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claudemblems · 10 months ago

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Amadare ishi wo mo ugatsu.

Summary: Falling raindrops eventually pierce rock; and through his consistent, untiring efforts - a nameless puppet learns to live again.

Character(s) mentioned: Scaramouche/Wanderer (Genshin Impact), Nahida (Genshin Impact)

Word count: 11k (I do feel this is starting to be a pattern. lol)

Trigger warning: mention of flashbacks, suicidal ideation

Author's notes: This is the fic that's taken me the longest to write. I first started almost a year and a half ago. Much water has flown under the bridge since; both Wanderer and I have seen better and worse days since I first began.

I originally intended this to be an angsty fic with no positive resolution. After playing through 4.8, however, I felt such a conclusion would fail to do justice to this complex, multilayered character.

This fic is indeed the sequel to Bittersweet , so if you are unfamiliar with the premise of this AU, I do recommend reading that one before this.

Note 1: The title of this fic is a Japanese proverb that means "Falling raindrops eventually pierce rock".

Note 2: My preferred version of Wanderer's Vahumana alias is what the JP dub uses: Kasacchi-san. Please respect this choice and do not attempt to start a debate on my use of this title in an English language fic.

As always, reblogging/commenting is preferred over likes.

Tags (DM for addition or removal) : @tearsasmascara @foxic @sunnyshiloh

The grey clouds rolled across the sky. Peals of distant thunder reverberated in unnatural symphony with the cadence of the puppet’s footsteps; splashing through the puddles he left behind.

Gloomy. Inazuma wasn’t often bright and sunny. It was to be expected; in this abode of the god of the thunderstorms, and yet - gazing across the desolate landscape, one was tempted to set quill to paper, and spill forth, -

Blue grasses wept their last tears

waving to the silent sea;

Peacetime, borne away on mast and shroud,

faded from living memory.

The lightning-blessed fleet that braved the sleet

splintered upon nameless shores;

broken flags, the last ones left mourning,

for all those who had gone before.

A thousand red dendrobiums opened,

Grief was crimson, red and carmine.

Waving trees in mournful breeze -

Bloodied tears of benevolent time.

The dark grey anger of squalls and the crackling of bone-white lightning was all that lit up the rows and rows of sword hilts, plunged into the ground like a macabre garden.

The silent puppet stood at the edge of a small precipice, allowing the shining drops to trickle through his midnight locks, the rivulets streaming down onto the silken white of his kimono.

He closed his eyes. The softness of his features was belied only by the sharpness of his eyes, lined in red, framed with dark, heavy lashes; the watery grey of his limpid irises watched the world go by, a frigid sea seldom stirred by the tides of emotion.

But now - now as he stood, his feet sinking slightly into the mud that and the rainwater that pooled beneath him - as thunder rumbled across the sky, he allowed one - just one - shining tear to slip from beneath his lashes, and make its way down his porcelain features.

His fingers tightened around the handle of his wicker basket. He could not bring himself to look down at the fruit that it contained - it was far too familiar a sight. Even though the anguish of his crumbling past had long since stilled into an aching melancholy, he did not wish to raise the tides of hell to wash over his arid heart once again.

Lavender melons. It had been centuries since he had left to gather them last. On just such an Inazuman landscape, he had run from tree to tree to gather the purple bounty that once aided his ailing friend; in a time before the moon fell from the sky and before the last tears fell from his eyes; when he had smiled like a blooming flower, when he had a heart that had not yet withered away; before he had vengefully burned away the Kabukimono, and sunk into a bottomless mire of emptiness and hatred.

Purple were the lavender melons in the basket, and purple was the fine silk that had covered his bowed head, his gentle lips smiling back at the nameless child. The only fire he had nurtured was the one that nourished their home, as he ladled the warm soup into bowls for both himself and the child; the radiance of their exchanged smiles warming them in the golden lamp’s fading light.

Purple, like the hands that held his by the light of day.

Purple in cold twilight; the lightning cast him away.

Purple, those sweet melons that nourish’d his friend;

Purple, the abyss that consumed it all in the end.

He was taking a while to return, Nahida thought, as she paced the small apartment above the Peregrinus Bakery. It was not often that the Wanderer was away from this little safe haven he had established for himself on the outskirts of Hanamizaka.

One might be given to wonder why a bakery as fine as his lingered in the scruffier part of town. Here, among the older bamboo buildings with the patched roofs; rather than the more refined inner city - a backdrop that might have better suited the fragile beauty of his confections. Would the falling sakura petals not have better adorned the stage as the medley of handcrafted flavours swelled to a crescendo - even as you walked down the road littered with the pink flowers, stirring softly in the rain-scented breeze? Maybe so; to a playwright more besotted with the romanticism of gilded roofs and mansions that only grew in stature the closer you walked towards Tenshukaku, it might have been a fine choice.

But the Wanderer, the Kabukimono, was no fan of tawdry ornamentation as markers of one’s social class. It was a thread woven deep into the fabric of his nature, to seek the grounded, to seek the simple - perhaps, hardwired into his very nature as surely as lightning sought the earth.

Hanamizaka, though it paled in comparison to opulence of the inner city, was filled with the sounds of the wooden water-wheel turning in the stream, the laughter of children playing as they ran through the worn streets; even as the sharp sounds of metal on stone and the breathing of fire carried from the Amenoma smithy a short walk away. Forged though he was by divine hand, he was a river that flowed down, down, down from the loftiness of the mountain peaks to find its home in the plains below.

Nahida had to admire how implicitly the Wanderer understood human beings. Maybe it was the innate empathy he had been born with, that had cast him out from the pantheon of the gods. Maybe it was his simple childhood when he had grown up on the shores of Tatarasuna; a helpless witness to the fragility of human existence, untouched by the lofty ideal of “eternity” that its deity blindly and doggedly followed. Nahida herself had, in vain, observed the thoughts, wishes, and dreams of human beings from her gilded prison deep within the Sanctuary of Surasthana. Though she was a true, (former) gnosis-bearing god, a part of her could not but help envy this child, this demigod, who had nearly all but razed a country in his pursuit of true divinity - donning the mask of the fabled Kunikuzushi in his incensed dance across the land - who possessed a wisdom she could not touch, could not claim for herself.

The way the traveller had seen it, Nahida had been the guiding light the Wanderer had never had. Nahida shook her head at the suggestion, however. You see, it wasn’t as simple as all that. In her eyes, she was merely a firefly, glowing dimly in the tapestry of the night - to suggest that she was a tributary to the Wanderer’s own titanic will and determination was preposterous. The thinnest rivulet of his human heart, begun though it had in the towering peaks sheathed in ice, had carved a stony channel through the rocky wastelands. High among the craggy cliffs, it had been joined by many a silver-voiced brook and gathering bourn, but now it tore through the canyonlands of dashed ambition; where no living creature had set foot since four centuries ago.

Unbeknownst to him, there had been many a night when she had lain awake, cursing the neglect her fellow archon had subjected this once nameless puppet to.

Nahida knew very little of Ei - she had yet to meet her in person. But from her brief forays into the Irminsul, she had surmised that this former.. creator of the Wanderer’s was a martial god; no more given to empathy and compassion than a lifeless automaton.

It was the cruellest of ironies, then, that Inazuma had fallen to civil war and disrepair under the iron will of the tyrannical shogun. To think that the Wanderer would have succeeded where the Shogun had failed - because the ideal of preserving stasis and eternity had not stagnated him; he was a torrential river, full of thoughts and feelings - and most importantly, he had once lived among the very humans over which he had believed he had inherited the right to rule.

It was easy for gods to sequester themselves away in their abodes. They chased lofty ideals out of pure intellectual curiosity, and engaged in flights of armchair philosophy; even as legions of human beings were sacrificed at the altars of their ideologies in the name of divine worship. The rule of a god had more sinister connotations that Nahida was slowly and surely beginning to catch on to - and as she paced around the Wanderer’s (mostly) tidy apartment, she wondered if he knew.

Perhaps, in being spared the ownership of the gnosis, Ei really had done right by him. His compassionate spirit, which she knew still lingered under his prickly exterior, would have been crushed under the weight of the sins a god had to bear.

A sharp crackling sound overhead interrupted Nahida’s reverie. A shadow passed over her face, softening the protective scowl that had settled over her features. Her clear green eyes snapped to the window, as she saw storm clouds rolling overhead, the distant clap of thunder carrying over the rolling plains just beyond Hanamizaka.

Thunder and lightning once again. It was to be expected, in the Land of Eternity. Nahida could not forget that one night so long ago back in Sumeru city: the look of frozen panic and terror that had convulsed the Wanderer’s face; when a late summer storm had announced its arrival with brilliant flashes of lightning, and the sharp crack of thunder.

Puppets always wore masks, it was true. At the moment of their creation, a visage was painted onto them by the hand of their creator - and the Wanderer had a mask of still porcelain, white as the snow that drifted down in the silent valleys of Dragonspine, clashing with the violent reds that lined his eyes, knife-sharp like the teeth that had spilled the blood of a black dragon so many centuries ago. It was seldom that emotion disturbed the tranquillity of his face - true, he was not above quirking his eyebrows up in mischief, and pulling a rude face once in a while; but after he had been stripped of his pride deep within his memories all those months ago, it was rare that he allowed the vortexes that raged within to so much as ruffle the whitecaps on the glassy surface.

But every human being has a chink in their armour; and for a puppet that had been broken and put back together so many times, even though the filled cracks gleamed gold at the seams where the broken pieces joined together - sometimes, there were holes in his facade where the pieces didn’t quite meet. Through those gaps, Nahida saw plainly the heart of the Kabukimono, ravaged by the sorrows of this world, recoiling in terror from abandonment, from a neglect that centuries of wandering away from Ei had never truly washed away from his human heart.

Nahida had looked on as his small frame was wracked with sobs, as his body shrunk in on itself and his hands over his ears, trying and failing at shutting out the approach of the storm outside. She scarcely knew if this display of vulnerability was a mark of trust on his part. Indeed, he had made it very clear to her that he was holding her at arm’s length; he saw and instinctively pushed away her good-natured concern, but perhaps that was because he knew - if he let her in, if he let her hold his aching heart in her diminutive hands, the carefully put-together pieces would shatter - a shower of glass shards, winking in the brilliant light of the rising sun, an adamantine suffering found only in the most doomed of narratives; the most painful loveliness of them all.

And yet, this relief was a consummation devoutly wished! - to end the heartaches that he was an unwilling heir to. The closing act of the play had begun; and in the silken curtains’ melancholic sway, the stage lights dimmed as crystalline tears fell from the nameless puppet’s eyes.

She had, in that moment, reached out and pulled him to her - the initial shock of the contact causing his wiry limbs to tense up further - until the gentle sensation of her fingers carding through his hair, and the warmth of his head resting in her lap had ultimately calmed him down.

It was the first time he had fallen asleep in her lap, tear-tracks still drying on his now smooth face, absent the furrowed brows and gaunt eyes that had haunted her earlier.

Still, she knew that proximity to him was to be approached with caution; and she was not about to impose a bond between them that he was hesitant to accept himself. That said, Nahida watched the roiling clouds with a sinking feeling in her heart, and a widening of her eyes - as she realised he must still be out there in the rain, right beneath where the lightning split the sky - and she did not allow herself to imagine what action he might be compelled to take in the heat of that moment.

She did not stop even for a second. Arranged on the rack by his front door, the Wanderer had taken to collecting all sorts of umbrellas - his favourite, a blue-and-gold one, was now neatly folded up and put away in that inconspicuous corner; where it did nothing to protect its owner from the devastation that rained from above.

Nahida stopped for nothing. She flung open the door, and dashed out into the streets of Hanamizaka, fearing the worst.

The heavy scent of damp soil and the wind whipping through her hair did nothing to calm her frantic nerves. She asked around, from stall-owners to farmers tending their yards, where exactly he had been last sighted.

That, coupled with her abilities to divine the answers she wished to know from the human residents of the area, directed her footsteps towards the outskirts of Konda village.

At last, her wide green eyes rested on a static figure standing stock-still at the edge of a precipice, his white silks blowing in the wind, his indigo hair plastered to his forehead.

But her relief was short-lived. When her gaze flicked to his eyes, she saw the countenance that frightened her the most - the haunted look on his face, the blankness in his eyes, bereft of its usual twinkle when he was trading barbs with the traveller.

She knew.

He was gazing up at the lightning that stretched across the expanse of the darkened sky, transfixed by its deadly beauty, and perhaps almost calling a challenge to it - to strike him down, to take him where his family had disappeared to so long ago.

The puppet had always had a special talent for tempting fate with disturbing accuracy. So far, he had managed to push every situation to its worst possible resolution with a pinpoint precision; one that Nahida had time and again warned him was nigh impossible without intentional execution on his part.

Even so, as much as in his saner moments, he did his best to heed her advice; to walk precariously on the path she was so desperately trying to illuminate for him - the past had a powerful hold on him. Every day Nahida feared that this puppet, this meandering soul, would be dragged back into the abyss he had so desperately clawed his way out of - no matter how much he sought the light, the darkness seemed hell-bent on staking its claim on him.

Nahida, however, was not about to leave the wellbeing of her protege up to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, much less the oft-neglectful gaze of whatever powers gazed down upon them from above.

Indeed, Fate might very well possess a sadistic tendency towards playing cruel tricks on its prisoners; but the gentle god Nahida believed in taking arms against the sea of troubles; in reversing the tides of circumstance. Left to their own devices, even the purest of consciences and the strongest of wills would erode against the relentless winds of time. There is only so much goodness a person can be born with, only so long that the purity of one’s heart could withstand the repeated blows of misfortune; before distilling into itself the bitterest of resentment that, once it had taken root, had the unfortunate habit of intertwining itself with the very core of the person whose bosom it resided in.

In the briefest instant that a bolt of lightning split open the sky, the world frozen in the bone-white blaze - she saw the puppet standing stock still, his face turned upwards; calling a challenge to the overlord of the thunderstorm with his very existence. Yet, the droop of his shoulders and the tension about his mouth signalled that his defiance had long since drained away from him, and his vacant eyes now only made a singular plea to the lightning that forked across the sky - to strike him down where he stood.

There is such a thing as divine intention, you know - one must not doubt the forces at play that hold the strings to our fates, the unseen puppeteers that pull the actors across the stage in a soulless dance across the cosmos - usually with scant regard for the mortal trifles that scarcely warranted their attention. Even so, for one so firmly wedged in the no-man’s land between mortality and divinity, he possessed the uncanny capacity to tempt divine hand with a determination and persistence found only in humans. In that fleeting moment as the wooden puppet called a challenge to the empyrean wrath flashing above, it was a divine hand that shot out to grasp his now clammy wrist in a flicker of what could only be a very human sort of compassion. The Wanderer stumbled a bit as Nahida pulled him towards her, even as crackling electricity connected with the earth where he had been standing moments before.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide, ignoring the rivulets streaming down her face. He was soaked, soaked to the bone. Had he been a mortal boy - in a different life - she would have ushered him in and made him change out of his sodden kimono; admonishing him for catching a cold. At this moment, though, neither of them was human enough to shiver from the biting wind or their drenched clothing, so..

… why were they both trembling?

The Wanderer’s eyes were wide. He seemed almost frozen in shock, and only Nahida’s discerning eye would have caught the slight reddish rims of his eyes, almost blending into the red pigment that adorned them.

Her grasp on his wrist tightened ever so slightly.

She waited for his chastisement to come. Given his past experiences, it was hardly surprising that he despised being offered any sort of aid or assistance, even if out of goodwill. Her being a god must have stung doubly so - for him to feel indebted to a god, yet again - Nahida knew how much he hated the thought.

But he said nothing. The Wanderer was unusually silent at this moment - the only sound over the rolling thunder was his rapid breathing.

She tugged on his wrist ever so slightly, the barest of suggestions.

It took him a moment. His vacant eyes slowly slid downwards to see her fingers encircling his wrist. Even. Grounding.

She waited. A singular beat.

He blinked.

He allowed himself to seek the path of least resistance.

With shaky, staggering steps, he sank down into the damp grass, not caring for the mud that splattered his formerly-pristine clothes. He cared little if the touch of the earth soiled his lily-white clothing - hardly the first time he had sullied his former divinity. Was this not his predestination as a fallen god? Who was he to rewrite the terms of his penitence to this world that he had wronged over and over?

Nahida watched him in silence, but dared not interrupt his musings. As the purest branch of that instrument of fate, she knew better than to invalidate its role as judge, jury, and executioner when he had stood trial as a newly-born god, knocked off his pedestal, stripped of his power, his corporeal form left behind as a poor consolation to haunt his wanderings till the end of his days.

Bereft of his perch, his plunge towards the beckoning arms of the earth had severed the strings that tied him to a far worse fate - a sacrifice on the pedestal of divinity, suspended above the yawning chasm of abyssal corruption.

It was beyond either of their means to wash away his sins, to hand him a blank slate. Would that the loss of divinity serve as a baptism into the realm of mortals! - but when no absolution awaited, the earth forgave all those who sought that final refuge; daisies growing over what once even angels feared to touch. For are not those awaiting the stygian ferry not laid to rest in her tree-clad bosom?

All time does is take from living things; carving tales of toil-worn years into the pallor of flesh and bone. And yet, when the last breath has been drawn and the spirit has passed away, the cruel scalpel softens into springy heather and eglantine. If mercy was not ours to have in this life, then let it be the inheritance of the next that comes to roost; blooming from the crumbling ribcage, finally living for better things.

A grave it might have been, but no other home could contain that raging maelstrom. It was only among the silence of the trees that it began to slow its momentum; its cyclonic wrath swirling into eddies that pooled into tranquillity on the forest floor.

Carved from the branches of the white tree that he was, the Wanderer did not need to breathe. Through sheer force of habit, however, when rattled or shaken, he often sought this painfully human method of bringing order to his thoughts.

Human emotion was something neither he nor Nahida understood in its entirety - though this does not mean that they did not try. She watched him finally slow the pace of his breathing, her mild curiosity committing the method to her memory.

The earth possessed an immeasurable power to protect and nurture the most fragile of beginnings. Even after the most devastating of wildfires, when the rattling wind was bitter and unforgiving, and the cumulous flock perched in the sky had fled southward - were there not saplings that sprouted among the charred remains, life beginning anew in the graveyard of the old? It was hardly her place to sift through the ashes of his dream of deification; but, if she was gentle enough, what tender sapling might she find buried in the mausoleum of his ambition?

First things first, however. Human though he was not, it wouldn’t do to sit out here and watch the downpour whittle down whatever resolve he had left, the dance of deranged lightning mocking him for having dared to try.

The Wanderer seemed quiescent enough. Perhaps, Nahida surmised, he would not resist her attempts to bring him inside.

So she did. At a gentle tug of his wrist, he finally turned to look at her, his gaze slightly less vacant than before.

“Let’s go inside. We’ve been out here long enough.” Her voice dropped to a soft whisper, almost as if afraid of startling him.

He nodded. A brief flash of concern passed over Nahida’s features at his silence, but... It was okay. She wouldn’t force him to talk right now if he didn’t want to.

The Wanderer allowed Nahida to lead him back to his apartment, the soil oozing rainwater beneath their footsteps. He seemed to have regained enough of his composure that he was able to excuse himself to his room, presumably to change out of his drenched clothes and dry his hair.

He did not, however, return to the common area to resume conversation with her. About ten minutes later, the lights in his room went out.

Oh, well. That was his signal for letting her know he was in no shape to play the host today.

Nahida didn’t blame him. It had taken a lot of work to pull him out of the rubble of that mechanised god, to bring him back to consciousness; but that didn’t mean the whole ordeal had passed from his memory. Given the sensitive nature of his situation, she had had to work overtime to understand his needs as a synthetic creation, a puppet whose needs were far divorced from those of organic beings. Tirelessly, she had pored over every tome in the House of Daena, every record she could find in the Irminsul to repair his circuitry and see if he would open his eyes again.

And he did. Nahida had many criticisms for the ways of the Electro Archon (though she wisely kept them to herself as much as possible), but she had to commend her fellow deity on having designed such a robust shell for one of her creations. His precipitous drop from the shell of the false god - while it did shatter the stone tiles of the temple of his birth - had left nary a scratch on his frame.

The same, however, could not be said for his mental state. It was a cruel fate to consign a sapient being to; devoid of personhood and with no concept of his life’s purpose outside of his mechanical functions. The shell might have been divine and indestructible, but was the human heart inside equally resilient?

For the first time, the god of wisdom had no answer.

Thunder continued to rumble outside, the pattering of raindrops against the shuttered windows the only backdrop to her thoughts.

What a strange thing it was, indeed, Nahida thought to herself. Lightning illuminated the sky so briefly, the landscape silhouetted in a stark white light before being plunged into darkness again - and yet, the archon of eternity insisted on keeping this island-nation locked down in stasis, resistant to the winds of time, a graveyard of human ambition.

Stasis. This word grated on her. A seedling kept eternally in stasis would never sprout into a healthy tree, forever frozen as an afterimage of its present predicament - not unlike a judgement upon the nature of living things: this is all you are, this is all you will ever be.

Nahida shook her head. Keeping the Wanderer here in the land of his birth would trap him in the doldrums, never letting the winds of change and time carry him onto brighter and better things.

This would not be an easy conversation for her to have with him, though. She might have been the one who rescued him, and nursed him back to health; but the very last thing he needed to be right now was indebted to her, a blade of grass bending to her will, the swell of the tides beneath her silent moon; whether she imposed it on him or not. She might have rescued him, but his fate would never be his to claim if it wasn’t his hands that reached out to claim it for his own.

No - if he was to put his past behind him, he had to choose it for himself.

“What are you doing?”

Nahida peered over his shoulder. The Wanderer was, indeed, engaged in a very curious activity. A healthy selection of books was strewn around his yumemiru desk, his brush-pen dipped in a pot of ink, an oil-lamp casting a dim golden glow. Most of them were bound in leather in the classic Yae Publishing House style, Nahida noted. Still others were hardbound, their pages yellowed, full of dense passages, footnotes, and diagrams. But what drew her attention the most was the half-used roll of parchment right in front of him. Several paragraphs of somewhat loopy lettering marched up and down its length.

He scowled briefly, though he kept his tone civil - for the most part. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m writing.”

“I didn’t know you liked writing.”

“I don’t like writing,” he corrected, somewhat pedantic. “I had nothing to do all day, and figured it was better than being bored out of my skull.”

She blinked. The Wanderer had some very strange hobbies, but she never commented on them. It was rare that he sat aside to do something purely of his own will - most of the time he was but a leaf swirling in the eddies of a stream, floating to wherever the current took him; whatever she asked of him he did, without (much) complaint.

No, him choosing to do something of his own accord was good - she didn’t have to understand it. She had access to every record in Teyvat, but goodness, this was some ancient-looking writing. The books were printed in an unfamiliar script, and indeed, a lot of it had nearly faded to obscurity - but it seemed as though this did not faze the Wanderer. So he could apparently read this ancient script that no one in Inazuma had used for at least the last couple of centuries. It was a kind of knowledge, and knowledge was always valuable.

It was knowledge that she did not have, though - and this was always endlessly tantalising to her. She did not wish to pry; what he did was his business, but -

“Can I ask what you’re writing?”

Wanderer exhaled. She hoped she had not offended him with the question. It was in her nature to seek answers, to ask questions, to know; just as the nodding sunflowers followed the trajectory of the sun as it sailed across the sky. He knew this, perhaps; and Nahida had to admit she was relieved when he answered her question in a flat, even tone.

“Nothing of interest. Some fool scholar wrote the most atrociously inaccurate paper I’ve ever seen. So they just let anyone who can hold a pen get published these days?” He let out a derisive scoff.

“Inaccurate?” Nahida’s brows drew together. Misinformation and inaccuracy were sins that could not be excused. Indeed, ever since she had taken over the administration of the Akademiya, she had insisted on stricter standards for citation and peer review. Many scholars had complained about having to pass newly-added double-blind trials to their proposals.

It was necessary, Nahida had asserted. The Akademiya was the bastion of knowledge, not just in Sumeru, but in all of Teyvat. The dissemination of that knowledge depended wholly on its credibility - and letting such unforgivable errors slide would not only erode the validity of current or future work published at the Akademiya, but also every paper that had been published in the past.

So this was, indeed, a blasphemous assertion on his part. She had to find out more.

“What paper was it?”

“Oh, something about Inazuman history.” His tone was dismissive, but Nahida was well-practised in the art of seeing through his faux casualness.

“I think this author took far too much creative licence with this one.” He nodded at one of the printed publications near him. “Cannibalism? Really?”

Nahida was scarcely listening to his criticisms, a mere din in her ears as she picked up the journal, examining the page it was opened to.

It was a recounting of the history of Tatarasuna, circa four centuries ago.

Of course.

She knew that this was a subject he cared deeply about. He had been the key catalyst in the devastating events that had ravaged the little village on the faraway shores of Kannazuka. Once a thriving mining-town, long ago back when jade steel had poured like liquid gold from the furnace; Tatarasuna had since decayed into a ghost of its glorious past. This was where the mightiest weapons were forged, right here in the roaring fires that leaped between the bricks - blades that had razed many an army, human and abyssal alike.

Time is cruel to human beings, and everything that belongs to them. Indeed, as the years had slipped past drop by drop, Tatarasuna had all but crumbled away, the vengeful sea lapping at its dissolving shores; baleful lightning now coursed through the skeletal trees where the sap-rivers of the thunder sakura had once run.

What is less known, however, is that time wears away just as much at immortal beings - it was a wearisome burden even when one was born as a god. For a human heart, however, to stand as a lone witness to these ravages of time - the toll it takes might push the audience member onto the stage. Which of us has beheld a doomed narrative and not fervently wished for powers over Fate to set things right? In such a state, one might almost be compelled to forgive him that momentary lapse - that moment when something had snapped, and the Wanderer had dove into the flowing records that governed all; whence neither he nor this world would emerge unchanged.

Changing Fate is not, however, a feat easily accomplished. Even for those with command of powers beyond our ken, this is a monumental task. What chance would a mere puppet have had, pulled along as he was by the strings that tied him to that starry predestination?

When he had attempted to set this world to rights, and wash away the imprints he had left on its shores; he had left behind him a wake of bizarre inconsistencies in this world’s timeline. Indeed, without the traveller’s external assistance, neither of them would have wised up to the fact.

Still, it was important to him. Regardless of what that unyielding instrument of fate had contrived, the truth must be preserved in its entirety - including the records that directly incriminated him: the Balladeer. A noble effort on his part, although his use of the word “inaccuracy” bothered her a little bit.

The recorded facts were accurate - true to life as per the current timeline. Though the scholar did have a rambling, unprofessional flow to his writing (and terrible formatting on the bibliography, Nahida thought) - the events he had recounted were not inaccurate. The two of them and the traveller were the only ones who knew what the Irminsul had washed away. To lesser beings, however, what they saw was all they would ever see; as they had not even the spirit to dream of better things.

No, this paper was not inaccurate. To hear it called so! - Nahida took umbrage at the fact; and fixing her piercing green-eyed gaze on his face, she said, -

“You know that this is a factual recount of the events as per this world’s timeline.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that it’s wrong.”

Nahida sighed internally. The Wanderer had always had his convictions, and it had taken an entire nation’s efforts and a hundred and sixty-eight cycles of a dream loop on the last attempt to change his mind.

But then - it was good that he cared about something. Ever since his limpid blue eyes had opened after the events of that harrowing day, there had been a certain, terrible stillness deep within his irises that no amount of getting him out and about had been able to fix. It was like there was an impenetrable wall of stone that sealed off his innermost thoughts from the outside world; and if there were subterranean desires stirring beneath the shallows, their treble was all but muffled beneath this lithic barrier - and every time she spoke to him, she was aware she was only skimming the very surface, blind to the pelagic secrets concealed within those bottomless depths.

No, if he had found something to pique his interest, it was best to not talk him out of it. It was easier to guide him to put his energy into constructive pursuits, than to sprout ambition from the barren plains of Nihility.

Very well. There had to be some other way to engage with him on the subject…

Her eyes trailed to the books littering the desk.

Books.

Of course!

“You must’ve spent a fortune on those books,” Nahida noted, careful to keep the excitement from her tone.

“Certainly wasn’t cheap,” Wanderer agreed, his eyes sliding towards the scattered books, some of them dusty with age; his gaze lingering.

Very much like the sky, the hues of his irises shifted with the fluctuations of his mercurial temper. Earlier, during the thunderstorm, they had stilled to a watery grey, not unlike the sea when dark thunderclouds piled up above, a ominous shadow slanting over the choppy waves.

Now, however, they had brightened to an almost sparkling azure, little golden pinpricks of light from the lamps around the room reflected in them - not unlike the glittering waters of the chill lagoon, the sun’s dappled light glancing off its surface like diamonds. It was a breathtaking sight - when had his eyes looked as radiant as they did now any time in living memory?

This was it, Nahida realised. He had made the first step - and she merely needed to guide the raging torrent to slow its pace; and lay down its long-held alluvial burden to flow unhindered through the wide-mouthed estuary; to at last find its home in the vast infinity of the sea.

“You know, we have a vast library at the Akademiya. You don’t have to pay to borrow the books that you need.”

The Wanderer considered this for the briefest of moments. Nahida watched him with bated breath - he was not closed to the idea; this, indeed, was progress. In vain she had tried to explain to him that spending all his time alone doing nothing in particular was terrible for his mind. The draw of the sleeping and the shapeless was powerful; once it began to reel him in, he would be tidally locked into an inexorable orbit, heading straight for that all-consuming, swirling blackness.

His audible sigh interrupted her thoughts. “Thanks, but being around those insufferable know-it-alls would drive me insane.”

“You don’t have to, though. You could just borrow books from the library, and occupy a nice quiet study-space for yourself.”

“I don’t need to live among mortals just to find a quiet space for myself. I already have one.”

Nahida sighed. She was persuasive, yes; but even she knew when to stop pushing. It wouldn’t do to put him on guard against the idea.

No, the key ingredient in the cultivation of living things was patience. She had planted a seed, a germ of an idea in his mind; and all that remained was to allow it to take root, nourished by hidden aquifers. Stasis was this country’s name, but it was the river of time that made all good things grow.

And so, she would wait. For all the winter he had braved, spring could not be far behind.

Nahida looked up from her book with the sound of the door opening and closing.

Here she was, back in the Wanderer’s apartment. He was frequently away whenever she decided to pay him spontaneous visits. Early on, she had wondered if his absence meant he resented the intrusion - right up until he had gruffly pressed a silver key into her small hands, his gaze shifty and averted. She had brightened, then; he scarcely acknowledged her comings and goings, but she made it a point to visit as frequently as her commitments allowed; taking care to leave a selection of new tea-leaves, freshly picked in Chenyu Vale - or perhaps a volume on Inazuman history, memoirs from the kabuki stage, the occasional recipe-book, and once, even a book on crochet and cat’s-cradle. This last was an accidental inclusion from her pickings from the Akademiya, meaning to secure this publication for herself; but it was returned curiously dog-eared, if unacknowledged on his maplewood bookshelf.

This caught her attention - perhaps, the Wanderer’s reading tastes did not differ that significantly from her own. She took care to slip in some of her favourites - if he thought they were childish or frivolous, he said nothing. A vast number of books passed through the shelves of that unassuming house in Hanamizaka; indeed, never had a finer collection so much as passed the imposing gates of Tenshukaku. Mythology, botany, astronomy, world history - everything that she left on his desk was left neatly arranged on the bookshelf by her next visit. As the months flew by, the maple-trees dropped their leaves and the tangled bine-stems scored the iron-grey sky; and the books that came into that house varied ever more wildly in nature. Now she brought him philosophy, poetry, books about music and travel; and even fairy tales - some of them charming and simplistic, and some he personally thought should never be read aloud to children. This volume was the only one left open to the story of a certain little steadfast tin-soldier - a detail that delighted her; and she took care to bring back more fairy-tales every time she visited. Stories of little animals, nodding in bonny apron and feathered bonnet; illustrations of long trestle-tables piled high with baskets of fruit and cheeses; of little fairies, carefully drawn in pen and ink, chasing each other across the pages; a little match-girl looking forlornly through a frosty window; doves and ducks and swans spreading their wings across the center-fold in quiet flight; all these volumes she brought him - each was returned in clockwork fashion to the quiet bookshelf in the corner, the lone witness to the opening of the buds and the coming of a promised spring.

She brought many delightful things with her; but of all the bounties of this world she carried in her little wicker-basket, it seemed that the books were the ones he liked best. A particular favourite of his was a slim purple volume with an illustration of a silhouetted dragon-head, inked in purple and luxuriously edged with gold around the borders and the trim of the book. This was the only book that was delayed in its returning; and Nahida, - her keen eye missing no detail - after much convening with the librarian, had prevailed upon her to allow this singular volume to become a permanent resident of the fragrant maplewood bookshelf. This apparently brought much delight to its new owner, and perhaps never has a book that has ever gone to print, before or since, ever been loved as much as that one little fairy-story was.

The seasons came and went, the bright summer and the rolling autumn came and went upon that grim, unchanging landscape - and it was on just such a wet evening that she was ensconced in one of his (suspiciously low) easy-chairs, that the sound of the front door, and then a step in the hall, attracted her attention.

The Wanderer wasn’t always away when she chose to drop by - during her daytime visits, he was naturally necessarily engaged at the bakery, of course. When the later hours encroached, however, he sometimes came in, kasa hat pulled low over his face. A brief nod to her when he passed by - sometimes he returned bearing a tray with carefully-balanced mugs of tea, puffs of steam swirling above them in the dim lamp-light; sometimes he brought back boxes of confectionery, no doubt unsold confiture from that day’s work. He rarely stayed to talk to her, given that reading was such a solitary activity, and she never imposed it upon him. When he did, though, he still possessed no turn for conversation - he merely sat down on the floor, his invoices, pens, and various scraps of paper scattered over that desk: sometimes answering letters, sometimes settling accounts or inventory; and neither of them wished to break that easy silence even when the squalls outside the window had died away, and moon peered through the barred clouds at the silent spectacle unfolding within.

She never intruded on anything he did - though, with her keen eye; details were rarely, if ever, missed. With his back turned to her, the Wanderer scarcely ever noticed when she looked up from her current engagement, an inscrutable look in her eyes. This she did most often when the roll of parchment came out, the end of his brush-pen waving in the air as it journeyed up and down its length.

These were the days when she quietly slipped away late into the night, him often still completely engrossed in this task. She did not want to disturb his train of thought - indeed, it was reassuring to see him so agreeably engaged; enough of his dreams had crumbled away and disappeared into the briny depths already.

What a curious thing it was, indeed. When one’s own survival is the need of the hour, the beginnings of dreams all but wither away in their kernels; what ambition remains to allow them to grow plump and fruitful, bending the boughs of the bearer to inspired action? For him, the barren plains had lain fallow for many a year now; when the storm and lightning is far too unrelenting, there comes a time when it simply becomes far too painful to dream. By day or by night, a vacant stillness had settled over his eyes - it was not that he did not smile, he often did when amused or entertained; but there was a hollowness in its core, the corners of his lips moved, but not a single speck of that feigned mirth ever found its home in his eyes.

Thus, then, had the seasons raged on - aside of that unseasonal glimmer in his eyes when he had spoken of Tatarasuna, his former home, perhaps dangerously close to enshrining those once-reviled memories in gathering droplets of dew; and so the turbid river of time flowed - right until he came in through the door, his kasa hat still dripping rainwater that pooled at his feet, and a singular long, brown envelope clutched in his hand.

Observant as Nahida was, she was immediately sensible to the change in the draught of the air he brought in, as he closed the door behind him. Maybe it was the late summer storm, or perhaps it was the way the moon hung in the sky, luminous and whole; but something had changed - it was in the water, it was in the rain-scented breeze that riffled through the leaves outside; and it was in his eyes, no longer tempest-grey, but the bashful slice of blue sky that showed through moisture-laden clouds.

And the envelope. There was no missing the seal of the Akademiya, emblazoned as it was on the back, the distinctive red wax seal catching her eye even from where she sat, dimly lit though the hallway was.

She stayed out of his business as much as possible, it was true. But that emblem, conspicuous as it was on the ostensible envelope, marked the collision of his orbit with hers. Where the Akademiya treaded was her domain; all it touched (or in this case, wrote to) was of her concern, regardless of whether she was directly involved or not.

He saw the look in her eyes; and at the same time, she understood that he noticed her interest had been piqued - that she had seen the emblem; and that questioning would soon follow. Would he answer her questions, she wondered, or would he retreat to his study or his bedroom as he was often inclined?

“You’re back unusually late today,” she began. It was always challenging to broach difficult subjects with Wanderer. Many a time he had urged her to simply speak her mind, that he would furnish answers where appropriate - but she had always demurred. He was given to reticence on most subjects, and as such resisted superfluous interrogation, choosing to simply lapse into silence when and where it suited his fancy. No, a little bit of a meandering approach was always necessary. It took some skill to get him to overcome his barriers, but they had not known each other long when she discovered that the Wanderer could, in fact, expound at length on any subject that interested him. She had never thought of him as loquacious before; but when his guard was down, and if you happened to catch him in an amiable mood, he was not above being an engaging conversationalist (though he would have vehemently denied it, had he ever heard himself described in this way.)

No, to talk to him, one had to level with him. Beneath his prickly exterior, Nahida kenned a keen intellect, an exploratory bent that sought answers and understanding of everything it encountered. There are people who spend their entire lives cultivating no inherent curiosity towards their chosen area of study; and still others who lose that childlike sense of wonder and thirst for knowledge once more mundane responsibilities pull them along the humdrum of their lives.

Not he; the Wanderer read constantly, of subjects varying widely in breadth and in depth; superficial answers did not satisfy him. This was a mind primed and ready for learning, she thought - she dimly remembered that he had not had much of a formal education: he certainly knew his way around reading and arithmetic, not to mention no small amount of lived experience as a military commander, foreign diplomat, and now a small business owner! - but a university-level education was something else entirely.

This was why the emblem pleased her. Whatever correspondence he had had with the Akademiya, he had initiated of his own volition - whatever leap of faith he had taken, he had leaped off that precipice of his own choosing, and Nahida would make sure the waterfall, sparkling as it did in the sun’s diaphanous light, poured into a tranquil forest pool below.

“Had business to attend to,” came the terse answer. She knew he saw her eyes fix themselves on the brown envelope again, and sensed no resistance about him; tonight, no dam would hinder the outpouring of sentiment that had long since quelled its wrath behind the high concrete walls.

No, tonight, it seemed - he would yield answers.

“I see,” she observed. “You had to stop by the mailroom, I gather.”

His brows drew together, and he sighed. “I can see you burning with curiosity, you know. Here.” He handed her the letter, busying himself in slipping off his rain-soaked geta sandals, and hanging up his kasa hat on a hook by the door. “It’s nothing secret - go ahead and read it yourself.”

As he was thus engaged, Nahida opened the envelope; which contained only a solitary sheet of paper, folded twice. She immediately recognised the Vahumana darshan’s letterhead, even when viewed in reverse. She fished out the letter, taking care to smooth out the creases, and began to read, -

“Dear Anonymous,

The Sumeru Akademiya: Vahumana darshan is pleased to inform you that your paper: “Mikage Furnace: A Treatise on The Shogunate Administration of Jade Steel Production and the Legacy of the Raiden Gokaden” has passed the review process and will be published in this year’s annual edition of Around the World in 80 Pages: The History of Teyvat.

In addition to this, this paper has sparked significant discussion in academic circles, garnering notable interest among students majoring in Inazuman history. Therefore, in recognition of your contribution to the field, it is my pleasure to invite you to lead a guest lecture on the history of Tatarasuna at the Inazuman History seminar to be held at the Akademiya on October 31st, XXXX.

We will also reimburse your associated travel expenses for this lecture up to a maximum of 50,000 mora. All expenses must adhere to the Faculty and Sumeru Akademiya’s Expense Reimbursement and Financial Policies.

If you are willing to accept the offer, please return this letter with your personal and banking information, along with a blank, voided cheque addressed to,

Alhaitham

Akademiya’s Grand Scribe”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful news!”

“Really? A guest lecture?” the Wanderer rolled his eyes. “You know I’m not much of the scholarly type. I have no desire to hobnob with those sorts.”

“You know, there’s lots of students at the Akademiya, too. It’s not just graduate scholars and researchers,” Nahida began, ignoring his eye twitching in contempt. “I think you’ll find that a lot of them will be open to hearing your answers to their questions.”

“Do I really look like I’m cut out to be a teacher?”

“They’re not hiring you as a teacher,” Nahida giggled. “Visiting lecturers are usually subject matter experts invited to share their knowledge with students of that discipline. It’s a one-time engagement.”

She sensed his resistance somewhat subsiding. Still, she knew he was far from convinced.

Well. The seed was sown - she could tell; she didn’t need to use her telepathy to see the gears were already turning in his head. Contrary to what he believed, she did not use her telepathy on him without him being expressly made aware of the fact. No, to know his thoughts, she found talking to him a far more effective strategy. As long as one did not put him on his guard against the idea, he was fairly amenable to some healthy amount of persuasion. And tonight, there was no resistance about him - he was ripe for some slightly more convincing arguments.

“You know, lots of people read Akademiya publications. I seem to recollect that Yae Publishing House also carries copies whenever they’re made available to the public.”

“What’s that got to do with any of this?”

Time to close in for the kill.

“The descendant of the Kaedehara clan - I’ve heard tell of him being rather fond of books and poetry. Might he not be inclined to purchase a copy for himself, and happen upon your writings?”

The effect was immediate. Nahida saw the colour drain slightly from his face; his eyes, now a translucent blue, were wide, stricken. She sensed his resistance crumbling - it was time to seal the deal - and cross the rubicon.

“They’ll include your question and answer session in the appendix, you know. Your talk could reach a far wider audience than you realise.”

His shoulders drooped, and he exhaled gustily.

“I’ll think about it.”

His preparations began in earnest. The journey was hardly a short one; he would need to board the ship at Ritou and sail far, far away to Port Ormos; and then sail up the river to arrive at the destination. Nahida did not entertain his ideas of attempting a long sea-crossing through powered flight: “You’ll have to take a lot of your paperwork with you this time, you know - and you’ll have to go through clearance at the docks, and then pass through border control at Port Ormos. It will be very cumbersome to fly across holding all that in your hands.” His last visit to Sumeru had necessitated no such formalities, but then, neither of them wished to remind the other that emigrating to a country to attempt to overthrow its resident divinity was not, in fact, a legitimate purpose for travel in most legal codices.

No, this time, his trip to Sumeru City would be different - and he took care to make sure it remained such. Provisions were purchased, the bakery inventory was emptied, an away notice posted on the door. Within the house as well, a great tidying-up ensued, an unprecedented washing-up of clothing, crockery, and other items; perishables were disposed of -

And the letter. Well might he have submitted his paper anonymously, but no payment could be made to an anonymous bearer. And Wanderer, though his bakery paid comfortably enough for his apartment (seeing that he had practically no other living expenses), had a tidy little sum tucked away - it was singularly unwise to dip into those coffers for an excursion such as this.

“Even an archon needs a rainy-day fund, you know,” Nahida had advised. “You shouldn’t dip into your savings just because you have them.” Perhaps, out of deference for her wisdom (or an unwillingness to discover what, exactly, immortal beings resorted to when mora ran dry) - he gave in, and decided to respond in kind to the letter.

The problem was - he did not have a given name, much less a bank account, to transfer or receive funds from. For all these centuries, such an arrangement would have been entirely superfluous. He did, of course, use to have a bank account under the Balladeer’s name at the Northland Bank back in the day - but given how things stood, both he and Nahida were certain no such account existed now; or, if it did, he could lay no claim to any sum contained within.

One evening, when most of his belongings had been stowed away in attache-cases, he and Nahida sat at the desk, the letter unfolded on the table.

Names had always been a strange ordeal for the Wanderer. As Time had hurried on, its turbulent flow slowing its pace for none, many names had surfaced and then been lost to its currents. Kabukimono, the Balladeer, Scaramouche, Shouki no Kami, The Everlasting Lord of Arcane Wisdom - names had come and gone, each more eminent than the last - all until that treacherous divinity had fallen away, leaving a lone personage behind, one who chose to call himself by no name at all.

When he had first regained his memories, he had indeed been christened. The tones of that name - the very first name that was his, the Wanderer’s, of no one but himself - his true name rang far too sacred a bell, too ethereal to be dragged down by such mundanities as bank accounts and tax returns. He would never need to intimately entwine himself with the mortal world ever again, there was no need to introduce himself - for the world of human beings would never again get to know him.

Nahida sensed the weight of the matter: names, indeed, were sacred; to give up your true name was to give up a modicum of control - an ancient belief common in these parts. But the matter of the funds and the bank account remained. While banks exerted a rather different sort of control over our lives than was originally feared back then (and perhaps, that was not the sort of control the Wanderer was trying to avoid in the first place) - a name was still necessary; and while it might not be his “true” name as he saw it, it would have to remain consistent across all such paperwork that should involve him. When pressed, he dismissively claimed indifference - but Nahida knew; it was a subject he cared about deeply; and as such, if he was to continue associating with the Akademiya - an alias would have to do.

Submitting one’s work under an alias was hardly an unprecedented affair across the seven nations. In the faraway lands of Fontaine, where the boats carrying passengers bobbed on canals suspended high above the city - many an author and playwright published sensational works under a nom de plume. If he was amenable to the idea, a suitable pen-name could suffice for not only any future theses he might choose to publish, but even as a moniker to process all bureaucratic affairs; and perhaps - though she dared not let her thoughts stray that far - even to assist in social interaction.

In vain she pored over various volumes from all over Teyvat - some printed in common tongues, others in languages that had not been spoken in millennia. A silent consensus passed between them that nothing about his identity should arouse suspicion as to his synthetic nature. For far too long he had balanced on a blade’s edge between humanity and godhood, and neither extreme had spared him the lashings of grief, abandonment, and betrayal. To once again walk among human beings, with whom he declined to have anything more than perfunctory interaction with - nothing about his name should invoke unfamiliarity or hostility.

Would he, perhaps, wish to bear a more common Inazuman name? Nahida wondered. There was quite the torrid history between him and his land of birth. True as it was that his chosen sanctum was housed right here on the streets of Hanamizaka, there was a restlessness in him that she was sensible to; that the land of stagnancy and stasis would not be able to keep him within its confines for long. He was the tumultuous river of wind; the teeth of the gale that tore off branches and leaves from the trees, and whose cyclonic wrath laid waste to towns and cities. Long since had he given up his country-destroying ways, but the hurricane of vengeance coiled close under the surface, and strained against the confines of the illusory glassy exterior. To trap the winds of a squall was to condemn it to nonexistence, and while a certain appeal to the void remained for those whom time had eroded beyond all recognition - but for him, his life was just beginning. The wide river had only just made its confluence with the sea; a whole maritime journey of riding the crashing waves and currents awaited one who had scarcely ever strayed from his landlubbing ways.

No; the air had shifted, and the water changed. Nahida conveyed none of her speculations to the Wanderer, but she knew - once he set sail from its storm-lashed shores, he would never, perhaps, set foot in Inazuma ever again. Whether he was sensible to his own imminent metamorphosis, she scarcely dared imagine; but Nahida quietly went about making the necessary arrangements while he busied himself upstairs in endeavours unknown to her.

The name. She looked down at the forms she had procured from the bank nearby, and the blank fields that entreated her to fill in a name. Time was running short; many other formalities remained before the funds could be transferred into the account - to say nothing of the time taken to post the return letter in the mail, duly addressed to its original sender. Then there was the matter of arranging for necessary travel documents - no, there was no time to consult the Wanderer on his misgivings about names and aliases, and prevail upon him to furnish one of his own choosing.

Her eyes wandered about his apartment. In the interests of keeping dust at bay, most of his things had either been stowed away, or covered in heavy canvas draping. The shelves had been emptied, the racks put away, and -

Her eyes rested upon his kasa hat hanging from a hook on the wall.

For as long as she had known him, this accessory had accompanied him wherever he went. Wherever he was - and he often travelled from city to city, and village to village - he was never without this chosen headwear pulled low over his face. Perhaps this item initially served a purpose at evading identification, back when its wearer passed through the country earlier; a wake of blood and death and destruction rippling behind him. In the present day, however, the use of this article of clothing was nothing more than a product of habit, which followed its owner from town to town and coast to coast even when he did nothing more than trail silently along its many winding ways.

It was a luxuriously-made kasa indeed - looking at it, one could have never guessed its owner lived a simple life within his means on an unnamed street corner in Hanamizaka. The gilded edges gleamed in the dusty sunlight that filtered through the windows, the white rays ricocheting off its surface calling Nahida’s thoughts back to another, similarly gold-leafed item that the Wanderer cherished: the book of fairy-tales, lovingly authored by one Anya M. Andersdotter a long time ago.

Fairy tales. Nahida did so love fairy tales - some might argue they distilled complex, nuanced concepts into dichotomies easily grasped by the still-budding understanding of young children. There was, however, always a hard kernel of truth hidden deep within the sweet, ripe flesh - unchanging laws that governed the world as it spun on its axis, its inhabitants dragged helplessly along by its currents. These pertained not to the choices one would make if put in the same situation, and indeed, maybe not even axioms about the nature of good and evil itself - but maybe, a sheltered dream of being allowed to aspire to better things. The real, tangible world has taken away the dreams of many, cut short those of many others; and still yet visited unspeakable horrors upon those who may never, perhaps, live to tell the tale.

Perhaps it is only in the mirror of fiction where, woven in the tapestry of lies, are immutable truths; told to us over and over.

It is then, perhaps, no small wonder that the jaded views of those eroded by time find no mesmerism in the allure of the neverland. “What do I care for this pristine, rosy world - it shall never be; the world is never so kind, nor are one’s fellow-creatures so lovely; and no such propensity for higher ambitions exists in those who toil day after day, when no promised land awaits their weary bones in the end.” And maybe it is true that no lasting peace awaits us at the end of this long mortal journey; and the only fleeting joy there is to be had is before we turn our eyes skyward from the yellowed pages, and behold such terrible things.

It is fitting, then, that it is children who see the truth for what it is, enshrined in the inked illustrations; unencumbered by darker realisations - long before the ways of the world had drained their resolve, and it lost all of its frangible beauty in their wonderstruck eyes.

Were that power merely confined to the chapters of story-books, it would have been quite all right to pay it little mind. There was, however, a deep gash in the fabric that separated the two realities, where the bravery of plucky heroes and the villainy of those scorned by the narrative bled across the sky of the waking world; where warmth found in one may sustain lifeblood in the winter of another - where stolen dreams hid among unassuming pages, thriving safely until the cataclysm had passed; and the real world dawned anew once more.

Even so - in the gaps between fiction and reality, there existed things that slipped in and out of existence; forever hidden from sceptical eyes. Did the gentle spirits of the forests not conceal themselves from human habitation, even as they gathered around the dendro archon in their multitudes, and, unbeknownst to him, even around the nameless puppet that had long since washed away his footprints from the shores of human history?

Nahida turned towards one of their number that appeared before her now - blue as the midday sky, with similar headwear adorning its own head, a mischievous smile stamped on its features. And suddenly, inspiration struck; and, picking up the brush-pen the Wanderer had lent her for the purpose, Nahida looked once again at the blank field staring her in the face. In her trembling, somewhat unfamiliar hand, she printed the name that would, from that moment on, adorn the once-discarded puppet - until the rills of his forgotten dreams gathered; till once again his ambition and lifeblood flowed in spate:

Kasacchi-san.

#scara 🥺🥺#I wanna wrap him up in a big hug #Yuki you are making me a Scara enjoyer fr...#ITS ALWAYS THE TRAUMATIZED ONES #I just love that Nahida is always looking out for him :')#we need more stories like this #FOUND FAMILY!!

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