Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s an aggravatingly sunny day, and Wanderer is in a terrible mood.

Not that these two things are related, or that he feels particularly strongly about the weather into begin with, of course—all Wanderer found worth mentioning about something like the weather was the fact it at the very least served a purpose, as most life in Teyvat was quite dependent on it. 

This dependency did not apply to him, however, because unlike most living beings, he was above being subject to its whims, for a puppet could not succumb to the frigid cold or suffocating heat in the ways humans could. Perhaps this was why mortals felt the need to seem so invested in it—which was something that made weather vaguely bothersome to the Wanderer in ways it could not be physically. 

Humanity gave it too much personality. There was a disruptive, annoying arrogance in thunder and lightning, but the sun was simply the sun, and Wanderer sincerely failed to understand what was so inherently happy and cheerful about it. Sumeru City would writhe with human activity in any given circumstance, but now, with the weather catering to far too many of humanity’s countless sensitivities, everyone moved with far too much of an extra spring in their step—which Wanderer found entirely unnecessary, and only made today in particular feel distinctly more unpleasant and sour.

Ultimately, though, none of this matters to Wanderer, not really—because finding such purpose in boring, inconsequential milling about that made even something like the weather matter was not an experience a puppet could ever understand. This, obviously, was fine by him—frolicking around with others on a day like this sounded absolutely exhausting—not to mention unnecessary, so his current solitude was very much preferred. 

He closes his eyes, content with the peace and quiet of isolation. Yes, this was a far better way to spend a sunny afternoon—regardless what anyone else might think. Who needs other people?

“Oh—there you are! Hello, Wanderer! It’s nice out today, isn’t it?”

Wanderer frowns at the sudden, familiar, ever-benign voice coming from somewhere behind him, begrudgingly peeling his eyes back open.

 …Well then. So much for peace and solitude. 

Wanderer is really starting to think little Devi Kusanali has some uncanny ability to show up the moment he thinks something that would prompt a flowery, philosophically thoughtful sentiment of disagreement from her—which is…very unfair, because he hadn’t even been completely serious about the not needing and hating everyone thing this time. He’s just rather irritable with how mundanely perfect the day is, really, and the fact he’s certain her ability to seemingly sense whenever he’s in a bad mood isn’t a result of her unnervingly invasive mind powers (it would take far more than that to get into his head, and he would definitely feel it if she tried, thank you very much)—makes it arguably worse. 

“…It’s expected weather for the season,” Wanderer tells her, a little more flatly than he means to, leaning back against the tree behind him. “Nothing special.” 

He’s perched up on one of the massive tree branches twined into the Sanctuary of Surasthana, high enough to survey a portion of the city without being subject to its wide range of noise. It’s not a place many people come to, but evidently still too predictable and close enough to the Sanctuary for Nahida to easily find him. 

“Maybe so,” Nahida agrees, sounding as impossibly good natured as usual. Still, there’s something minutely different about her voice that makes Wanderer turn to look back at her for reasons he can’t decipher. “…But there’s a specialness in the ordinary, too. I love the spring…everything is wonderfully green and alive.”

Wanderer thinks he has never seen the rainforest not look green, but her enthusiasm is appreciated. He stares back at Nahida, who is leaning heavily against the railing of the path to the Sanctuary, resting her chin atop her folded arms. 

Something about this strikes Wanderer as…off, for some inane reason. She appeared to be putting far more of her weight on the railing than he thinks she’d ever need to, giving the way she held herself an uncharacteristic heaviness. 

…Which was particularly odd for today, as this sort of weather always made Nahida beam with a frankly absurd amount of cheeriness. It distinctly reminded Wanderer of the way flowers and leaves brightened heartily under the warmth of the sun, because Archons evidently loved embodying their element to outright cartoonish degrees without even trying to. It disturbs the mundane cheeriness of the day—which…bothers him in a way it shouldn’t.

Maybe he’s just seeing things. 

“Why are you here?” He asks Nahida. 

“Hmmm,” says Nahida, who thinks of far too many answers to even the simplest questions she’s asked. “I thought some fresh air would do me some good, the Sanctuary of Surasthana starts feeling stuffy if you’re working indoors for too long…While a bird cannot fly freely forever and will always have to return to its nest, it is still important it stretches its wings every so often, rather than remain in a cage for its entire life—too much of either breed the same sort of wariness. And I wanted to see you.”

“That’s…nice.” Wanderer replies. He supposes that somewhat explains Nahida’s apparent lack of energy—it wasn’t uncommon Wanderer found her needing down time after her work, even as a god. Still, he doesn’t like it.

Processing the last sentence amidst her flowery analogies, he adds, “What do you need from me?” 

The past week had been incredibly dull and boring. He hadn’t been given anything to do, and was stuck waiting on access to a source he needed to continue his paper arguing against one of the other Vahumana scholars who had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, so he’d instead made many important plans that involved sitting around and brooding in undisturbed peace to occupy his time.

It would be very troublesome to have such plans disrupted to run Nahida’s errands again—especially when it was never just a simple task, and often involved some underlying motive to make Wanderer “cooperate with other people” or something similar. He probably wouldn’t even get an excuse to antagonize people on purpose this time for fun with it. Terrible. Utterly terrible. His life was full of nothing but disappointment and tragedy. 

“Oh, I don’t need anything,” Nahida answer, with a level of warm sincerity in her voice that Wanderer would find suspiciously jarring if she were anyone else. “I just haven’t seen you in a moment and wanted to say hello! Sometimes a break from solitude is good for the mind; anyone would get bored eating the same meal everyday, even if it was something they didn’t dislike…wouldn’t they?”

Wanderer stills, a little taken aback. He blinks multiple times, the sourness festering in him wavering in unusual confusion. 

Okay, well, that was an even more troublesome response than if she’d simply wanted something from him. 

Because this wasn’t the first time she’d sought him out for no reason other than wanting to see him, and while he couldn’t even say he minded such a thing, it made something in him squirm in apprehension, because he couldn’t fully wrap his head around why. If the Dendro Archon was going to keep him around, she might as well put him to use. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to—if anything, she was one of the few people who did know how to utilize Wanderer and his abilities in a way that actually felt worthwhile. 

But she always went on about how she didn’t like balancing the books or transactional relationships. Wanderer didn’t know what to do about that. If she wanted him to survey a mission for her, or help her get an upper-hand on the Fatui with his intel….well, sure—but what did she gain from seeking his company out in particular? Over really anyone else? And if it was for his sake, well, Wanderer thinks she should consider how worth it that really was. 

“Do you—“ Nahida starts, then breaks off with a harsh cough, like she’d inhaled a bad bout of dust. She pauses, as if caught off guard by the force of it. “Wow, e-excuse me. Do—do you want to have lunch with me?”

Wanderer thinks about this. 

“…No thanks,” He says curtly, turning to look back down at the city. “I’ll pass. I don’t need lunch.” 

“Oh, I know. Neither do I,” Nahida replies, so unfazed by Wanderer’s disregard for human civilities that he’s quite certain she could emerge from the drama of a Fatui Harbingers’ dinner party completely unscathed. “But it’s still quite pleasant to enjoy what the world has to offer. We have, um…fresh tea blends imported from Inazuma…that I think we’d both enjoy. I figured…just cooking something would be fun, you don’t h-have to…eat…any…”

Wanderer glances back at her, irked by the sudden spaciness in her tone. 

Nahida is rubbing her head with a vague sort of confusion. She stands a bit more upright against the railing, and blinks, looking oddly disoriented. 

There’s something about this Wanderer doesn’t like. He decides he’ll keep an eye on it.

“Maybe not today,” Wanderer says, turning away again. “You should head back to the Sanctuary.” 

He almost adds, because you look tired, but his throat inexplicably closes around the discomforting awkwardness of such a sentiment, so it dies on his tongue. 

Either way, he doubts it would change the silence from Nahida that follows. 

Wanderer watches a busy food stand on the street far below him, anticipating Nahida to reply with some spiel about how “opening your heart to new flavors of the world enriches the mind”, or at the very least an “Oh, okay, Wanderer. I’ll save you some tea for later when you’re done brooding!” —and finds himself unreasonably perturbed when there isn’t any response at all. 

The silence is amusingly familiar, almost. Wanderer was used to conversations dying abruptly from a lack of response, for it was only a matter of time before most people who spoke to him got too prissy and bothered by Wanderer’s disinterest in mincing his words to their taste that they elected to not even dignify him with a response. It would be confusing and irritating, if Wanderer cared about such a thing.

But he did not, and had rather come to expect it—for it meant he would not be bothered further by pointless fluff talk. Why would Wanderer care if someone found him unpleasant to speak to? They had nothing of worth to offer him, or, if they did, he rarely cared for it enough to contort himself to be in line with an endless list of bizzare social rules.

And yet…such behavior is rather unusual for Nahida. Wanderer had concluded early on that Nahida was not someone who enjoyed being unpredictable, or invoking a lack of clarity in what she meant—if she left anything unsaid, it was only because she had given Wanderer enough to come to his own conclusion—which was something they agreed on the efficiency of. 

This silence, however, is not that. It’s cold, empty, dipping the mood of the conversation in an almost jarring way.

Had she finally hit her breaking point with putting up with him, then? Wanderer supposed that was inevitable, even if he hadn’t… really been expecting it as much with her in particular. He’d felt confident Nahida only seemed bothered by him when he didn’t try, which worked because Wanderer had felt she could tell when he was genuinely trying, even if he didn’t act exactly how she wanted. But maybe he’d been wrong. 

And then Wanderer feels rather guilty, because maybe he hadn't been trying as much as he should today—especially in how he’d been speaking to her. He could stand to do a little better, maybe. 

But it was only a lunch invitation—why would Nahida be so bothered about a lunch invitation? Ugh, well, he’d deal with it. He’d dealt with worse. He’d…apologize to her later, once he’d mulled over how to approach it, and if this meant he had to readjust his idea of what to expect from her. Yes. That was a solid plan.

Still, Wanderer finds himself turning to look back at her, if only out of passive curiosity to prove himself right by the sight of her disappointed face, or her retreating back as she stormed back towards the Sanctuary of Surasthana without a word. 

He turns, eyes landing on Nahida just in time to see her stagger on her feet, swaying in a disturbed sort of way, like a puppet abruptly cut from its strings—

—and tumble off the edge of the path railing, plummeting towards the ground far below. 

Chapter Text

“—Buer!” 

Wanderer roars, surging into the air with a wild burst of Anemo. The glow of his Vision blazes in the corner of his eye. 

“What the fuck!” 

Driven by pure, thoughtless instinct, he shoots downward, diving past the falling god before swooping up, seizing Nahida with both arms before she could crash into the ground below. 

He staggers midair from the force of the collision, struggling for balance with the sudden shift in mass. Ugh. Wanderer isn’t weak by any means, but it was the Shogun who was built for brute strength. Nahida is incredibly lucky she weighs no more than a bundle of lavender melons. He lets Nahida’s weight sag against him as he adjusts his hold into something more sustainable, then whips his head down to glare at her in complete and utter bafflement, face twisting with annoyance.

“What the hell was that?” He barks, the electric shock of imitated adrenaline still coursing through his body. “That better not have been because I didn’t want to have tea with you—“ 

No, really. What was she playing at? Was this some kind of trick? Did she want him to feel guilty or something? See how he’d react for the fun of it? Or had she really just toppled over completely by accident because she was feeling a little tired? As if gods started flopping apart like wet paper whenever they didn’t get their ten hours of obligatory boring unconsciousness like humans? That was stupid. Far too stupid for someone like Nahida in particular, now that he thought about it, and honestly Wanderer has no idea why he’d bothered to catch her at all—it wasn’t like she couldn’t handle falling a few hundred meters—especially if she did so to—

…

…Nahida is not responding. 

Wanderer pauses, the wind around him whirring as he passively lowers himself onto the nearest ledge, all while studying Nahida with a cold, growing realization. 

Because she wouldn’t just decide to play some sort of sick prank on him out of nowhere, would she? Fuck. 

Nahida is half curled, half slumped against him, looking far too frail to do anything but shiver weakly in his arms. Her breathing is ragged and shallow, a quiet, painful sounding rasp through her half parted lips that is all Wanderer can hear now that he’s noticed it. Her head leans limply against his shoulder, brow furrowed with unbearable tension, eyes pinched closed with just enough intentional tightness for her to not be fully unconscious. She looks…wilted, much smaller than she usually is—and impossibly fragile in a way the God of Wisdom should not be, brown skin drained with a sickly pale.

Wanderer feels something in his chest drop to the darkest depths of the Abyss, as if it was now him plummeting from a great height. Something about this—the sensation of a small form smoldering with helpless suffering tucked against hisown—makes him feel unnervingly cold, a distinct numbness spreading from his chest to the tips of his fingers. 

Wanderer cradles her closer to him, his usual disdain for actions so close to gentleness momentarily forgotten. The unsteady rattle of her breathing is more clear, now, a distinctly human sound of suffering from a being that has no need for lungs. 

“…Buer,” He says, carefully shifting his arms in an attempt to rouse her. “Buer, wake up.” 

The discomfort lining Nahida’s expression tightens, her brow furrowing. She blearily opens her eyes, just barely enough for the green of her irises to be visible. She blinks, looking up in the vague direction of Wanderer’s voice, and Wanderer can see it takes a full moment for her to truly process who she’s looking at.

“ …What?” Nahida breathes, almost too quiet for Wanderer to hear. “...Wanderer...? What… happened?"

“You fainted,” Wanderer tells her roughly, ignoring the sensation of thorns coiling in his chest. “And fell off the path to the Sanctuary of Surasthana.”

Nahida’s eyes fall closed again, weighed down by an impossible level of visible exhaustion. The weight of her head is illogically heavy against Wanderer’s shoulder as her face twists into a slow, uncomprehending confusion that’s hauntingly unlike her. 

“…I-I did?” Nahida mutters, in a sickly, drained version of the tone she contemplates unexpected, mildly troubling research developments with. “Why…?”

Well how is Wanderer supposed to know? Nahida is the one who’s supposed to know things. She practically always does, to Wanderer’s annoyance. If even she doesn’t have answer to whatever this is, then—well. That’s infuriating. Incredibly infuriating. Why shouldn’t there be an explanation?

“You tell me,” He says. “You look horrible—clearly something is wrong. Didn’t you notice anything before?” 

“…Just felt… a little tired,” Nahida answers, and Wanderer truly despises how fragile her voice sounds, like a delicate, small seedling that would be far too easy to crush with the slightest pressure. “…Still tired…that's probably...not very good. m-maybe…go find…um…” 

She trails off, visibly trying to run through a list of names in her mind, and Wanderer can feel the divine elemental energy that rolls off Nahida in perpetually thoughtful waves twisting and sputtering in the air, like green foliage choked into wilted, brittle remains by thick black smoke. Nahida shudders, grimacing. 

Something about it reminds Wanderer of the rotten heat that billowed off mortals when they were sick with fever. He thinks about the suffocating, sickly burn against one’s hand when it was pressed to a cheek or forehead to test temperature, and wonders if doing so to Nahida would—

Wanderer shuts down the repulsive thought. No. Gods do not get fevers. 

“None of your humans or their medicine will have any power over what ails a god.” Wanderer says, an odd sort of irritation that he cannot put into words scorching him painfully from the inside out. 

“…They’ll…want to know…anyways…” Nahida mutters, her expression dropping from tense to unsettlingly limp. “…Just start there…I-I’ll…um…think about it… my head…really hurts…” 

Wanderer exhales. 

“Fine,” He says. He surges upwards, lifting himself into the air. It’s difficult and tiring to use his Vision with her extra weight, but he has no interest in dragging this out. “Better than standing around. Just don’t make me have to catch you from falling again on the way there.” 

Nahida is not conscious enough to reply. 

Wanderer chooses to go to the part of the Akademiya that would be most likely to, at the very least, try to be helpful, and least likely to descend into utter chaos in response to Wanderer bursting into their study while dangling their deity’s unconscious body in his arms to announce that there was something wrong with her. 

…Still, of course, it does not go over well. 

The entire room erupts with commotion almost immediately, and while there could have not been more than ten humans in the room, all of them suddenly being active at once is certainly enough to give Wanderer a headache. 

This only becomes worse when all of them start trying to ask him questions at the exact same time. Two of them eye the way he held their Archon’s weak, still form with a deep, frantic suspicion—which didn’t bother Wanderer in the slightest, because it would arguably be more strange if he didn’t put anyone on edge. 

Still—he chose this area for a reason—the two scholars recede from their own distrust of him when the rest of them speak to him with a degree of familiarity. (Perhaps Nahida’s insistence that he involve himself with humans had its benefits—he recognized most of them from a lecture he’d once been dragged into attending. Why being more familiar with him made them trust him more, and not less, was beyond him, though.) 

He concedes that Nahida had also been right about the humans wanting to know of her condition, as, despite their panic, they all immediately set themselves to working to address it, calling other humans who might know different things, pouring over their own research and information, and narrowing down potential approaches to take with considerable efficiency. There is a vague reassurance in seeing a problem acknowledged, at least. 

But Wanderer had been right as well—for none of them had an answer or explanation for what was wrong. Which made the hassle feel rather pointless. 

If Nahida were here, she’d go on some philosophical tangent about the power of the collective and how crucial it was as a building block of wisdom. She’d assure Wanderer it was better than shouldering a burden alone, and to not underestimate that humans could help even a god if they needed to. That things would be okay, or that she could give Wanderer a hint on how to handle it if they weren’t. 

But she’s not here. And Wanderer isn’t good natured enough to do anything but rot in the idea that nothing is okay. 

The day passes in a blur. The next thing he knows, Wanderer finds himself looking down at Nahida from his spot next to her, just barely visible as night creeps across the sky. 

She has been moved to a proper bed, in the quiet of the Sanctuary of Surasthana. It’s her bedroom, technically, but half the room is fitted wall to wall with a desk, and shelves that had gone from bare to rapidly filled with books, files, trinkets, and half constructed gadgets in a matter of months. It was more of a workshop or storage room than a bedroom. 

Twilight filters through the surprisingly modest windows, the only other visible light in the room being the quiet, green glow of the device on the nightstand by Nahida’s bed. It had been suggested by one of the medical scholars who had looked over Nahida earlier—something that radiated Dendro energy for her to resonate with.

It gave the air an odd tang to it, as though Wanderer were standing in the middle of a dense botanical garden, but it actually seemed to help—Nahida’s breathing was less ragged and strained than it had been prior, and the energy rolling off of her unnaturally burned and twisted itself much less frequently. 

She hasn’t stirred, or even really moved since he’d brought her to the Akademiya, beyond mildly shifting in unbearable discomfort every so often. Maybe Wanderer should have brought her directly to Bimarstan, or even the Aranara—though the former had gotten involved anyway, and he was not very good at finding the latter unless they were looking for him. 

Wanderer leans back in the bedside chair he’s in, exhaling heavily through his nose. 

He hadn't even noticed the sun setting. 

His head pounds. He felt as though he had stood there, passively, in the background, while a wild range of frantic activity swarmed around him. The nauseating unease coiling through him had not subsided, but now…he feels numb, detached—apathetic, even. There’s something revolting about it—to be submerged in the humans’ sense of panic and urgency for Devi Kusanali, but feel nothing at all. 

“ …s’ not Irminsul… ” Nahida mumbles, suddenly. 

Wanderer freezes, icey claws in his chest closing around where a heart would be, if he had one. He curls his hands into tight fists, keeping them locked stiffly against his knees. 

"What?” He asks, and is surprised at how tight and strained his voice sounds in his ears. 

What is wrong with him? Jumping at the slightest sound, as if Nahida being speaking was completely inconceivable—it wasn’t like—she was only—Nahida had only been unconscious, of course she’d wake up at some point. 

“...I checked…on Irminsul,” Nahida says slowly. “…Was worried. But… seems okay…”

A violent shudder seizes her body, and Wanderer can feel the divine Dendro power in the air twist in agony as she coughs, the violence of it tearing through her small form with a ferocity too big for it. 

Stop it. Something in him says, twisting frantically within him. Stop looking like that. Why do you look so fragile? All children are fragile, they have not yet been able to learn how to handle the world and its hardships—but you’re a god. You should be okay—more okay than a human, at least. It should be different, somehow. But it feels exactly the same. Why? Why aren’t you okay? How do I make you okay?

Nahida abruptly twists onto her side, half curling in on herself as she convulses with another fit of harsh coughing. Her eyes are squeezed closed, her brow pinched in acute distress as she wraps her arms around herself, shivering.

“O-ow," She says, voice weak and battered. The Dendro in the air crackles in agony. “Wow, that r-really hurts— “

Something about the way Nahida lays, crumpled on the bed like a jumble of flower petals, consumed by such visible suffering, sends a sharp spike of horrible sensation through Wanderer’s entire body. It’s familiar. Why is it familiar? It’s not the same. It’s not. The only thing missing was the maple red stain of blood,

The piercing scent of the sea, of dust and damp wood, of smoke—burns through his nose. The distant sound of waves, and the crackle of fire, roar loudly in his ears—the electrified breeze of the wind whipping smoke into his face. Irrational, childish panic boils in his chest, as every sensation abruptly slams into him at once with enough force to shatter mortal bone. Wanderer squeezes his eyes shut. 

That’s funny! Real funny. Because none of this is real. 

The smoke is suffocating. It fills and chokes his lungs, coating his insides with vile black ash he could not see or ever hope to scrub off. It does not matter if he closes his eyes or not. When they are closed, he sees the glow of fire through his eyelids, and when they are open, the world 

slants and warps itself 

into a blurred mess of jarring sensation and shapes. 

As if the ground 

had dropped open beneath Wanderer

To swallow him whole.

He can't breathe. 

He can’t breathe—

—But why would he need to? Why? A puppet does not not need air to survive. He cannot burn in fire or be choked by smoke the way humans could. Such a thing barely stings his eyes. Get a grip. 

It’s not real. Nothing about where he is now is remotely similar to whatever his brain seems to think it is. This is no different than a child being frightened of monsters simply because of the shape the shadows made on their wall during the night. 

He wishes he could sever himself from his body and slam himself into the nearest wall, over and over, like an ugly, repulsive doll. Being broken and smashed into splinters was one of the few small comforts to be had, as a being that could not be broken in a way that mattered. His body never listens to him. He’s fine. For all the things it could physically endure that others could not, it lacked the same consistency in strength on the inside—which filled Wanderer with acidic, violent loathing that he wished could burn him from the inside out. It was pathetic beyond words. What a useless, wretched thing—

He sees Nahida shift miserably somewhere in his vision, and everything abruptly stops, numb and cold. His breathing shudders, as everything tries to nauseatingly slide back into focus.

For a long moment, Wanderer is left struggling to breathe, gasping for air he did not physically need to survive . The mere fact he could not control his lungs if he wanted to seemed to be enough to disrupt the entire balance of his body, which refused to calm down no matter how much Wanderer tried to force it to. Which was utterly ridiculous, why in stars’ name could he not—

He looks down at Nahida again.

…Ugh. No, nevermind. 

Wanderer inhales slowly, setting a languid, intentional pace of deep breaths to calm himself. The gentleness of the choice makes his skin crawl a little, but…well, there’s no fellow Harbringer he can provoke to spar with him until one of them landed themselves in the Fatui medical wing, or humans he can terrorize until he felt like less of an insect. There’s nowhere he can go but here. 

So—deep breaths.  

He takes note of his surroundings—what he can hear, see, smell, and the way his artificial lungs draw in air through this nose and mouth. It grounds him back to the world, but he can’t help but twitch uncomfortably, rage boiling beneath his skin. He wants to be angry. He wants to drown in his own pain and misery and loathing until he choked on it, and it hurts not to—no matter how much Nahida needles him about grounding techniques or breathing exercises. 

…But Nahida had no use for someone who wallowed in being a miserable scorn on everything and everyone around him. The pleasant familiarity of visceral self loathing (to put it lightly) wouldn't help her get better, or make him useful to her. Quite the opposite, actually. He knows exactly what kind of expression she’d make at that, and it’s one of the ones he can’t stand.

And, well…he supposes giving in to his impulses and rotting in his own hatred wouldn't really help him, either. So… he’ll try. Maybe. Kind of. He’ll do what he can, despite his revulsion. 

In his mind’s eye, he can see the way Nahida would smile, gentle and encouraging, at his words. Which…sort of felt better than despising himself did—in an odd sort of way, like having a warm blanket draped over his shoulders. It soothes his frayed nerves, if only a little.

Wanderer takes in a long, deep breath, exhaling slowly. His chest still feels suffocatingly and agonizingly tight, wrapped in poisonous thorns, but the world is beginning to slide mostly back into focus. 

“—…You think it’s the ley lines?” He hears Nahida say, as the roaring in his head and ears recedes, as though he were resurfacing after being submerged underwater. 

“Wh—huh?” Wanderer chokes, the tension constricting every nerve of his body crushing the sound as it leaves his mouth. 

"I’m wondering…if s-something is wrong… with the ley lines,” Nahida mutters. "...D-did…um…anyone else…h-have any ideas…?” 

Wanderer takes another deep breath, trying to purge the anxiety writhing within him. His head pounds. Everything is still oddly blurry, as if it were lacking the grounding weight of reality. He ignores it. He’s fine. He can deal with it. 

What was Nahida asking? Oh—right. 

“Well, one of your scholars with a Dendro vision came in earlier,” Wanderer strains to remember. He had no idea what he’d been doing after bringing her to the Akademiya—just standing there, probably. “He said a lot of things were being looked into for answers, but thought it had at least partially something to do with your elemental power. The way your Dendro resonated with his was apparently very ‘abnormal’, so they decided feeding you more Dendro energy might help, I guess. They brought in this emitter that radiates it, but that’s it—for now, at least. You can hit the red button on it to notify someone at the Bimarstan if needed.” 

He taps the small, glowing device sitting on the nightstand next to them. Wanderer can’t see it from his angle, but the call button is well within Nahida’s reach. Nahida blearily tilts her head up so she can look at it. 

“Oh,” She says, slowly. She looks like she’s about to lapse back into unconsciousness again. She exhales softly, struggling to keep her eyes open.  “I see…that’s why… the air here feels n-nice...” 

“Does it help?” Wanderer forces himself to ask. 

Nahida’s eyebrows knit together with visible strain, like she’s struggling to formulate an answer. Something about it is deeply unsettling, like a tree bowing dangerously over from its own weight, threatening to snap in half, when it had always stood tall and upright, branches reaching eagerly for the sun, even as the trees around it wavered or stilled. 

"…I think so," She replies. “I-it feels… a bit easier to move and breathe—…but I-I think… using my powers to check Irminsul…m-made it w-worse.” 

Often, the pace of Nahida’s mind seemed almost perpetually visible through her eyes by the sheer vigor and speed of it. She was always in a state of processing and filing information away for later, perceptive to a degree that was rather fascinating—if not occasionally unnerving. He sort of misses it, now. He can feel the way her mind has quieted, weighed down by whatever plagued her. It’s discomforting to see her look so exhausted, physically and mentally. He doubts it’s exactly pleasant for Nahida herself, either.

…This, at the very least, meant she did not seem to notice how stiffly Wanderer was sitting, or hear the weakness dripping from his voice. 

“…I suppose it’ll be better if you don’t strain yourself, then,” He replies. 

Nahida sighs, curling in on herself.

“mhm…” 

Her eyes have slipped closed, but beneath the heavy exhaustion draped over her expression, Wanderer can still see her attempting to flip through possible solutions in her mind.

“I’m serious,” He says. “No mind tricks. Or thought experiments. Or making a game of how many what-ifs you can check off in the span of an hour.” 

Nahida pauses, her breath shuddering.

Then, she giggles weakly at him. 

“What?” Wanderer bristles.

“…Y-you’re telling me to be easy on myself,” She breathes, amused. “…But you’re right. Much of my power stems from the mind…if there's something wrong with that…I should j-just… rest… for the night...” 

There’s something distinctly defeated and resigned about Nahida’s voice, the brief spark of humor gone within her next breath. She looks even more miserable, now, as if mentally turning over every stone she could think of in her mind was the only comfort she had. 

Wanderer digs his nails into his knees.

“…Yeah,” He grinds out in reply. The strange pounding in his head, the garbled anxiety in his chest, the thorny weakness coiling in his limbs—none of them will dissipate. Everything is awful, and there is nothing he could do about it. 

He rises to his feet, ignoring the way his joints creak in protest, twinging with an irrational shakiness and disorientation.

“I should go,” He says, trying to force his voice to sound smooth, unbothered. “It's late—you need all the undisturbed rest you can get, and I tend to cause quite the disturbance at night, as I’m told.”

“Oh…alright,” Nahida mumbles agreeably. “Probably…not a bad…i-idea…”

There’s a pause, marked only by the quiet hum of Dendro from the emitter, and Nahida’s raspy breathing. 

Then, she blearily lifts her head, eyes opened just enough to peer at Wanderer. 

"...Wanderer," She starts, voice impossibly weak. "Are…are y-you… “

But Wanderer has already caught the flicker of realization—and subsequent concern—in Nahida’s eyes. She must have seen something in his face. 

He doesn’t—he doesn’t want her to see him like this. She’d seen him at his most pathetic before, but this was different, because now it was about her. Subjecting Nahida to such a poison would was selfish and deeply unnecessary.

“I’m fine,” Wanderer cuts in, more snappy than he’d intended to be. Archons, what was wrong with him? He felt moments away from rapturing into splinters with the ugly tension seizing his entire body. He can’t make himself do anything the way he wants to. His own powerlessness, the imperfections, the disturbing amalgamation of his own weaknesses—it’s all unbearable.  

He turns away from her, and makes his way towards the door without another word. He yanks it open, and then finds himself pausing in the doorframe, something twisting painfully in his chest. His body feels like half thawed ice, jagged as he tries to move.

You’re going to leave her to die alone? Something sharp in his head says. Running away like a coward the moment you don’t have what you want?

Wanderer’s head is pounding. His grip tightens on the door’s handle. 

No. Leave first, or someone else will. Don’t let them catch you with your guard down.

There’s a second voice in the back of his mind, this one older and far more jagged. It’s familiar, which makes it comfortable, as if he were bringing his cold hands to a quiet, smoldering flame. It had once been a roaring fire that blazed through his entire body, giving him the strength he needed to survive with its heat. It felt like a shield, and he needed a shield. 

But it burns, something else in him argues. It burns, and uses everything it can reach as fuel. There is little left, in the end, when you are so busy cultivating fear to keep it alive. It’s weak, ultimately. Unsustainable.

Wanderer’s mind feels like a hot air balloon, the ropes keeping it secured to the ground snapping from strain and pure weakness. He drifts upwards with no direction, watching himself float farther and farther away from the earth far below him. Powerlessly untethered from reality, he thinks of returning tomorrow to find someone who had once again died in a single night. 

If I stay, I can stop it. I failed before, but I could try everything I wanted to the first time. No, you can’t stop it. Do you honestly think something as worthless as you would ever be to? Leave now. Don’t come back, you know what you’ll find if you do. Why are you not trying to change anything? That won’t save you. Why are you waiting around for everything to be uprooted again? You know it will. It’s like you enjoy this sort of thing happening. Maybe that’s why it follows you everywhere—you never do anything to stop it. Why do you want to stay? Do you want to watch the light leave her eyes? It’s nothing special. You’ve seen it before, countless times. Often brought on by your own hand—how bloody do you need them to be? Your festering rot of an existence has ruined something again, because you couldn’t keep your head on straight. But how could I leave someone alone—abandoned—when that was just what I despised being done to me? But someone can only feel abandoned by a person they want to be around them. Do you think you’re wanted? Get out of here, now. No, don’t, you selfish, lowly—

Wanderer squeezes his eyes shut, gritting his teeth. He wants to slam his head into a wall. He cannot untangle any of the garbled mess in his mind, as it makes everything blur and spin in a humiliating panic. The world slants to the side, in an exceedingly more horrible way than before as he struggles to stand.

Shut up. Shut up right now. He spits venomously in his head, to no one in particular. To himself, maybe. Go die in a ditch like a dog, or something. Shut up. 

“Get some rest, Devi Kusanali,” He watches himself say in a neutral, detached drawl, not looking back at the bed. “We’ll see about tomorrow.”

Ignoring the way every joint in his body creaks horribly as he moves, Wanderer drags himself across the Sanctuary of Surasthana back to the room Nahida had pointlessly offered to him.

He’s not really attached to it. He has much less use for a bedroom than a human would, after all—when he doesn’t need to sleep. Not to mention that it was far too close to where Nahida usually operated, which made it easy for her to come bother him on the occasion he occupied it. 

Which… wouldn't be an issue for now, at least.

Wanderer gets there just fine, ignoring the sensation of everything around and in him crumbling apart at the seams. He jerkily slams the door shut behind him, his back pressed to it, and a sudden wave of disorientation, jagged shards of memory, and sheer agony crash over him, knocking him off his feet as he crumples to the ground, sliding down with his back pressed heavily against the door behind him.

He inhales sharply through his teeth like he’d been stabbed in the chest, paralyzed by the sensation of being thrown overboard and dragged into a dark, violent ocean by the crash of vicious storm waves.

Once again, air refuses to fill his lungs, and everything is falling and twisting far too much for him to think. And this time, he does not feel rage, or rebellious self loathing, or even utter disgust at the fact he could not even bear to stand upright the moment he was alone. It is silent, and dark, and he is too damaged and exhausted to grapple with himself any longer, splintered into pieces and dragged by his strings through the sharp, jagged spikes of a rocky coastside.

He cannot stop shaking. He does not have the energy to care.

He hunches over, pressing his face into his hands, chest heaving violently as he pulls his knees close to himself, unable to understand why his imitation of mortal lungs choked and suffocated around seawater and smoke and burning damp wood, drowning him when he did not need to breathe. 

Chapter Text

It’s late morning when Wanderer wakes up. 

Mundane sunlight filters in through his half open blinds, and he groans as the brightness drapes itself over his eyes, flinging an arm over his face. His body throbs with a dull ache as he tries to roll over to shield himself from the sun further, his joints creaking in stiff protest. It’s only then that it occurs to Wanderer he’s laying sprawled out across the floor of his room, half of his body pressed awkwardly against the door. 

Its a little pathetic. 

Wanderer sighs in vague disgust, but makes no effort to move. It was rare for his body to feel so ragged and stiff, even from lying in otherwise uncomfortable positions—but it barely mattered to him either way. There were far more intolerable kinds of physical discomfort, from Wanderer’s experience. 

Someone knocks on his door. 

It’s sharp and clear, with too much loud uncertainty and force to be Nahida. None of his classmates are allowed to waltz right into the Sanctuary of Surasthana as they please, so there’s no one else it could possibly be. Wanderer gives the door a sour glare. He doesn’t know who it is, but they better not come in. 

“Mister…Ah, Hat Guy,” An unfamiliar voice says from the other side of the door. “Are you there? Devi Kusanali asked me to check on you.” 

Wanderer’s stomach sinks with a deep, ugly dread. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to ignore the heavy unpleasantness of something trying to bubble up out of him. It’s infuriating. 

After a long moment of silence, the human outside his door—a guard, maybe?—clears his throat and continues. 

“Well, she said you may be here and not respond. So…if that’s the case, she just wanted me to tell you she hopes you’re alright, and to look after yourself in her absence. That is all.”

There’s a long, unsure pause. Wanderer feels sick. He doesn’t think he could reply if he wanted to. Maybe that would work in his favor—the human might assume Wanderer wasn’t there, get embarrassed he was talking to a door with nothing behind it, and leave. 

Unfortunately, the guard clears his throat, continuing to speak. ”And—well, I hope this isn’t out of place to say, but just between you and me: she didn’t say it directly, but I got the sense Devi Kusanali might appreciate some company. She’s not letting any of us stay near her too long, in case that degree of unusual divine power is harmful to humans, but…if you think you may be immune to something like that, we’d appreciate you checking in on her when you have the time.” 

Wanderer’s stomach twists with nauseating unease. He presses his lips together, not dignifying the man with a response. 

There’s a faint rustle of fabric through the door, like the human is shifting nervously on his feet. “Well, I’ll leave you be now. Thank you.” 

Wanderer hears him turn and pace away, the sound of receding footsteps echoing down the hall until they fade into the distance. 

He sits in the following silence for a long, still moment, his mind strangely empty despite the writhing, distant emotions boiling beneath the surface. Wanderer traces the edge of them, then pushes them further down, hoping there will be a point where they are drowned out entirely. 

…He can’t see Nahida. Not now—no matter what that human had said. 

Nahida only called for Wanderer when he was needed. There were times she sought him out or seemed content to have him in her proximity while there were no pressing matters he needed to attend to, but Nahida never asked for Wanderer unless there was a reason for him to be there. It’s something he actually likes about their arrangement—something she did that finally made sense. 

If she needed him now, she would have asked for him. The fact that she hadn’t—well, that made perfect sense. It wasn’t as though Wanderer knew how to make her feel better. He has no answers, no knowledge, no way to make himself useful to her—which makes the idea of barging into her room and seeing her sick, dying form curled up in her bed absolutely nauseating. It doesn't matter how many imperfections there are in “being human”, how “okay” it is to be weak, insufficient, scared. Wanderer has no right to occupy space he failed to meet even the simplistic bars of utility for.

He can’t see her. 

 So he does not.

For a species that worshiped them so fervently, humans knew very little about gods. 

Perhaps that was precisely why they revered them so much; but Wanderer is still surprised to find so little information on what would cause a god to fall ill—there are hardly any records of such an occurrence in the first place. 

Wanderer does, however, find several vague fables and legends of civilizations collapsing, storms and famine sweeping the land, and the heavens damning nations where they stood in the aftermath of a deity falling ill. They’re hard to take seriously, but Wanderer doesn’t exactly find them enjoyable to read, especially right now. 

He snaps the book he’d been skimming shut, and gets up to cram it half-heartedly back onto its shelf. He stares at it for a moment, then steps back and staggers idly towards the exit of the House of Daena. 

He’d spent hours poring over everything it had to offer, and all of it was worse than useless. Wanderer clutches his head, which pounds in an awful, numb way. He doesn’t know what to do. There’s no perpetrator he can knock in the teeth of, or even a hint as to what he could pursue to fix Nahida. 

He stumbles into the main hallway of the Akedemiya, blinking as his eyes adjust to the change in lighting. Everything feels blurry and out of focus, like he has his head submerged underwater. 

Before him, the Akademiya is bustling with human activity. Warm sunlight filters in through the large, decorated windows as scholars and students come and go, each with a different place to be, disappearing and reappearing through the various entrances and exits of the main foyer. The low sound of mutterings and movement fill the air, both distant and overwhelming all at once. 

Everything seemed so ordinary, so mundane. It makes Wanderer’s stomach churn with a nauseated frustration he’s too scattered to turn into coherent thought. Why did no one seem to care? Why did the universe itself never care? He hates this. He hates how he can’t grow used to it, no matter how many times he’s forced to watch the world never pause, even when his life is rattled beyond recognition.  

He takes a step forward, his breathing ragged, then continues to pace down the hall, everything around him blurring together into a dull, pointless haze. It’s easy to sink into the familiarity of his own loathing, and he finds himself glowering at the chattering humans he storms past. What could they possibly be so preoccupied with at a time like this?

(If he’d listened a little more closely, he would have noticed the anxious tension of all the Akademiya’s current inhabitants, or the hushed mutterings of speculation and unease filling the air. But he does not.)

His head hurts.

Maybe Wanderer had no right to be so scornful of their uselessness. He wasn’t any better. Wallowing in his own self pity wasn’t doing anything to help Nahida, and he owed her more than any of these humans did, especially when—

Then, Wanderer rounds a corner and slams right into another person, sending him tumbling backwards towards the ground. 

“OW!” The other person cries indignantly, and Wanderer can hear them flailing around to keep themselves from stumbling over. “Watch where—oh, Archons, are you alright?” 

Wanderer looks up, his head spinning. 

There are two people standing over him. The one he'd run into was a lean and admittedly rather good looking man with golden blonde hair and poppy red eyes. Wanderer vaguely recognizes him as that architect from the Darshan Tournament he’d been roped into—Kaveh, if he remembers correctly. Standing next to him is the General Mahamatra Cyno, who is staring down at Wanderer with a stern, still gaze.

Kaveh blinks, wide eyed, at him, hands fumbling to readjust his ruffled clothing. “Uh, hello? Can you hear me?”  

Wanderer opens his mouth, then closes it as his words fail him, his breathing ragged and detached in his own ears. His entire body is shaking, like brittle window frames rattling during a storm, and he can’t get it to stop. Everything blurs together into a nauseating mess that is far too loud and far too bright, dread pressing down on him like a crushing, heavy weight. 

“I think he’s in shock,” The General Mahamatra says, bending down to study him. 

“No I’m not,” Wanderer manages to rasp, suffocating panic pressing down on him. “I’m— not.” 

He tries to pull himself to his feet, but his arms feel too weak to do anything at all. They won’t stop shaking. 

“Woah, hey, don’t push yourself,” Kaveh is saying to him, reaching for Wanderer like he plans to steady him. He turns back to Cyno. “Cyno—let’s get him somewhere calmer, he—“

…

…

…Wanderer slides in and out of awareness, his mind submerged in a thick, unbearable fog that drowns out the world around him.

Cyno and Kaveh guide him to one of the nearby side rooms and sit him down at the study table there. Wanderer, without even thinking, immediately puts his head down against the table and buries his face into his folded arms. He hears them trying to talk to him, but Wanderer ignores them both, hoping either they will give up and leave, or that his head will at the very least stop pounding. 

It doesn’t work, though. He hears a thunk and looks up to see Kaveh staring down at him, just having set a glass of water down beside him. Cyno is nowhere to be found.

“Drinking something cold might help,” The architect says, pushing the glass towards Wanderer. 

Wanderer lifts his head slightly to stare at him, blinking as he tries to focus enough to speak. “I don’t—my body… doesn’t run on water the way yours does. I don’t… need it.”

Kaveh wrinkles his nose, like he wants to ask Wanderer why that’s the case, then seems to dismiss the thought as possibly impolite almost immediately.

“Well even if you don’t need water to function, the coolness gives your brain something to focus on.” He says instead. 

Wanderer shakes his head hopelessly, but finds himself reaching forward to seize the glass anyways. He fumbles with it, forcing himself to sit up so he can hold it to his mouth. 

It’s cold. Wanderer is surprised there’s no ice in it. But it helps. Kaveh had been right—the sensation of cold water pouring down his throat and the slight sting of the chill glass in his hand does help him reorient himself, if only a little. 

Kaveh is watching him closely. “Better?” 

Wanderer shrugs at him, setting the now empty glass back down on the table. He buries his face into his hands again, resting his elbows against the table to prop his head up. 

“Um, I’ll take that as a yes,” Kaveh says. He pauses, hesitant, then asks, “Do…you want to talk about it?” 

Wanderer bites his own tongue. “…Talk about what?” 

“You—well, clearly something is bothering you,” Kaveh replies. “You look terrible—no offense. What’s wrong?” 

Wanderer snorts, sagging back in his chair and throwing his arms out in a half hearted gesture. “I have lots of things wrong with me. How should I know?” 

Kaveh gives him a strange look of brief confusion, which shifts into sudden, uncomfortably profound understanding. Wanderer drops his arms with a hard sigh so he doesn’t have to look at it, rubbing his temples. He still feels so weak, so shaky. He hates it.

 “Look—I just—“ Wanderer abruptly snaps his mouth shut, his throat tightening almost unbearably. Embarrassing. There was no reason for him to justify himself to this human he barely knew. “—Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Where’s your friend?”

Kaveh blinks, eyes darting back and forth as though he were tempted to press Wanderer further. “Uh…well, Cyno went on ahead to pass on information to the other Spantamad scholars. They’ve been on the lookout for abyssal and ley line anomalies, and our friend sent us a report we think might help. We were on our way to meet with them when we ran into you.” 

“Anomalies?” Wanderer rasps, with a stab of bitterness that this was apparently the most important thing right now. “Why?” 

Kaveh presses his lips together, looking down at the table. “…Well, we figured that was a good place to start on what could make an Archon sick.” 

“Oh.” Wanderer says. The burst of irritation running through him fizzles out into nothing. “…Yeah.”

Kaveh pauses for a long, awkwardly still moment, studying Wanderer intently. Wanderer can't bring himself to care if he’s being gawked at. 

“…You were the one who brought Devi Kusanali to the Akdedemiya when she fell ill yesterday, right?” Kaveh asks Wanderer, his voice oddly gentle. 

Wanderer doesn’t move, or look up at him. He stares blankly at the table, fidgeting idly with his hands. “Why’s that relevant?”

“I—well, I was under the impression you were on closer terms with her than the average first year student,” Kaveh answers, crossing his arms. “None of that is my business, but I know I’ve seen you together before, so I just thought—well, I know I wouldn’t cope well if someone I knew suddenly collapsed in front of me.” 

A cold chill runs down Wanderer’s spine. He squirms, uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t describe. 

“We’re not…” Wanderer starts, swallowing around a sudden odd lump lodged in his throat. His mind runs through plunging his arm into Nahida’s chest to seize her Gnosis, then Nahida leaving him a fresh pot of bitter tea the night he’d regained his memories, and leaning over her shoulder to needle her about how she’d added far too much sugar to their curry. “…We’re not close, or anything. And I’m a lot more callous than most people— I’ve seen a lot worse than someone fainting.” 

A flash of Nahida plummeting, unconscious, from the high railing towards the ground below stabs through his mind, and Wanderer tenses his jaw, squashing the stab of panic intertwined with the memory. “This is all just an unpleasant inconvenience to me, really.” 

“Oh,” says Kaveh, with an odd, pinched expression. “Uh…okay.” 

He doesn’t believe me, Wanderer realizes. Why? Which part isn’t believable to him? 

Now he really regrets the whole Irminsul thing. Maybe Kaveh would believe him more, and regard him with more contempt for his selfish, self pitying apathy if he knew who the Balladeer had been.

He swallows, everything in him coiling like a wire about to snap. His body does a perfect mimicry of a heart pounding in his chest, trying to turn itself against him. Kaveh looks at him only with a frustratingly genuine, courteous concern, like Wanderer is perfectly deserving of being given the benefit of the doubt he wasn’t a bad person. 

He hates it. It was a look that should be reserved for anyone but him—and it was too close to pity for his tastes. 

“—Well I don’t—“ Wanderer blurts out suddenly, his skin crawling. “—I don’t want her to die.” 

A stiff beat of silence follows. Wanderer drags his hands down his face, struggling to breathe despite his lack of need for oxygen. “—This isn’t supposed to be happening in the first place! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. What does she want from me? I don’t have any idea what’s wrong with her.”

He pauses, breathing heavily. His mind is too muddled to filter anything he’s saying, or to care he’s running his mouth in the first place. 

“What do you think she’d want from you?” Kaveh asks.

Wanderer snorts, leaning his forehead against his hands. “Well I don’t know. Something useful? Something that makes spending time on me worth it? I have no idea what her goal with me is—but anyone would expect at least some return on their investment. But apparently I can’t even give her that!”

Kaveh frowns, furrowing his brow. “I don’t think she sees you as an investment.” 

“Oh, yeah, whatever,” Wanderer groans. “I know. I get it. Relationships based on feelings and all that.” He pauses, some of the bitterness in his tone dying and smoldering on his tongue all at once as he adds, “Just hard to believe. Especially in my case—I’m not the most pleasant person to have around. Very few people would’ve wanted to give me a chance after what I did.” 

There’s a moment of silence, and then, to Wanderer’s surprise, Kaveh sighs, staring down at the table. 

“…Yeah, actually, I understand that,” He says.

“Doubtful,” Wanderer sneers.

“Well, I don’t know your personal history, but I still—“

“I spent a large chunk of my life wanting nothing but other people to suffer,” Wanderer informs him. “That was the only thing I cared about. It’s still the only thing I care about, even after Devi Kusanali went out of her way to help me when my own misery blew up in my fa—“

”Look, I get it,” Kaveh says firmly, cutting him off. “I don’t know you, but I know what you’re doing right now—rattling off reasons for why you’re awful isn’t going to get you anywhere.” 

Wanderer laughs, cold and bitter. “I don’t know how to be anything but awful.”

”Well, you could learn,” Kaveh replies. 

Wanderer goes still, then deflates, sinking back against his chair. He stares down at his hands, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“…No wonder Devi Kusanali likes you,” He mutters under his breath. “She’d love that response.”

Kaveh blinks, looking vaguely flustered. “I-I—well, if she would, maybe that’s what she wants from you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Wanderer says bitterly. 

“People don’t always make sense,” Kaveh replies. “Especially with what they want from you, or why they like you. Sometimes it doesn’t matter to them if you can’t solve all their problems.”  

Wanderer opens his mouth to speak, but the words die on his tongue. He grips his hands to stop them from shaking from a strange, thawing rage, looking down. 

“This isn’t fair,” He hisses, voice distant in his own ears. His anger scalds him, despite feeling so far away. His head hurts. “She—It’s not fair. I hate feeling this way because I gave her a chance. I hate that she gave me a chance.“

Kaveh is silent for a moment.

”…You should go talk to her,” He says, after a moment of hesitation. “I think she’d appreciate the company—even if you can’t help her as much as you want to.”

Wanderer goes still, the odd, gnawing frustration boiling in him banishing as ice cascades through his veins. He opens his mouth, then closes it, feeling oddly faint. He shakes his head hopelessly. 

“I’m not very good company,” Wanderer mutters under his breath.

“I hate storms,” His friend hiccups, curling up under his ragged blanket as the beaten windows of the shack rattled in the wind. “They make me think of things that make me sad. And they’re s-so loud.” 

“I’m sorry,” Kabukimono tells him. “But we’ll be fine. The mountains are shielding us from the worst of it.” A pause. “…Do you know how to weave these reeds into baskets? I can show you. It’s a good distraction.” 

Kaveh opens his mouth to speak again, but Cyno suddenly pops his head into the side room. 

“Kaveh,” He says. “You might want to be here for this part.” 

“Oh—“ Kaveh says, glancing between Wanderer and Cyno. He stands up, walks around the table, and leans down beside Wanderer. “Hey, I have to go, but you can reach me here if there’s anything I can do.” He slides Wanderer a small scrap of paper with a mailing address on it. “Just remember it’s not all on you, even if it feels like you owe someone something.” 

“This is very ironic advice for you to give someone else,” Cyno observes. 

Kaveh whips his head back to scoff at him. “I—Well, that just makes it more genuine!” He steps forward to leave with Cyno, and turns back to Wanderer one more time. 

“Go see her, alright?” He says. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’ll really help you. And I think it’d help her a lot, too.” 

It is twilight, and Wanderer is standing before the door to Nahida’s room. 

He’d exhausted all of his options. Poring over Akademiya texts hadn’t helped, and, after his conversation with Kaveh, he’d fled to the outskirts of the Rainforest to stall further. 

He didn’t know why, but that conversation had only made him feel worse. Wanderer hated being discarded or treated as disposable more than anything, and yet… it was easier, more comfortable, even, to believe he was useless to Nahida, that his presence meant little to her, than to consider he was wanted. Grappling with the latter only made him want to destroy it. 

His escapade to the Rainforest hadn’t helped either. He’d gone half to fantasize about abandoning Sumeru for good, and half because maybe the Aranara would have some idea what was wrong with Nahida. 

They hadn’t, of course. 

Wanderer had stood in a small forest clearing for only a moment before a small, round bronze Aranara had popped out of the ground behind him, and asked him what was wrong. 

“I need to talk to you,” He’d said in a rush. 

“Yes?” The Aranara answered. “What is it, Sad Nara?” 

Wanderer had blinked at the new nickname, ruffled. “...I’m not sa—look, that’s not important. The Dendro Archon is sick. Do you all know?” 

“Oh…” The Aranara said, drooping like a sad, tiny flower. “Yes, we Aranara know. Her dreams are very wilted, and we cannot reach her.” 

Wanderer had taken a deep breath, pitifully hopeful. “Do—do you know what’s wrong? How to fix it?”

The Aranara had only drooped further, shaking its head. “No…we are still trying to understand. Much of the forest is sad right now, and this has invited many dangers to it. We worry it is the Marana. Nara should be careful.” 

Wanderer…had not understood what any of that had meant, but he’d sunk to the ground against an old fallen log, probably looking so miserable the Aranara took pity on him. 

“Oh, sad Nara, don’t be sad,” The Aranara had said sympathetically, tottering up to him to pat his leg. “We miss the Lord of Dendro too. We don’t know what is wrong, but we know she will be okay.”

Wanderer would have laughed if he wasn’t so exhausted. “I have no right to miss her. I’ve been avoiding her all day.” 

“Oh no!” The Aranara exclaimed. “Why are you doing that, Sad Nara?”

“I—I don’t know,” Wanderer had admitted. 

“Well, now I feel very, very sad,” The Aranara said ruefully. “That would make the Lord of Dendro sad, too. I do not think she would want you to ‘avoid’ her.” 

Guilt had crashed into Wanderer with the ferocitiy of a vicious tide. He’d looked down at the grass, his head pounding, everything blurring together as he drowned in it. 

The Aranara patted his leg reassuringly again. “You are a good Nara. You will figure it out. We will do our best to help the Lord of Dendro—there are many leaves in the forest that may help with wilted dreams. Return here by sunrise tomorrow, and we will bring you some.”

“…Alright,” Wanderer had replied. It didn’t sound like a solution, but it was something. “Fine.” 

“Good!” The Aranara said, bouncing on its tiny feet. “I will tell my friends. But—Sad Nara, one more thing.” 

“…Yes?”

“Don’t be afraid,” The Aranara had said firmly. “And don’t do any more ‘avoiding’, okay?” 

Wanderer grabs the door’s handle. The Aranara were so confusingly earnest it was almost endearing. He can appreciate the sentiment—really, he can—but he isn’t scared. And if he was… well, he’d have to correct that as soon as possible. 

He notices his hand trembling, and feels a flare of frustration. 

Archons, He thinks. Get it over with. 

Before his body can hesitate further, he forces himself to twist the door’s handle, pushing it open to step inside.