeletons in your closet.”
“Are you including yourself in that, oh mighty Traveler?”
He hadn’t meant it seriously, so the small smile that crosses the Traveler’s face is a little chilling. “Yes, even me.”
“It’s as Nahida said. Eventually what you do today will become a footnote in the grand scheme of things. Why not make them the greatest footnotes they can be? Sure, the past will always be there, but you’re still relatively young, if we’re comparing it expected life-span wise.”
“…huh?”
The Traveler folds his arms behind his head as he walks back towards his companion. “Just, keep helping Nahida, help her hold down the fort. You’re not doing half bad, love.”
It doesn’t register at first, because of how easily it slips out, but when it does- the bastard’s already running. Idiot, did he forget the Wanderer could fly? “Don’t think you’re safe just because I can’t kill you!”
“I’ll think up of another name if you want,” he hears, a cackle from afar growing distant.
It’s all just words, a silly game. The Traveler is liberal with his words, free, as if he knows this is but an amusing way to pass the time. He could leave tomorrow and feel nothing but a hint of wistfulness, a small shame for the trail of broken hearts he’ll leave behind. The Wanderer’s envious. He wonders if that is why he never goes by anything else but a non-descript noun. The Traveler will never be played for a fool.
---
There’s nothing else to do but wait, but waiting is something the Wanderer can barely stand. He leans against the wall of the hut, staring listlessly at Nahida’s sleeping form. Yae Miko is sitting in a wooden chair taken from the dining table, hands folded in her lap and eyes closed. The atmosphere is too tense, a weighted blanket supressing any conversation.
Yae Miko is just sitting there. She isn’t saying anything, she isn’t moving, and she isn’t trying to kill him. Maybe she’s waiting for something. He doesn’t know what to say to her; why she’s still here, or how to thank her for not leaving so at least he has something to distract him from his own thoughts.
Nahida would know what to say. It’s funny, to try and channel her like she’s a concept in of herself, but it helps twist the Wanderer’s thoughts in order. It’s better than going in with nothing, because then he’d just be him- and that would end in disaster.
“If you’re going to say something, out with it,” Yae says, eyes still shut. “I know we’re both able to make conversation like reasonable people.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Her eyes open, revealing steady violet. “Look beyond yourself for once, will you? It would be terrible for Sumeru to lose her Archon this soon into her rule.”
“It’s effects on Inazuma would be minimal.”
“Not necessarily. The sudden absence of an Archon has far reaching consequences.”
She had helped him back then, when the situation at Tatarasuna had gone to hell. That had been in Yae Miko’s “beloved homeland”, so of course she would help, late as she was. That had been during the time Ei had retreated into the plane of Euthymia, leaving her nation in turmoil- and of course, to fend for itself in the hands of an unsympathetic puppet. Along with his hand in the fall of the Raiden Gokuden, that instability had led to civil war by the time he’d returned during the vision hunt decree, and frankly, he considers it a wonder how the nation had kept itself afloat-
Ah.
Yae Miko has a slight smile on her face, likely due to the shift in his own expression. She continues, “I will admit that Sumeru has proved rather effective in self-governing, up until the Fatui’s interference. That does not mean it no longer needs someone watching out for it.”
The Wanderer still remembers what she had said, exchanging the gnosis for the Traveler’s life. “It’s worthless.” He had scoffed back then at the thought of her insinuating the Traveler’s life had such little value in her eyes. Now, he can look back and say that trade had never been equal to begin with. Yae Miko is many things, but a fool is not one of them.
Her acknowledgement- the Wanderer wouldn’t go so far to say approval, because he doubts Yae Miko approves of anything to do with him. Funnily enough, it does not feel foreign; she has acknowledged him before, as a tool with destructive potential if left unchecked. And, she’d been right, hadn’t she?
Sweet is not the right word to describe the fact that he has occupied some corner of Yae Miko’s mind. Yae Miko is sweet in the same way an overripe peach is on the verge of rotting. It’s less of a care for his well being, as Nahida has said, and more of an affirmation of his existence.
He turns to Yae Miko, and says quietly, “The Electro Archon is lucky to have you by her side.”
It’s the nicest thing he’s said to her in centuries.
They’ll say Nahida’s changing him. Making him kinder, smoothing his edges like dulling a knife. That’s inaccurate, Nahida had told him in her, serious, matter-of-fact way, Scrub away the hatred and it was there all along. She has too much faith in him. She thinks his soul is a kind one, with her endless optimism, not knowing the ugliness permeates to his core.
Yae merely smiles in that aggravating way of hers to say, “Of course. She would be hopeless without me otherwise-”
It’s a little too familiar, and he hates it, so, so utterly. It comes out taunting, still low enough to not wake Nahida. “You’ll never say it, will you? The grand, and illustrious Yae Miko, a coward.”
And for that flash, he sees something falter in her gaze, and he knows- got her. It’s a millisecond at best, but one glimpse behind the mask, and knowing he’s the cause of it, is satisfaction enough.
Blank faced, Yae tilts her head, and in perfect indifference, says, “My, my, quite the critic, are we? Amusing it should be from you.”
Then she sighs and looks away, as if to distract herself with the scenery out the open door: of the dirt tracks and the shoddy lizards, right. Nonchalant, but her words are anything but, that hypocrite. “You should say it. Whatever you mean to say, you should say it before it is too late.”
The Wanderer scowls at her, but Yae Miko continues, “Nothing lasts forever. Not even the gods. There is no way to prevent loss: loss is simply a matter of life. Future, past, or present: which is most valuable? You can spend all your time fretting over when you will lose the things you love, you can dwell forever in the past, or you can appreciate what you have for what it is, at this moment in time.”
The Wanderer’s lip curls, mocking. “For if nothing else, we have the present moment?”
“Mmm. I suppose the whole gnosis debacle wasn’t worthless after all,” Yae says, “In some respects Raiden Makoto’s death was the catalyst for it all. A single event, with its consequences felt through centuries. Even a few mortal lives can change the course of history. That is what makes them interesting.”
It’s funny, because he’s sure Yae Miko cares little for mortal lives other than the amusement they bring her. Enjoying them while they last is merely an extension of that. The Wanderer supposes protecting those lives, brief as they are, would also fall under that too. As for what she’s doing here- he supposes watching his cluster fuck of a life from the sidelines would be amusing to witness too.
The Wanderer really doesn’t know what to make of it, so he folds his arms and covers by saying, “Heh, but nothing will matter in the end. I guess there’s no point in worrying about it, then.”
“Perhaps. Although, it is quite amusing to see you running around like a headless chicken once in awhile.”
“I was fulfilling my end of my deal with the Dendro Archon.”
She’s definitely amused.
“You know, when I last spoke with her, I think I offended her quite badly. She was rather angry at me, for speaking a few ill words of you.”
“Lord Kusanali never said an-”
“No, I doubt she would,” Yae interrupts, “She’s not looking to win you over, or gain your sympathy to better use you. It was only a natural reaction to hearing someone badmouth someone she cares about.”
“…Why are you telling me this?”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. This isn’t me suddenly deciding to care about your feelings after several hundred years. I do not love you, Wanderer, and I never will. I am merely sharing relevant information that could indirectly benefit Inazuma. You may yet prove to be a useful ally- to myself, and to...Ei.”
He knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Yae Miko loves the Electro Archon. Nothing else would bring out the softness in her tone, and for the cold-hearted snake she is- she loves Ei, and she likely always would. And that small part of him, that is not ugly, is glad for that: that while he was of no use to her, she had someone who loves her deeply to watch over her these past centuries.
The Wanderer folds his arms, and pointedly admires the floor. “Straight to the bitter truth. I respect that.” It’s welling up again. “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Yae Miko makes a sound of acknowledgment. “Now get some rest before you force the Aranara to take care of you too. I’ll be gone by the time you wake up.”
As if he could leave himself vulnerable while she was still here. That would be foolish. The atmosphere is nonetheless eased, somehow. The Wanderer goes to kneel by the bed, head falling onto his folded arms. He can watch the door this way. From the back of the cover, he can tell Yae Miko is reading those inane trash she calls light novels. She flips a page every so often. It seems her laziness is winning out.
Close by, Nahida’s breathing is rhythmic as the tides, and he feels his lids beginning to droop-
---
“Balladeer,” the Cryo Archon proclaims him, loveless, and he is made.
If Scaramouche had been braver, in the time of his service, he would have asked her why she pursued her goals with this much fervor. Goals, which seem incomprehensible to anyone but her. She graces him no answer for a question never asked.
Part of him now wonders: is it love? Is it all for love?
“I’ll have you know I’ve given up on useless emotions like that.”
Dottore grunts as he pulls on some component in him, in a place he cannot see. The sharp pain it brings makes him gasp. “Oh no, people like you don’t. You may fool yourself, but you can’t fool me. It is the fatal flaw you were created with, puppet.”
His chest throbs, but Dottore is already reaching out, grabbing his face before he can pull away. The hands that tend to his wounds are the same as the ones that had inflicted them in the first place. He softens under the touch- he would break otherwise.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? You chase the same thing, over and over again, expecting different results. Maybe you truly are human.”
Dottore is nose to nose with him, close enough to feel breath on his cheeks. Nails indent flesh, carving into the spaces between the rows of his teeth, and all he sees is red.
“Or maybe you’re just insane.”
“Love” is a cosmic joke: it’s just that he and Dottore are in on it. It helps that Dottore sees him as an experiment rather than a conquest; he’ll gladly rip Scaramouche apart if it meant he could advance some understanding about how to create his own segments. He thinks it’s the familiarity, that’s all. Dottore has seen him cry more times than any other living thing in this godforsaken world. Dottore, who tears him apart and puts him back together and tells him he loves him.
Scaramouche is going to kill him someday. He was going to kill him before his trip into Irminsul, and he’s definitely going to kill him after.
The rest do not love him in the slightest, but the Goddess of love finds him useful. It’s harder to love something that does not love you back. He can train himself out of it, his subordinates know this well, and if they don’t, a quick hand across the face soon enlightens them. He doesn’t give a shit. He’ll say and hurt whatever the fuck he wants. He’ll kill for her. He’ll hand out the delusions to the Watatsumi soldiers to fulfill their last-ditch effort to attain greatness. He’ll be in their shoes, soon. Just like a bubble on the water, the god of transience once said. Raiden Makoto would not want her gnosis to be used for this.
Like Scaramouche cares. It’s his now, perfect and whole inside the cavity of his supreme form, and he is perfect, until it all goes
pop!
---
Outside, it starts to rain.
Nahida awakens with a start, wild eyed and gasping as she sits up. The glassy look in her eyes persists, and she curls into herself, coughing. As she had told the Wanderer she would be, Yae Miko is nowhere to be seen. Maybe the fox in her had sensed whatever was about to happen, some animalistic intuition that told her to flee a coming storm.
“Nahida?”
Nahida doesn’t seem to hear him at all. She draws the blankets around her ears, shivering. Then she begins to mumble. “I hear you, okay? I know you’re all in pain- I feel it. I’m trying. I can’t leave-” A stream of muddled words, “Stop it. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I know I have to help, but please, I don’t want to feel this anymore.”
The way her hands grasp at the roots of her hair, pulling- it reminds him of birds. Why caged birds were kept in pairs, and why birds will start to tear out their own feathers if left alone for too long. Gods are not birds, no matter how many metaphors Nahida likes to make, so he takes her hands away from her scalp and holds them in his own. He gets fresh scratches for his trouble.
A pillow goes flying past his head, hitting the far wall and sending the Aranara scattering. The Wanderer doesn’t know if Nahida has ever thrown a tantrum before, or if it’s the sickness: if she’s left the cage, or the cage simply got bigger. There is no freedom in Archonhood; he would have given that up, once, just to be strung into the body of a god forever.
See, he wants to tell her, See where this empathy gets you. This ‘empathy’ that has spared his life will destroy her. The irony is laughable.
Whatever Nahida’s hearing, whatever “off” switch she normally has, the number of human thoughts inundating her weakened form must be unbearable to break that spotless composure. That seemingly eternal patience. The Wanderer can’t help her stop them, but he can stop her from turning on herself. He can do that much.
“Out! Let me out! I hate you! How dare you replace me! Let me out! I HATE YOU!”
He wonders where she keeps it all, small as she is.
The blows are ineffectual, hammering against his chest, but the Wanderer wants to congratulate her for trying anyways. He can close his eyes, and feel nothing. Not the fists, not the words- one of them catches the Wanderer across the cheek in a smarting blow, snapping his head to the side, and Nahida freezes. She looks down at her shaking arm, then back at him, clarity returning to her widening gaze. In a second she’s diving back under the covers like a turtle in its shell, obscuring her completely.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I hurt you. I’m awful-”
The Wanderer does laugh at that. “I’ve seen mosquitos that could hit harder than that. Besides, I probably deserve it.”
A heart-shaped face pokes out in the mass of blankets. “No, you don’t. I’m the worst.”
She still looks incredibly guilty, but all the Wanderer can think is, You’re the worst? This is your worst?! But that’s- then what the hell am I? She’s lying. She has to be lying. Her lower lip is trembling, and oh god-
“Please don’t cry.” He can’t look at her anymore.
---
He had come into this world with love. Of course he had, listening to her work as soon as his ears had taken form. She had hummed while she worked on him, melding and forming what was to be the first of her creations. If he had a heart, it would have ached, each time that lullaby stuttered her breathing, a stumble over the stone of an unexpected memory.
“Makoto.” “Makoto.” Each time she says it, her voice gets more ragged, and somewhere along the way, he understands that “Makoto” means love. His creator weeps like her heart is to be torn away. The puppet has not been outside yet, so he does not know the feeling of rain falling on his cheeks- but he imagines it to be something like this. He wishes to tell her something to assail her grief. That word, perhaps, but he has not been given a mouth yet to say it.
So, he can only lie there, and dream sweetly. Her final piece is the divine heart, lovingly placed into his chest-
(With the gnosis, he learns who Raiden Makoto was. Kind, compassionate, and gentle, and filled with a love for her people as enduring as her heavenly principle. He will never meet her outside her stored memories, and yet he feels an impossible connection to her nonetheless.)
Her face is like mother’s, and she smiles at him, warm and endlessly loving, and he is no better at containing the aching void in his chest. Perhaps its only an imitation, a pale mirror of grief. His tearducts are perfectly functional, but it should have been obvious that Raiden Ei had not intended to test them. He is no longer useful to her.
---
Nahida tells him that she wants to go outside, feel the rain on her face. It might help with her fever, so he takes her, blankets and all, and steps out into the grey afternoon. The drizzle is fast turning into a downpour. “The clouds are crying today,” she mumbles into his shoulder. She’s mumbled nonsensical things a few times now, in this state of half consciousness. He doesn’t have the motivation to unpack any of them.
He’ll spare her a muddy back. The Wanderer kneels onto the soaked earth, Nahida bundled half on his lap, half off. She lays her head down and sighs. It almost sounds like relief. His hat is off somewhere, collecting rainwater. It’ll be a pain to dry later.
Nahida sticks out her tongue at the sky. She looks ridiculous, and he can’t help the snort.
“Thirsty?”
“No, I just like the feeling.”
The droplets run down the sides of her face, over a peaceful expression that has been absent for too long. They’re both going to be drenched. He doesn’t think he’ll mind it, however. It’s soothing: the way they drum against the leaves, the way it creates ripples in the lotus filled pool. It’s a change to the status quo of the world, and it’s not an unwelcome one.
“Maybe you’ll sprout a few inches,” he says, and she laughs. Nahida reaches out with a hand towards the grey clouds, each droplet a gift. The rain splatters against her palm.
This rain tastes like salt. An earthy taste on the palate, this scent of dirt and wood, and maybe a little bitter.
His legs are falling asleep. If the Wanderer stays here, kneeling forever, how long will it take this body to host the flora around him? He imagines the forest vines using him as a trellis, flowers blooming around the crest of his head. And why not, those tiny insects could take shelter from the rain too. He could: he does not need to breathe, or eat. He would just need to stay, very, very still, and no harm would come to them.
---
“Ow.” The point of the needle stings.
“Careful.”
He’s getting better at sewing, despite his fingers being clumsy little things. He pricks his hands with the needles less and his stitches gradually even. In time, maybe they’ll be a match for the lady stitching up the holes in the sail cloth beside him. There’s a mastery to her movement that only years of experience can produce.
The blood wells up on his finger, a brilliant red, and he stares at it, dumb. Only when a wrinkled hand reaches out to cradle it, wiping it away on washed out cotton, does the pain register. The elderly human smiles, and it’s kind.
---
“Ow-” Nahida hisses, shoving the finger into her mouth before the blood can well up.
“Careful,” he murmurs. The doll she’s working on has tumbled out of her lap, and he picks it up, holding it up with scrutiny. One of the buttons of its eyes is loose, string-entrail dangling out of a socket.
“It’s a cyclops,” Nahida defends, and he snorts.
The Wanderer regards it, limp in his hand. His reply is a little mocking. “Poor thing. Back to the operating table we go.”
It’s the wrong choice of words, or maybe the right ones, because she gives him a quiet look. Dottore still clings to him like poison, tainting the words from his mouth and the expressions he makes. He’s spent so long trying to emulate the man he isn’t sure where Dottore ends and he begins. He thinks it’s just become a part of him, now- if the bastard ever wanted more proof in how irreversibly he’s scarred the Wanderer’s life.
He isn’t sure what sort of reaction he wants out of her. It’s not like he needs to keep testing her to know she cares, but he does it anyways. It’s a compulsion.
Nahida takes it back and keeps working on it in silence. When she’s finished, she holds it up to him proudly, and says, “Much better.” It’s perfect. She toddles it along the floor, maneuvering its little arms to hug one of his knees. There’s a soft smile on her face.
He stares at the floor, transfixed. There’s something in his chest, that feels like it’s too much. She accepts his silence too, because of course she does. She does not ask why he stares at the wall for hours at a time, or why he sleeps with his weapon by his side. She doesn’t ask about Dottore, or anyone else.
She just accepts, and accepts, and accepts-
---
To think he would one day pray for a god.
Anyone but her. Take me instead. Please, I can’t go back.
Heart! What heart?! It is slipping away-
---
If she goes, it will kill him. The Wanderer had already died once in that fire, coming back clinging to rage to spite the world that had spit in his face for caring. If she goes, he doesn’t know what will come back from her flames. Maybe Irminsul itself would make a spectacular bonfire (You won’t, she tells him. You wouldn’t do that to me).
It hurts. He hates this feeling. He hates it all, utterly, but no matter how he tries, he cannot bring himself to hate her.
It’s not a realization. Not a sudden burst of insight; he’d realized it a while back, in front of that tree after trawling through memories long buried, what this feeling is. He has felt it all too strongly throughout his long, sorry life: hypocrisy, deceit, and foolishness, no matter what it is mixed with, the cavern in his chest, to his despair, seems bottomless.
Love is for fools. You go to love something finite and complain about it when it dies. It’s utterly foolish: a tasteless joke that everyone seems to fall for. He does not know how it can exist without a heart. He may never know, but he does know that he cannot exist without it.
---
Respite comes with the morning dew, dripping from the blades of the glade onto the damp pathway leading up to the hut. The air is cool, and Nahida’s breathing is steady. Her face is no longer flush, and when she opens her eyes, she looks up at him from where she lays and smiles.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” The Wanderer has done nothing but sit, and yet he’s never felt so worn out. His head feels too light and his legs are past the point of cramped; he’s pretty sure they’re dead.
He doesn’t know how many hours it’s been. He’s completely waterlogged, hair clinging to his cheeks, and yet, the misery that usually accompanies it is strangely absent. Nahida stands up, brushing the dirt from her dress, before reaching out and plucking a muddied twig from his own hair. The Wanderer just stares at her as she manifests a swing and hops onto it.
Nahida’s acting so- normally, after all that. It pulls an incredulous laugh out of him. He wants to think it’s a laugh. It hitches and gets stuck in his throat.
She’s pulling something out, holding it out towards him. A cloth doll. The Wanderer takes it with both hands, glancing between the child-god on the swing, and the even littler Nahida in his palms.
“So your other one has company,” she says, and he nods. Maybe he should pretend to be shocked, like humans are supposed to when they receive a gift. Like he hadn’t been helping her work on it all along. He can’t. All he can do is set it down in his lap, and shiver.
She is compassion incarnate. Kindness? Empathy? Those things suit people like her and are nothing but contrived on him. She is everything he hates about himself, but he cannot hate her. There is a contradiction that must be resolved, or he will stay stuck in limbo.
In some respects, the Wanderer understands her: the loneliness, the expectations, the feeling of never quite being enough. But in others, he’s completely and utterly lost. He does not know what it says about her, that she is choosing to continue to care for him despite everything. He might never understand, but he does understand how he feels about it. Emotions have always come painfully easy.
“Nahida,” he begins, because that is the easiest of them. She turns to him, curious. There are dead leaf bits in her hair and dirt smudged on her cheek, and she makes them look like they belong there. A gentle, knowing smile.
Say it, you piece of- He cannot. He cannot. The Wanderer might as well seal his lips shut. She deserves more, and he will desecrate it. That word from the mouth of Evil will turn it evil too. For all of the ill, for all his destruction and cruelty, and the lives he’s taken in this wreck of an existence- let there be one unstained legacy he leaves behind.
What the Wanderer wants is to see her flourish: to thrive. He wants to take everything she does that makes him feel wanted and cradle it to his chest, take it and carry it around in his pocket. And if the time comes to part their ways, he will let her go, like releasing a little boat towards the ocean, with the hope that he has left her better off than she was never having met him.
It’s a meandering ache, one that does not fade with time. It only gets more manageable.
“It’s okay,” she says. That green gaze is warm, kind, and unfathomably wise. “You don’t have to say it.” She taps the side of her head, and then smiles again, a little shy as she grasps the rope of her swing. She looks down and kicks her legs.
“Love you too.” Nahida says it quietly: delicately, like letting go of a little bird from her hands. He cannot bear to reply, so he ducks his head and smiles, any response slipping away and rolling down his cheeks. He’s a fool, an utter fool. This unbearable happiness in his chest is a fleeting thing, a flash in the grand scheme of their lives.
…if nothing else, we have…hm.
---
The space between the two black marks
is two fingers in width apart.
---
The Wanderer steps back, pencil in hand, and stares.
“At this rate, I might be taller than you someday,” Nahida says. There’s a mischievous glint in her eye that’s a little too familiar. She’s growing too powerful, and worst of all, she’s probably right.
She laughs. The Wanderer pats her head as if to shrink her.
“In your dreams.”