Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gods are not immune to errors: this, Nahida knows well. She’ll say it had been an oopsie. A tiny, little unintentional side effect.

Really, the Balladeer was at fault here. If he hadn’t been so stubborn about opening up to someone, there was really nothing Nahida could do except to delve into his mind to try and reach him there. Mind diving was very much like regular diving, and people’s minds could be anywhere from a happy whirlpool to a treacherous open sea. The Balladeer was no different, of course.

His was like a shipwreck. A wreck, like the remains of lightening striking a tree in two. And enlightening, Nahida supposes, because when she had resurfaced, she saw the world from a different perspective.

Literally.

She resurfaces from the Balladeer’s mind a good foot and a half further from the ground than she normally is. Entering a new body is always strange, as each one feels a little different (although she’s told that makes her sound like a creep, despite it being the truth). This one’s lighter than the one she normally takes. Maneuverable. She can almost imagine herself dancing.

But as with all things, dreams must come to an end, so Nahida sighs and focuses on more important matters. Such as, the stunned girl with white hair sprawled on her knees, leaflets nestled in her braids. She looks up at Nahida with a completely bewildered expression. It’s like looking into a mirror.

Nahida looks down. Black knee length shorts.

“Oh. Whoopsies.”

“Whoopsies,” Scaramouche says, and her own voice comes out. “That’s all you’ve got? Whoopsies?”

“Nowhere to go but up,” Nahida shrugs, and a stubby leg attempts to kick her shin. She sticks out her tongue in response, even attempting the eyebag-pulling- thing and hey, it’s kinda fun.

“I hate you.”

Nahida reaches down to pat her- his head absentmindedly. This would take some time getting used to for him. Less for her. He shoves it away with a huff.

“Don’t be like that. I’m placing my entire reputation in your hands. It’s like… a trust exercise.”

“A trust exercise,” he repeats, flat. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

It’s true. It’s a standoff, with both having a metaphorical finger hovering over a missile launcher that could torpedo both their public images. Frankly, Nahida has a lot more to lose, but she’s fine with that.

Lesser Lord Kusunali’s reputation could stand to be humbled. It would help with the cold water down the back feeling she got when she found people had expected, well, something more when they finally met her in person. The fact was: she looked a child, which did not look like a god, and she could see the mental wheels turning when someone tried to reconcile those two pieces of information. At worst, it made her want to apologize for their obvious disappointment. At best, she’d do a great job of hiding hers.

‘Nahida’ is making an expression that Nahida doesn’t think she’s ever pulled. It’s like a feral tiger, if a bee came along and stung it on the nose. She is pleasantly surprised that she can look that intimidating (although some others might disagree).

“Put me back.” He jabs a finger at her. “This won’t stop me.”

“No.”

Nahida has a lot more to lose, but this is better than the alternative. It should at least buy her some time, until she figured out what to do instead. It should have been child’s play, but of course, she was but a child. A child unable to handle even the simplest things like this- and Nahida was supposed to be an Archon.

You’re in over your head, inner voice says, and she shushes it.

It’s more than a little embarrassing to start tearing up, much less in front of someone Nahida had outwitted so thoroughly. Him along with the Doctor. She had been so steadfast then; how could she have taken such a step backwards? Her cheeks begin to heat.

“Oh god. Stop it,” Scaramouche says, taking in her expression. “Not with that face.”

“What face?” She squints her eyes, staring up at the blinding light as if to burn her retinas. It stings. When the black dots start dancing, she breathes. In. Out. Letting the stress melt away.

She needs to calm down. Pull up her big girl shorts, be the calm, mature presence that’s expected of her. Nahida’s heavenly principle is wisdom, for goddess’s sake. She needs to go back and think. Remember where it all went wrong, and maybe she’ll manage to make sense of it all.

---

I. The Game

She had only started making progress a week after the Balladeer had awoken. Before then, it had been surprise box of what Nahida would encounter next: insults, passive aggressive remarks, the silent treatment. Once the initial fury had run it’s course, his anger had become of the more insidious variety. One step forwards, two steps back. Scaramouche seemed intent on rebuffing it all, no matter what she threw at him, and to be completely honest, it was wearing Nahida down, little by little. She’s patient, goddess yes, but she’s not a saint, and Scaramouche seemed intent on playing nothing but Devil’s advocate.

She didn’t want to give up, though. Giving up would mean the Balladeer was a lost cause, and that meant Nahida had failed, too. Giving up meant she would have to result to the only other logical solution, and that solution was a permanent one.

When he hadn’t been willing to talk, Nahida had come to his room and just sat with him, bringing something to keep her busy. Silently working her way through a book, or a puzzle. Sudoku. Brain teasers. Sometimes, she brought along her photo album, leafing through the pages. She remembers feeling Scaramouche’s eyes on her every time she’d turned a page, until she had lifted the book from her lap and held it up.

“This one’s my favorite,” Nahida says, pointing at a picture with the corner of her pinkie. It’s of a child, staring up at the stage in the Grand Bazaar. He’s not looking into the lens, instead at something off the page, dappled light rippling across his awed expression. She’d taken it during one of Nilou’s performances, which she loves almost as much as she loves watching people’s reactions to them. Soul-touching, it is.

Her favorite pictures are the ones where the subjects don’t even know she’s taking them. It captures them in their natural state, one unhindered by needing to force a smile or a pose. There’s a genuine quality to them that Nahida likes the most.

“Whatever.” His head is turned to the side, but one indigo-blue eye still lingers on the page.

“This one too.” Nahida points to one at the bottom. It looks over the entirety of Sumeru city proper, taken from the Sanctuary roof. The people standing in the market are tiny, roaming around a dollhouse set. It’s a close second to the one of the valley just outside the city, pockmarked by a field of gold and white. A blush of occasional blush bright orange. It’s a little blurry, because she’d been distracting by a student screaming out her advantageous picture-taking location.

Going to the roof during an exam period in the body of a student was apparently very concerning. It hadn’t been one of her wisest ideas.

All in all, Nahida’s become quite the photographer over the years. How to picture things perfectly, and know the flattering angles in which someone might be captured.

“Why aren’t there any of you?”

Nahida blinks.

Scaramouche’s chin is lifted, staring her down. It’s a far cry from the state she’d captured him in, all disgraced heap of cloth and severed piping like some misshapen mecha-jellyfish monstrosity. She wonders how he can still be so- so arrogant, despite everything. Maybe he really is an automaton, and the outburst of emotion that had surprised her so had been an anomaly.

“What do you mean? I’m the one taking them,” she says, placid as still water.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know what I mean.”

In the past week, this feels like the breakthrough Nahida’s been working towards, one where they can both sit down, and talk like proper people. She can use this, somehow, to get to the root of whatever the Balladeer’s issue is and force it out into the open. Then she’d be making progress.

“Let’s play a game,” she says. Scaramouche’s back goes rigid as Nahida approaches, kneeling to reach under the bed. The wooden toybox sighs against the floorboards as she pulls it out, blowing across the top to send dust swirling into the air. She hears a sneeze. Grinning, she opens it, taking out the various games she’s collected over the years.

“What do you feel like? Checkers? cards? Jacks? Ooh, I’ve got cribbage-”

“What are you doing?”

It’s more baffled than disgusted, which is an improvement.

“I’ll answer your question if you win. Otherwise, I get to ask you something.”

Scaramouche grimaces, seeming to weigh something in his mind. Whatever it is, his curiosity seems to win out, because he uncurls and scoots himself to the edge of the bed. He leans over. “Do you have shogi?”

“Course!”

She sets up the board on the bed. Nahida is familiar with all the games in her box, shogi included. She often wonders how she would fare against others in an actual competition. It’s something that certainly on her bucket list.

The handful of pawns are tossed into the air, and wood hits wood as they scatter across the board.

“Looks like I’m white,” Nahida says. “Your move.”

Scaramouche reaches out with a tentative hand, before picking up his first piece. “Don’t go easy on me.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.”

Scaramouche isn’t bad by any means, in fact, Nahida would argue he’s quite good. There’s a lot you can learn from a person just from the way they play. He’s got a strategic mind, for certain, and he learns from his blunders quickly. He’s clearly rusty- maybe after a 100 more games he might get one over her, but as it stands, Nahida sets down her final piece, folding her hands over her lap as he glares at her. She already knows her first question.

“You hate the gods, yes?”

A snort. “You could say that.”

“Yet you wanted the gnosis so badly. Explain that to me.”

“It’s my birthright. My reason d’etre? Why I’m here in the first place. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never-” Nahida catches herself midsentence. “I’m the one asking the questions here.”

“Sure.”

Another round. She’s already thinking of her next question. Nahida’s not made for fighting; words have always been her weapon of choice. Knowing what to ask to guide a conversation was just as important as the answer. It’s as if there are two games going on, one on the wooden board before her, and the other by the words spoken over it.

“Do you resent the Electro Archon for abandoning you?” She asks. She already knows the answer, but she wants Scaramouche to express it in his own words. Then she can go on and talk about how forgiveness isn’t mandatory, but it can help to move on. Or maybe some comparison about a fallen log learning to host the critters of the forest floor. She hopes Ei doesn’t mind being compared to an ax.

“It wasn’t unusual. Just look at your own nation.”

Nahida’s smile is warm. “I appreciate all the love the people of Sumeru have shown me.”

He says flatly, “They abandoned you for 500 years.”

She can’t let that warmth fade.

“It was a misunderstanding. I cannot fault diurnal creatures for knowing only of the moon’s existence by way of their dreams.”

“Humans don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

Nahida crosses her arms and puts on her best pouting face. “It has nothing to do whether it’s deserved or not. I choose to forgive. I will always choose to forgive, because people can change depending on the environment they’re exposed to, like water taking on the form of its container.  People develop, people learn, and become different from the parent that dropped the seeds they grew from.”

Scaramouche squints at her, nose wrinkling. “A seed will grow into the same species of that parent. It cannot change its nature.”

“And yet it is not the same tree, despite its appearance.”

“A tree that grows in the shade of another will never reach its full potential.” He shakes his head, and Nahida wonders if he’s annoyed. They probably could sit here and do this all day. “Here’s what I don’t get. You’re an Archon, and yet you act like exist to serve the people who should be worshipping you. It makes no sense.”

“Why is that a bad thing? An Archon has a duty to give her all for her people.”

That gives him pause. For some reason, his next words are much softer. “I think you’re the only Archon who truly believes that.”

Scaramouche begins to set up the next board in silence. Nahida stares down at her folded hands, sitting neatly in her lap. She watches as he sets each piece in place, one by one, keeping her expression perfectly blank.

“Another round?” he asks.

“I know what you’re doing. You’re redirecting my questions back at me.” She’s not accusatory, but merely stating a fact. The boomerang technique. Nahida’s underestimated the diplomatic training given to Harbingers- or just the Balladeer in particular. She didn’t think he had the aptitude for it.

Scaramouche sits back, lounging as if they could take all the time in the world. The corners of his mouth twitch. They could technically. A game between immortals didn’t really have an end date. “I’m not stupid. I know I’m not winning anytime soon.”

“This isn’t about me though. I’m trying to help you.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

He’s too calm. “You’re thicker headed than I thought, Buer. You can’t help me. You shouldn’t be helping me. Look, since this has been fun, and I admire your efforts, I’ll give you some pointers.” It’s chillingly calm. Too pleasant, for someone like him, especially after what she’d seen from him. Nahida knew how compassion was suppose to sound, and this wasn’t it. “Let go of this need to make everyone like you. All you’re doing is setting yourself up for disappointment.”

“I think you’re mistaken. It’s my responsibility to make sure I’ve earned the trust of the people of Sumeru-”

“If they don’t trust you after all you’ve done for them, they can fuck right off.”

“No!”

Nahida’s standing before she realizes it, fists coiling like little snakes by her sides. He’s smiling now, happy he’s getting under her skin like this. This isn’t right. It feels like she truly is speaking to a puppet, and one that feels nothing at all. She needs to take control of the conversation.

“You won’t make any progress if you keep avoiding the issue. I want you to feel safe here- with me. I want you to feel like you can be vulnerable with me.”

He stares. Nothing. Nahida represses a sigh.

“Why don’t we stop here for today, get some rest, and try again tomorrow.”

As she gets up to leave-

“Wait.”

Nahida stops.

“If I answer, I want to be able to ask you something, whether I win or not.”

Rehabilitating a Harbinger. Most of the people Nahida had shared her intentions with had thought it to be madness. What was there to say about the Balladeer? Maybe earlier in his life, he’d been blessed with paper white innocence, but 500 years is a long time. Time could warp and twist things beyond recognition. Nahida knows that better than anyone.

But Nahida likes games, and she’s not afraid to lose. She plops herself down on the bed, and sticks out a pinky, offering her biggest and broadest grin. “Alright.”

Scaramouche looks at it utterly confused. It’s a whiplash of an expression, and she stifles a laugh. “On my honor.”

He takes it tentatively with his own. Up. Down. He pulls back quickly.

“You asked about the gnosis. I wasn’t lying earlier, about it being mine- or at least I for it- I-“ Scaramouche looks over to her, brows furrowing. “Don’t expect a soliloquy. I’m not very good about these sorts of things.”

“It’s okay. Take your time.”

“I just- I thought it would make me less empty. And my Creator.” A dark laugh. “She thought I was too weak to handle it. She was right, of course, but I still wanted to prove her wrong. Honestly, I’m just as disappointed as she is.”

He shrugs.

It had all been rather blasé. Emotional constipation aside, Nahida is a little disappointed. She can’t fault him too much, though. Feelings- fleeting and intangible: trying to grasp them was like trying to catch a flock of birds barehanded. In all fairness, she struggled to understand these sorts of things too, even if she was learning all she could.

“Anyways, I’m more curious about you, Nahida.”

A deal was a deal, she supposed.

“Okay,” she sighs. “Shoot.”

“Why aren’t there any pictures of you?”

That question again. For whatever reason, Scaramouche has decided to fixate on that, of all things. Nahida supposes it’s her fault for bringing out the album in the first place. She’d been hesitant to show anyone to begin with- even the Traveler. She considers lying. It’s what she would have done, if she wasn’t trying to build a bridge of honesty. And to add, Nahdia thinks Scaramouche can tell if she lies. Like her, she gets a sense he’s weirdly perceptive of things like that.

“I only take pictures of things I like.”

And that’s all she needs to say, because the Balladeer doesn’t seem surprised at all. He nods like she hasn’t just admitted something she’s never told anyone- and that’s a thought, because Nahida had been sure she would have taken that to her deathbed, a millennia or so odd years from now, but here she is. Barely a few weeks out of her cage and she’s already spilling her guts to anyone who would listen.

Weakling, inner voice says.

Sometimes Nahida gets the feeling there should be a response to that. Another voice, the rational one that sounds a little older. Gentle and kind, all the things in the person she wants to be. That voice would say, “Don’t listen to her. You’re doing your best.” But sometimes it feels like she had imagined it completely.

There is still much work to be done for Sumeru. Now that she has resumed command, Nahida works closely with the Akademiya to develop an agenda for the future. That included countless meetings to make sure everyone knew what they were doing, then a weekly progress report to make sure they were still doing it, then a two week check in to make sure they had actually started the thing they were supposed to be doing.

In short, it is hell.

The mess she’s been left with is like trying to clean cobwebs in a shortage of feather dusters. She’s trying to make do with doorhandles, and to be honest, some of the minds she’s surrounded in at the Akademiya are as bright and brass as doorknobs. They’re trying, so she wants to commend them for that, but if someone asks her one more time why she can’t just handwave a withering zone into non-existence, she’ll start commissioning emergency conversation exit hatches fit for her size only. Speaking of doors-

The door to the grand sage’s office bangs open with a start, and a pressed looking sage hurries in. His robes are in disarray, and a flock of loose sheet papers make a break for it as he nears the table. He stoops down, crimson faced, to collect them.

“You’re late, Pawlin” Alhaitam says, sounding somewhere between bored and mildly put out. “You’re lucky Lesser Lord Kusanali’s benevolent as she is, because we would have started without you.”

“Apologies, grand Scribe,” Pawlin says. “Apologies, everyone. My tardiness is inexcusable.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you were able to make it.”

The sage looks at her like a stuffed animal, despite Nahida being sure she had said it as nicely as she could. Some of the people are still getting used to her appearance. Taxidermy was fine and all, but she still wishes they would be a little more discrete about it. Scanning her up and down like that was not a good show of manners. “Right. Eremite mercenaries have been hijacking shipments on route to Port Ormos. We need to resolve this matter swiftly.”

She’d been informed prior to the meeting. Luckily, Nahida already has a solution in mind.

“Oh, I have-”

“Already on it,” a female sage, Kathya, says. “In addition, we should recompensate the merchants who’ve lost their wares. Any ideas?”

“With what money? Surely you don’t mean with Akademiya funding!”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“I think-” Nahida tries again, but her voice is swallowed into the sea of conversation.

“Possibly. Certain Darshans- erhm Kshahrewar- are currently over budget,” Alhaitam says, checking his notes. “It wouldn’t be a terrible idea.”

“Are you kidding me?”

The conversation goes on without her. Nahida knows she should be speaking up, and yet, any sound dies in her throat. She stares at the table, letting the sounds of human voices wash over her. It hadn’t been that important. She could just wait until there was a natural break in conversation, so she didn’t have to talk over anyone. Talking over someone was cutting off their ideas- there was no way, with her avid support of the pursuit of knowledge, she could discourage free thought like that.

At some point, she feels like her body is beginning to drift. Floating, in a dark space with no-one around. Nahida’s been her before, although usually it’s a lot nicer. More greenery, less dank. Maybe she’ll catch a glimpse of the faceless woman, the one that sort of looks like older her. Older her was nice, if a little brutal at times in her honesty. Nahida doesn’t mind. Older her was good company through thick and thin, so she couldn’t complain.

“Hello?”

The void is strangely silent. It’s unnerving that way, when no-one calls back. She hopes Older her isn’t ignoring her. Because- well, it was that, or she had imagined the whole thing. She isn’t sure which is worse. It would suck if even her own mind was content to let her go silent.

No one cares, inner voice says. Nahida pouts. Inner voice could be a real buzzkill sometimes. She doesn’t even know why she bothered consulting it.

“You really are a strange god, you know that?”

“You’re being a real critic today, inner me.”

“Excuse me!?”

That voice. That voice isn’t hers at all. No, that voice sounds like-

“Balladeer?”

Nahida doesn’t even remember starting the connection. Usually she was more aware of those things, because doing it subconsciously was generally a bad idea. The Balladeer sounds tired, more than anything, when he sighs. Heavy and bone weary.

“Sorry,” she says automatically, “I’ll sever the connection-”

“Forget it. What are you doing?”

“I’m in a meeting?”

“I know that.” She can almost hear the eye roll. “Why aren’t you speaking? Are you just going to let those fools waste your time like that? Actually, they’re worse than fools- they don’t even realize how disrespectful they’re being, speaking over a god like that.”

Nahida should be saying something like “It’s no big deal” or “I can handle this. Please be respectful to my people.” But instead, a thought creeps over her, and it’s filled with an uncomfortable feeling. One she’s not used to.

Anger.

“I don’t know what to say to make them stop,” Nahida says. She can let herself be angry, in this safe environment, but she won’t let it outside. She can’t. She can’t do that to her people, let them see the ugliness within, because then-

“I do.”

In a move that surprises herself most of all, Nahida lets go. Maybe it was her subconscious telling her enough was enough. Or maybe it was because there was that little bit of hope that bloomed because someone else thought this wasn’t right. Either way, it ends with her watching herself leap onto the meeting table, a verdant glare aimed at the sages beneath her.

“ALL RIGHT, QUIET DOWN!”

“L-lesser lord Kusanali?” Even Alhaitam looks surprised. Nahida would be impressed, if she wasn’t shriveling up with embarrassment.

“You will listen to what I have to s-”

“Lord Kusanali,” a sage interjects, “If you’re not feeling well, perhaps-”

Feet patter along the table. The sage looks up to see his archon’s glare, chin tilted to look down at him like he was a crushed cockroach under a shoe. He shrinks back.

“Interrupt me one more time, and the only thing you’ll be feeling is sand in your crack for the rest of your miserable short life.”

Watching herself reprimand a room full of Akademiya faculty had to be one of the strangest out of body experiences Nahida’s witnessed. She really should stop him, because the sorts of things that are coming out of Scaramouche’s mouth are enough to cause a national incident. Some of the sages look completely horrified, save for Alhaitham and his singularly raised eyebrow. And yet, she lets it go on for a little longer than she maybe should, because, beneath all her worry and guilt, there’s a little part of her that’s secretly pleased.

---

In Nahida’s dreams, she is attending a festival- maybe for her birthday, maybe not, that’s not the important part- what matters is the people in attendance. There’s a recurring cast of colorful characters, each with their own unique design and personality. Faceless once, they had only sharpened in detail as time went on and the dream became more realized. There’s the dancer, Nilou; the scribe, Alhaitham; the lady, Dunryzard; the lionhearted mercenary, Dehya; the jackal- and of course, there’s the blond traveler and their silver companion. There are so many dishes laid out on the cloth runner: fragrant curries and charcoal cakes and sweets. There is laughter and witty conversation, and Nilou performs her dance just for them, and takes Nahida’s hands to dance with her-

This dream was feasible, Nahida knew. In fact, the celebration feast for her rescue is where she thinks she had drawn most of the inspiration from. Now, some part of her wonders if it would have been better to have gone in person. She’s weighed the pros and the cons (a wise and logical process to determine the best course of action). She’d deliberated.

She really wanted to go.

 You’ll make things awkward, inner voice says. They’ll be nice about it and hide it, but you know that.

But of course, she had to honor her archon status, and the fact that no invitation had been extended to her (Do archons need invitations?), so a simple speech had sufficed. She’d been too busy, after all. Yes.

Regardless, Nahida still wants to go to a festival in person. There is one coming up, actually, near the end of the month to celebrate the solstice. A festival, just for the sun. Unfortunately, she is still terribly busy, not to mention her newest problem child (puppet? man?), which would make attending in person a great deal more difficult. She could ask the Traveler to take her- no doubts there’d be a yes there- but she doesn’t want to bother a busy person for something silly like this.

So it remains a dream.

Besides, Nahida isn’t even sure if she’d would have her body to attend anything in person.

Nahida shouldn’t laugh, but Scaramouche really is having a hard time keeping up. She offers a piggyback, but it’s declined before she can even finish the sentence. When he slips for the fourth time, falling flat on his face an into the mud, dirt splattering across his pinafore, Nahida stoops down to peer at him.

“I’ll hold your hand if you want.”

A white head of hair lifts to glare at her frostily, but it’s far less intimidating with his current face. “Mock me, but it’s still futile.”

“I’m not mocking you.”

Nahida thinks her hand looks smaller than ever, from this perspective. Small, with short, stubby fingers. She really, really hopes they grow longer so they’d stop looking like baby carrots. She wishes she’d grow in general, so people would stop looking down at her. She gets she’s small, no reminder needed. Nahida reaches down to take one of the hands and pulls Scaramouche to his feet.

He grumbles, stalking onward. “Drink more milk.”

“I’m vegan.”

“Of course you are.”

They make it back to the gates of Sumeru city by late evening. Hopefully, Nahida can sneak them both back to the Sanctuary without causing too much commotion. It was getting better, but her people were still getting used her presence. Adding a former Harbinger into the mix would only complicate things.

Unfortunately, it seems she won’t be getting the choice.

At the city gates are a congregated mass of corps of thirty soldiers, completely blocking the entrance. They’ve mastered organized chaos to a T, with their milling about until someone came along. Then it was like flies to a dung pile, the way they surrounded the poor resident trying to pass through the gates. Encircled, they’re transported into Sumeru in a human vesicle. On the fringes of the crowd of gatekeepers, arms folded, is none other than the General Mahamatra himself.

Cyno scans the road up to the city with fervency. He’s scaring the populace; Nahida will have to pull him aside to talk to him about it in the future. For his enemies it was well suited, but in residental areas that expression would make someone’s kid cry.

As if hearing her thoughts, Cyno’s eyes flick to hers.

As soon as she’s spotted, there are a good dozen spear heads pointed in her direction. “It’s the Balladeer!”

“UNHAND HER!” A purple blur-

With even more ferocity than usual, Cyno comes at them like a strike of lightening. He is a tempest, blood eyes obscured, and face shadowed by his hat. His fury, though well disguised, does not escape her. Nahida shifts, yanking Scaramouche behind her as Cyno streaks past. It’s lucky, she thinks, that Scaramouche’s body is light on his feet. She reaches out with a hand to grasp his consciousness before he can leap again.

“Wait!” Nahida calls out. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. No-one’s escaped or supplanted me. It’s uh—me, in here.”

It falls on deaf ears. Cyno continues to struggle, tunnel visioned, on her.

It's difficult. He possesses an unbelievably strong will. Cyno fights it all the while, limbs straining and trembling with effort. The hatred shocks her, more than anything. She can’t recall a single person who has ever looked at her the way Cyno looks at her right now, like she is something monstrous that needs to be destroyed. A lump forms at the back of her throat.

“Stop this.”

Her own voice. Scaramouche brushes past her legs. Cyno’s eyes widen as he approaches, momentarily falling limp.

“Lesser Lord Kusanali?”

He stops in front of Cyno with a face of stone.

With blinding speed, a small foot kicks up in between Cyno’s legs. Right in the money shot. Cyno wheezes, doubling over, to the sound of a young girl’s cackling.

“Whoops. My foot slipped.”

“Balladeer,” Cyno coughs out at the same time Nahida exclaims, grabbing him under the arms and pulling him away. He sticks out his tongue.

Like Nahida said. One step forwards, two steps back. She’s not suppressing laughter. She’s not- because that would be cruel and ill-suited. She will not laugh at Cyno’s pain, no matter how much the mental image of his sheer surprise is now stamped in her memories. Not even if Scaramouche spares a quick glance to her with the smuggest expression she’s ever seen, on her face or otherwise.

He laughs, “Nice going, General. What title would you earn if you skewered your own archon?”

Cyno grunts, looking over to Nahida. He opens his mouth, then closes it. Then opens it again.

“Lesser Lord Kusanali?”

“Hi!”

Cyno stares. Then he turns around, perhaps in a show to hide his confusion, issues orders to the men behind him. “Tell Rukh Shah and the others to stand down. False alarm.” He clears his throat. “My apologies, Lord Kusanali. I did not know you’d be taking on his form.”

“I wasn’t planning to either. It was a mishap, you could say- It’s like we were fruit picking, and then I put my fruit in someone else’s basket by mistake.”

He frowns, not quite in understanding. His eyes scan over her.

“Are you injured?”

Nahida hesitates. If he was asking about his attack, then the answer was no. The answer for her in general, was no. The body she’s currently inhabiting on the other hand did look a little rough. She can feel Scaramouche’s eyes on her, weighing her down.

“No,” she says.

Cyno nods with all the gravity she knows him for, and bows his head. “I hope the matter is swiftly resolved then.”

The other mercenaries are still sneaking glances at the two of them. They’re a strange pair, Nahida knows, she can’t fault them for it. Stares or not, Nahida ignores them to bend down in front of her body, taking it by the shoulders.

“Are you alright?”

Scaramouche is giving her an odd look. Unreadable. She doesn’t know if it’s shock, or some mix of that and suspicion. Absentmindedly, she reaches out to ruffle his head. Nahida is starting to get why everyone wants to do this to her all the time. Strangely, he lets her.

A throat clears.

Cyno, fidgeting in a way that wasn’t becoming of him at all, says, “Oh, and one other thing. Guuji Yae has been requesting to visit you.”

The head under Nahida’s hand stills.

“Oh. Thank you for letting me know.”

Yae Miko. Nahida has never met the Guuji of the Grand Narukami shrine, but she’d looked her up, much like she had for anyone Nahida felt the Dendro Archon should know. Frankly, Nahida has wanted to meet her for a long time, not only as someone in the same age range as her, but as an envoy from Inazuma and an exceptionally shrewd negotiator. There must be something she could learn from a character like that.

Ideally, their first meeting would be under less strange circumstances. But she had heard that Yae was a reasonable woman, so Nahida’s sure she would understand.

She just wishes she knew why Scaramouche seems to have frozen. A small hand clings to the bottom of her shorts. It tightens.

---

II. Shoes

Because Nahida doesn’t want to keep him cooped up any longer than he needs to, she assigns the Balladeer to ‘make amends to the community he damaged’ by performing community service. Community service. He’d thought she was joking. Nahida assured him, quite seriously, that she was not.

Ever since their conversation over a few games of Shogi, things seem to be improving. They play frequently now, not just Shogi, but branching out: Chess. Checkers. Connect four. Sometimes, they forget the whole question- answer rule, and just play for the sake of it. Nahida has an entire collection of games stocked up, and she wants to go through them all at least once. Especially now she has someone to play with.

The Balladeer’s been doing the work without complaint. The children love him, for some reason, and the elders do too; he keeps coming back with too much hibiscus tea and Sumerian sweets (which he hates, he tells her) so Nahida ends up with a gift basket’s worth of goods she has no idea what to do with. There’s a cat metaphor to be made here, she thinks, but sweets are much better than dead birds even if the sentiment’s the same.

Overall, Nahida’s just relieved she doesn’t have to put him down.

Scaramouche is oddly insistent on one matter, though, concerning her shoes- or namely the lack of them. It’s so unexpected, that when he brings it up it feels like a smack across the face.

“You shouldn’t walk around outside barefoot.”

The worst part is he says it without a hint of sarcasm. They had been strolling around in one of the fields just outside the city: at night, of course, when the world was asleep. The vines on their trellises are like natural screens, and each creates a green hallway among the tracks of dirt.

“I don’t mind.”

Nahida runs, leaping into a mound of soft soil. Squish-squish. She likes the texture of it between her toes. It feels much better than the kind in her dreams. It’s still slightly moist, either from a previous rain judging from the thick petrichor it gives, or a future one. The dampness in the air leads her to believe it’s the second. When she tires of it, Nahida manifests a swing and hops onto it, breathing in the humid air and closes her eyes.

Scaramouche folds his arms, leaning against a rotting post. “Then see if you mind when some rotten twig shoves itself up your heel. Seriously, do you even know what you step in half the time?”

It’s going to rain. “I’d like to remind you I’m a fully rational Archon capable of making her own decisions.”

“I know. You just happen to make terrible ones.”

First of all, that is irrefutably false. And second of all- being nagged about shoes is one thing, because no-one dared question Lesser Lord Kusanali, but being nagged by Scaramouche is another. She wonders if she should remind him yet again that she isn’t actually a child. Technically, she is the older one, and the god of wisdom to boot. She of all people did not need to be told that wearing shoes was a smart idea when trekking outside.

And yet, there is something about it that makes her happy.

“I don’t think you of all people should be chastising me about terrible life decisions.” That snaps his mouth shut very quickly. Nahida doesn’t want it to be too scalding, so she beams. He glares, but it quickly folds, face disappearing under the brim of his hat.

“Touché,” he mutters, as she slips off the swing before the first drops can fall.

Mother. It’s a very loaded word. The people of Sumeru say it with such reverence. Scaramouche says it like an unhealing wound. Supposedly the Dendro Archon is very maternal, in the eyes of the people of Sumeru. Wise. Kind. The word itself means very little to her, but the word is still inherently meaningful. She understands, what it is like to want to shelter the young and innocent dreams of children, the old and their accumulated wisdom. To nurture. To protect.

Nahida can’t remember ever having a mother. She’s contemplated it before, what it would have been like, to be fed homecooked meals or read to sleep, or have someone nagging to her about dressing properly for the climate. To be fair, none of those things were specific to “Mothers.” They could be done by anyone: family, friends, former enemies that try and replace you as God. The fact that this was the closest thing she’d experienced of the concept so far is far funnier to her than it should be.

There were many contradictions, she supposes, that had been permitted to allow their existence. They go hand in hand: two wolves, as the saying went, and the fed wolf got stronger. A cruel mouthed brat could calm a child’s tantrum right after throwing his own. A god with access to unparalleled knowledge could still feel stupid. It is like a many-sided die, and only the face that lies up is the face revealed to the world. If Nahida keeps rolling, how long will it take to see them all, she wonders? It’s a gambling game- because she doesn’t even know how many sides there are on her die.

She reaches up to slip her palm into his, and he startles, but allows it to stay there.

“I appreciate your concern though.”

The Balladeer’s mouth twists, but no denial comes this time. He’s silent, grasping her hand as they avoid the mud puddles in the rain laden fields. When the heralded rain falls from the sky, it’s no bother. She’s small, and the hat is big enough for two.

---

Yae Miko.

“Just so you know, she might try and kill you,” Scaramouche tells her.

Nahida thinks he’s joking. Her own grim face staring back at her leads her to think otherwise. This seems to be a recurring issue: people wanting to kill the Balladeer for some reason or other. It’s just another thing they’ll have to work on.

She’s taking him along, because one, she doesn’t trust anyone else to watch him (or be capable of watching him) and two, because the more she hears about Yae Miko, the more the sound of backu- company, sounds appealing.

The third reason comes from Scaramouche himself, because he asks her for a favor. His one and only, he tries to make it clear.

They’d agreed to meet in one of the garden pavilions on the upper floors of Sumeru city. It’s a secluded area, where Nahida knows they won’t be disturbed by any of the students. Nahida’s prepared tea for the occasion, an Inazuman brand she hopes will make Yae feel a little more at ease. Scaramouche refuses to touch it, so it’s really just for the two of them. As the minutes tick closer, the squirming wormy feeling in her stomach grows. The tea is no longer steaming. She resists the urge to swing her legs under the table. She’s not ‘Nahida’ right now, so it wouldn’t be right.

“Stop fidgeting,” he murmurs. “You’ll give up the game.”

Nahida straightens her back and pulls her face into her best scowl. It must not be very good, because Scaramouche gives her an exasperated look, far more long suffering than it should be. She lets the expression drop. Poker face it is, then.

Just when she wonders if Yae won’t be coming at all, the rustle of bushes makes both their heads turn.

“Well well, what do we have here?”

She strides forwards like a ghost, robes fluttering in the wind, all pink hair and saccharine smiles. Her kitsune nature is clear upon first sight of her ears, and while Nahida sees no tail, she knows it’s around somewhere. Elusive, much like the woman herself.

Yae Miko has the sort of expression that a fox might have after catching a particularly fat, juicy mouse. She steps lightly towards the table, barely making a sound: exactly like the predator her heritage would suggest.

To her left, Scaramouche is trembling. At first Nahida mistakes it for fear, because that’s what she’s used to on her own face. She almost doesn’t recognize the expression: foreign and ill-suited.

If looks could kill- Well, if that were true, Yae Miko would be long dead by now. Barely contained fury isn’t a bad look for her. In fact, Nahida would say it’s her most intimidating expression yet. But it’s not what he needs right now, if he wants to follow the plan they’d agreed to stick to. She nudges his shoulder, and his expression quickly blanks. It’s replaced by a placid smile, harmless and a little shy.

By the time Yae has approached, the ‘little Dendro Archon’ is waiting peacefully, hands folded in his lap.

“You must be Yae Miko,” he says, in a familiar tone of voice. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“As have I,” Yae notes, glance slipping to Nahida. She smiles without teeth. “Though I have to say, you did not mention you were bringing a guest. Three’s a crowd, hmm?”

There’s something insidious about the way those violet eyes are looking at her. For anyone other than her, it might have been well disguised, but for Nahida, it’s as clear as day. They’re analytical, tearing her apart piece by piece with a single look before appraising her worth. They’re intrigued, but not surprised, to find her sitting here. And finally, they settle into unabashed, self-indulgent amusement.

“I think the three of us are long overdue for a conversation,” Scaramouche says, narrowing his eyes. “Care for tea?”

Her eyes sweep back to him, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary in her gaze.

“Very well,” she says.

Metal screeches against concrete as Yae Miko pulls out a seat across from him, too slow to be anything but purposeful, and tucks her robes beneath her to sit. She draws a light breath and motions for the tea pot with a flutter of fingers. When Nahida reaches over to pass it to her, her arms still. The smile on her face never leaves, but there’s a strained quality to it now as she meets Nahida’s eye. She accepts it, regardless.

“So,” she says, emphasized by the sound of pouring liquid, “How have you been handling things here? I hear there’s been quite a turn of events.”

The Balladeer gives her a tight smile. “Sumeru is flourishing under my guidance.”

To his credit, Scaramouche doesn’t hesitate in his answers as ‘Nahida’. Flourishing is a nice turn of phrase, both capturing the revitalization of the withered land as well as its people.  But under her guidance? No, no, he is just emulating what he thinks the Dendro Archon would say. Nahida’s been adequate, no more or less. She can’t let her head get any bigger, or it might swell and float away.

She feels a swell of contentment, nonetheless. Nahida looks down at her knees and tries not to smile.

“And you? How fares Inazuma?”

“It’s been wonderful,” Yae places her tea cup down, and folds her hands, one on top of the other. “Now that the vision hunt decree fiasco is over, a new era is upon us. It was a rather exciting period, but I must admit it is nice to return to peace. I don’t want to get too bogged down by the details- Oh, but I’m sure the Balladeer could tell you far more about that than I could.”

There’s a semi smile on Yae’s face as she regards Nahida. Smiles are not weapons, they are not wounding things, and yet the way Yae’s expression plays on her face, delighted and wary all at once, feels like a direct attack. Nahida remembers now- there was something about a pastime of making people squirm. “I think that’s enough pleasantries, hmm? On this tangent, I actually came here to apologize. See, I feel quite awful that my handing over the gnosis to a certain someone caused a great deal of trouble for Sumeru.”

The intake of breath from Scaramouche sounds involuntary. “No need. You weren’t… responsible for the actions of the Fatui.”

Every word sounds like it’s being dragged out of him. Nahida doesn’t know if there was anything for her to say right now. Somehow, Scaramouche is keeping up the act. She’s just…surprised, more than anything.

“No, I wasn’t,” Yae agrees, eyes focusing back on Nahida. She feels like she should say something, but her mind is blanking under that gaze. She’s not a good actor. What would the Balladeer say? Deny it? Apologize? Nahida realizes- she doesn’t know. Like a many faced die, unpredictable until you rolled.

“I…”

“The Balladeer has a lot to make up for,” he says smoothly, and Yae’s attention is caught once more. A slow grin curls over her face.

“So it’s true then. You’ve taken a stray Harbinger under your wing. You’re more of a gambler than I thought, Buer.”

“I’m taking a chance.” Scaramouche does a half-hearted shrug, a bare shift of shoulders. Begrudging, each word is, even if well disguised, but they’re coming out regardless. His eyes slip to Nahida, steady, and she tries not to let her mouth part. “I know it’s risky, but I’m only giving him one. I have faith he won’t waste it.”

Nahida has never told him, exactly, what would happen if he slipped up- and from what’s she’s just heard, she doesn’t need to. Somehow, the Balladeer has already caught onto her thought processes, understanding her situation as well as his own. It’s- she’s- there’s a warm feeling creeping in her chest, because, goddess, she’s weirdly proud. He’s learning. She nudges his foot under the table, and a second later, feels a nudge back.

A dismissive hand, followed by an equally dismissive tone. “As long as your aware of the potential danger. Oh, did I mention why I had to trade the gnosis? The prototype’s quite fond of attempted murder of our dear, mutual friend, see-“

Nahida thinks she sees the game Yae Miko is playing, and she’s not sure if she likes it. It’s not wrong, for the cold truth to be shoved in their faces like a rotting anchovy. Nahida has no interest in covering it up with leaves of platitudes, pretending, “well, he didn’t mean to,” or “but he wasn’t successful.”  Accountability is important, but it’s clear from the half smirk on the woman’s face that this isn’t meant to be educational.

“I’m aware.” Suddenly, Scaramouche is no longer looking at her. Nahida can’t blame him- but at the same time, she knows it’s for the best. Remorse is uncomfortable, painful even, eating away at the inside- but like the bitterest of medicine, it was necessary for the long run. The fact that he is here, unable to look Nahida in the eye, means there is hope for him.

Yae’s gaze shifts.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, Balladeer.”

And yet again, Nahida’s in the line of fire. It’s like verbal warfare, the way Yae Miko prods at them both. A paranoid part of her says Yae’s waiting for one of them to slip up. Under that penetrating gaze, Nahida does her best to shrug it off. She straightens her back, and prepares her next move.

“Like Nahida said, I have a lot to make up for,” she says. “I’ve been a massive dickhead.”

On second thought, that might have constituted friendly fire. There’s a cough to her left- perhaps more like choking, as a small body doubles over. Yae raises an eyebrow at the Dendro Archon’s display. “My, are you alright?”

“Yes- shit- I mean, language-”

Technically, Nahida may have just given up another point to game #23, Make Nahida swear. That had started when Nahida had stepped barefoot in cow manure that had been inconspicuously hiding along the road. Between the Balladeer’s incessant gloating (Shoes! See, Shoes!), and her long string of fluffy expletives followed by a long debate about how no, Drat! and Fiddlesticks! are not considered graphic language- they’d come to an agreement.

Although technically it is now net neutral, because the rules stipulated Scaramouche, as a counterbalance, was not supposed to.

Yae Miko, who had up until now seemed in control of the conversation, is completely lost for words. And with that chink in her persona, the tension hanging over the table lightens somehow. Nahida can’t help it. Maybe it’s the absurdity of seeing herself insist that a fly had flown into her throat, and Yae Miko’s half bewildered, half put out expression of clearly not buying it- but she laughs anyways. She really hopes Yae doesn’t think Nahida’s laughing at her, as Yae Miko’s only trying to help when she sets down a mug of lukewarm tea in front of ‘Nahida’ to help soothe the throat, only for ‘her’ to pick it up and chuck it into a nearby planter box without thinking. Nahida might have to add ‘tea assassination’ to Yae Miko’s list of potential skills.

It's not poisoned. Nahida’s been watching.

He freezes in realization, she freezes in confusion, and Nahida can’t stop fucking giggling. She should probably excuse herself from the table. Or get her camera. It’s all horribly awkward, and judging by the expression Yae Miko has right now, Nahida wonders if she regrets coming to Sumeru at all.

“I really don’t know what you find so amusing, Balladeer,” Yae Miko says, looking considerably less put together, and with a slight pout to her that had not been there previously. The glare, on the other hand, is less humorous. It’s cold, and like the artic wind blowing in on a lukewarm spring day, Nahida’s laughter dies.

“Yae Miko. I have something to ask of you,” Scaramouche says, finally recovered from the coughing fit. It’s left his eyes slightly raw. But with the way he’s looking at her, it eerily fits.

“Yes?”

“Beelzebub. You can reach her?”

So this was his favor. Nahida looks over, but his expression remains unchanged. It’s making more sense now, what he had said to her that night, a while back.

“I can. Usually though, she gets all snippety when she’s disturbed.” She glances over to Nahida, something unreadable in her eyes. “Much less when it’s unexpected-”

“Even if you tell her Buer wishes to speak with her?”

Yae Miko pauses. “You wish to speak with her? Well then.”

 She smiles.

“Who am I to deny a god?”

The small round item she sets down on the table looks a bit like a rabbit. A very round, very cute rabbit, with a deep red wrapping around its midsection. A small sewn mouth, shaped like a triangle, gives it a sad pout.

“This lovely item was gifted to me from a rather intriguing bard I met. Once Ei figured out how it worked, I’ve been using it to keep in touch with her, all without her having to leave her dear, comforting Plane of Euthymia. It’s a long-distance communication device- just press the button and speak after the tone.” Her eyes crinkle. “Say. If you ever tire of speaking to others by way of their dreams, you should consider acquiring one too.”

There’s a click, and Yae says into the device, “Ei? It’s me.”

“Ah, Miko. Is something the matter?”

Nahida has never heard the Electro Archon’s voice outside of the records in Irminsul- but that’s to be expected when you’re locked up for hundreds of years. Specifically, Nahida’s never heard it in the waking world. But dreams often mirror reality, so the voice is still familiar, if a bit hazy.

“I’m actually here with Buer. She wishes to speak with you,” Yae continues.

The Balladeer, on the other hand-

That expression: he is merely staring, wide eyed, at the stuffed rabbit on the table. Nahida’s been through his memories: it’s not like Beelzebub is non-existent in there. Far from it. She never says much, though. And Nahida realizes, then, that this might be the first time he’s hearing her voice outside of a dream too.

Chapter Text

III. Joyride

Sometime into week 5 of Post- liberation of the Dendro Archon, Dunyarzad invites her goddess out to tea. Nahida’s more than happy to be seeing her again, outside of the occasional visit to her dreams to check up on her mental wellbeing. She’s been in and out of Dunyarzad’s dreams since childhood, so they’re familiar sights, like checking up on well-tended plants sitting on a windowsill. Nahida is overjoyed to find that at some point they’d turned into cacti, needing to be watered only on occasion. Dunyarzad has grown into a fine, robust young lady. She’ll still checkup of course, but now she can allocate more nights to those in greater need.

If he had let her, Nahida would have done the same for Scaramouche, but he doesn’t, launching into an entire tirade on its ‘violating nature’ and ‘plain creepiness.’ Nahida doesn’t get his view at all, since her presence could chase away the nightmares that left him more sullen than usual come daytime- but she’ll respect his wishes. She always makes sure to disguise herself appropriately when dream hopping (she’s not oblivious to her presence) so those issues that plague the people of Sumeru during the day will find comfort in a loved one or a friendly face guiding them to work through it at night.

If she wakes up more exhausted than when she had first laid her head down, it’s no trouble. It’s a price Nahida’s more than happy to pay if it makes for a happier and healthier Sumeru. The morning she’s supposed to meet Dunyarzad is a particularly tiring one; it had been a productive night, she thinks, because there’s a residual buzz of contentment in her chest as she wanders to unfuzz her brain. There are not a lot of places to go wandering in the sanctuary, so it’s inevitable that one of those places, by sheer lack of floorspace, is the Balladeer’s quarters. When her half-yawned greeting is returned with a sharp “Go back to bed,” Nahida realizes she must look really exhausted.

She’s not cancelling, no matter what the Balladeer says, and especially not on Dunyarzad. She finds her day smock and fixes her hair and looks for her other shoe- only to remember, oh right- and is out the Sanctuary door with a good half hour to spare.

Dunyarzad is happy to see her, Nahida doesn’t have to read her mind to know that. She sits across the table from her at the Tavern, a warm smile on her face. She’s not the only one- Dunyarzad’s brought the lionhearted Eremite too. Dehya is less reticent in her joy, the low lighting from the lamp flashing against her teeth. Pleasantries are exchanged, something about work and business, and how things have changed for the better; Nahida doesn’t catch every word, because underneath her attentive nodding she may or may not also be nodding off- but eventually, Dehya sets her cup down and her electric blue gaze turns steely.

“We’re worried about you. I know you’re our Archon, and are far wiser than we are, but we’ve noticed a concerning- uh, development,” Dehya says.

Nahida blinks to find both her and Dunyarzad looking right at her. When she meets Duyarzad’s gaze, the woman quickly looks down at her lap. “You are?”

Dehya forges on, calmly, conversationally. It’s a very good negotiation tone. Nahida’s proud of her, too. “Yes. We’ve heard you’ve been spending a considerable amount of time with the Balladeer. I know you have a compassionate heart, but you don’t need to force yourself to spend time with someone that mistreats or belittles you. You don’t owe him anything.”

So that’s what this is about. Even though the Akasha terminals have been disabled, rumors still spread like the stench of skunk juice on every piece of clothing within a five-mile radius. It was only a matter of time before her people started speculating on what she would do with the Balladeer. Most that reach her ears involve which ‘punishment’ would suffice, but there are a few supportive voices too- mainly from the children and elderly in the remote villages, who had just been happy to receive a much needed hand in their communities regardless of where it had been previously.

Nahida stares down at the table, hard.

“I know.”

“Look, I’m not good with those metaphors like you are, but it’s like-” Dehya scrunches her face. “setting yourself on fire to keep others warm. As for the Balladeer- I’m not sure if you realize it, but a friendship with someone like that can never be healthy. He’s not a good influence.”

Friendship? That would be pushing it, Nahida thinks. It’s much more of an agreement. But if Dehya seems to think so, Nahida is not really inclined to correct her, necessarily.

“I appreciate your concern, Dehya.”

Deyha doesn’t look quite convinced, so Nahida changes the subject completely, asking about what they’re looking forwards to, and Dunyarzad replies with some sort of ‘girl’s night’ at her place with Dehya, who, for the first time since the conversation had started, is suddenly shy. Dunyarzad laughs and Deyha covers her face, and says something like “Nilou’s coming too,” and Nahida watches it all with a bright smile. They’re going to say more, but Dunyarzad glances at her, then, and the details die at her lips.

Nahida likes Dunyrazard and Dehya, really likes them. But as the conversation moves on, she realizes, with a sinking feeling, that as much as Dunyrazad liked her it doesn’t mean that Nahida’s getting invited to sleepovers or family dinners or parties. Buer is on a pedestal- highly beloved, of course, but that only makes it harder for Nahida to jump down. She wants to pull herself closer, even though it would be trespassing on the lives of mortals and treading beyond that line of Archon and follower. She could try, she thinks. But another part of her thinks the sheer force of love Nahida’s holding back would scare them away.

As their luncheon ends, Dunyarzad turns at the door to the tavern and leaves her with a few well wishes. “Take some time for yourself, okay? We don’t want you to burn yourself out.”

Their words do make her wonder, though. Why is she going to these lengths in the first place? The Dendro Archon’s reason for helping people was simple. It was her purpose- if Nahida didn’t help Sumeru, she wouldn’t be much of a ‘Nahida’ at all. She wouldn’t be anything, really. The Balladeer is not one of her people, however. Far from it.

Is it because she cares for him? Well, yes, but Nahida cares for everybody. Caring is a fundamental part of her being; if she didn’t care, Nahida isn’t sure if she could exist. Like a riddle to be solved, she ponders it over in her mind, partly relishing in the fact that she doesn’t know- which is rare.

It’s a question that sticks in her mind, days after.

Nahida sits on her bed, legs kicking and adrift in her own thoughts as she watches the Balladeer twist and turn in front of the mirror. He looks rather nice in blue- better than green, they’d agreed, even if it matched the vision better. Scaramouche scowls, fiddling with it over the left side of his breast, and just so he’d stop huffing so loudly, Nahida pushes herself off the bed and comes up behind him.

“Let me help.”

“I can do it m-”

“Kneel down already,” Nahida says, and wordless, he hands her the vision and kneels. Her hands aren’t clever at all, but her fingers are small, and able to pull the string through the narrow hole in the plating. Once it’s secured, she pulls her hands away and regards her handiwork with a critical eye; it’ll hold, she thinks, as long as it isn’t tugged away in the middle of a fight. Satisfied, she pats his shoulder. “There. You’re all good to go.”

One of Scaramouche’s hands lift to cup it, holding it as if it were a chick about to hatch in the small nest of his palm, and directs an expression of near wonder at her. It catches her off guard, because it’s the most genuine display she’s seen from him yet- so Nahida smiles, because she’s not quite sure what else to do.

“Hnn.” He draws back up, tucking his hat forwards, and the moment is over. Nahida looks left, catching herself in the mirror. The short girl with pointed ears glances back at her from the corner of her eye, arms tucked behind her back. Rather plain, she thinks, standing next to the striking silhouette beside her.

Forgettable, inner voice says.

Nahida turns her thoughts back to “the question” instead, because puzzle solving has always been her forte. She’s good at finding answers. Sorting out how she feels, however…ehhh. She’ll have to experiment. Collect data. Come to a conclusion. A test was required, and there’s no better time than now, she supposes.

When Nahida reaches out to hug the Balladeer’s midsection, he stills. The red lined eyes in the mirror widen, but Nahida is too busy focusing. Is this fear, she’s feeling? No, that doesn’t seem right. There’s not nearly enough unpleasantry. Instead it’s- nice, in a way. Like the sun on her back after a long stretch in the shade. Maybe there should be fear, too. It would be a wise response, to fear, or maybe at very least be wary. She tries to grasp it, but the feeling slips away like fish skin against fingers.

Incredulously, he asks, “What tactic are you trying now?!”

“Shh.” Nahida tries to focus again, but her concentration is ruined. Dang it.

“Weirdo.”

“Brat.”

There’s a sigh, followed by a tentative hand on her head. The touch is feather light. “What’s up, then?”

Nahida pulls back to see the Balladeer regarding her in the mirror with a complicated expression to say the least. “I want to do something, but you have to promise not to laugh.”

She takes a deep breath.

“I want to ride a cart down those ramps from the doors of the Sanctuary all the way to the gates.”

It’s not unreasonable, she thinks. They’re all rather nicely placed, and though speeds over a high enough velocity would make some of those sharp turns rather difficult, with a steady hand and a few modifications, it shouldn’t be too hard to negate. It’s a terrible idea- she already knows this- but. But. The curiosity’s going to kill her, if this doesn’t. This probably isn’t what Dunyarzad had in mind when she’d told Nahida to take some time for herself. Nahida’s taking her advice anyways.

Scaramouche is in pure silence. If he hadn’t looked shocked before, he sure did now.

Then he laughs, looks at her, and laughs even harder.

It’s not that funny. Nahida’s pouting doesn’t seem to be helping him get over it, though. She wishes she had a more intimidating expression in her arsenal. “What, don’t tell me you’ve never been curious to see if it’s possible too!”

Scaramouche resorts to gasping, “No, no it’s not that- it’s just- God of Wisdom my ass.”

Her hands find her hips. “Yes or no, Balladeer!”

Finally, he straightens up, far too amused for his own good. He meets her eye. “Let’s do it.”

Sumeru has an abundance of abandoned carts lying around, but the key is finding one that won’t fly apart with the slightest bit of abuse. Most of the wheels they find are too rotted, too jammed, or had simply missed their boarding call entirely. All of these factors make for very poor carts indeed, and while Nahida knows that many of them have been retired into glorified potted plant holders, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed. When they do stumble on an adequate cart, it’s in the back garden of an occupied house. Decidedly not abandoned- which made perfect sense in that abandoned things tended to fall into a state of disrepair.

Although they don’t run into any other cart-poachers at night, Nahida keeps a paranoid eye out regardless. They’re not inconspicuous people, and she would rather not have her current lapse of judgement documented in the history books. Hopefully the few people that do see them at this hour will chalk it up to sleep-deprivation.

It would be silly to feel bad for inanimate objects, but for some, inexplicable reason, looking at these partially rotted constructions makes Nahida feel a little sad. Cart graveyard aside, they couldn’t just take the usable cart from someone’s yard. That would be stealing, and Nahida’s never stolen a thing in her life.

“We’re borrowing it,” Scaramouche points out. “There’s a difference.”

“It’s still using someone else’s property without permission.”

“Then just blame it on me,” he grunts, and the wheels come free from their dirt wells. He pushes it towards her, across the vegetable garden. Nahida doesn’t think that would be right either, but after leaving a small IOU on a nearby barrel, she runs to put her two hands on the other side of the cart. She’s not sure if her pushing is actually helping, but the cart is moving forwards regardless, eventually bumping over the stone of the city walkway.

To ride a cart down a ramp, the cart would need to be pushed up said ramp. It’s not an easy process, as neither of them are built for that kind of manual labor. Pigheaded as he is about it, even the Balladeer admits that a few breaks might be in order. They stop on each landing, panting, as the occasional student or merchant walking by gives them a lingering stare.

“What are you looking at?” Scaramouche snaps, as pleasant as hugging a cactus, and they quickly look away, picking up the pace. Nahida levels a glare at him. “What?”

She shakes her head in disappointment.

After much effort, the cart eventually stands ready in front of the Sanctuary doors. It’s then that Nahida starts to get the impression that this might be what is called a very stupid idea. There are no railings, and a mistimed turn would most definitely send the cart plummeting over the edge. Why had she even thought of this in the first place?! They didn’t have helmets, or any sort of protective padding, and a glider wasn’t going to save anyone if the ground came before it could be opened. Her second thoughts about the whole matter show very clearly on her face as the Balladeer, having already hopped in, gives her an unimpressed look. Then he kicks his feet up, hands behind his head as he leans against the back of the cart, and tips his hat forwards onto his face.

“Let me know when you change your mind.”

Nahida looks down at the series of ramps once more. It’s such a terrible idea, but- it might be fun. No, no, what would her people think, seeing their wise Archon undertaking such reckless, foolish behavior? But the feeling of the wind in her hair. They would laugh at her. She feels like a stuffed doll in the middle of a tug of war, one side the responsible Buer, the other falling prey to Nahida’s childish whimsies.

Screw it.

The cart jostles as Nahida leaps in, causing Scaramouche to slip from his perch down into the cart’s interior. He pushes the hat from his eyes, half widened in surprise, as she levels him a grim stare.

“Hold onto your hat.”

“Wait, wait- hold on-”

And with that, she tugs on the green vine affixed to the ground before the cart, and lets gravity handle the rest. It accelerates, wheels rattling against stone as they near the first turn. Nahida reaches out to a second vine, tugging for dear life as the cart swerves around the bend, tipping over dangerously from the momentum. Quick as a viper, the Balladeer slams his hands down on the lifted side to right them, a wild grin slipping onto his face. It breaks into cackling as they reach the second, picking up speed.

There’s a lurch in Nahida’s stomach- the wind, the speed, the exhilaration: she doesn’t think she’s ever been so terrified in her life, and yet, she can’t stop her own mania induced smile as she takes them around the second bend, wheels scraping as they barely clear it. She looks back, ponytail whipping around her face. It’s going surprisingly well; the cart’s making a strange rattling noise, but everything seems to be holding up-

One of the wheels locks up, hitting a raised patch of stone, and suddenly, Nahida is flying.

For that one, weightless moment, it’s picture perfect: beneath the moonlight, with the entire city beneath her feet. Then she’s plummeting, the ground coming up fast. No no no, she thinks, because she needs to summon something to break her fall. Vines. Or a mushroom. Or a…gust of wind?

The current swirls beneath Nahida’s feet, and a moment later she’s surrounded by turquoise cloth and a laughing-mad Balladeer. He catches her midair, but he must have misjudged the effort needed to keep them both afloat because they’re still falling- The grass comes up suddenly, followed by a sound like someone had just been punched in the ribs. Nahida looks up just in time to see the cart fly overhead, crashing heavily into a nearby bush.

Astoundingly, Nahida’s fine. The wheezing chest she’s currently sitting on, on the other hand, might not be. She quickly steps off, and Scaramouche gasps, turning to his side to recover his breath.

“Oh no are you alright!? I’m sorry-”

He raises a hand, still doubled over, and still clearly winded. It had been a stupid idea after all, now she’d gotten someone injured over her silly little wish. Gah, why did she even think of it in the first place-

“That was fun,” he says. Nahida looks over to see Scaramouche sprawled out on the grass, staring up at the sky with a somewhat dazed grin. They’ve somehow cleared the gates completely, landing in the flower-strewn fields just outside of it. After a moment, she lays down as well, feeling the grass pricking the back of her head and legs and yellow scented petals tickle her ears.

“So out of curiosity, what else is on the Dendro Archon’s bucket list?”

“So many things! The whole world is open to me now.” Many, many things, that Nahida had witnessed from afar. “What about you?”

The Balladeer doesn’t answer right away, which meant he was likely seriously considering her question. Nahida waits patiently. There was no need to rush.

“I want to know how my m- Beelzebub really feels about me.” He pointedly doesn’t look at her. It had been said very quietly to boot.

“You want to talk with her.”

“Not at all. I don’t want her to know it was me asking. Then she’s won.”

Nahida turns to him, cheek pressing into the grass. “That seems irrational to me. I think she’d be happy to hear from you.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he says, staring straight ahead. “Besides, don’t act like you’re perfectly rational either. I don’t get why you’re so weird about attending festivals.”

“I don’t want to ruin the atmosphere.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

Nahida has tried to explain it. It’s not easy. She smiles, and with all the audacity that a parrot might, replies, “You wouldn’t understand.”

Scaramouche grumbles, muttering something, probably unkind, under his breath. He’s much more fun to tease, now that she’s starting to grasp what makes him tick. There are few things off limits in their conversations- even if any question about the Balladeer’s past is like pulling teeth. It flows more smoothly now, and Nahida finds herself spending less time calculating what she should say, and more time just letting herself speak. Her next words come out before she’s ready to say them, spoken directly to the stars. “Sometimes, I don’t want to be an Archon.”

A pause. She wonders if he has a hard time grasping the concept. “And why is that?”

“It’s like… a rain barrel in a desert. If they keep scooping water out of me, they’ll eventually reach the bone-dry bottom. Then they’ll be disappointed there’s nothing left.” She closes her eyes. “I don’t want that. I want them to say, you’ve done enough, Nahida. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

There’s a shaking intake of breath. “…Nahida, are you…?”

“I’m okay.”

The breeze on her cheeks feels nice. She hadn’t been lying, just then. There’s nothing but peace and tranquility in her right now. Acceptance, of this, of the world. A quiet enjoyment of the night, and the beautiful white circle hanging in the sky.

---

Click.

“Hello?”

“It’s wonderful to hear your voice, Buer. I hear you’ve made your reappearance at last.”

“Likewise. I was sealed inside of my own sanctuary for half a millennium. You can imagine my relief.”

“Mmm. It does get lonely after a while.”

“It…does.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you a few questions. See, your son recently came into my care.”

“I was not aware I had a son.”

“…Your first puppet.”

“Ah! You mean him. Yes, I had heard of the Fatui’s presence in Sumeru, as well as the loss of the gnosis. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble. How is he?”

“Perhaps it’s best you came and saw him for yourself.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Why not? He considers you family.”

“That was not intentional.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The prototype was a flawed creation- and that is my fault.”

“Your… fault.”

“Yes. I created him too soon after the death of Mak- ah, Baal. I regret to say that I was… indisposed, at the time. My own feelings, that grief, and that something irreplaceable had been taken from me- they must have influenced my creation. The gnosis, as you probably know- was hers. I cannot tell him this, but try as he might, this emptiness is of a sort that can never truly be filled. For that, I am regretful.”

“…”

“Buer? Are you still there?”

“So you have no desire to reconcile with him?”

“Reconcile? I do not understand. You imply that I’ve wronged him in some way.”

“I think you need to take a look at your actions from a different point of view.”

“Again, I’m not quite sure I’m understanding. Is he not content with freedom?”

“No, he is.”

“Hmm. Good.”

“Does that mean you’re okay with how things are between you two then?”

“Yes? Buer, I have to wonder if you’re finding issues where there are none.”

“Right. Yes. Apologies, I must have misread the situation.”

“One more thing. Do you love him?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you love him?

“…Did he ask for you to ask that?” A sigh. “Yes. Of course I do.”

“Great.”

“I do hope he’s enjoying himself and living a fulfilling life. Tell him I wish the best for him.” A pause. “Was that all? Or was there something else you wished to discuss?”

“Another time, perhaps. I- I’ll pass your message on,” Scaramouche says, and the communicator clicks once more to end the call. He exhales.

---

IV. Two steps back

He leaves suddenly, without warning.

Silently, slipping away in the night when Nahida is distracted by the dreams of her people. She knows he’s gone the moment she opens her eyes- because there’s a strange tension in the air. A vacuum opening in the space he had previously occupied, sucking whatever comfort the Sanctuary had possessed away. Her former prison hadn’t been so bad when she wasn’t the only one there, but now, Nahida thinks this stillness will consume her.

The Balladeer’s room is empty. Bed made, spotless, cupboards empty. On the pillow sits the sole indicator that it had ever been occupied. An ornamental golden feather.

The moon hangs over her as Nahida shoves the doors aside, running out to the tree-nestled balcony. The night guards call after her, but she scrambles, stumbling, to the railing. Most of Sumeru is asleep, the houses dark and quiet. Soft smoke drifts from their chimneys, wafting up to her, and she thinks she’ll choke on it all. This sleepy atmosphere, this peaceful world. Her heart is in her throat.

He grew tired of you so he left, inner voice says, and Nahida wants to scream at it to shut up-

“Lord Kusanali?” The mercenary is hovering a few feet away, unsureness written across his face. Nahida’s still in her nightgown- she must look like a mess, like a child who has just awoken from a nightmare. She ignores him, focusing back to more pressing matters.

Where did you go?

Nahida looks out across the landscape, chest hammering. The wind swirls cold around her bare feet. The ground is dizzyingly far away- enough for a nasty fall. Still not as high as the cockpit of a giant death robot. Would It have been merciful, she wonders, if it had been higher?

What are you trying to do?

So many questions, and not even a goodbye. Did he think he could slip out of her life as easily as he entered it? A slow burning feeling, like kindling to a wildfire, is building inside her. How dare. It’s heightened by a nauseating feeling, one that eats away at her from the inside.

She’ll find him. She must find him.

Nahida’s eyes alone are not enough, so she borrows the senses of Sumeru. Through the eyes of a desert caracara she sees the world from above, searching each crook and densely jungled valley; through each critter and beast crawling amid the forest floor she listens for the sound of footfalls; and beneath the earth, the ley lines are raw nerves, sending vast amounts of data back to her.

Nahida is not of the forest, she is the forest- she is the lichen-green witch’s hair on each twig, the little, emerald-feathered bird that is perched upon it, and the worm curling pitifully around its beak. She’s each blade of grass on the foothills strewn with muted satin flowers, goldenrods tangled with violet roses. She is each oasis-dwelling algae, each wind-scattered seed, and each gloriously incandescent starshroom lighting the way in the dark. All of it is connected by Dendro, and that means it is connected to her. She reaches farther, until moonlight blankets the land in silver and the world slips slowly, into a dream.

Her domain. She cannot control its contents: there are too many minds connected at once, too many thoughts to filter through. Creatures borne from imagination shimmer into existence, some grand, some small, some shaped like loved ones and others cut from a bitterer cloth. The few people still in the streets at this hour stop and stare as the spectral shapes take form around them, both in awe and trepidation at witnessing something truly divine. They duck as a giant, pastel manta ray sails above their heads, swimming up to the balcony where their gentle Archon stands with her silver hair loose around her shoulders and verdant fury in her eyes.

Buer rages, and the forest rages with her. The fronds curl into themselves as she passes, the fungi scatter after the floor-dwelling arthropods as the manta ray carries her through the valley. The frogs croak in terror in their ponds, disturbing the lotus pads as they flee. The cliffs are too stubborn to bend, so parts of them crumble instead, sending rocks tumbling into the valley below.

He cannot hide from her.

She finds the Balladeer sitting on a log. He looks like he’s been waiting for her for a while now. Perfectly calm in the face of Nahida’s tempest.

“So this is the true scope of your power? Even still, you can’t trap me in a dream forever,” he comments. Nonchalantly, even.

“Time is relative. A mole knows not how many sunrises have passed outside its burrow, and yet it experiences them nonetheless.”

He laughs without humor, grabbing his hat before it can slip away from him.

Come back home, she wants to say. But Sumeru isn’t a home for Scaramouche like it is for her. She wants to come up with a metaphor for it all, if only to avoid cutting too close the underlying truth. Nahida’s never liked strife in any of its forms; she’s been told her words are nothing but pretty packaging, obfuscating where a quick cut would do. But she can’t get her mouth to say them.

“You’re ignoring the problem, Buer. If you won’t deal with it, I will. You’ll be better off, you’ll see.”

“Where will you go?”

“Nowhere you’re going,” he bites back. Sneers. “Riddle me this: I’m more of a God than you are. Do you know why?”

You’re not a god. Nahida steps closer, and he steps back. You’re delusional. He raises his arms, as if to embrace the world itself. “I don’t need the love of anyone to make my existence worthwhile. I don’t need to be needed by anyone. If Sumeru no longer remembered you come tomorrow, you’d be nothing, wouldn’t you? Not even the moon, but a speck of dust soon to be scattered- Not me. I will never let someone else decide my value.” His eyes flash in the light. “I decide that. My fate! haha… I guess that makes me my own god.”

It feels like someone has taken an axe to her back and split her insides for the world to see. Of course, Nahida should have known, that while she was watching him- the Balladeer had been watching her too.

It's pure arrogance, to think one can control their own fate. Nahida knows even the gods are not immune to their designs. If the Balladeer is searching for some semblance of control over his life in this ‘godhood’, Nahida’s going to have to disappoint him. But a part of her can tell that he already knows that, in the flashes of that pained expression, and maybe the only person he’s trying to fool is himself.

She tries again. She’s starting to sound like a broken record. “…Is there anything I can do to help?”

When his face twists, she already knows the conversation will get no farther. The Balladeer grins, bright and cruel, and says, “Forget me.”

Those words tug at something in her mind, reopening some sutured wound that had been buried deep. Nahida’s never condoned physical violence when words were more than sufficient, and she’ll stand by that no matter what. But at this moment, she has never wanted to smack someone so badly.

You’re still hurting people. You’re hurting me. The words keep clogging in her throat, fury and fear- she doesn’t know which one is stronger. Nahida’s hand is raised, trembling in the air as she approaches, and he closes his eyes in acceptance-

Nahida lets her arm drop, mouth suddenly tasting like the sand.

She throws herself into the Balladeer’s mind with little warning, privacy be dammed, because Nahida should have done it a long time ago, before it got to this point. Maybe then, there would have been some kind of sign she missed.

But maybe that’s the point. There hadn’t been a single point where it all went wrong. It had been the culmination of all things, from the moment the existence known as ‘The Balladeer’ had been conceived. The only way to prevent it was to never live at all; joys, sorrows, heartaches- locking away the mind to feel nothing. But then, moving through life like that- you might as well be an automaton.

And on that grey, empty plain with not a soul in sight, after a barrage of cracking images filled by slick rain and laboratory benches, the stench of sickness and metal striking metal, she finds him curled into a fetal position against a tree. Unresponsive to the world, to her- Nahida stares down at that compact form and remembers the place where she had come into existence. She had been even smaller then, thrust upon a world that had expected so much from her.

Quietly, Nahida goes and sits beside him.

Scaramouche says nothing, so in a halting voice, she talks instead, filling the emptiness with anything that comes to mind. She tells him about waking up, and being found, about the cage and the loneliness of her own mind: as she does, small green shoots push their way from the ground. She leans her head against the bark, and silver-white leaves begin to sprout in the branches above to shelter them. Maybe even a few curious Aranara to peek out from beneath the sunlit vegetation, and some fungi to splash in the bubbling of a nearby stream. She brings the forest to life around her in an illusion only years of practice can bring.

“It’s all fake,” he tells her, after Nahida has finished.

“It is,” she agrees.

He’s out of it completely, Nahida’s sure, when he half extends a shaking arm in her direction, a glazed look in his eye. Pupils dilated, shallow breathing- she’s seen these symptoms in scholars that loved their mushrooms a little too much. Wandering, the indigo gaze attempts to focus on her.

He smiles at her, a little loopily, and winces. “The real forest is so much more beautiful.”

The real forest is strong and resilient. It shelters creatures of all walks of life, from the smallest critter to the largest of beasts, energy thrumming in each cell. And the most beautiful thing about it, she thinks, is that even if withering or erosion attempts to destroy it, it will simply grow back tougher- again and again in a cycle that never ends.

It’s then that the answer to that “question” comes to her, and Nahida can no longer hold onto anger. She’s never been able to, to begin with, not as a second nature, not even as a third. She knows what must be done, once this dream comes to its inevitable end.

When she does not return into her body after delving into the Balladeer’s mind, Nahida looks down at her own face, and says it had been an accident. A little oopsie due to her own clumsiness. Deceit, after all, is merely another facet of the moon. On the way back, Scaramouche can grumble and complain, and tell her how much he hates her- but the thing is: they both know he’s lying too.

---

Yae miko leaves as soon as the tea is cold. The moment she is out of sight, the Balladeer bursts out into laughter. Full on, shoulders shaking, bubbling from the gut laughter. Nahida watches silently as her own body struggles to catch its breath, leaning against the table’s edge.

“It worked! She, Miko- they had no idea it was me!” Scaramouche manages, “You should have heard her, Nahida- She was completely clueless!”

He cackles, wild and unrestrained, and clutches his stomach.

“Oh, and that’s not all. Get this- She loves me. She LOVES me,” More laughter. In her voice it is almost worse than if it had been his. “Wow, someone in this whole wide world actually loves me, Nahida! I just had to ask! I don’t know what I was expecting. An apology? A simple I’m sorry? For what though?”

“I’m sorry-” he looks up the sky as if Ei is still listening, “WAS IT MY FAULT?”

Nahida has never laughed like this, uncontrolled and near psychotic. The green of her eyes have never looked so venomous. “You know what would make this even funnier? Killing her precious familiar. You and Sumeru would take the fall.”

“You won’t do anything.” She says it with such certainty, and even with his laughter, Scaramouche looks cowed by it. He stares at her, green eyes wide and borderline uncertain. His conviction has yet to settle. When she doesn’t look away, it seems to weaken further. “Not in that body.”

“I could-” He gasps, breaking out into giggles once more, “Oh, just imagining the look on her face when she sees this body flying towards her-”

Nahida gives him a look- one she knows will call his bluff. At some point, the game had no longer been fun to play.

Slowly, the laughter begins to sound much less like laughter, and more like something else. His grin is forcefully wide, teeth clenched, as hands reach up to cover his face and leave a demented smile beneath it. Trembling, there’s a fragility there that scares her, and she worries the weight of her hand on his shoulder might cause him to shatter.

“If she loved me, why wasn’t I enough for her?”

And with that, his voice breaks. Nahida doesn’t know how many times she’s encouraged others to let their emotions out, get it out of their system, but for some reason this one doesn’t feel like a victory. The sobs are ugly rather than cathartic, as if each one agonizes him when they wrack his body.

Empathy is a wonderful thing, a powerful thing. Staring at the Balladeer now, Nahida can see through the eyes of the Electro Archon and understand why she could not give him the gnosis. But beneath the numbness, the muted emotion, there is something in her that begins to ache, and even with all the wisdom in the world, she doesn’t know how to fully answer that question.

Nahida bows her head and says instead, “I’m sorry.”

“I thought I was over this- I haven’t cared about it for so long. Why now?”

“You’re like a human shaped gas canister. All that emotion was going to pop out eventually.”

This laugh is airy, a waver in his voice. “You need better metaphors.”

“Maybe I do,” she says simply.

It’s a different sort of grief, not over what was lost, but over a connection that never was. And maybe, somewhere in there, he’s grieving for Ei, too. Forgiveness is never easy, Nahida knows, but forgiveness is never for the people that have hurt you. It is a gift, for herself, not an excuse for what happened, but as a path to true freedom from that cage. Perhaps he will not forgive, cannot forgive. But even if he does not tread the same path, Nahida hopes he comes upon peace by the side of it, one way or another.

They sit in silence. Minutes pass, and the evening grows colder. Knowledge is both a burden and a gift: Nahida knows this well. The Balladeer looks over to her, those green eyes murky and thick with turmoil, and meets her gaze. She can see his fury fade by the second, tautness slipping away along with it.

“Please. Put me back,” he says, in a voice barely audible. “Do it for yourself.”

Something stirs inside of her, seeing this emotion twist across her own face. It doesn’t feel wrong- which surprises her. Nahida rarely cries. The tears after fixing Irminsul had been the first in- well, she can’t even remember.

Scaramouche hangs his head, a curtain of white hair shielding his face to leave a sliver of emerald visible. That body had been inconsequential, it was her mind that really gave her merit. Humans would have a hard time understanding that one. But something in the pleading expression gives her pause.

She can’t exactly say, you’re actually doing a better job of taking care of it than I was. He wouldn’t believe her. Well, she thinks he wouldn’t. He’s proved her wrong before.

Maybe she should value that body a little more.

“Okay.”

And just like that, her vision darkens. Returning to her own body is always a strange feeling. It should be comforting, she thinks, like returning to a well-loved home.  But there’s always a little lingering bitterness. A back here again? type of sigh. Was it wrong, to want to crawl into someone else’s head and stay there? Of course. She didn’t need divine knowledge to answer that.

She blinks, to the sight of the Balladeer’s hunched form. Dark eyes stare down at his own hands, regarding them as if they were someone else’s. Her own eyes feel raw, dehydrated. She says nothing, letting him come to a conclusion on his own terms.

“I…I pity her, in a way.” His head drops. His next words are said without humour. “She’s as screwed up as I am.”

“I’m glad you’re realizing that. You’re taking your first steps towards emotional maturity,” she intones.

 His mouth twists.

“Tell me. If I forgive her, will I be free from all of- this?” Scaramouche pats his chest, as if to claw out whatever was in there.

“That depends on you. You do not have to let your past determine your future.”

Eventually, the Balladeer pulls himself upright, chin tilted up to the sky and quietly accepting the tears that come.

“I like them. Your metaphors.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

He huffs, scrubbing at his eyes with a sleeve. “You don’t have to just agree with whatever I say.”

Nahida murmurs, “I want to support you all. Like the roots of a tree holding up a nest to the sky.”

“…you know the roots never see the sun.”

Of course. Because she’s not sure how to explain it, the way Nahida is so, irrationally sure that if she doesn’t agree, he’s going to leave. At least if she makes sure that everyone else is happy, someone will remember to not leave her behind. She cannot falter, cannot burden the branches above with that sort of instability: because if she’s not an Archon worth her salt, worth protecting, worth following, there’s always a little bit of fear that she might find herself in that cage again. Sometimes that cage beckons her back, calling for her return, and sometimes, she wants to go back.

The hug surprises her. Nahida’s a little worried that if he squeezes any harder, she’ll pop like a grape. It would be a terrible mess for the Akademiya to clean up. She stares up at the sky, feeling the wetness seep into her shoulder, and slowly lifts her arms to return it the best she can. That was the standard thing to do, Nahida knew. Was she doing it right? It’s not like she has anything to compare it to, unless…

I’m proud of you, Nahida. That woman, that sounds like her but older. Had she imagined it in the first place?

She isn’t sure what exactly this feeling is, that is welling up from within. It feels like a seed cracking, and from it, something great and terrible once sealed, is unfurling. 500 years really is a long time, but she’s out now. Nahida isn’t quite the god she used to be, as she’s told she was before the Cataclysm, but she’s still enough, right? The feeling is building, but Nahida doesn’t want to let it go. Letting go meant acknowledging it existed, and like a tree falling in a forest, if no-one ever heard her fall- then who could say it ever happened-

It stars with a tear, a trickle, and then it all comes out at once. Nahida’s sure she’s sobbing louder than the Balladeer ever had, and she tries to stifle the sounds into his shoulder. He must think she’s a real hypocrite, to tell him all those things about ‘letting yourself grieve’ and flushing out negative emotions. It feels like she’s back in front of Irminsul once more, feeling that tightness her chest without really knowing why.

Nahida has no mother. Nahida is her own mother- she knows how to soothe those little voices and doubts so they don’t impede with her responsibilities. She wishes her heart were made of hardier stuff: wood, stone, graphite- not glass, so she could bear all the things she’s heard a little better. But letting it all come apart and having someone else pick up the pieces is a relief. For once, she doesn’t have to do it by herself.

When she’s completely out of tears, Nahida sits quietly, shoulder to shoulder with- a friend, she supposes. It’s funny that way, because she’s not quite sure when it happened, but it’s hard to say that someone who does their best to soothe your hiccupping and face-liquids like that is anything but. The sleeve dabbing her cheek is coarse, and she sniffs as the Balladeer pulls back.

“Don’t ever try and do that again,” she says. “Promise me.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, “but I need a promise from you too.” It’s gentle, but stern. “Take more for yourself.”

Nahida doesn’t know if she can promise that, but she can try. Someday, when they’re ready for it, she’s going to drag them both to talk to someone. Someone better equipped to help, that doesn’t have a nation’s worries on her back, because taking on someone else’s burdens too will crush her like an insect beneath a falling log. But for now, as long as they’re forwards, she’ll be content with baby steps.

Nahida feels better, she thinks. Not great, but better. She deserves to feel better, she thinks- no, she’s sure. She deserves love too, regardless of if it’s ‘earned’ or not. It’s a hard thing to say; she hopes it’ll get easier to say over time. And if enough people around her keep saying it too, maybe she’ll believe it. That this feeling will fade, like with the salty taste in her mouth and the clog in her nose.

Nahida sniffs again and reaches out.

Scaramouche regards her outstretched pinky, face mirroring hers, and takes it. They might not ever speak of this incident again, or maybe they will (ah, the wonders of the unknown!). Even if they don’t, it will be remembered. They have two witnesses right here, after all.

---

Nahida catches up to Yae Miko by the wharf, waiting for her scheduled ship that will be coming to take her to Port Ormos, and eventually back to Inazuma. Now that she’s back in her own body, Nahida would like to converse with her. Properly, this time. It seems she’s not alone in this idea.

“Now that we’re alone,” Yae says, “I think we can talk more openly, hmm?”

Nahida shrugs. “Of course, but I don’t see any reason why it should be different.”

Yae scoffs. “Don’t tell me you actually trust it.”

“Maybe I do. Trust him. Trust in him.”

Yae waves a hand in front of her face. “Gods and never taking my advice until it’s too late- what a match made in heaven. You are the god of wisdom I suppose. You would know better. If you’re going to be pulling any more of your silly pranks however, I would suggest you work on your impressions, little one.”

It’s not surprising, from what Nahida’s heard about Yae Miko, but it’s impressive how quickly she caught on. Perhaps it was worth keeping an especially close eye on her in the future.

“So you knew,” Nahida sighs at her, and Yae smiles back, almost sympathetically. “What gave it away?”

She replies lightly as ever, “Hatred, of course. There’s not nearly enough of it in your eyes. It’s a complete giveaway: that, and I’m no stranger to Archons delegating their public appearances to others. I’m surprised; however, that you think the Balladeer could replace you.”

Maybe he could, Inner voice says, because of course it pops up now, he might even be a better Archon than you.

That’s not true at all, Nahida argues back. The Balladeer has a few strengths that would make for a good Archon, but he’s still far too unstable. And besides, Nahida is doing a good enough job of it anyways. From what’s she’s been told, maybe even better than good: a fantastic job of it, even. There was no point in comparing the two of them, because it is far more fruitful to look at their skill sets in combination. With that, the thought settles, and Nahida can calmly pose her next question.

“No-one is replacing anyone,” Nahida says firmly. Yae Miko merely smiles.

“Why are you really here?”

“I wasn’t lying about apologizing, you know. But I suppose Ei also asked me to send her regards to the Dendro Archon. As her envoy, it’s only natural I let her will be known, however I feared bringing that up back there would leave poor Kunikuzushi positively green with envy.” Yae shrugged. “That’s not the only reason, though. I also simply wanted to get to know you.”

Her gaze flicks downwards, to the camera hanging around Nahida’s neck, and a smirk curls across her face.

“Such as: I did not know you were an avid photographer,” Yae says. “That’s adorable.”

“Photography is wonderful! Each picture is a memory, captured in time. It’s- uh, a hobby of mine.”

“How wonderful.”

She lets Yae guide her down the walkway to a small, babbling fountain. The few students and mercenaries usually present must have been informed of their arrival, because the garden is empty of people. Where there is a lack of people, there are plants. A few bushes sulking in a corner, an audience of flowering vines creeping along a wall. Only the padisarahs can listen in to their conversation now.

As they converse, a sapphire butterfly flutters over to land on Yae miko’s hair. It’s a brilliant contrast of blue and cotton candy pink, and Nahida raises her arms automatically to snap a picture. She stops just before she takes it, peering through the lens and a finger over the button.

The Yae Miko through the lens poses, laughing. “Go on then. It’ll be a commemoration of our meeting.”

Nahida stares at her blankly, fingers gripping the camera tightly. Yae Miko would make for a beautiful picture. But no matter how lovely she is on the outside- and Yae is lovely, with her violet eyes and clean, elegant shrine maiden robes- Nahida doesn’t care for it if it doesn’t match what is within.

Nahida lowers the camera. Stares her straight in the eye. She gives Yae Miko her sweetest, most polite smile and with a voice of five hundred years of kindness, says, “On second thought, I don’t think I will. I don’t want to waste storage space.”

Yae’s smile drops.

There’s a sour look on her face that suits her much better. Yae regards her coolly, wordless acknowledgement in her weighted gaze. Maybe before it all, before the Traveler, before Scaramouche, before Dottore, she would have apologized right then and there. That Nahida wouldn’t have said anything in the first place. But since then, she’s growing more comfortable with- well, for the lack of a better term, being pissed off.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, Guuji Yae?” Nahida asks steadily.

Her reply is curt. “No. I think that will be all.”

---

The festival of the Sun reaches its full swing, ironically, when its namesake begins to set. Sumeru spares no expense for its festivities- they’ve decorated the Grand Bazar with solid color banners and string lights, and from each lamp hangs flowers in periwinkle and sunny yellows. The air is heavy with floral scent, intermingling lilac, and honeysuckle in an overstimulating concoction. The stage has been prepped with a blue silk carpet, painstakingly embroidered, ready for its main star to arrive. There are a few children running about, their legs tangling with streamers and whirling ribbons in their hands that whip through the air as they pass. Several merchants have set up stalls, everything from pottery to fortune telling, to foxgloves sold in a bouquet by the dozen.

The atmosphere is warm and lush, and lively- and she doesn’t want to ruin that.

Heads are turning in their direction now, and Nahida can’t tell if more stares are directed at her or the Balladeer. She looks up, but Scaramouche doesn’t seem concerned at all. There’s a half-formed smile playing on his face, sarcastic. It’s easy to pass it off, but looking in the right place, she finds the apprehension too, not quite fully buried.

At the first few stares, Nahida’s legs stop.

“Not that it matters, but you are wanted here,” he reminds her.

“Right,” she whispers.

“Me, on the other hand….eh. Tough luck for them.”

Scaramouche strides forwards, heading towards a stall with several glass bottles placed at various distances. Nahida comes up behind him to peer over the counter, immediately recognizing the set up as some sort of game involving lobbed beanbags and targets. The young man behind the counter seems busy hanging up the prizes, and barely spares a glance behind him before he speaks.

“Welcome! It’s five hundred mora per crate, 900 for two!” he says friendly enough, and with a giant stuffed turtle tucked under his arm, turns to grin at them both. When he sees who, exactly, had come to his stall, however, he makes a strangled sound in his throat. His eyes dart over the Balladeer, who folds his arms, to Nahida, who beams back at him full force. He swallows.

Nahida turns to Scaramouche expectantly. He throws up his hands, but begins searching for pocket change nonetheless.

“Which one do you want?” Nahida asks, scanning the prizes. They’re all stuffed animals of some kind, of varying sizes. They’re all very cute, but Nahida’s of the opinion that the real deal they’re based off of are even cuter. Yes, even the slug plushy.

“I don’t need any-”

“Come on, pick one!” Maybe she’s a tad too excited, but Nahida’s never done one of these ‘fair games’ before. She’s practically vibrating on her toes in impatience.

“…the narwhal. Only because it looks stupid.”

The stall owner sets down a crate filled with beanbags in front of her. “You’re familiar with the rules, right? What am I saying, of course you are, you’re lesser lord Kusanali! Ah, but just as a reminder, it’s one bottle for a toy sword, three bottles for a figurine, and five whole bottles for a stuffed animal.”

“Thanks for the heads up!” The narwhal. Nahida narrows her eyes at it, picking up her first bean bag, hefting it in her hand. That size would require five perfect throws. There were five bean bags in the crate. No room for error.

No problem. All she needed to do was calculate the correct trajectory given the weight of the average beanbag, and take into the account the resistance of the fabric, as well as any current environmental conditions, oh, and maybe the deformations the projectile might take while in the air-

“Uh, Lord Kusanali?” The stall owner asks timidly, because to the outside observer she must look like she’s bluescreening. When he gets no response, he looks at the Balladeer, who shrugs as if to say Yeah, I have no idea either.

Calculations complete. Nahida arches her arm back, and whips the first bean bag towards the front left. The first bottle tips over on impact, rolling to the stall owner’s feet. He stares at it, looking up just in time to see her throw the second. Another bottle hits the floor. Third, fourth- Nahida takes the last beanbag, and pauses to turn to the Balladeer. She can’t help the smug expression from crossing her face. He scrunches his face at her in return.

“Alright, alright, stop gloating,” Scaramouche scowls. Nahida chucks the final beanbag at the final bottle, barely looking, and it hits dead center. However, the bottle doesn’t fall. No, it bounces off, barely causing it to wobble.

…huh?

“HA!” Scaramouche slams a hand against the counter, revealing 5 additional mora. The stall owner smiles at Nahida sympathetically, already setting up the next bottles. “My turn.”

“You’ve got this!” Nahida beams, but internally, she’s still running through the numbers. She had thrown it with enough force. She’s sure of it. Maybe she’d gotten something wrong, for that last one. Maybe that’s it.

Rolling up his sleeves, Scaramouche goes for the farthest bottle first, as if to pick up where she had left off. It goes wide for the first, but the second hits it dead on, and again, the beanbag falls to the floor, bottle perfectly intact. Now Nahida is sure something is up, because that bottle is staying upright more stubbornly than a concussed boxer in their 1 million mora match. Scaramouche has realized it too, because the next look he shoots at the stall owner is anything but friendly.

“Oh, too bad. Better luck next time,” the young man smiles, sweat dripping on his brow. They share a look. Scaramouche tries again, whipping the beanbag at the bottle with far more momentum than necessary. Still doesn’t fall.

“That’s rather curious, don’t you think?” Nahida says, and the stall owner pales. “Pure probability dictates that at least one of those three throws should have knocked it down.”

“It’s quite a thick base. See, it requires a little more force-”

The farthest bottle shatters as the beanbag collides into it, the remains of elemental energy curling around its form. The blue vortex in the Balladeer’s hand dies suddenly as it turns into a half shrug, dropping the remaining beanbags into Nahida’s waiting hands. “Oh look. You were right.”

After making quick work of the remaining bottles and pulling the stall owner aside for a quick chat on fairness and responsibility, Nahida skips away from the stall with a giant narwhal tucked under her arm. Her feet feel impossibly light. She presents the Balladeer her prize with gusto, and he takes it with hesitation.

“I’ll carry it, but that’s it,” he tells her. It’s about this time that the crowds are starting to gather around the main stage. Nilou’s performing this evening, and many people have come from the farther villages just to see her dance. If they don’t find a spot soon, they might not see the stage at all.

Giant narwhal tucked under an arm, Scaramouche starts to head towards the front seats. Before he can, Nahida reaches out and tugs at his sleeve, pointing to a darker corner off to the side of the stage. If she’s going to impose on this festival, she at least wants to do it in the least intrusive way possible. Even if Scaramouche gives her a sobering look, Nahida can breathe more easily this way. The spotlight doesn’t feel right when it’s on her.

Nilou’s performances are always a spectacle, but there’s something special about seeing it in person. It’s pure magic, even with the countless times she’s seen them, how they feel fresh every time. The hushes of awe are like rustling reeds among a soft riverbed, smooth as the silk flowing around her outreached hands. A ring extends like a ribbon to curl around her arms, matching the sway of her horned headdress as water blooms, lotus-like, out from her fingertips and towards the audience. Some of them do reach out, fingers trailing through the streams, laughing.

She wishes she could pull out her camera, right now, without being weird about it. She wants more than to take a picture. She wants to somehow capture the movement itself, the way it makes her feel, like the sheer awe of grasping the stars, only to realize that from here, her hands could only frame them.

I wish I could move like that.

“It’s not that difficult.” When Scaramouche speaks quietly to her left, Nahida realizes her last words hadn’t been in her head at all. “Maybe not as good as that- but I- I’ll show you, sometime.”

And while Scaramouche in a dancer’s uniform is a snicker-inducing thought, Nahida’s too focused on the other part of the statement. Nahida looks away from the stage for a moment to meet his eye- and they are no longer God 1 & Almost God 2, but two starstruck children, crouched by potted greenery. She places a finger to her lips, and he smiles, and they turn back towards the stage to live in the music once more.

---

V. Dance

This one’s not in the past, nor the present. It’s sometime in the future, when the Balladeer- really the Wanderer, but she’ll say Balladeer for continuity’s sake- accompanies her to pay a visit to the Vanarana. It’s a day filled by endless greetings and offers of food and snickers every time the Balladeer bumps his head on the rounded doorframes of their homes. It’s wonderfully peaceful overall. The Aranara are a kind and incessantly welcoming people, if a little odd, and to Nahida, it feels like a homecoming.

The trip reaches its conclusion at nightfall with a performance, one part because Nahida’s cajoled the Balladeer into it, and the other part because she knows even he doesn’t want to disappoint the Aranara. They await eagerly, warming up their instruments around the clearing, some on the lily pads, others hovering in the air. Nahida splashes into the ankle-deep water of the clearing’s pool first (See, no shoes to take off!), and turns back to wait for the Balladeer to finish folding his socks.

“Alright,” he says, standing. “You all need to back way up, or you’re all getting wacked in the face.”

Nahida, along with the gathered Aranara, slowly shuffle back a few more feet.

“Even more.”

They take another, tiny step back.

Apparently, that’s just good enough, because Scaramouche sighs, shaking his head, and readies himself regardless, wooden blade in a perfect line with his arms. The Aranara begin to play, and he starts to move.

The Balladeer ebbs and flows like a tide, restless one minute, gentle the next. His face holds a tranquil expression, but that is only the surface. Hand, lift, step, strike. Nahida watches it utterly captivated. This is not a dance of Sumeru: not a dance she knows. She’s learning something new.

It’s beautiful.

There’s no better word to describe it: everything from the way the azure cloth ripples, to the elegant simplicity, to the Balladeer himself. There’s peril in every movement, and yet every movement is controlled. Symmetrical, precise, moving quickly from one pose to the next with each drumbeat: a spin followed by a quick flurry of cuts, quick slashes in succession. These movements would not look out of place on a battlefield or a stage. There’s an unfathomable feeling in Nahida’s chest, like she’s watching something sacred. When his eyes slip to her, she realizes she is.

He finishes to cheers, led by Nahida’s own clapping. As the Aranara around Nahida imitate what they had just seen to the best of their ability, the Balladeer steps through the pool towards her.

“Your move, Nahida,” he says, holding out a hand.

“No- no, I’ll mess it up-”

The Balladeer’s grin is pure mischief as he pulls Nahida to her feet, leading her hands through the water, and she’s swept up into it all. She can’t replicate his movements, so she doesn’t try to, letting herself move in whatever way that comes naturally to her. The Aranara shift their song into something melodic, something unequivocally her.

Nahida has been here before, in this clearing surrounded by the Aranara. That had been in a dream. Reality is a little different: the clearing isn’t the same, the Aranara are different colors, and someone she would have never expected to be here is here too. Nature surrounds her, vast and innately beautiful. Moonlight peaks in through the fronds, slipping between the emerging lightening bugs, and wakes the fairy-dust blue of the microbes slumbering in the pool. The grass tickles against the soles of her feet, far from an illusion.

Her body, dancing. She’s in love with the way it moves.

Nahida lets herself go, and arms out she spins- turning, and turning and turning until the world is a blur and her feet are lighter than air. She falls onto her back, breathless and giggly, and wishes that this feeling she has right now never goes away.

---

After Nilou’s dance finishes to riotous applause, they try and escape out through the Bazaar’s side entrance before the lights return to full brightness. The plan fails before they reach the gates, stopped by a crowd of eager faces asking Nahida how she liked the performance. When she tells them how much she loved it, she hears exclamations and praises about how it was Nilou’s best yet, and Nahida thinks, that’s not right. Nilou’s performances were always divine, no matter if she were a witness or not. Nahida looks over to the stage, where there is a considerably smaller crowd gathered around a smiling Nilou: a crowd that would be larger if Nahida hadn’t come at all.

They do, on the other hand, avoid Scaramouche like a drop of oil in water, so she uses that, thanking and greeting and smiling at as many of her people as she can, slipping into the Balladeer’s shadow to slowly make her way towards the exit. The night air outside is clear and pleasantly warm as they make their way towards a lookout by the waterside. As Nahida slips onto the bench, laying down her camera beside Mr. Narwhal, she lets out a sigh of relief- finally able to breathe.

The Balladeer takes up position by the railing, face turned away from her. Like the sound of a cannon firing, the first of the fireworks rattles Nahida’s chest and causes her to sit up straighter as she follows the first streaks of crimson that shatter in the sky. It blooms like a red dandelion, sparks falling, meteor-like, back to earth. Supposedly the light shows in the Inazuman skies were even grander; Nahida will have to add that trip to her bucket list.

Nahida would like to visit Inazuma, period. She’s heard so much about it, it’s only fair for her to witness its beauty for herself. To see the beaches, fox statues littering the landscape, the shrines- and perhaps even a certain kitsune, although Nahida isn’t sure how happy the Guuji would be to see her. If he was willing, she would invite the Balladeer to come too, not just because of his heritage, but simply for the company. That, and they had a shogi championship to destroy.

Photographer senses tingling, Nahida takes her camera in her hands and lines up the shot. The turquoise of the Balladeer’s cloth is quite stunning against the colorful backdrop of the sky. The occasional burst of carmine against the night. The dynamic movement of the ribbons. He turns his head suddenly, directly looking into the lens, and light reflects against dark, widening eyes-

Scaramouche pulls down the edge of his hat to cover his face, pointedly turning away from the camera. 

“Hey!” Nahida lowers it, pouting. “You’re ruining it!”

Is what she says, anyways. The picture is already taken, no matter how he tries to hide it by scowling. He’ll have to pass off the flush of red across his cheeks as light from the fireworks. Nahida is beaming, staring down at her prize, when the camera is suddenly yanked out of her grasp. She reaches out affronted, only to be pulled in for another picture.

The camera flashes before her eyes. Nahida sits frozen, black stars dancing before her, as the Balladeer places the camera back in her hands and walks off without another word.

He leaves, yes, and there is a voice that tells Nahida that it’s for good. But the truth is this: he leaves, then he will come back, then he will leave, then he will come back, often without warning to leave things by her door every now and then, and each time he returns, that voice gets a little quieter.

She sees the photo later. Her face, frozen in awe and eyes alighting. The Wanderer, looking into the camera- proudly, maybe even haughtily, but deign to glance lower and it’s ruined by the shy smile. Two fingers, rabbit ears, peak over the back of her head. There’s an awkward quality to it, neither one completely prepared for the moment to be captured, and somehow therein lies its charm. It’s not perfect, not by far, but it’s enough- and that sentiment fits better than perfection ever could.

It sits on a desk in her room in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, next to the overgrown hanging vine, the carton of sprouting tomato seeds, and a half-finished report for Alhaitham she’s promised herself she’d get to eventually. The Wanderer bemoans its existence every time he visits, only to be reminded who exactly took it in the first place. It pulls out a smile when he thinks Nahida isn’t looking.

It remains one of the few pictures Nahida has of herself. There will be more eventually, promise. She’s still getting a handle on this business of a “selfie.”

She’s pretty sure this one’s her favorite though.