Chapter Text
In the middle of the night, little wobbly steps climbed up the stairs up to Amber and Eula’s room.
In her pajamas Prune was walking up hesitantly, holding her anemo vision like a lantern to light up her path. With her other hand she kept a firm grip on the Professor Descartes plushy Amber had made for her, as though she was afraid to let it fall on the ground and hurt it.
When she finally arrived on the top floor, she paused for a second in front of the bedroom door. She missed the little bunny doll hanging from its handle, as well as the adult noises coming from within. When she knocked, a shout of surprise and fumbling noises erupted inside.
After a minute of hurried steps and ruffling sounds, the door finally opened.
“Prune? Are you alright?” Amber said as she adjusted her bathrobe over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry… I can’t fall sleep.”
Amber and Eula had quickly learned to give Prune some rules to avoid her opening the door to their room and finding them in compromising positions.
Before that, the first time she intruded like this, she asked point-blank “Are you trying to make me a little sister? That’s not how the books says it is done though.”
Following this incident, Eula had a good talk with her about what kind of books she had read – and she learned that Nod-Krai’s bookstores did not have as much censorship and child-rating as other nations. Thankfully Amber was good at explaining to Prune the basic of sexual education adapted for Prune’s age, and she learned easily to not disturb them when they put a little rabbit sign on their door handle.
Of course, this privacy agreement did not stand in case of emergency.
Just like Amber, Eula had put her clothes back on, and both of them made some place on the side of their bed to listen to their adoptive daughter who clutched her Imaginary friend’s doll against her chest.
“What is it?” Amber asked gently as she pat the little girl’s back. She’d heard Prune earlier, but it wasn’t the first time since she arrived that Prune had problems falling asleep. Usually she soldiered through it silently, appearing the next day at breakfast with dark circles under her eyes, which she always tried to dismiss. But tonight it was the first time she appeared so distraught about it.
“When I fall asleep, is it really me that wakes up the next day?” Prune asked with a frown.
“Huh?”
“I’m supposed to go on a picnic with Klee and Diona tomorrow – f-for research about the witches of course! – and I can’t wait to be there. But I can’t just travel forward in time and get there immediately, right? Theoretically it’s possible of course, but I’d need magic or Fontainian technology or tri-lunar authority to pull it off. And even then… Will it really be me that’s traveling forward? What happens to that consciousness I leave behind?”
Amber’s gaze jumped from Prune to Eula and back in utter confusion. But thankfully Prune didn’t see her, and she continued.
“S-So if I fall asleep, I lose consciousness, right? And then I wake up hours later, without any memories of the night! Is it possible that every time I fall asleep, I just die, and then another one of me wakes up with my memories, and that’s how it goes every night? But if I’m the one who falls asleep, I’ll never wake up!”
Eula could see Prune’s head visibly heat up and flush from the intense maelstrom happening inside.
“Prune, are you sure you’re – oh!” Eula tried to caress Prune’s forehead but jerked her hand off in reflex, “Prune, you’re burning! Didn’t you feel you have a fever? Amber, go get the first aid remedy pouch!”
“R-Right!”
“I’m fine, this is nothing!” Prune pleaded, strain more obvious now in her voice.
“Don’t act tough, young lady! Even adults need to learn to listen to their bodies. Come on, lie down and let us take care of you.”
“She must really be under the weather to be so obedient,” Amber whispered after putting Prune to sleep.
It had taken a good hour before she had finally calmed down enough to drift away, but both Amber and Eula tried not to show how worried they were. Thankfully Eula’s cold hand had soothed Prune’s fever somehow to something bearable enough to sleep.
“She’s asleep now, we’ll ask Barbara to come check on her tomorrow,” Eula said with a yawn. “I suppose getting excited for the next day and having a fever was enough to give her an early existential crisis, like we all do.”
“Huh? Do we?”
Eula stared at Amber for a while before sighing again, “For most growing children it is usual to get some existential questions at some point when they become more and more aware of themselves as an individual. Some like Prune tend to overthink that bit, and others,” she smirked at Amber, “Others tend to underthink, I suppose.”
“B-But she’ll be okay, right?”
“She’ll be fine Amber,” Eula said with a kiss on Amber’s cheek, “Just a bug she must have caught while fish-blasting with Klee and the other kids.”
The next day Barbara came in very early, on account of having been basically dragged by Amber as soon as the sun came up.
Amber and Eula held their breaths when she examined Prune. But after a couple of questions, Barbara gave her a poultice to help with the fever, a cool hydro head massage, and a prayer to Barbatos.
“I didn’t catch a cold!” Prune pouted stubbornly, “Only idiots catch colds. That’s clearly stated in the Shogun’s Familiar, volume 6. Page 12.”
“Isn’t that a light novel?” Amber asked.
Prune shook her head, making the cloth on her forehead fall to the side, “Many life lessons get written in these so called lower-level literature works, too often underestimated by haughty akademicians.”
Barbara giggled as she put the cool cloth back, “It’s alright little Prune, you just need to stay in bed until your fever comes down.”
Barbara smiled like an angel at Prune, who lost the will to fight back against yet another adult trying to take care of her. How many was that now? Too many to count. She had to keep notes just like Eula had taught her. No good deeds should remain unpunished, after all.
Eula took a day off, but Amber had to go to work because of a growing threat of hillichurls invasion near Dornman Port she was tasked to survey. The Outrider begrudgingly moaned as she left Prune, giving her adoptive daughter and Eula a quick hug before gliding out through the window.
“It’s okay, you can go to work too,” Prune said. But the shaking in her voice did not convince Eula at all.
“Young lady, you are staying here under my care until you get better. This is non negotiable. Understood?”
“Hmph…” Prune fell back under her cover and hid her face underneath. Strangely not at all inconvenienced to sleep in for once.
“Would you like me to read you a book?”
The word book immediately made Prune’s ears perk up, but she tried to play it cool. “I don’t need another fairy tale, thank you.”
“Of course, I believe you must have read all the ones from Amber’s childhood bookshelf, right?”
Prune flinched. They were all books for children with beautiful illustrations, and once she read one, she had to read the rest, to her dismay.
Eula smiled and patted her head gently, “I brought a few books from the library for you. Which one would you like me to read?”
The pile of books Eula put down on the side of the bed almost managed to make Prune slide off from its sheer weight. The selection however was perfectly random: An Akademiya textbook about obscure desert scripts, a Fontainian technical books for maintenance of fish-droids, a few poetry scrolls from Liyue, some Natlanese dietary magazines, An ancient stone tablet with a Sun and a Moon on it, An atlas of Nod-Krai’s kuuvahki-sustained flora, even an Inazuman light novel with a lengthy title.
Exactly the kind of random collection Prune loved to dive into.
“… Can you read me the dietary one?”
“Hmm… Iansan’s Cooking Tips? Good choice, Prune. Let’s see…”
Eula sat down next to Prune and opened the light magazine on both their laps. When she began to read it, Prune followed intently, sometimes asking her some follow up questions Eula tried her best to answer.
The pile of books did not last a day.
When it was Amber’s turn to pamper Prune, she was running all around the house to make sure she wasn’t lacking of anything.
“Let me refill your glass with fresh water!”
“Are you sure you don’t want a Baron Bunny too? This one’s extra soft!”
“Open up! Eula cooked it this morning, don’t worry, it’s safe!”
But the most important part of her care was chatting with Prune and keeping her company.
“Yeah, remember when I talked to you about Collei? She’s supposed to visit soon! I can’t wait to introduce you! She’s kind of a little sister to me, so maybe you should call her Aunty Collei to annoy her, hehe!”
“She’s from Sumeru, is she working at the Akademiya?” Prune asked, sparkles in her eyes.
Amber thought for a moment, “Not exactly, she’s a Forest Ranger, but she’s also studying in the uh… the section that deals with plants and such?”
“Oh! The Amurta darshan! Wow!”
“That’s the one! You’re so smart Prune!”
“O-Of course! I got a Spantamad book as a token of my victory against Alice the first time I fought her, so I know quite a bit about the Akademiya’s structure! Amurta is for biology, K-karewar is uh mechanics? Vahumata is history, Haravatat for languages, the Temple of Silence for conspiracies, and Spantamad is of course dealing with elemental science! I think that’s all.”
“Which one would you like to be a part of, if you were to enroll?”
“Vahumana! Because it’s the search for unadulterated truths, to reveal the lies adults too often say! Also –”
A knock on the front door interrupted Prune’s excited rant, and Amber made sure she was comfortable before answering. A few seconds later a rumble of tiny steps followed Amber back to Prune’s room.
“Hello Prune! Are you okay?”
“Calm down Klee, can’t you see she’s fine?”
“You’re one to talk, Diona. You were the one who dragged us all to check on her.”
“I-I did not! I was just worried since Eula said she couldn’t come to our picnic.”
Klee and Diona were the first friends Prune had made in Mondstadt, but a few others were here too: Lily with whom she shared a love of strange books, Sage who shared with her his love of surreal stories, and Timmy, who shared her hatred of Alice on account of the many times she tried to attack his pigeons for fun.
“Don’t crowd her, guys, Prune’s still got a bit of a fever. Just one minute before I have to throw you out!” Amber said, quite responsibly.
In a hurry the little kids each gave Prune a little snack as a get well gift, before disappearing and vowing to come back the next day.
“Hmph, such annoying kids,” Prune said with a roll of her eyes.
“Aren’t you happy to have so many friends worried about you? It’s great isn’t it?” Amber said as she checked Prune’s temperature with her hand on her forehead.
Prune mumbled, “I suppose…”
Amber’s hand wasn’t as cold as Eula’s, so why was she feeling so safe?
Prune began to drift again, and before long her little snoring informed Amber she was finally resting.
Amber stayed next to her, holding her hand in case she woke up.
“Don’t worry Prune, we’re here for you. Just leave everything to us.”
Memories of her own childhood were coming back to her. Little Amber was a menace, only sometimes slowing down when she would inevitably catch a cold after running around Mondstadt all day. And when she was sick, she loved how her Grandpa pampered her – more than usual.
“Oh! I’ll make you Grandpa’s porridge! I’ll be right back!”
Prune’s fever finally subsided and she stirred awake feeling tired, but content. Despite the smell of burned milk coming from the kitchen, she felt at ease. Safe. Maybe she could sleep a little bit more?
Just a little bit.
Even though it lasted only for a couple days, Prune mostly forgot for a time her wrath against the witches, focusing instead on her actual interests and friends. In that safe haven Amber and Eula had made for her, she was finally beginning to turn a page and see the world anew with the excited, expectant eyes of a child ready to conquer it.