Chapter Text
What is a moment in the face of eternity?
What is a year in the face of near immortality? A decade? A lifetime?
What does one leave behind to ensure their memory remains unending even after the flesh has long since fallen from bone, and bone has long since crumbled to dust?
You publish light novels, of course.
Yae Miko was a tactician that, while she would never boast, rivalled even Kokomi at times. But while Kokomi devoted herself to the maintenance of Watatsumi island and the victory of the rebellion, Miko picked smaller prey. Prey that, with the right push, would start a landslide of change while she slipped back behind the trunk of the Grand Sakura to watch and wait. She picked her battles, just as the Divine Priestess did. These battles just took different forms.
The Yae Publishing house had started as a pet project. Light novels were the specialty, despite the dissemination of many other forms of literature. A moment of transience given an enduring form. A series of books, often with dozens to a collection, each so crammed full of emotion and fleeting tales that their existence alone should have made Ei twitch within her Plane of Euthymia. But put to paper and spread, to allow their legacy to form in the hearts of those who read them.
She had thought it was poetic. A marrying of two concepts Inazuma struggled to balance. That two twins, paired sides of a beautiful coin, had once represented.
Really, though, she was in it for the stories as much as anything else. The way the characters bumbled about, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, like two ships passing in the night when their true love or bitter rival was right there . Just behind the door, or down the wrong alley, or hidden behind a mask.
So when she had seen the way Kujou Sara looked at the Shogun?
How could she not .
It was the perfect tale. The noble General, loyal to a fault, beautiful but hardened by conflict, isolated as a child and never learning how to ask for what she wanted. What she needed . And the stoic Shogun, so wrapped up in her own head trying to avoid further grief that she caused calamity to those around her.
Was it a vast oversimplification of two very complicated people, both of which Yae was very fond of? Yes.
Would it sell like hotcakes if published? Also yes.
And so she watched. Watched the way Kujou Sara prayed at the shrine for a sign that what she was doing was right. That this civil war was not harming more than it was helping. Watched the way the Shogun stared blankly forward, masking the truth of the one within her but unable to stop the frequent storms from tipping off her mood. Unable to hide that it was often clear as can be outside when the Shogun was speaking to her favoured general.
And, sometimes, though she would never admit it, she wished Kujou Sara would look at her that way. Wished that Ei would come back, and have tea with her again. Wished she could share some nonsensical story about an Archon being reincarnated as a Hilichurl and fighting its way through Mondstadt with them. She wanted them to stop pining and just accept that the two of them were head over heels with each other, and by the gods, she wanted to tease them about it until they inevitably tossed her off the balcony of the Tenshukaku to get a moment of peace.
And so she did what any sensible Fox Envoy with Too Much Time on her hands would do.
She set about to make sure that it came to be.
Ei was already being handled. The Traveler had delusions of grandeur and wanted to end the Vision Hunt Decree. It was a shame that Kujou Sara had to be the one to unveil the Fatui’s involvement, she knew it would hurt the poor woman. Possibly beyond repair. But she also felt almost like she owed it to her. For how could Sara believe such a harsh truth it if she heard it second hand? The doubt would gnaw at her. The notion that maybe it had been a mistake, or a lie, or a ruse. But if she saw it with her own two eyes… if she reported it herself …
The fact that Signora had harmed her was a misstep, in Yae’s eyes. It could have been far worse than a long period of rest and healing. Sara could have died. And what would the point have been, then? Saving Ei, her friend, her confidante, her centuries old partner in this dull eternity, but at the cost of a woman Yae knew they both needed?
That thought kept the Guuji up some nights.
Still, all was well that ended well. Everything fell into place. Ei reawoke to the reality of her nation, Kujou Sara recovered her damaged ribs and crippled pride, and the Traveler ran off to go try and catch Crystalflies in the woods.
A perfect, fairytale ending.
Almost.
The only issue is that Ei was terrible at communicating, Kujou Sara was in a vulnerable state and entirely unable to convey her feelings, and neither of them even probably knew why they were so drawn to each other.
Oh, to be young and in love.
Yae was not one for dawdling, however. Phase one of her plan had gone swimmingly . Now she just had to shove the two of them into close enough proximity that they’d have to work things out. Not exactly a Kokomi quality ploy, sure, but it would be the most effective method for two women who were both so woefully misguided in matters of the heart. They were soldiers, both of them. Clear instruction was sometimes needed.
And then she had found Sara bleeding in a ditch.
Oh, how her blood had boiled. Assessing the battlefield had taken but a moment, but those seconds stretched on like their own sadistic eternity. Two people had attacked her. Both were now dead. One, it seemed, by the Shogun’s own hand... if the massive bolt of lightning had been anything to go off of. And the other likely slain by Sara herself.
The notion that the General had been able to kill one while injured and clearly ambushed was something most people would not find attractive. However, Yae prided herself on not being “most people”.
Despite her displeasure that somebody had dared harm one of her people, Yae saw this as an opportunity. And, without much of a thought for dirtying her clothes, she plucked the Tengu off the makeshift battlefield and carried her back to her no-doubt-waiting Shogun.
The rest, of course, was history.
Ei went ahead and confessed without realizing that Sara was awake, Sara finally worked up the nerve to speak once she realized that Ei returned her feelings, and when Yae finally snuck back out the two were embracing in the throne room.
A job well done, a perfect end to a perfect storm. But that’s love for you. She would never take credit for the two of them finding their love for each other, that was only a matter of time, but the expedience? That was something she prided herself on.
Yae, however, was about ready for the next chapter.