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Morning sunlight creeps slow along the sprawling valleys of Windrise, cresting distant mountain peaks to splash warmer hues among the rich greens and yellows of its canvas. Birds trill at each other as they flit between ground and branch, gathering fibers for nest-building. A spry little fox watches them from its cover behind a bush, but dares not make a move with Razor in its wary sights.
Razor tilts his head to catch the warmth, eyes squinted half-shut in enjoyment. He pays little heed to the small animals darting about. The river water is cold against his bare skin, so the sun feels good on his cheeks. He clambers up from the chilly water to crouch on all fours on a rock, naked save for the necklace of claws dangling around his throat. His only clothes, freshly scrubbed of sweat and more dubious stains, hang dripping in the nearby branches of the towering oak tree. He waits patiently for them to dry in the gentle breezes that sway clusters of ferns and snapdragons.
This regimen is new for him, but he is dutiful. He has learned to groom the twigs and berries out of his tangled mane, and chew a mint leaf to freshen his breath, so that Lisa will permit him entry to the library without complaint. Razor is diligent in his weekly visits for lessons. It is important to stay on her good side and follow the rules.
Lessons makes his eyes and head ache, just like swinging his heavy steel claw makes his arms and shoulders ache, but it is a good kind of ache. It means he is getting stronger. He is eager to ask about the meanings of words he heard that week – cavalry, deaconess, balloon, Philanemo – and to see the way Lisa's skilled fingers trace down encyclopedia spines and find answers for him to study. Every plant in the earth and star in the sky have names, just like all of his friends do. He wants to learn them all.
“Olah, olah~” calls a sing-songy voice from somewhere above him. “You're a pretty shameless fellow, aren't you? Or maybe you simply didn't realize you had an audience?”
Razor's eyes startle open. He did not hear anyone or anything approach him. The local birds had not stopped trilling to warn him. It takes him a moment to locate the slight figure perched high in the branches, green cape camouflaged by green leaves. It takes him a moment longer to recognize the bard from Mondstadt, colorful and frivolous like one of the songbirds flitting around him.
“...Venti,” Razor identifies, and offers nothing else. Razor does not dislike Venti, but neither does he have anything to impart. Maybe the bard full of pretty words and nonsense will get bored of a simple creature like him and leave.
The bard does no such thing, and springs to his feet to stroll precariously to the tip of the branch, a branch that does not seem to bend at all under his weight.
“Olah means hello in Hilichurlian! I came out here to compose my hilichurl ballad, but I think my lyrics keep getting lost in translation. They sing to the wind, you know? Big fans of wind, especially the shaman types! But their songs traditionally have such a short meter, it's a real challenge to write one they'll appreciate...”
Razor does not understand more than half of what he's chirping about, but this does not come as a surprise. He settles back on his haunches, bright eyes trained on Venti's gravity-defying antics. Venti is now standing on one foot, teetering on the branch tip with his arms wheeling theatrically for balance.
“Meter...?”
“You know, the number of syllables, the emphasis on... humm, I suppose the structure of poetry might be a little advanced vocabulary for you.”
Razor does not disagree. Writing is hard. Talking is harder. He can usually understand when he listens, but when he tries to reply, he cannot find the shape of the words he needs. Still, he is stronger than he used to be. He can sound out written words now, and spell his own name. He cannot do much with a quill gripped in his clumsy fist, but he knows what Razor looks like. He likes that he has the letter that is jagged like teeth of thunder. It feels correct.
He tried to spell Lisa and Fischl with that Electro letter, though, and it was incorrect. That's why writing is hard. It doesn't follow any of the laws of nature.
“Hilichurl... attack friends,” Razor frowns. “Don't sing. Fight.”
“Humph! Do your friends attack hilichurls first?” Venti counters. He pouts a little, cheeks puffed like an indignant squirrel, and steps off his branch into thin air. Feathers of unnatural wind billow beneath his prancing feet, suspending him in the sky.
Razor huffs, unimpressed. “Noisy. Hunting grounds. Drive away prey,” he tries.
There was a big word Lisa taught him that he struggles to remember, brows knitted with concentration. Venti waits patiently, eyes bright with birdlike curiosity as he flips upside down. Somehow, his hat remains secure as he drifts lazily about like a puff of dandelion seeds.
“...Territorial,” Razor finally announces.
“Oya, that's a good word! Full marks, bravo,” Venti cheers and claps. He swirls and swoops down to hover over the surface of the water, trailing a hand in it to distort his reflection. “Maybe as your reward, I could sing a ballad about the Lupercal instead?”
“Lupical,” Razor corrects.
“No, no, Lupercal is a word from a distant world, many shores beyond this one! It's a story about a pair of twins abandoned to the wild, and the she-wolf who suckled them so they didn't starve, and the lowly shepherd who finds them and raises them to one day become kings – sounds like a grand tale, doesn't it? Would that be fun?”
Razor nods furiously, eyes round as saucers. Venti giggles at the sight of him scrambling upright, all gangly limbs and scars and a mess of wet hair, and playfully covers his eyes. The bard twirls a finger and the clothes dance free from the branches and fly directly at Razor, smacking him in the face.
“At least cover your dangly bits if you're going to stand up, hehe,” Venti teases, unable to keep the laughter out of his tone long enough to sound stern.
Razor wades to shore as he obediently fumbles his well-worn cloak over his shoulders. He is surprised to find it fully dry when it had been soaked moments earlier.
“Spell?” he asks hopefully, wide eyes still trained on Venti.
“Drying spell? Or... you mean the spelling of the word?” Venti realizes, tapping a finger against his chin.
He waits until Razor has finished wriggling into his ragged trousers and buckling his belts before complying. He says the letters too quickly at first, but Razor has him repeat it several times, until the word Lupercal is crudely scratched into the mud of the riverbank. He stares at it, concentrating hard, with the hopes that he will memorize it by the time he makes it to the library.
“Thank you for teaching,” Razor remembers to say then. “Being human... new to me.”
Venti smiles back at him, but the light in his eyes has dimmed. Razor is not sure why. He's certain he wrote the letters correctly.
“You're Andrius' foundling, right?” Venti remarks, crossing his arms. “That grumpy old windbag who claims to hate all humans, but still takes pity on the unwanted ones. Even death never really changed his tune.”
Razor's heart stutters helplessly at the name. He looks down at his hands. Faded scar tissue puckers the skin from where old scrapes and bites mended unevenly. His fingernails are woefully short and stubby, nothing like claws. But calluses have grown instead from endless hours of wielding his steel claw, from getting stronger. He remembers these hands blocking Andrius' jaws from closing around the traveler's throat. A rejection.
“I had to fight him. I had to leave,” Razor explains. “I am not a real wolf... so I am not welcome.”
“He's still supposed to look after all of Mondstadt, not just the animals,” Venti grumbles. “You've heard him talk, right? Out loud? If I could teach a dragon human speech, I don't see why he couldn't teach a baby. Some noble spirit, huh.”
Razor never considered asking his wolf-father for human lessons. That seemed wrong. He frowns, considering Venti's observation. Meeting that man in the forest who gave him a human name, receiving his steel claw and learning how to wield it in self-defense, the terrible battle that led to him receiving his Vision... But Razor does not think it is wrong for him to seek out his human side, even after what happened with the hunters of Springvale. And Andrius does.
He fights not with teeth, but with lightning, because that is all he has. Vision or not, their paths were always meant to diverge. He would never be wolf enough to stay.
“He gave me life,” Razor offers simply. “If he says I leave, then I leave.”
Venti, capricious as the wind itself, doesn't press the issue. Instead he flashes his trademark smile, brilliant and hollow, and makes a grand gesture to indicate he is about to perform. Razor sits. With a strum of lyre strings conjured from a flash of Anemo, the bard launches into a whimsical song of fearsome wolves and lost boys like him and kings of faraway lands, and Razor crouches obediently at his feet, absorbing every nonsensical word.
With practice, Razor gets better at navigating the bewildering streets of Mondstadt, even if he clambers over walls and railings instead of using the stairs. But there are still days when Razor is swallowed whole by the vivid colors and chaos the moment he steps through the gates. Everything is in perpetual motion, flapping banners and spinning windmills and formations of rookie knights running drills. His head rings with the rhythmic clanging of the blacksmith's hammer, soaring music harmonizing with merchants hawking wares. His chest feels too tight, pent up electricity coiling anxious beneath his skin. He does not belong here.
It is impossible to formulate a thought and hold onto it for more than a second without another distraction jarring his concentration. So he lets his human side go, for a bit. Instinct takes over. His nose finds the redolent perfume of bouquets of cecilias and sunsettias for sale, the aroma of chicken-mushroom skewers grilling on the fire, the sharp tang of sweet wine and sour cider wafting from the tavern's open windows. Humans mill around the courtyard fountain like a herd of deer at a watering hole.
A black-and-white dog barks at him in greeting, eyes bright and tail waving like a flag. Razor huffs, head tilted. These are not his lupical, but Razor feels the knot in his chest loosen as he barks back. She trots over to him, and nudges his pockets eagerly with her snout. He does not have any hunting scraps stashed for the dogs today. Unperturbed, she lopes away in search of other treats, and Razor follows.
Soon Razor is exploring with a whole pack of city dogs down the narrow alleys, startling pigeons into flight and barking at plump cats that hiss from balconies above them. The shopkeepers shoo Razor away with brooms or dirty looks when he knocks down their wares or scares their customers, but he doesn't much mind. The dogs lead him from park to park, manicured little squares of flowers and trees where they lift their legs and leave scent markers for each other. Razor remembers from last time he will get in trouble with the guards if he relieves himself here in the parks, and the guards will tell Lisa, and then she will make the sky black and scary with lightning, so he does not do the same.
His wolf side is calm now, surrounded by pack. The sun feels good on his shoulders, and he is in good company, so his earlier discomfort is all but forgotten. Once they are all warm and their tongues loll tired from their jaws, Razor splashes in the plaza fountain with them to cool off. They find a sunny spot on the cobblestones to lay down and dry. Contented dogs all around him bump noses against his legs or roll belly-up for attention. His callused fingers make quick work of burrs and ticks lodged in their fur, and the dogs plaster his face wet with their tongues in return.
He pauses then to consider their bodies, so different from his own. There are no wolfhook berries tangled in their coats, the way they tangle in his hair. Their pelts are softer than wolf pelts, teeth smaller, eyes gentler. They have no desire to hunt when their bellies are kept full by humans. Their ears have gone floppy and their tails have gone loose.
They are not children of the moon, not after humans took the wild out of them.
His human side sits up, suddenly aware that the sisters in black keep staring oddly at him. They whisper the rumors about the feral child from Wolvendom, the Wolf Boy, left to be devoured by beasts and instead spirited away by the North Wind itself. They avoid making eye contact as they cross their chests and hurry back into the protective shadow cast by the towering statue of Barbatos.
Razor wonders if that means they can see he is a wild thing mimicking the shape of a person. He brushes the dirt from his clothes, and considers if that makes him both too wolf to be human, and too human to be wolf. He never used to question such things, and never used to care about the answers. Only a human would.
The rain pelts down in heavy sheets, driven by wind so cold and fierce it feels like he will freeze. The northern squall blew in from the sea so fast that Razor was still in the middle of his hunt when he was caught in the open, and his skittish boar bolted at the first flash of lightning. Now night has fallen and Razor huddles under his cloak in a small cave along the cliff side, drenched and hungry and sulking. He does not so much mind being wet, but there is no point in attempting to hunt when all the game for miles around will be hiding, so he has little choice but to wait for morning.
He does not like sitting still and waiting, especially during a storm like this one. Bad memories flicker close to the surface, drawn out by the growl of thunder and the sharp ozone burning his nostrils. The last lightning strike was close to the cliff. His Vision crackles and sparks at the residual energy in the air. The hair on his arms stands on end with static.
Razor shifts, pulling his hood lower. He can smell something else through the gloom that he didn't notice before. Not animal or Abyss mage, but... soured apples? He squints into the darkness, suspicion rising fast. He learned to trust his instincts long ago, and it's the reason he's still alive now. His hand settles on the hilt of his weapon, ready for a fight.
In the next flash of lightning, Razor is, somehow, not entirely surprised to find Venti of all people seated next to him. He flinches anyway. The little bard is mysteriously dry despite the weather, and is cradling a mostly-empty bottle to his chest. He had not been there moments earlier.
The tension slowly ebbs from Razor's posture as darkness returns, and he releases his hilt. No threat. He palms his Vision, and with a quick crackle of electricity, it glows a dim purple to light the shadowy cavern. Razor then tilts his head in question, and Venti grins impishly, cheeks flushed pink.
“Nothing beats a good apple cider to warm you from the inside out! Want some?” Venti proffers the bottle in Razor's direction. “Don't make that frowny face, it's not very strong. I had this much and barely feel – uh, wait, actually, are you legal? Those preposterous regulations will affect you more than me...”
Venti leans in too close, nearly bumping their noses together as he examines Razor with his dazzlingly viridescent eyes. Razor does not even know what legal means. He stares blankly, unsure how to respond other than to freeze.
“I... guess you don't know how old you are either, huh. Okay, just to be on the safe side, I'll wait until you grow a beard,” Venti decides, taking the bottle back and patting Razor's shoulder in exaggerated sympathy. “I don't want to give the Angel's Share any more reasons to ban me for life, hehe. The things I do for these people, honestly!”
“Why are you here?” Razor finally finds his voice.
He is accustomed to finding Venti in odd places, after all, but the airy bard seems most in his element in the streets of the city, surrounded by adoring fans. Venti materializing out of thin air in the middle of the wilds of Wolvendom feels like he was deliberately sought out for some purpose, and Razor cannot fathom what that could possibly be. Venti just likes to hear the sound of his own voice, he supposes.
“Thought I would pay an old friend in this neck of the woods a visit,” Venti chirps. “But he sent me packing! Can you believe it? How rude! Here I brought a gift and everything, and he has the nerve to tell me I'm shirking my duties to get drunk off in the woods–”
Razor snorts.
“Hey, don't laugh! You reek of wet dog, by the way. Even more pungent than your usual body odor, I might add.”
“You... smell like wind.”
“Heh, I imagine so! That's a genuine Anemo Vision for you~” Venti waggles the shiny bauble at his belt for emphasis. It looks more or less like Razor's Vision, but it is not the source of the scent.
“No,” Razor frowns. His brows furrow as he formulates his sentence. It is the reason Venti could keep sneaking up on him. “Wind... carries scents. Sweet flowers. Clover. Grass. Rabbit,” he gestures, trying to demonstrate. “You... you are wind itself. No Venti scent. Just others.”
Venti regards him carefully. He is still all smiles, but there is a sharpness in his gaze now, a shift from calculated guilelessness to a glimpse of something... wilder. Older. Fathomless. Razor feels the swoop in the pit of his stomach like he is stepping over the edge of a cliff, and cannot see the bottom of the abyss that lies below. He swallows hard.
Then Venti reaches out to pat him on the head, ruffling up his mess of white hair. “Your senses are pretty sharp, huh! I've never been told I lacked a scent before. Whatever could that mean?” he prompts, waggling his eyebrows.
Razor growls good-naturedly, huddling lower under Venti's constant invasion of his space. “Venti... Not a real human,” he grumbles. He already knew this. Paimon is the same way. “Good at being human, though. Venti teacher.”
“Me, teach you?” Venti bursts into peals of laughter, clear and high as church bells. “The only thing you'd learn from me are bad habits! Or bad poetry, if you can scrape together enough mora to pay me. But don't worry, you're already doing a much better job at playing human than a certain blockhead I know.”
Venti's little hands are always in motion, flitting like birds, expressive and lyrical as his voice. Razor looks down at his own clumsy hands, larger, rougher, gnarled with scar tissue. He touches the string of claws he wears on his belt, and remembers the face of each wolf he lost to the Abyss. He used to want nothing more but to be born shaped like them, to be able to save them, but... now he is no longer sure. These hands are proof of how far he's come.
“Oh?” Venti prompts, tilting his head as he peers at Razor. His braids dangle. “So it is bothering you that Andrius said that, huh. Is this not the body you want?”
Razor does not know anymore. He likes having human lupical, too. If he somehow became a real wolf, he could no longer speak to them. All his effort will be for nothing. He blinks helplessly at Venti, who slings an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in close like an old drinking buddy. His breath is sour with liquor, and Razor does his best not to scrunch his nose in distaste.
“I've seen how you shape your Vision into a wolf's body. A mortal with a Vision could ascend to Celestia, one day... Godhood could give you whatever shape you want,” Venti says casually, as though ascending mortality was as easy to him as picking an apple.
“This body... I... I don't know what I am,” Razor says slowly. “I don't know what to be. I do not belong anywhere.”
“And I'm saying you're overthinking it!” Venti huffs, cheeks puffed out. He jabs a finger at Razor's chest to emphasize. “This is Razor's body no matter what shape it is! So just be Razor! You don't need a plan or a bunch of rules to follow. You have the freedom to live the life you want, so why label it as right or wrong, human or not? Find whatever makes you happy, and just chase that for as long as you can. Smile more, laugh more! A life wasted on yearning, never fulfilled, will just be another sad song in the end...”
He looks over his hands again, while Venti beside him quaffs the remainder of his bottle. Razor is just Razor. This is Razor's body. It is exhausting, but Razor likes to learn, to make this body stronger.
His purple teacher is sometimes scary, but sometimes she praises him, too. He thinks of the first time he made hash browns with Lisa over the campfire, and how excited he was to show the traveler that he was learning how to cook, even though the soggy potatoes crumbled like river mud between his fingers when he tried to pick them up.
He thinks of Klee bringing her picture books to show him, and how they lay on their bellies for hours with their faces crowded together to examine at every page. The Wolf and the Windwheel Aster is his favorite. The Boar Princess just left him hungry.
Sometimes Amber drops by with her journal, and reads her adventurous tales out loud while he does his best to follow along. She brings souvenirs like feathers and pressed flowers so he can smell and touch remnants of faraway places. He gets distracted easily because she smells like woodsmoke and burnt steak, and sometimes they both give up on reading and decide to go hunting instead.
What makes Razor happy is friends, pack, lupical. They are also what make him sad. He misses his wolf-father, his packmates, and the wolves the Abyss took from him. On a night like this, his wolves would huddle for warmth, curled in balls from snout to tail tip, their coarse fur scratching at his skin. When he was little, they would roll over and play so gently with him, careful never to nip his soft skin hard enough to bruise. He remembers the joy of their songs in the moonlight, how they would howl to each other no matter where they were, and find each other again. If Razor howled now, no one would answer him.
Venti's rambling grows less coherent as he turns his face into Razor's shoulder. “You gotta have some fun before you die, okay...? Learn hedonism, Razor. Don't be boring. Get old, drink wine, take a human mate, adopt some dogs together... If you get bored of that, throw your clothes away, run off into the woods, and be the new wolf king... Heh, I bet I could write a great ballad with that...”
Outside of the cave, the rain continues to fall. Drool is collecting at the corner of Venti's mouth, who cradles the bottle to his chest like a loved one he can't bear to let go of. Razor sighs and adjusts his cape so that it covers Venti's narrow shoulders. He does not know how to be anything other than Razor, but he still has lupical who care enough to check up on him and teach him new things. Razor is not strong enough to protect everyone yet, and he does not even have fur to share, but what little warmth he has to offer, he will give freely.
Razor thinks he used to be happier before he knew there was a life outside of the forest, and now he can never go back to not knowing. It was simpler when Razor was just a wolf. But now he is both, and it is not better or worse, just different. He will keep learning.