Chapter Text
Thunder rolled over Mount Yugou as a single bolt of lightning arced down from the sky, the ground rumbling even up at the Grand Narakumi shrine. Yae Miko raised her head, waving off the Shrine Maiden she and Kujou Sara had been speaking with as the two of them sorted out where exactly the Tenryou Commission was needed.
“Ei is down there?” Sara frowned. It was not a question the general wanted answered, and thus the Guuji did not treat it as such.
“Don’t you dare launch into another hundred questions about her, little bird, or we will be here all night and I have far better things to do than listen to you fret,” Yae chided, delighting in the immediate scowl that was brought to the Tengu’s face. She would be lying if she claimed to not also be concerned, but she also knew all too well why Ei would be concerned by the events that were transpiring at the mountain’s base.
Luckily, Yae was a fantastic liar.
“Ei will be fine, or are you doubting her skill?” She teased, ignoring Kujou Sara’s stammered protests and irritation. “Or are you worried she is doubting yours ? Are you scared she’s here because she finds the Tenryou commission lacking? Or she worries for your health?”
“I… doubt that to be the case.” Sara said carefully, choosing her words as she navigated the verbal minefield that was talking to Yae Miko. “She knows that I am capable, and that the Tenryou Commission is recovered enough from our disgrace to be functional on the battlefield.”
“Then what, little bird, do you have to fear?”
Sara couldn’t answer her, but the quiet sense of foreboding that settled over the both of them as they gazed out over the darkening sky was more than enough of a response for them both.
When Ei didn’t return that night Sara tried not to be worried. She had taken to staying within Tenshukaku at Ei’s request, but the bedroom whenever Ei was not sharing it with Sara was almost suffocating in its size and grandeur. She felt out of place, like a visitor staying at an inn far more opulent than their own home.
There were no missives left, no warnings that she would be back later. The lightning had subsided, that at least was some small comfort. And it wasn’t like Ei wasn’t prone to wandering, especially whenever the Traveler was about, which Sara had heard was the case from the Adventurer’s Guild. There was nothing at all to fear.
And yet?
She paced the room, bare feet scarcely making a sound on the tatami mat.
Some of her men were still out there, but by evening the Rift Hounds had largely subsided. No doubt thanks to the Shogun’s intervention. There were more than enough troops and officers that Sara had been urged back to the city in case the Shogun required any of the Tri-Commission to be redistributed.
That, or her officers were well aware she was worried.
She glanced at the bed, as if by hoping hard enough she could will her Shogun to appear within its sheets. That everything could go back to that brief halcyon period they had enjoyed after finally confessing to one another.
“Then what, little bird, do you have to fear?”
A thousand unspoken anxieties. Sara was a general, she was trained to recognize the worst potential outcomes so that they could be addressed. Unfortunately, that meant that on days when her anxiety reared its ugly head, her thoughts raced a mile a minute to identify every cause for alarm.
Ei could be hurt. The Traveler and her might have run off to go deal with something serious and she wouldn’t hear from them for weeks. Something could have gone wrong at the Shrine. She might have lost track of time meditating again. The Fatui could have attacked. Sara could have somehow angered or upset her and she was avoiding-
The General stopped her pacing, and took a deep breath in. After counting silently, to five, she exhaled, and repeated the process four more times.
Ei was too skilled for a matter such as this to cause more than trifle harm. Ei and the Traveler had not once gone away for more than a day or two without warning Kujou Sara, or even inviting her along for the trip. Yae was more than capable of handling the Shrine, sassy as she was. The Shogun would walk her body home if Ei was meditating. The Fatui were in shambles and posed no real threat at the moment. Ei loved her, despite all odds.
Sara removed her mask, carefully placing it on the bedside table before the rest of her clothing was carefully placed aside. Once she was just in the leotard she wore under her uniform she climbed into bed, pushing away how empty it felt with just her in it for the time being.
She was a grown woman. She could handle sleeping without her partner there for a night.
Perhaps Ei would be back in the morning.
“Sara.”
The General stirred somewhat, struggling to focus on the sound that had roused her. She still felt exhausted, how long had she been asleep?
“ Sara .”
There was an almost desperate tone to the call, but in the haze of slumber the voice sounded almost distant. But then a hand grabbed her shoulder, and the General was suddenly very awake.
Wings erupted on reflex as a bow appeared where her hand would have been had it not been under the blanket, but the grip on her shoulder only tightened. It was still dark, a cloudy sky covering whatever moonlight might have illuminated the room otherwise. Even with the balcony door open-
Sara hadn’t opened the balcony door.
She thrashed a moment, trying to orient herself, only to be brought back down to Teyvat by a frantic voice and the familiar glow of two purple eyes.
“I-I’m sorry, you were asleep, I shouldn’t have woken you- I just- you-”
“Ei?” Sara croaked, her voice far from even when she had just woken up. Her wings lowered slightly, the bow fizzling back into her Vision as she slowly processed the fact that her Archon was half on the bed, still dressed and staring at her very intently. “Welcome back, you were gone longer than I thought you-”
“How long?” The words came out clipped, almost an order. Sara stiffened out of habit, slipping back for a moment into the dynamic of the Shogun and her General.
“Approximately a day, ma’am,” She said quickly. “We saw your lightning in the morning but lost track of you shortly after.”
Ei let out a short, almost manic laugh at that, finally releasing Sara’s shoulder as she reached to light the lantern by the bed.
“A day,” She muttered, illuminating the room with the lantern’s soft glow before she let her hand fall back to her side. “They said it had been no time at all. Both of them. But I didn’t… I had to be sure. I had to make sure you were still here. That I hadn’t lost you too.”
“Ei?”
Sara’s tone shook the Archon from her rambling, and she turned back to stare at her lover. The Tengu looked confused, half sitting up in bed with her hair a mess and her eyes wide with fear and concern.
“Ei, what are you-” Sara fell silent when Ei’s hands found her face, tracing over her features with a soft, almost reverent touch.
“Kujou Sara,” She whispered, fingers drifting down the woman’s jaw and over her lips before she tilted the General’s head from side to side, as if taking inventory of her face. “You haven’t aged a day, my love.”
“I… I don’t-”
“I feel like I have been gone for… no, that would be inaccurate,” Ei pulled her suddenly forward, kissing Sara with an intensity that would have left her breathless if she had possessed any need for air. Sara, on the other hand, had reddened considerably as she panted slightly beneath her touch. “I have been gone for years. I lost track of how many… centuries perhaps. I was within another plane. Another consciousness.”
“Y-you were in the Plane of Euthymia?” Sara frowned slightly, allowing herself to be handled however Ei wished. Her archon shook her head, shifting position to straddle Sara’s legs and pull her into a tighter embrace. “Forgive me, I am trying to keep up.”
“Don’t apologize. Never apologize. I should be the one apologizing. I had to make a choice. I had to show her that I was serious. That this, that all this, that you , that none of this was Erosion.”
Ei’s words tumbled out, and Sara flinched at the final one. Yae and the Shogun had mentioned Erosion only briefly, but from what little Sara could gather it was a danger to any immortal creature, the gods themselves not excluded.
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
Sara froze, her eyes widening as she tried to shift enough that she could see Ei’s expression. The other woman wasn’t budging, however, face buried in Sara’s shoulder as she held her so tightly that it neared painful.
“Please, Ei,” She urged softly, letting her hands drift along her lover’s back. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. You don’t need to rush. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But I did,” Ei hissed, as if Sara understanding this was the most important thing in the world. And, in this moment, for Raiden Ei, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho… it was.
Because how could she face Kujou Sara, her most loyal General and a woman she loved with all her heart, when she had made a choice that might have separated them? When she had agreed to an unending duel, a fight that she knew could last mortal lifetimes, and that if time had indeed passed as she perceived it to have, that she might have returned to find Sara a different woman. Aged, perhaps. Maybe even dead. Having never known what happened to her Shogun.
She wasn’t aware she had built her body to be able to cry.
It came as a surprise to them both when the tears began to fall.
Sara was at a loss for words, jaw hanging slack as Ei’s hands slipped from her and she curled inwards, sobbing into her sleeves as the weight of it all crashed over her. This had never happened before, Sara had never seen this sort of emotion from Ei. Melancholy, certainly. Pain, without a doubt. But this… even Sara herself started to tear up as she coaxed Ei’s head back upwards so their gazes could meet.
“Look at me, Ei, please,” She pleaded softly, putting on as brave a face as she could manage when her Archon acquiesced. “You’re home now. Whatever you are sorry for, I forgive you. I will always forgive you, Ei.”
“It’s been so long,” She managed to choke out, and all Sara could do was nod. “I missed you, I… I had to focus on the fight. My mind couldn’t wander. But I had to win, so I could fix all this, and maybe see you once more.”
“I’m not going-” Sara caught herself before she repeated her earlier phrase, some of the desperation returning to Ei’s eyes for a moment. How could she articulate this, how could she make Sara understand the weight of what had transpired.
Or, perhaps it would be best if she didn’t.
If Sara never truly knew what had transpired.
If-
“Stop it.”
Ei blinked, focussing back on Sara with a start when she saw the woman frowning at her.
“Stop what?” Surely she didn’t mean her crying, though she had been startled out of that by the General’s order.
“I know that look, that is the look you make when you are about to make yourself unhappy in order to accomplish something,” Sara warned, reaching to remove Ei’s hairpiece with a practiced care. “You make it before meeting people you don’t want to, or allowing yourself to be blamed for things outside of even your control. I never want to see you make that face on my behalf ever again, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” She murmured, the word causing Sara to flush slightly as she set Ei’s hairpiece beside her mask and then coaxed the woman to lie in bed properly. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, and I forgive you,” Sara nodded, pressing a kiss to Ei’s forehead.
“I’m abolishing the Sakoku Decree.”
Sara took a moment to process that one, but after a moment she willed herself to nod. She would get the details later, she hoped, but for now it was all she could do to be present for Ei.
The two of them lay in silence for a while, Ei staring up at the ceiling as Sara watched her with concern. For a moment she thought it was the Shogun in bed with her, and that Ei had secluded herself back into her own mind for a time. She was wrong, however, and after a minute or two of pondering, Ei rolled over and pulled Sara up against her.
“It hurt, Sara,” She mumbled, and the Tengu felt her heart nearly split in two. “I feared I would lose, and cease to be. That the Shogun would be all that remained. And you would have waited for me anyway, wouldn’t you have?”
“Always.”
Ei nodded, fingers tangling in Sara’s hair as she closed her eyes. The body she had built had no need for ‘sleep’ in the traditional sense, but there were times she let herself rest while refusing to return control to the Shogun. Usually it was moments like this, when she was in bed with Sara and wanted to allow the General the feeling of them sleeping alongside one another. This time, though, it was sheer mental exhaustion that settled over her.
Sara watched silently for a few minutes, unsure if Ei would suddenly resume her explanation or if this was all for the night. Finally, once she was sure that the other woman was resting, she allowed herself to relax. The adrenaline of her wakeup was fading, and her eyes grew heavy as she pulled the blankets around the two of them. Perhaps the morning light would bring more clarity?
That night, the rain in Inazuma came down in torrents.