Archive of Our Own

Despite the warnings and whispers of the people around her, Yae chose to walk her way home alone.

She assured the waitress that she would be fine, at least a dozen times over. In fact, she had done it enough times to walk home from the restaurant with her eyes closed and her feet off the ground; there was no need for anyone to panic, even if they had told her that there were reports of more bandits in the area than ever before. If it ever came to that, then all she needed to do was zap them. 

As easy as that. 

But she did have to admit, the dark roads stretching in front of her were more than just a little creepy. The wind whistled by her ear, as if whispering cautionary tales to her that were too muffled by the chimes of bells next to nearby houses. Even with her fox-like vision, Yae had almost stepped into cracks in the roads more than twice. She wondered if that was something she should note down to Ei the next time they met, so that the priority of these bothersome pathways would help dispel these from her sight forever.

Nonetheless. 

Yae could feel her skin crawl with the feeling of vulnerability.

She walked a little bit faster, if only to ensure that she could get back to the Shrine to get in bed in a timely fashion. She dearly missed her bed, in all actuality. There was nothing more tempting than the feeling of a plush pillow under her neck and blankets to keep her warm. It got a bit lonely at night, sure, but a bed was a bed, and Yae was almost deathly tired. 

So tired, really, that she fell almost face first into the gravel in front of her when the front of her caught on a rock. Her knees buckled to break the fall, and searing pain attached itself to her ankle like a leech. 

Yae huffed. It was more of an embarrassing turn of events than anything else. At least no one was watching her, and that she could be rest assured that it was too dark around her for anyone to see what had happened. 

Just as she was dusting off the gravel stuck to her knees and mourning her weekend evening plans to spend it picking off the wounds from her legs, someone grabbed her from behind. A big, burly hand clamped over her mouth, muffling her surprised, indignant cries. 

She bit down in an instant, and the man behind her howled in pain and let go. 

Yae took that opportunity to spin around and sweep him off his feet with her (unbroken) ankle, and he went down without so much as a squeak. Her heart pounding in her chest and the danger imminent in the air, she tried her best to turn and run. Unfortunately for her, it meant trying to limp with a single healthy leg, and that was no easy task for any person, including her. 

Eventually, one of the goons caught up to her and pulled her by a long sleeve, and she yelled in disgust. She blasted a quick spike of electricity towards his face, enough to send the bandit flying a good few feet away from her. Yae winced when she tried to face her body away from him, and the pain shot through her body like a sharp arrow to the leg. Dull, throbbing pain, but pain nonetheless. 

She was no stranger to pain like this, so she knew she could manage, eventually— it was the fact that she was in the company of a few gentlemen that made it harder for her in the long run. 

She managed to zap two other people away from her before they could even come close, and Yae could make out just the little bits of masks on their faces in the dark. They were bandits, alright, and there was no doubt about the fact that they were trying to make the best of robbing a poor, innocent woman on her way home through the gloomy night. 

It was just their luck that the darkness made it hard for them to discern the Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine; and it was Yae’s that she had managed to get herself hurt prior to their meeting. Awful timing, but she was sure she could manage. 

Somehow. 

Yae fought off another pair of bandits with her Vision, and the searing pain in her lungs tripled. Keeping herself conscious through the entire thing was an effort in and of itself, and though she was one to boast about her efforts in multitasking, she would’ve preferred to not be where she was at the moment. Especially when her infected leg was beginning to crawl with phantom pains, and most especially when an astute bandit caught onto her Achilles heel and slammed the back of her knee with a club. 

She cried out in pain this time, and she nearly fell to the ground from the burning sensation that came with it. However, kitsune had a reputation for being stubborn, and she held herself up long enough to twist the club in the woman’s hands and throw her back with a shock of electro through the weapon. 

Even in the darkness her vision was beginning to spot with blackness in the corners. It was a subtle thing to take note of, but it was a big suggestion to the state her body was currently in. Yae gritted her teeth. She was already regretting the invitation to stay in that restaurant for the night, but even if her future self jumped right in and forced her to wait through the night, she was certain that she would’ve thrown back her head and laughed. 

She cursed her own self for being stubborn the way that she was, but it was a lament she supposed she could reflect on another time. 

Someone from behind her took the back of her dress and pulled her backwards, forcing her to hit the ground on her rear. It stung, but not as badly as the sudden firework show of pain coming from her ankle. Her yelp of pain was sharp, like a frightened fox, and one of the bandits bent down to her level to laugh about it. 

“Aw, poor wittle lady can’t get up and fight anymore?” he cooed, and Yae puckered her lips in preparation to spit in his face. “Don’t worry, miss. We’ll be taking good care of you.”

The men behind him laughed hysterically at that, like he had just shared the funniest joke with the rest of them. Yae felt disgusted to her very core. But there wasn’t much she could do about it, in her state. She wondered if she could just let go and fry them all like fish and save all of the time. 

One of the bandits seemed to know what she was thinking. He put the tip of a bat on her broken ankle, lightly at first, and then pressed his weight on it by a slight inch.

Yae made no sound, but she winced. Her ears were so flat against her head that she could hear her blood roaring against the sides of her temples. Her reaction, even in the vast darkness, was enough for the bandits to know the kind of state she was in. It was a mistake that had sealed her fate, that much she knew. 

She opened her mouth to say something. To say what, she couldn’t tell— an insult, an indignant cry about them hurting the Guuji, or all of the above, was all on the table. 

But then the man right in front of her was blasted away by a crackle of electricity, and she squinted through the blinding light. Had her electro Vision reacted to the danger around her? She certainly didn’t do that. 

The bandits clamored in panic, shouting at one another and raising weapons to their faces. Yae tried her best to stand up, but the pain in her ankle was unbearable. She cursed the gods above for not giving her impenetrable skin. It would’ve come in handy right about now. 

Arching well above her head, another strike of thunder fell from the sky and struck another man in the chest. He convulsed violently for a few seconds, before falling to the ground like a ragdoll. 

Yae gaped at the scene unfolding in front of her. It was almost comical watching bandits barrel into one another like possessed limp pieces of furniture, all with the help of the incredibly still wind and the crackle of bright lightning. It almost blinded her, flashing white against the black void, so Yae begrudgingly covered her eyes with a hand over her eyelids. 

She continued to squint to watch, however. Her heart was still hammering in her chest, and there was no telling if the still leaves and heavy air meant that she was safe. 

She ducked long enough to watch another bandit fly over her head. In the darkness, two more were zapped together in a nearby pond. The screams in her ears were painful, both to her ears and to the people that it came from. Yae swore she could hear the gurgle of blood in a mouth right beside her. 

It was like stepping into a horror novel, and she was the observer. It would have been a fascinating thing to experience, had it not been for her adrenaline and the pounding of her ribcage. 

She gasped when the pain in her ankle exploded, just at the same time a man’s body was thrown into a tree beside her. Yae gripped her ankle to stop the throbbing, and another body slammed to the floor. She could see the outline of blood pooling under the body of the ragdolled man, and the more ambiguous outline of a tall, tall woman towering over her and the bandits that both cowered and shouted at one another to do something.

Whatever they hoped would happen was never granted to them, however. The shadow moved from one spot to the next with a blink of an eye. A spear ran through one of the larger men like he was softened butter, and thrown into a tree trunk with just as much vigor. Yae’s morbid curiosity couldn’t stop herself from looking away. 

By then, the number of bandits had dwindled for her to be able to count them on one hand. 

The shadow moved into the dusted kiss of the moonlight, and there was Ei, unconcealed rage cold and heartless in her eyes. 

She had thought it was that blasted Shogun puppet for a split second. The set jaw and the blank stare as she pierced through the rest of the bandits were nothing like the giggly friend she met to grab lunch with the other day, nor was it any like the mollified god that had protected Inazuma with a trained, and firm, hand. 

Ei’s body reflected the cold rage that Yae hadn’t seen in years, one that frosted the tips of the lilies in the valley and the veins in her chest. Most of her head was still concealed in the darkness, save for the sharp eyes that conveyed her fury, and the lightning that flashed in tandem with her steps made it look as if her head was shrouded in a halo that matched the color of spilled blood. Yae was sure it was a hallucination. 

Ei pierced the side of one of the men. Not enough to kill, but enough to incapacitate the poor thing for the rest of his life. A fair price to pay, according to the way Ei stared him down. 

“LEAVE,” Ei gritted out, and her booming voice was as frigid and frightening as the thunder that circled above them. Threatening, like vultures. 

She tossed him away with her spear like an unwanted fish in a net, and the rest of his goons ran and scattered from one another like rats running from the Devil. 

And once they were gone, the exhaustion finally hit Yae square in the chest. 

Her fingers continued to wrap tightly around her ankle, and her shallow breaths became thinner with every inhale to the lungs. Her blackening vision had gone from a small frame of darkness to consuming nearly her entire sight. 

Gentle fingers brushed against her arms. 

She could barely make out Ei’s face through the darkness of her world.

“Let me,” Ei murmured, and her voice had dwindled to something gentle, like the call towards an injured young bird. 

Yae conceded. She let go of her ankle, the pain still dull and thrumming right under the skin, and Ei scooped her up in her arms. 

The last thing she could remember before passing out was the grim look on Ei’s face, and the dark, silvery clouds above them that painted two twin masts in the sky.

The shrine maidens around her squealed in surprise when Yae sat up. 

Breathing hard, Yae took inventory of the room around her, only to be surprised that it was some place familiar. The Grand Narukami Shrine, in one of the few infirmaries they held in case of emergencies like this. Usually, the floor cots were filled with maidens that had passed out from the heat in the summer, but now Yae was occupying one for the first time in her life. 

All for a stupid, broken ankle. She felt bitter about it. 

But there was no use in dwelling on it, unfortunately. 

She looked to her side and immediately regretted it. There were bandages wrapped around her abdomen, and there was a slight tinge of red poking through her left rib cage. Maybe she had sustained more injuries than she realized, but still.

“Have you seen the Shogun?” she asked, and nearly demanded it from her shrine maidens. 

Hotomi was the first to answer between the many distressed girls. “The Shogun dropped you off here about six hours ago. She just left for Tenshukaku,” she said bleakly, almost like she expected Yae to dust herself off and march straight to Ei’s dwelling. In all fairness, Yae thought long and hard about it while Hotomi spoke. “She— well, the Shogun instructed us to keep you here until your injuries mend, and—”

“Doesn’t she know who I am?” Yae cried, and she was almost offended that Ei would so blatantly subject these girls to such misdeeds. “I will be fine. Now, if you wouldn’t mind getting my robes, I—”

“And she told us to tell you that she isn’t seeing any visitors at the moment,” Hotomi said quickly, all in one breath. She sucked in her lungs after that, and she looked between her other maidens to ask them for help. There was no help given. 

Yae stared at her, unmoving. “Visitors?” she mimicked, forming the almost foreign word on her lips. “And she means…?”

“She means,” another shrine maiden began, and her meek voice was almost drowned out by the wash of blood in Yae’s ears, “she means you, too.”

Yae tilted her head at them. 

“Why?” she asked, and she was sure it was a reasonable request to ask. 

But they looked at each other like Yae had asked them the sequence to guide themselves through a secret tunnel. 

“Well?” she asked again, impatiently. 

Hotomi cleared her throat uncomfortably. “She gave no reason—”

Yae gave her a pointed look. A glare, almost, and it was intense enough for Hotomi to shrink under her gaze. 

“There are… rumors…” Hotomi said, her fingers twiddling, “…that her Almighty Shogun had grown… large peaks, on her head.”

Yae thought about it for no longer than a second and a half. 

“She has horns?” she asked incredulously.

It took about four days for her body to heal up completely. Being a fox envoy helped with the healing process, thankfully, but four days was way too long for her. She had been stewing in her bed for hours at a time, looking out her window and staring at the thunder every night to beckon it closer to her with her will alone. It never did, and it frustrated her to no end. 

So she walked all the way to the front doors of Tenshukaku. 

The guards that stood watch in front of it were wary of her the entire time she came up the stairs, though they didn’t brandish their weapons. It was a good sign, if any. 

She managed to convince them to let her in, with a few magical words and some improv about Ei bumping into her the other day and asking her to come to Tenshukaku for tea. It was half a lie, to her credit.

She tried not to be too obvious with her stare right above Ei’s head as she entered through the tall doors, but it was almost impossible to mask. 

Ei looked surprised to see her, but there was no trace of anger or annoyance on her face. Nor the coldness that she had seen nearly a week prior. 

She took a deep breath through the nose. 

“Ei,” she greeted cheerfully. She walked down the steps towards Ei, and Ei stood up from her seat at a neat coffee table to see her. “Couldn’t you wait a few more minutes for me?” she said in mock disappointment, clicking her tongue. There was a warm cup of tea in front of Ei, as well as the ornate tea set that Makoto had painted herself.

There was a small, confused smile on Ei’s lips, but it was a smile nonetheless.

“Miko,” Ei answered in return, and she tilted her head slightly. “What are you doing here?” There was no malice laced in those words, but there was a sort of apprehension to them. Like she was nervous.

“I can’t come see a friend of mine?” Yae asked her. She graced down the stairs and walked a few more steps until the table was in between her and Ei. “Or say a ‘thank you’? You know, for saving my life?”

Ei quirked her eyebrow at her. And then she laughed, all full of life, and motioned for Yae to sit down across from her. 

They sat down together at the small table, and tea was poured for Yae. A small cake was passed towards her as well, and Yae was more than surprised. Ei was a hoarder for her sweets, especially during her precious downtime outside of her Plane, and Yae was definitely no exception. At least, until now. 

Before she could question it, Ei gave her a wry smile, her mouth stuffed to the side with another cake of her own.

When she swallowed, she explained, “You need the energy.”

“Thank you,” Yae said, and she blinked twice before picking up her utensil to try the dessert. It was overly sweet for her taste, but she swallowed it. The sugar coated her throat, but she didn’t mind it. There was a certain delight that she swallowed down, one from knowing that Ei, of all people, had given her something so rare. 

“Please, don’t take this the wrong way,” Ei started, and she held up her hand to stop Yae from interrupting her. “What are you doing here, and not overseeing the Grand Narukami Shrine? Is there a problem?” Her last few words took on the form of concern, and Yae was quick to brush them away with a dismissive hand. 

“I’m completely fine, Ei, no need to get yourself all worked up,” Yae said cooly. She took a sip of her tea to pause, then took that moment to glance over Ei’s eyebrows to find the horns that her shrine maidens were so sure that the people on the streets were talking about. There was nothing there, of course, at least not on the surface. Concealing spells were all the rage nowadays, and she wouldn’t put it past Ei to try them herself; there was always a slip with those spells though, a sort of seam through the magic of illusion. 

“Well, did you want something from me then?” Ei pulled her eyebrows together. “It isn’t like you to show up unannounced. You always tell me a day in advance.”

Yae shrugged. “I can’t be spontaneous once in a while?” she accused lightly. “And here I was hoping that you learned to let change into your heart.”

Ei chuckled at that. She raised her cup to Yae’s lip level to toast to her, and then drank from it. When she finished, Ei said, “It’s not that I don’t… see your presence as unwelcome, Miko. Quite the opposite actually. I was just worried that something had happened.”

“Well, considering that you scared a prolific bandit group in Inazuma half to death for the whole country to talk about, I doubt I’ll have any run-ins for the next few years,” Yae mused. She swirled her pinkie in the tea to diffuse the flavor a bit more. There were some clackers of utensils clinking against tea sets as Ei continued to finish her mid-day snack, even in Yae’s presence. 

“I just wanted to see you—” she continued, and Ei’s smile lifted, “—and ask you why on Teyvat you wanted to keep me out of Tenshukaku?”

Ei’s smile dropped, and she looked rather embarrassed. She busied herself by putting another sugarcube in her tea and rearranging the dishes on the table, all while she answered with a pathetic, “Well… that, I truly cannot answer, Miko.”

“And why not?” Yae asked with a frown. She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on the curled knuckles. “You made a promise with me that you wouldn’t keep your feelings away from me anymore, and I doubt that excludes orders like this.” She brandished her palm to sweep across the empty room. The room’s air was still, as if even Ei’s own resolve of eternity had reached even its outer walls. 

Ei sighed. “I never meant to keep you out. There was an emergency, and I thought it was best to keep everyone out of it until it was resolved.”

That certainly piqued her interest. Lifting her eyebrows gradually, Yae leaned into the table. “Emergency such as…?” she trailed off, allowing Ei to finish her words for her. 

Ei searched her eyes, whilst Yae continued to search the air above her head with her peripheral vision. Nothing still, but she was as close to a confession as she could get. 

“There happened to be bodies along the trail towards the Grand Narukami Shrine,” Ei began, and her tone was indescribable. She thrummed her long fingers along the table, deep thuds reverberating throughout. “I couldn’t have my people subjected to such carnage on their way to be cleansed at that Shrine, now could I?”

Yae frowned, a finger ticking against her chin. It was a passable excuse, a good one even, but Yae refused to buy it. “I heard no one around except my shrine maidens. Are you suggesting they were the ones to pick up those bodies and persecute the others, Ei?”

“Not at all,” Ei replied easily, and she passed Yae a plate of fried tofu. How long she had been concealing that, and why, Yae would never know, simply because her attention was now on the consumption of such delicacies in front of her. “I have specially trained men for that job. I only had to make sure they were doing an especially good job, given the delicacy of the matter.”

Yae hummed. “The delicacy of your appearance to annihilate the lands, apparently,” she teased. “They should consider them lucky that you didn’t slice them open to the high heavens.”

Ei’s lips tugged slightly downwards at that. She concealed it with her cup of tea, in which she sipped on cordially long enough for her to think of something to say. When she did, Yae was less than amused. “Talking about such matters is taboo, at the very least. I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about that. How was your morning, Miko?”

Just like that, the subject changed. Yae didn’t mind too much, even though she felt quite curious about the sudden change in topic. Ei was fortunate that it wasn’t something she wanted to talk about after all, and that she was only here to spend enough time to see if the rumors were true. 

And yet, fifteen minutes of back and forth about their days and Yae’s recovery and adventures at the Shrine, Yae couldn’t find a single speck of a seam around Ei’s head. There was no trace of concealment, and no trace of large, protruding horns coming from her forehead. And Yae certainly still had the gift of sight to know that. 

Ei was beginning to be suspicious of Yae’s constant up and down stare from her eyes to her forehead. Yae couldn’t help it! The frustration festered more and more in the pit of her stomach whenever she glanced up to find nothing, and she was confident that there had to be something that Ei was veiling from her. 

It was a feeling, a gut one, and it was unexplainable with every inch of her thought process. But it was strong. 

It wasn’t malicious either. Had it been something of heinous origin, Yae wouldn’t keep up this kind of charade to tiptoe around her old friend. It was just a feeling, plain and simple, and she was much too curious of a person to leave it alone. 

“Are you looking for something behind me, Miko?” Ei asked her suspiciously, and she looked over her shoulder to check for her. When she found nothing, she looked back at Yae with a curious look. 

“No, not that,” Yae said, and she shook her head with a smile. “I was just thinking about how nice your hair looks.”

Surprised, Ei touched the end of her hair. She squinted at Yae suddenly, after the surprise had worn off, and told her, “But I’ve kept the same hairstyle for centuries?”

“Yes. Yes,” Yae agreed with two resolute bobs of her head. She tapped her bottom lip with a finger as if she was thinking, and then said, “It’s a very good look on you. Classic. Chic. I was trying to see if other hairstyles would look good with the frame of your face, but I think you found just the right style for yourself. It’ll be well off enough for the next few dozen decades, in any case.”

“You think so?” Ei asked her, and she looked up to find her bangs. She patted down her hair self consciously, and there was a light red on the spread of her cheeks. “I was beginning to think that this was getting old. You don’t think I should trim the ends a bit? Or how about a full cut like—?” She tilted her chin to the side to show off what she meant to Yae, and there was a sparkle just where her temple hit the sunlight from the windows. 

And then Ei moved her head to the other side to make a comparison of the hair height with a flat palm, and the subtle sparkle disappeared.

“No!” Yae snapped.

Ei dropped her palm, clearing her throat. “You’re right,” Ei said quickly, coughing slightly into her elbow. “No need for such radical ideas. I only thought—”

“Oh, you thought right, Ei,” Yae said hastily. She backtracked to the conversation before she got distracted. “I meant, ‘no!’ as in ‘nooo!’ like the new slang these— from these past few years. It means yes, absolutely, you should cut your hair to right about there. You should move your head again so I could be overly confident in that.” She nodded her head vigorously, despite the fact that she completely forgot which length Ei had been talking about. 

No matter. She was sure that Ei would look good in any hairdo, and she would be a liar if she didn’t admit that she had thought about cutting Ei’s hair herself in the past. 

The corner of Ei’s mouth wrinkled in her bemused chagrin. “Children these days come up with the most confusing kinds of new languages to share,” she said, exasperated. She took a sip of her tea to dispel her confusion, and then relented to Yae’s wish. She tilted her head the opposite way that Yae had wanted her to. “Like this, Miko? What do you think?”

“Hmm, actually, can you face yourself the other way?” Yae asked her, scrunching her brow in fake thought. She was using up all of her energy to scrutinize the space over her hair instead, waiting to find that small sparkle she was sure no ordinary human would be able to discern themselves. “I need to see it with your good side.”

Ei chuckled, but acquiesced to her comment. She faced the other wall. 

Her jawline was sharp as the edge of a scroll, and Yae’s eyes wandered downwards from the supposed location of her horns to the side of her lips, then to her jaw. She didn’t know where her mind went for the next few seconds, but she was sure that the horns were far, far from her mind. 

It was only until Ei called her name in confusion did Yae shake herself awake, and her eyes snapped back upwards to her eyes. Then to the empty space where her horns should have laid. 

If Ei noticed, she didn’t say. “So, still easy on the eyes?” she asked, a slight twinge of nervousness to her words. 

“I… think…” Yae drawled. She did her best to run her words into the ground to give herself more time to look. It was frustrating her to no end, seeing that the sparkle had now disappeared and ran to absolutely nowhere. She pressed her lips, hard, together.

And then she answered, “I think you should let me just touch your hair and see for myself.”

Ei looked at her, confused. “Well, if you insist,” she said, and she leaned forward slightly for Miko to do as promised. 

Miko leaned as well, then reached out with two fingers to tangle them in Ei’s silken hair. It was as she remembered it, braiding them on cold nights and beside the warmest of fires. She got lost in the feeling in an instant, and momentarily forgot about the reason for her sleight of hand. 

When she remembered, Miko tried to move her fingers upwards as naturally as possible. Her fingers reached almost up to Ei’s bangs, and she finally, finally captured the glittery particle in the air. It almost looked like dust, if it weren’t for the reflection that came off of it. Black as the sky at midnight. 

And then Ei seized her wrist, stopping her short from capturing it an inch away.

Yae only gaped as it happened, astounded at Ei’s brazen actions and slightly, well, bewildered. 

Ei caught on to her own actions about half a second later, and then let go of her wrist immediately. 

“Apologies,” Ei said hastily. She glanced around the room at everything except at her, eyes wide like someone had caught her with red paint on her hands. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It was my mistake,” Yae cut off, and left it at that.

Which was a mistake in itself: she’s never apologized like that to Ei. 

Ei raised her eyebrows at her, but said nothing more. At the very least, she had the decency to hide her small smile behind her cup, despite the tea having been depleted a while ago. Yae relaxed. 

A silence passed between them like passing sugarcubes over the table, and Yae took that time to look down at her cup. She thrummed her nails over the ceramic cup, watching the swirls in her tea instead of the swirls around Ei’s head. It was the only way to repent for the mistake she so foolishly acted on just a moment ago, and she prayed that it would be something that Ei would grow less suspicious of over time.

Eventually, Ei cleared her throat. Then, shifting slightly in her seat, she said to Yae, “I’m sorry. I’m just a little… agitated.”

“Whatever for?” Yae asked suspiciously, and she lifted her eyes to squint at Ei.

Ei sported a wary smile, though her eyes didn’t quite reach them. “Miko, I think you already know why,” she replied quietly, and it was almost down to a hush.

Yae opened her mouth to answer, but then a few soldiers poured it. 

Ei sat up straighter, and it was almost as if she was looking at the reflection of the Shogun that roamed the Inazuman walls. 

“What is it?” Ei demanded, and her eyes flitted between every soldier in front of her. Yae had to crane her neck to look behind her, and there were enough that it made her hair stand on end.

“Almighty Shogun,” one of the men spoke, and he bowed deeply towards Ei’s general direction. His garb was more bulky than the rest of the soldiers that stood at attention next to him. “I apologize deeply for this intrusion. Your request has been fulfilled, and my men have managed to apprehend most of the bandits that concerned you.”

Bandits? Yae turned her head to look at Ei, raising an eyebrow in question and slight amusement (although she would never admit that she felt a little touched, if not exasperated with Ei’s dramaturgy) but Ei was looking over her shoulder to stare the men right in the eyes. Her finger twitched around the handle of her cup though, and Yae zeroed in on it with a suppressed laugh. 

“Wait outside for my adjuration,” Ei said stiffly. “I will be with you shortly. You are all dismissed.”

Each soldier bowed to her personally before filing neatly out of the room, the shuffle of armor and sword sheaths echoing around the walls. Ei only poured herself half a cup more of tea while they did so, then sipped modestly when the last soldier closed the doors.

“If only they could see you half an hour ago,” Yae said with a sigh. “They’d be astounded at seeing their Almighty Shogun scarf down a slice of cake like her life depended on it. I’m sure that it would boost morale by tenfold.”

Ei glared at her over her tea, and Yae humored herself in a laugh. When Ei finished, she set down her tea on the saucer and cleared her throat. Her standoffish personality shed away in their privacy, and it revealed her friend once more. Just the way Yae liked it. 

“I’m going to need to attend to that sooner or later,” Ei responded, grimacing as if she really didn’t want to. Either because she wanted to stay with Yae or because she didn’t want to deal with boneheaded soldiers, she couldn’t tell. “You are more than welcome to accompany me, if you so wish. After all, they were the ones to lay their hands all over you.” Though the cadence of her voice stayed remotely the same with her coating of friendliness, her last few words became bitter tasting in its contempt.

“I put off a few minutes out of my day to visit a friend, not deal with political bylaws,” Yae jeered, and she sipped away the last few drops of her tea. “But I do appreciate the offer, Ei. And the whole…” She waved her hand behind her where the soldiers waited to make her point. 

Ei chuckled. “I thought so. Will we be meeting again for tea soon?” There was a hopefulness to her words, like a child staring at a giant candy bar, that almost made Yae roll her eyes. 

“Of course,” she replied simply. “Until you get sick of me.”

“Perfect, then.” Ei grabbed Yae’s saucer and pulled it closer to her side, severing their peaceful break to continue on with their days. “Miko?”

“Hmm?” Yae dusted off whatever invisible crumbs clung to her clothing, looking down at her lap to scrutinize the efforts she made. 

“Will you give me your hand?”

Yae looked up at her, confused. 

Ei just held out her hand.

Thinking that there was no harm to be done, Yae held out her hand, palm upward. 

Ei took it gently, fingers wrapped around the small of her wrist with the gentleness of gift wrapping around a precious box. It was a far cry from the abrupt snatch of Ei’s hand around hers only moments ago. This time, Ei held her wrist without the strong clasp that made harsh lightning dance towards her elbow, nor did Ei’s fingernails touch anywhere close to her skin. It was like she was conscious of every movement and contact she made along Yae’s wrist. 

Ei turned her wrist over. The grip was loose enough that Yae could slip out of it with ease, and she doubted that it was an accidental judgment on Ei’s behalf. 

And then Ei pressed her lips gently to the inside of her wrist. She kissed the spot there, and Yae’s skin danced along with lightning that was the color of the moonlight. Yae tried not to shiver, and she hoped (because she didn’t even know) that it worked. 

Ei mumbled something low under her breath, and then let go of her wrist. Yae let her hand fall back onto her lap, and suddenly she couldn’t find the strength to get up and leave. She only stared, her lips pressed and her head tilted slightly as if inviting Ei to explain herself. 

“I thought I hurt you,” Ei explained, and it was so painfully gentle, “when I caught your hand the first time. I heard from the traveler that kisses to the skin were ways to ensure prospering health.”

“Well,” Yae said simply, then she got up from her seat on the floor. “Travelers share such intricate knowledge from all corners of the world, don’t they? Please, try not to be so harsh on those criminals tonight.”

“I’ll make no such promises,” Ei teased, but there was an edge to her words that Yae pondered if she was getting better at making such jokes. But, well, she couldn’t be paid enough to care really. “Get home safe, Miko. Please.”

It was when Yae could see the Shrine up ahead that she realized she missed a crucial step in her meeting with Ei. 

She had missed her chance the first time Ei caught her, and then she had forgotten to look up to find those damned horns in the shock of it all.

Yae cursed under her breath, speeding her gait back to the Shrine. There will be more opportunities to present itself later, but for now— 

For now, Yae could afford to slap her head around for being so distracted about tender lightning down her arm. She hadn’t even looked up as it happened.

Though Yae had prided herself in having a memory of a thousand if not millions of kameras, she wondered if she was lacking a bit in the research department of her novels published by award winning scholars. She deserved a refresher in such vast knowledge, specifically on the topic of horns. 

For no other reason, obviously, than for the fact that she was simply curious about horns. 

This unfortunately meant that she had to exhaust all scholars that she knew of to squeeze all of the refreshers she could get on the topic of horns, including farmers and anatomy professors and a certain loud-mouthed Oni that she took zero pleasure in standing next to and scholarly textbooks. 

They all pointed to the same thing: human beings have never grown horns outside of curses, and gods only grew them at will. A fear tactic to be used sometimes, but every god in Teyvat had outgrown that since the cataclysm. 

And, most damningly, Ei wouldn’t magically sprout them. She was impulsive at times, but not horn sprouting impulsive. She was also learning to acclimate to the new environment set by her people, and Yae doubted that she would ever want to sever them now with something as brash and foolhardy as horns.

Yet, there she was, reading a scroll on horn concealment spells down the street while some ill-mannered folks whispered to their partners about how they heard from a friend of a friend that the Raiden Shogun had developed the likeliness of horns.

Big, red, and pointy horns. At least according to the rumors of the common people.

(An omen, some Inazumans murmured to one another, that their nation was now entering a state of war or insanity or perpetual animosity due to its nature.

(Thinking back to Ei’s easy smile and tranquil laughter around the once-but-never-again isolated Tenshukaku, Yae didn’t believe that even for a second.)

Interestingly, Yae managed to gain a very useful piece of information whilst reading those scrolls. Concealing spells can’t hide abrupt emotions, as strong bouts of anger or happiness or anything such of that sort had the tendency to overload the magic. It was very useful to have a refresher on, very useful indeed. 

What was one thing that Ei loved more in the world other than sweets? She mused about it for a few minutes, idly speaking to other shop owners and buying some things that she needed for the trip back to the Shrine. 

Yae stopped by a blacksmith to inquire about his sale on jars, and it came to her like the crackle of the blacksmith’s oven.

Did Ei love something more than sweets? Why, sparring, of course. 

It was her Almighty Shogun’s best stress reliever, other than stuffing her cheeks with sugary desserts and banging down on pieces of metal for a new sword. She had seen Ei in her courtyard once or twice in the past, practicing her polearm swings and doing repetitions of certain moves to keep herself in the best shape. Yae hadn’t seen her do such a thing in over half a millennium, but knowing Ei with her big head about eternity and keeping things the way that they should be, she would be one to bargain on it. 

She quickly changed out into something breathable at the Shrine. Her shrine maidens gawked at her as she filled a canteen full of spring water, and one even managed to gain the courage to ask for what endeavors stretched in front of her road. 

“Can’t a woman go on a run in peace?” she chided. She took a sip of her water to test the temperature, then sealed the canteen with a cork when she was satisfied.

“But— your ankle,” one of her maidens stammered. 

“It’s healed,” she reassured them. “Look after the Shrine for me. I’ll be back sooner than you think. I’m not the kind of person to want to run around the entire island.” She’d seen all sorts of crazy people running around the base of the Shrine like their life depended on it. It was one of the few things that she didn’t understand about humans, with their vigor to want to do something so utterly useless like running from one end of Inazuma to the next for only their bragging rights to friends that would pretend to care. 

And it was, unfortunately, something she could see Ei doing in the near future if she ever ran into such people.

She walked all the way to Tenshukaku with a hand cupping the neck of her canteen. The water sloshed in tandem with her amble through the forests and mountains, and she arrived in Inazuma City no later than she anticipated. The sun was beginning to kiss the top of the horizon, and the winds blew gently at her back to push her farther into the city.

This time, the guards didn’t bother to question Yae’s presence. They bowed their heads to her, eyes downcast as if they were expecting her to berate them.

Yae didn’t bother. She thanked them modestly before entering through the large doors, and one of the guards closed the door for her. A true gentleman if she had ever seen one. 

She didn’t know why the world was working so well in her favor, but she wasn’t complaining. Ei was tiring herself out with a practice stick, a training dummy already bashed down and broken in. Other training dummies littered the floor, a testament to the hours Ei had already poured into her impromptu training. 

Ei noticed her the moment she stepped down on the second step. She stopped beating the poor dummy senselessly to wipe her forehead with the back of her arm, her chest coming up and down in big, slow strides. 

“Either you read my mind or it’s an utter coincidence, but you look like you’re ready to join me,” Ei commented, her eyebrows lifting at Yae’s breathable outfit to connote her amusement. 

A bead of sweat traveled down from the side of her face to the curve of her jaw, and Yae tracked it with her eyes while she spoke. “Well, I am your familiar.”

Ei laughed joyfully at that. She walked a few steps over to her weapon rack and tossed Yae a stick, about the same length as hers. “Warm yourself up, then. I apologize for the mess.” Though the foolhardy grin on her lips told Yae otherwise. 

Yae just rolled her eyes (something that made Ei stick her tongue at her, childishly) and picked up one of the dummies off the floor. Once she got it stable, she hit it a couple times with Ei’s wooden stick. She was no stranger to combat like this, despite the rustiness in her movements. Ei had taught her a long time ago, just in case she ever needed to incorporate such actions into her life.

The loud thuds of impact from both sides of the room was a familiar feeling. Their backs were facing each other, the straining grunts echoing through the chambers of Tenshukaku. She almost felt silly. 

Well, it was silly. She didn’t need to do this in order to protect herself anymore, nor was it any more effective than the Vision that hung on her ear. But then again, the same could be said for the woman behind her, who continued to practice her repetitions against the flattened dummy like her life depended on it. 

Yae could see how it felt from her perspective though. Training like this was nearly as practical as meditation, and she supposed that Ei needed both in her life if she was ever going to keep her emotions in check— what, with all the horn business and all. 

Feeling her muscles tingle at the excitement for exercise, Yae stopped. She dropped her hand beside her, using her other arm to collect the sweat off the sides of her face with a sleeve. Then she pivoted, opening her mouth to talk to Ei but closing it shut like a bear trap to look at the ripples of muscle on her god’s back and shoulders. There was a sheen of sweat there, and the strain was clear with how tight her arms looked whenever she thrusted forward with her stick.

Yae managed to break out of her prying gaze after a few breaths. She glanced upwards instead, up to where a halo should be. Ei was training right under the gaze of the sunlight, dust particles obscuring the air around her. 

Still, no horns. 

“Ei?” she called, and Ei stopped almost immediately. 

Breathing hard, Ei pivoted on her heel to look at her questioningly, more sweat running down from her jaw to her neck. It disappeared into her clothes, and Yae tried not to let her eyes wander down to where she imagined it could be. “Need a break?” Ei guessed. 

“Yes,” Yae admitted, because her mouth had dried up and she couldn’t answer with another word more. 

Ei propped her stick against the wall, suggesting that she was coming back for another round after her quick intermission. Yae did the same. 

Yanking her canteen open, Yae sat down on the steps of Tenshukaku with her chest heaving up and down. She drank as much as she could from her canteen, suddenly regretting her expedition down here with how hard her heart was pounding. Every part of her body was tingling, and she hadn’t even spent half the time that Ei did doing what she was doing. Was this really Ei’s training regimen for stress? 

Ei laughed as she sat down beside her. She sipped at a small cup of water that she left out for herself on a table near the training dummies, and Yae almost tipped the bottom of it out of pure indignation. Ei should be thankful that she didn’t, only because her arm was too sluggish at her side.

“Exhilarating, right?” Ei asked her, and Yae was appalled at the amount of excitement there was in her voice. “I usually do this to start my day, but I thought it would be a little fun to do it later. Just to change it up.”

“Fun isn’t actually how I would describe it, but sure,” Yae answered wryly, and then sipped some more. She couldn’t stop her lips from twitching at how blatant Ei’s pride was at such a small thing though. It was almost cute. “How long have you been doing this?”

Ei thought about it for a moment. She laid her back further down on the steps, her elbows propping her up. “A few hours. I just got back from a run when you came in.”

Yae laughed at that. She threw her head back to look at the ceiling, and then mimicked Ei’s posture. “I suppose there’s no harm to be done with you spending half your days pumping your heart to its limit when you spend the other half of your day munching on all sorts of sugar,” she mused, and Ei glanced at her from the corner of her eyes with twitching lips.

“I would’ve asked you to join me a long time ago if I knew you had an interest in these kinds of things,” Ei admitted. “What possessed you to come?”

Yae shrugged. “I thought it would be fun to ask you to spar with me.”

Ei shot her head over to look at her. And then as Yae’s words settled in like fine dust on the ground, she scrunched her brow. “You want to spar with me?”

“That’s exactly what I said, yes,” Yae said patiently. She capped her canteen, curling a smile over at Ei’s direction. “So? What do you think?”

She expected Ei to burst in excitement over it. At the very least, she expected Ei to be happy, not to look as if Yae had given her a chalice full of poison and asked her to drink it. 

Ei shifted her weight so that she could look at Yae. “Are you sure?” she asked, and her words were coated in worry. 

Yae was confused. “I thought you liked to spar?” She had seen Ei spar with other warriors and students in the past, all with a small smile on her face. 

“I do,” Ei clarified. “But your ankle? Are you sure it’s healed? I can’t, in good conscience, put you even in the slightest of danger if—”

“Sometimes you speak and all I hear is loud static noise,” Yae deadpanned. “You have absolutely nothing to worry about. I can promise you that.”

Ei didn’t look convinced, but she relented under Yae’s compelling look. “You will stop me at the first sign of fatigue or pain,” Ei warned her. She got up from her seat on the steps and held out her hand, in which Yae took it gratefully. “Even if you must shout at me, or use your Vision. Will you promise me that?”

“You have my word, Ei,” Yae promised, though she held her tongue from even thinking about the absurdity of Ei’s warning. 

Satisfied enough to proceed, Ei stalked over to their propped up sticks. She tossed one back to Yae and hit the other on the ground to test its durability. Yae ran her fingers over the smooth, polished wood, content with its look alone. She didn’t need the sparring to last long. 

Ei led her to the middle of the room, where most of the dummies on the floor had been cleared. First person to be disarmed or swept off their feet was declared the loser for the round. Best two out of three, according to Ei’s rules, and Yae held up the stick with a grin on her face. This was the first time she was excited to engage in such frivolous activities, and it was for a reason completely out of left field. 

Once Ei managed to get into the thrill of the fight, her horns would show itself. It was a steadfast plan, and it was one that she was enthusiastic to see come into fruition. 

As per tradition, Yae struck first. 

Ei blocked her easily, not a single bead of sweat falling from her face as she continued to block more and more of Yae’s onslaught of attacks. She practically did it all with one hand, the other one limp at her side as if she wasn’t counting on Yae being more than a warm up. 

Yae took offense to that. She decided to up the stakes a bit more, and dropped her casual hits to something faster, something vigorous. 

Ei’s eyes widened slightly, blocking Yae’s stick from hitting the spot in between her eyebrows only a millisecond before the blow could’ve been successful. She exhaled, almost as if to laugh, and Yae’s heart pumped in excitement to it. 

Two hands on her stick now, Ei’s cursory defense style morphed into the kind of warrior that she was revered as. Yae was almost swept off her feet when Ei thrusted her pole into the ground.

Laughing blithely at Ei’s ardor, Yae tried to knock the stick out of her hands. It was a brave attempt, but it was an attempt that cost her the ground. Ei was no longer on the defense, and her moves were a blur. 

Yae could only barely catch up. It was almost like they were dancing. 

A thrust. A step backwards. A jab to the side. Knocking the pole away. Sidestepping. A breath of relief before another quick dig into her thigh. 

But even as the motions in front of her were nothing but a blurry mess, Yae knew that Ei was holding back. 

She’d seen Ei fight before. It was always a spectacle to see, and it was a sight that only a splice of Inazuma were allowed to even glance at. 

If she wanted Ei to get revved up enough to reveal those horns, she needed Ei to be at her full capacity. 

So she did exactly what she did best: she teased. 

“So bold of you to ask me to tell you about my fatigue when you look like the one who needs the bigger break between us,” she hummed, and flicked her wrist in time to block Ei’s hilt in shocking ease. A sweat had broken along Ei’s hairline, and a single drop fell down onto the hand that gripped the wood. Yae had to suppress a grin, though she did flash a tight-lipped smile at Ei. “Perhaps we should call it a tie for now?”

In all honesty, it took all of her energy to stay up on her feet. Yae had never concentrated this hard in her life before; but it was for a good shot. At least she hoped (and prayed). 

Ei wiped the proof of exertion off her brow with her shoulder. “You used to make more amusing jokes, Miko,” she answered, and it was much too casual for Yae’s taste. 

Yae tried not to roll her eyes. She tried to jab Ei in between the ribs, but Ei was much quicker than she was. “Or maybe your humor dried up along with you in that Plane of yours. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Indulge me, then.” Ei smacked her pole against hers so hard that the room resounded with a dull thud. “I promise to laugh this time.” But the flutter in the corner of her lips suggested otherwise. 

Yae thought hard about what she could say. That, combined with trying to keep Ei off her toes for as long as possible, proved to be more difficult than she previously imagined. She managed, however. Which meant that Ei was still holding back. “What do you call a god that can’t fight off a poor little fox envoy?”

Ei gritted her teeth. “What?”

Yae struck her pole diagonally across Ei’s chest. Ei blocked it. 

She was counting on that. She slid her stick down to swipe at Ei’s shins, and Ei stuck up a foot in defense. It did not nothing for her, and Ei nearly lost her balance. Yae prodded her other shin, and it set off a chain reaction. 

Ei stumbled backwards, her eyes shooting wide in shock. While Ei had years of training under her belt to attest for her talent, Yae had something simpler, and yet better: her perception of her oldest friend’s next moves. 

Falling on her back with a rough grunt, Ei drove her elbows into the mat to pick herself back up. 

Yae wouldn’t let her. 

She cradled Ei’s lap, a hand over her sternum to push her down. She held her stick horizontally, pressing the middle of it into the underside of Ei’s chin. The pressure against her throat wasn’t hard enough for her to choke, but it was definitely an uncomfortable presence. At least for Ei. 

Ei watched her, a mix of emotions clouding in her eyes like a dark murky thunderstorm in the distance. Yae couldn’t tell what she was thinking, nor did she really care. 

“I don’t think I have to finish the punchline of that for you to get it,” Yae said lowly.

Ei hesitated. 

“No,” she finally agreed. 

Satisfied, Yae let go of her throat. Ei swallowed a breath greedily, eyes narrowing when Yae continued to keep her down. 

“How do you expect to keep Inazuma safe like this?” she asked with a click of her tongue. Ei still didn’t have her head clear in the fight, and they had one or two more rounds in their little sparring match. “You can’t even beat me in a friendly match, and I was bested by low-life criminals with weapons made out of pulpwood. How are you going to reign as a god, when you can’t protect your precious Inazuma, or me, or—?”

She barely had any time to react when Ei pushed her off her lap and pressed her back into the mat. She grabbed Yae’s stick out of her hand to spear it into the ground, piercing the mat and the wood underneath with a grating crunch. Yae swore she could see sparks fly out of the crevices of the wood. 

Mouth slightly agape, Yae turned her head from the broken mat beside them to look up at Ei. Their noses were dangerously close, and she could feel Ei’s labored hot breath against her cheek. 

“You,” Ei started, and her words were clipped short with the unforgettable restraints of anger. The cloudy storm in her eyes cleared away for dangerous lightning, and Yae felt small under her gaze. A god, angry and consuming her entire frame with her own, loomed over her. It was a predicament she was sure that most people had the fortune to miss. “Have no right. To say those things to me.”

Yae didn’t know what to say. 

But, underneath the shock and awe, Yae was truly, truly remorseful.

She wasn’t used to being wrong, or at least in a situation where she cared. She supposed that was the drawback in letting Ei back into her life like this— emotions had to be tread carefully, and tricks had to stay nothing more than tricks in a small bag. 

Ei’s angered face turned downwards once she noticed Yae’s contrite look. She sat back up on her knees, and then held out a hand for Yae to take. 

Yae took it without another word, and for a moment, there were no words shared between them other than the still wind in Tenshukaku and the groan of wood underneath their feet.

Fortunately, Yae knew when to admit to her wrongs. It would be ironic for her not to, considering she oversaw the many confessions at the Narukami Shrine. 

“I’m sorry, Ei,” she said gently, and even those standard words carried more emotion than she ever imagined them to be in decades. “I shouldn’t have gone so far to test your patience.”

Ei said nothing, and only walked back to the steps where her water laid. She bent down to pick up and sipped, fingers threading through the back of her head to loosen the braids. 

Yae followed at her heels closely, now nervous. Had she truly gone so far in her jests that Ei was refusing to speak to her? She could feel her heart burn at the thought, and suddenly the thought of horns was nothing more than an old tale to her.

But then Ei said, “I accept your apology. But I request that you never say that to me, ever again.”

“You have my full promise,” Yae told her. She tried to steady her breathing from the spar. 

Ei craned her neck over her shoulder to look at her. She squinted at Yae, as if scrutinizing if her words were true. And then she turned her full body to look at her, fingers still combing over her hair to flatten the mess that they made during their fight. 

“I don’t take those things lightly, Miko,” Ei finally said, not quite lecturing but not quite approving either. “You, of all people, should know that.”

Yae’s chest tightened in guilt. She tried to suppress it with a gulp. “I know. I’m sorry.” She glanced at the wooden pole sticking out from the mat on the floor. So close to flirting with death, and she was blinded by an inquisitive goal.

Ei pulled her tight braid out. Her hair fell in cascades over her shoulder, light and gentle like they used to be, and Yae was struck with the thought that cutting it short wouldn’t be a half bad idea. 

“If it was getting me riled up that you sought after, you got it,” Ei commented, and her tone was light again. She put her water down and stalked over to the training weapons, and then pulled out a sword from its sheath to admire it. “It seems to be a standing fact that you’re the only one who can do that to me.”

Yae chuckled a little at the jab. She walked over next to Ei to look, wondering if the sword had any inscription that made Ei so interested in it. 

Unfortunately for her curiosity, it was as plain as day. 

“Have you ever played with swords, Miko?” Before Yae could answer, Ei added, “In the past few years, I mean.”

Yae thought about it. “Not since you insisted on using me as a testing board for your little tricks back in the day, no,” she said, and there was a hint of an accusatory warning to her tone. 

Ei didn’t bother to apologize for that. She only laughed, and then resheathed the sword. She turned her head to look at Yae, eyes sparkling, and then asked, “Would you like to, then? I feel bad about cutting our sparring so short.”

Well, she did tell her maidens that she would be unavailable for the day. She might as well use up all the hours she could get. “This isn’t a ploy to chop off my head for what I said, is it?” she asked suspiciously. 

“If it was, I would’ve cut your head off a long time ago,” Ei said casually, eyebrows raised in challenge. “Now come with me. We can’t be bumping into the wall like this.”

Once Ei directed her back onto the mat (a few feet away from the stick that was still protruding from the ground, but Ei assured her that they would be fine), the sword was unsheathed yet again. 

Ei was pressed almost firmly against her back. But, as truly courteous as she was, Ei kept an inch between their bodies. Yae could still feel her breath tickling the shell of her ear as Ei spoke, but she couldn’t bring herself to shift her weight away from it. 

Yae held the hilt of the sword firmly. It was an unfamiliar weight in her hand, not too heavy but not quite so light. Ei’s fingers wrapped around the bottom of her fist to help her hold the weight properly, and spoke in her ear about posture and swordsmanship etiquette. 

Keeping her chin held up high, Yae could feel the strained shame leaving her body with every fluid attack with the sword that Ei guided her through, their bodies almost a layer of one another. 

Like lightning and its clouds, Ei stayed close and continued to show her how to slice through a being with the cleanest cut that Yae had ever seen. Warm fingers and a forearm pressed against her dominant arm was a welcome presence that Yae couldn’t find herself to tire of.

In fact, she nearly couldn't breathe. 

Once the second line of sweat trailed down from her cheek to her neck, Yae found her voice. “Inazuma is a fortunate nation to have a god like you,” she said, and every word was truer than the last. “You’re a powerful woman, Ei. Nothing that exists on Teyvat can’t be bent to your will.”

“I know what you’re doing,” Ei murmured in her ear. She had to suppress a shiver. “You have nothing to be sorry for anymore.”

Yae scoffed. Ei led her through another forward slice. “I can’t compliment my god when I want to?” she asked, indignant.

Ei laughed at that, a tickle that let lightning shoot down her spine. Though from the breath or the sound, Yae was uncertain. “You don’t hand out compliments for free unless it pushes your agenda.” She paused for a moment. “And that wasn’t what I was upset about.”

“Oh?” Yae turned her head to look at her. “What was, then?”

Ei didn’t answer her, only choosing to speak when showing Yae another piercing move through the air. 

Yae let her question go unanswered. 

But only because she already knew. 

When they sparred again for another round to end the night, Yae was quick to glance up at Ei’s (now braided again) hair. 

No horns except for the lightning that arched excitedly over her head. Ei was in the right headspace for spurred-on emotions, and yet no horns. 

She was so certain that being so close to a ruthless god in her own domain of combat would force horns to appear, though she supposed it was a tough situation to call when Ei was so gentle in picking her back up from the ground, with eyes that implored her to speak the truth whenever she asked for Yae’s feelings after every match. 

Yae guessed she just had to try again, with an emotion stronger than the thrill of battle.

And that emotion, fortunately, came quicker to her than the flash of fire on burning wood. 

Men inscripted in wars were always spurred on by the thought of women waiting back home, and she guessed that while Ei was a terribly good stasher of her emotions, she was not immune to the woes of attraction. 

And specifically, considering that it was the best selling genre at the Yae Publishing House since its conception, lust.

After all, the second most powerful emotion to anger was lust, and in some situations it happened to be more so. 

They had done some… things, when they were younger and inexperienced and incredibly impulsive as young people were programmed to be, and Yae would be lying if she didn’t reminisce about it at least once since then. 

The Raiden Shogun, the damn puppet that scared her to the point of a puffed up tail whenever it walked down the street for one of Ei’s dallying requests, was on duty somewhere in a forest on the outskirts of Inazuma. It gave her the perfect opportunity to come see Ei once more, even though they had already seen each other just days prior.

Well, she supposed that the sudden drop-in to see her would work in her favor in the end. She had a part to play, and she was determined to play it well.

Thankfully, Ei was nowhere to be found in Tenshukaku. The young man guarding the front doors bowed to her and informed her that the Shogunate had deemed her quarters too stifling (something that for once, Yae was more than inclined to agree with) and left only hours prior to her arrival. Yae didn’t have to prod him too much to squeeze her location out of him, and Yae left Inazuma City with a slight spring in her steps. 

She hummed, passing through the city that was sparked alive with the children that scuttled by her legs and the shopkeepers who waved at her happily. There was no thunderstorm in sight, and Yae could only imagine what sort of mood Ei was in for her to be so… mellow. 

No matter; Yae was there to change that. 

Yae found her near the outskirts of Konda Village, reading a book against a cherry blossom tree. Her eyebrows were pinched together in concentration, two fingers fiddling with the edge of the novel as if she was anticipating the next page turn. It was such a private sight to see, like Yae had stumbled onto Ei’s most privy hours of the day. 

But then Ei glanced up at her from her book, and though Yae could barely see her mouth through the pages, the way her eyes lifted showed her most genuine form of invitation. 

“I’m surprised no one’s seen you out here,” Yae commented. She looked over the tree line to look at the village, only mere miles away from them. She could see tiny specks moving along the manmade houses of the Konda residents, and she was certain that if they turned to look, they could see her just as well. “And I certainly didn’t peg you as the type for people watching either.”

Ei breathed out a laugh at that. She closed her book with her thumb bookmarking the page, and then let it rest against her thighs. She had her legs crossed and stretched outwards, and it looked almost silly by how utterly serene she looked.

“I’d tell you how much of a pleasant surprise it is to see you, but I doubt finding you at a remote village in Inazuma for no other reason than to stop by is a mere coincidence,” Ei mused. There was no trace of criticization within her comment. “I actually find it quite nice that you’ve sought out my company for the past few weeks.”

“There is no need for you to get a bigger head than you already do,” Yae chided. She crossed her arms over her chest and rested her weight on a foot, looking over Ei with slow, perceiving eyes. “Is there a reason you’re out here, and not in Tenshukaku where you’re supposed to be?”

“I could say the same thing about you,” Ei replied easily. She tapped a few fingers on the front cover of her novel, and Yae tried her best to make out the title and why the color scheme looked so familiar to her. “I… thought a change in scenery would be nice. That’s all.”

“Centuries in a dreary old backdrop, and you just wanted a change in scenery?” Yae asked, perplexed. She crouched down on her knees to brush Ei’s fingers away to look at the front cover. It should’ve come as no surprise when she recognized it as a novel from the Yae Publishing House. 

“I do remember you criticizing me about my methods in eternity,” Ei contested. “Not to mention all of the scalding rhetorics you pin on that bulletin board in Inazuma City.”

Yae scoffed, though she tried not to show the surprise on her face from learning that fact that Ei had read them. “Those were hardly scalding, and you know it,” she shot back lightly. “Are you really reading a novel from my publishing house?” she said to change the subject, sounding both pleasantly surprised and bewildered.

The thought of Ei, of all people, reading a flowery novel from the Yae Publishing House without any prodding was almost as improbable as lightning striking a tree that grew mora.

Ei perked up at that almost right away. “Oh! Yes,” she said happily. She held up the front cover of the novel to show Yae, even though Yae had the title memorized from when she had nearly criticized the poor author to a mess on the floor during its first draft. “I was introduced to them quite a while ago. There wasn’t much else I could do in my free time, so catching up on your novels seemed like a good way to spend it. I found a lot of them to be interesting, and others to be… well, less so.”

Yae thought back to a month ago, when one of her publishers ran up to her in a panic and informed her that someone had bought a copy of every novel that they had published. Yae had brushed him off when it happened, though now the regret was making her grimace.

Her plans took a backseat in her mind, for her neverending curiosity was too much to bear. 

“What’s this one about?” she asked, though the answer flicked itself into the forefront of her brain the instant the words left her mouth. She touched the smooth cover to reiterate her point, and Ei’s finger twitched away from her. Yae had to press her lips to stop from frowning.

Ei, however, was not one to shy from frowning. Her brow furrowed as she spoke, her lips turned downward in a deep, discouraging frown. “I’m afraid I’m only halfway through the novel, but I think I’m looking forward to the ending, only so that I can toss it aside or pray for a miracle ending.” She looked up at Yae then, startled out of her contemplation. “With, no offense to you, Miko,” she added quickly. 

Yae couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I hope you know that I don’t write the novels from Yae Publishing House, if any at all.”

Ei’s eyebrows pumped upwards, and she looked away from Yae’s eyes. She coughed slightly, and then said, “Right. Of course. But, to answer your question— it’s a romance novel, between a fictional god and a mortal man. I can’t even attempt to untangle the underlying plot for you, considering its purple prose and infeasibility.”

“Infeasibility?” Yae asked her in faux interest. She moved her two fingers on the cover closer to Ei’s once more, and this time Ei didn’t dare move. From the distraction of speaking or a subtle invitation, that was something Yae aimed to find out.

“Yes,” Ei confirmed, like it was the most horrid thing imaginable. “Can you believe it? A god and a human. No god would toy with a being like that, at least one with restraint. And, what’s more, around the sixth chapter, the—”

“Did you happen to read its better half?” Yae asked her. “The one about the fox and the god?”

Ei narrowed her eyes at her, unimpressed. “Very funny,” she said flatly. “Of all meals you had at your disposal, you chose butter crabs?”

Yae smiled wickedly at that. “All references in Yae Publishing House novels are purely coincidental,” she recited, and Ei looked like she wanted to laser her glare into Yae’s forehead. “But as much as I would love to discuss that with you, not that one.”

Ei’s jaw ticked in confusion. “Which one?”

“Would you like the gist of it?”

Ei didn’t have to think twice about it. “I’d love to hear it,” Ei answered, though there was a note of apprehension in her tone. 

“Could I sit here while I tell you?” Yae asked her innocently, gently pushing the novel aside from Ei’s lap. “Sitting on my ankles like this isn’t as comfortable as you think it is.”

“Do as you please,” Ei said suspiciously, though Yae was already moving to cradle her lap the moment the last syllable had been uttered from her lips. Impressively, Ei made no indication to show her surprise. She didn’t even flinch, nor blinked, as Yae tried to squirm her way into something comfortable on her thighs. 

“Well, it starts off simple enough, even for you,” Yae began, and Ei opened her mouth to interject. Yae beat her to it, resting her forearms behind her to support her weight. Wrapping her arms around Ei’s neck was too bold, and she would do well in using the boiling frog method. “Two childhood best friends drift apart in their later years and have a sparking reunion. The first of the pair, a fox envoy, happens to hit around that time of the month; and her friend, a god that happened to stumble around her cabin, sensed her nearby and pursued the feeling.”

Ei frowned. “But you told me that kitsunes don’t—?”

“Would you like me to tell you the story or not?” Yae asked her impatiently. 

“Yes,” Ei said quickly, maybe too quickly than she herself was anticipating. Ei cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said again, more neutrally. “What happened next?”

Yae pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She traced a finger over Ei’s collarbone, fidgeting with the protrusion there to act as a mannerism for her storytelling. Ei gulped visibly, though her gaze was laser focused on Yae’s trained eyes. The calm breeze that passed through them reminded her of their current surroundings, and while it wasn’t a part of her plans, it was barely a diversion. 

“The foxy friend was less than enthralled to see her best friend look at her during such a… vulnerable time,” Yae continued with a sigh, the pads of her fingers running over the smoothness of Ei’s skin. “An argument ensues, love confessions are screamed between the two budding lovers, and the god lays her best friend against her bed.”

She felt Ei stiffen.

The exact reaction she was looking for.

“I didn’t know your publishing house had such short reads,” Ei finally spoke, and Yae was impressed with how stable her voice sounded. “Maybe I’ll get through the pile quicker than I anticipated.”

Yae curved her lips into a smile. “I never said the novel ended there, Ei.”

“What could possibly ensue for the rest of it?” Ei asked, and she scoffed, though it sounded unconvincing even to the untrained ear. She was getting nervous, and Yae could spot it from a mile away. 

“If you don’t know, then you’re not thinking hard enough,” Yae said patiently. She used the tip of her fingernail to trace lightly on the skin directly under Ei’s neck. “Do you really think a writer from the Yae Publishing House would be so incompetent as to write a ‘fade to black’ in an intriguing plot point?”

Ei’s breathing was getting shallower under her fingers. “What would this author write in its absence then?” she challenged, and it was strained like she almost didn’t want Yae to answer. 

Too late for her to go back though. Yae already had it waiting on the insides of her cheeks. “The gentle god lays her new lover against her soft blankets and strips of her clothing,” she began, calmly and agonizingly slow. “Remember, these two haven’t seen each other in years— it’s only natural for them to be handsy, and handsy they were. Fingers prodding under robes, hot mouths on each other, and tugging at bandages to unravel them… all that you could imagine at the height of impatience for sex that had been deferred for so long.”

Ei held her tongue steadfast, and once more, Yae was fascinated with her show of restraint. Not for long, of course, but she reveled in Ei’s ability to prolong a losing battle. She experimentally put the tips of her fingers into Ei’s robes.

She wasn’t denied access. 

If anything, Ei wrapped her fingers around Yae’s wrist and rubbed the inside with a thumb, quietly allowing her to move it aside. If she was braver, she would have pulled a hand upwards to feel around for a horn, but slow and steady always won the race. 

So while Yae continued on with the story, her fingers worked in and out of Ei’s robes, teasing open lightly to allow Ei to cool down from the heat outdoors.

“Have you ever read something like that, Ei?” she asked, humming. She didn’t give a chance for her to answer. “The feeling of heat pooling in your stomach and the desperation to find relief from the pressure between your legs, all described in debauched detail. My favorite passage was from the one where the fox envoy was nearing her edge, and the words to describe how she felt— Ei, you should’ve seen it. Like lightning under her skin and gathering where her god was touching her, a tight ball waiting to be released, but only at the command of the god that had her at her mercy.”

She could tell that her near whispers were getting to Ei. From the way she was breathing, labored and harsh, all the way to the crackle of static that was beginning to raise the hair on Yae’s arms— her plan was working, and she was getting giddy at the thought that all it took was for a few strings to pull and a little bit of teasing. 

Nevertheless, she wasn’t out of the woods just yet; there was a cherry on top left to be had. 

Yae leaned in until she could just barely feel Ei’s breath on her cheek. “Could you imagine that, Ei?” she asked innocently, batting her eyelashes. “Writers have such a way of making someone feel… immersed. Right?”

“Right,” Ei said tightly, clipped and short. “It sounds like a. Wonderful. Story.” 

Yae laughed. “Come now, you really didn’t think that was the end of it, did you?” She sighed and clicked her tongue in fabricated disappointment. “I’ve told you the bulk of the story at least. But I always did say that endings help shape a story to be the way that it is.”

Ei didn’t dare to speak. She only watched Yae warily, brow furrowed and a small frown on her lips. Yae liked it. 

And naturally, that kind of behavior was to be rewarded. 

She curled a forefinger underneath Ei’s chin to tilt it upwards, and Ei allowed her without so much more than a twitch of an eyebrow. Yae rested the pad of her thumb over the middle of Ei’s lips, slightly chapped and torn though silky to the skin if she dared to swipe it.

“We’re a lot like those two from the story, you know,” she hummed, and she could see Ei clench her jaw the moment she said it. Trying to refrain from blurting out the obvious, most likely, and she was infinitely amused that Ei had done so. “The fox envoy from the story perched herself on her god’s lap in the afterglow, identical to the way we are, if you think about it.”

“Is that why you sat on my lap?” Ei asked her, mouth moving under Yae’s thumb, and her voice was daringly quiet. “To make a point of this novel of yours?”

“I never said I wrote it,” Yae answered, affronted. “And I was tired. I wouldn’t dare deceive you like that.”

Ei just eyed her suspiciously. It seemed as if she had run out of steam from quipping back at Yae, and it was a fact that Yae wanted to use to her advantage. 

Her thumb still on those lips, Yae leaned in an inch more. No other person in Inazuma would dare front themselves this way in front of the Shogun. 

“To thank her god for the night, the fox envoy leaned in and kissed her on the lips,” Yae murmured. Ei’s eyes were burning a hole into her own with its intensity in concentration. “A reader would be quick to assume that it was something chaste, like a kiss on the knuckles by a god fearing veteran at a ceremony. But the fox envoy thought she deserved more than that, and kissed her god ardently to make a point in their newfound relationship.”

Yae closed the gap between them to reenact the same scene that had been burnt into her memory.

She kissed her thumbnail, the one that blocked separated her lips from Ei’s by only a mere half inch, and kept them there to linger for another second. 

When she pulled away, Ei’s chest was coming up and down so fast that it looked as if Yae had pinned her down from a rancorous fight. 

She could see the smooth skin and the delve in her chest from where she had toyed Ei’s robes open with her wandering fingers. The defilement wasn’t as obvious to the untrained eye, certainly not enough for the small specks in the distance to recognize them and spread rumors about their god, but it was glaring enough that Ei had to reach out with a shaky hand to pull the fabric back over her chest in slight consciousness. 

And Ei’s pupils were blown, her eyes trained on her like Yae was dangling something she wanted in mid air. They never strained from Yae, even for the most split of seconds.

“Well!” she chirped, and Ei’s breathing suspended for a moment. She clasped her hands together and leaned away from Ei. “It was a pleasant surprise seeing you here, but believe it or not, I forget things at least once in a while. I’m sure I had something to ask you, but you know what they say— if you can’t remember, then it wasn’t that important.”

Ei opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it dully. The poor thing looked so lost that Yae felt a twinge of pity. 

She leaned into the shell of Ei’s ear, and whispered, “But I’ll be sure to tell you when I find out.”

Leaning back, Yae wasn’t all that surprised to see that Ei looked just about ready to pounce on her. 

Yae wouldn’t dare give her the chance now. So, she said, “I truly am sorry for the inconvenience, Ei, but there’s no harm in catching up with old friends now and then.” She tapped her chin in thought. “And if you liked the plot so much, you could pick up a copy of the novel in Inazuma City, free of charge. It just hit the shelves this morning, and you wouldn’t believe the kind of reception it’s already getting from all kinds of readers.”

“I see,” Ei said simply. 

Yae slid off of her lap, expecting nothing more from her dumbfounded companion. 

But just as she was about to turn and excuse herself with a goodbye, Ei added, “I’ll be sure to stop by, then.”

The whispers from Inazuma City were quiet and hushed, all restricted to the friends that they were speaking to. Unfortunately for them, Yae had plenty of experience in eavesdropping, and it didn’t take long for her to discern that there were rumors about Ei’s standoffish behavior. 

They said that the Raiden Shogun was reclusing herself once more, after a new era of showing herself to the public, and that their god was simply, well, aloof. Jittery. 

Restless. 

Yae smirked behind her cup of piping hot tea. She sipped generously, indulging more in the whispers around her. They couldn’t be further from the truth with their outlandish theories, and she was certain that they wouldn’t believe her when she explained that Ei was, just like how most humans get once in a while, pent up.

She allowed for a day to pass by without more contact with Ei, to allow the electricity in the Inazuma air to collect and make the people shiver. Distance made the heart grow fonder, so they say, and she was sure that the distance would allow for more frustration and grievances to hang itself in Ei’s case. 

But once a day had passed, Yae set off to further her plans. Tonight, she would finally, finally be seeing the horns that she had dreamed of seeing since that fateful day, and she could finally let her curious heart rest. 

To get to Tenshukaku the quickest, she had to cut through the crowds in Inazuma City. It wasn’t quite as busy as the weekends were destined to be, but there was a clump of people gathering in the direction of Yae Publishing House. Which was rather odd, really odd in fact, considering that Yae didn’t have any new upcoming novels to publish that week from the roster. 

Curious, Yae made her way to the sides of the booth. Her editor looked overwhelmed, eyes flicking back and forth as his assistant threw more and more books onto the counter for hungry teenaged girls that were basically throwing mora in his direction. 

Kuroda perked up when he saw her, and then rushed over to her side before they too were engulfed in the crowd. 

“Guuji Yae!” he cried, and the delight was clear in the way he held himself. “I am so glad you’re here.”

“Now what…” At a loss, Yae looked between him and the clamor of customers piling themselves on top of each other in front of Yae Publishing House. “What is going on here?”

“We got a new commission,” Kuroda explained, words coming out breathless and rapid all at once. “A really, really hefty commission, I’m talking like over half a million mora! The anonymous donor just asked if we could write a sequel to one of our novels ASAP, and the writer was so motivated by the pouches of mora that she wrote it in less than twenty-four hours. Now half of Inazuma’s teenaged population has been talking about it nonstop since it dropped on the shelves this morning. Isn’t it great?”

Yae was slowly putting the pieces together. “Can I see it?”

Kuroda came back with a copy of the novel in a few seconds. The front cover looked familiar with its recognizable artstyle. She held the spine of the novel with one hand and flipped through the pages with the other, eyes flicking between every sentence that she could see. 

It was a sequel to the steamy novel that Yae had told Ei about, and from the few pieces that she could see, it was much, much filthier than its predecessor. 

Yae huffed, then snapped the book closed.

It seemed as if Ei had learned how to keep herself resilient in the years she had spent alone in her little Plane of Euthymia, especially with the exercise of mindful creativity. 

Yae then tried small, miniscule attempts next. They were futile attempts, but they were attempts nonetheless, and any kind of pursuit in finding those godforsaken horns was a good one to try. 

All of these included but not limited to: commissioning Naganohara Fireworks to startle Ei’s horns to appear, putting beetles down Ei’s back, making her laugh so hard that the tea went up her nose, paying a small ninja to feel around the top of her head, and “accidentally” throwing a child’s ball to bounce off her forehead.

None of it worked. 

Yae was growing frustrated with each passing day, and she was beginning to think that her efforts weren’t worth it. 

But as she walked back to the Grand Narukami Shrine, she saw Ei’s figure in the distance. 

She was staring at a statue of herself, one of the many tributes to the Raiden Shogun that the people of Inazuma constructed in her honor. With how still she was, Yae almost mistook her for another statue beside it. 

Yae was too curious to keep walking. She stood still, squinting out into the horizon to will Ei to move an inch.

She did that sometimes, especially around that anniversary. Yae knew how much she missed her sister, and it was a burden that Ei had been carrying flat on her shoulders for centuries. Maybe now was one of those times.

Frowning to herself, she kept moving to get back to the Shrine in a timely manner.

Then Ei moved, and Yae watched her out of the corner of her eye.

Ei bowed her head. She looked so small in the distance, almost like a blemish in her eyes. It was then that Yae was suddenly struck with the intimacy of the still portrait in front of her. It was so easy to come forward and look for the devilish horns that the streets murmured about these days, but she couldn't bring herself to. At least not now.

So she closed her eyes and stopped looking.

What a lonely life it would be, to be a god to the people that knew nothing of the divine sins eternalized in only the mind.

She almost whispered an apology to the winds for the intrusion of such privacy.

Now back to rest at the Shrine, Yae was ready to lay her head down on the pillow and rest. 

Instead, one of the shrine maidens knocked at her door, and meekly stuck out her head when Yae called out a tired, “Come in.”

The pesky little maiden only wanted to ask her if she had seen the horns yet. 

Surprised, Yae could only manage saying, flatly, “No.”

“Can I ask you a question, Guuji Yae?” she asked, and then quickly added, “Respectfully.”

Yae almost laughed at that. She was a sweet thing, and she found no harm in indulging someone as long as they respected that there was a chance she wouldn’t answer quite as properly as they wanted her to be.

“Is there a reason you want to see the Shogun’s horns, Guuji Yae?” she asked. There was no malice traced in her question. Just genuine curiosity. 

Yae thought about it for no longer than a minute.

“Do you know why people grow horns?” she asked the shrine maiden. 

The shrine maiden thought about it, and then shook her head. Which wasn’t surprising, considering that there hadn’t been an uptick in human horns in quite a while, at least not in her lifetime.

“Well, it could be that they want to protect themselves,” Yae mused, even as the shrine maiden looked unconvinced. She paused then, mulling over her own thoughts. “But sometimes, it’s because a person doesn’t think of themselves the same way. Corruption in the eye of the beholder, or deceit, or anything that makes them think that they deserve the protrusion as a reminder.”

And then Yae shrugged. “Or, the horns just appear out of nowhere.”

This time, her plan was less of a stealthy peek and more of a confrontation. 

Specifically, she was too tired waiting for Ei to acknowledge her horns someway to her. They had never kept secrets from each other, not even the ones that kept them up awake at night. They were each other’s confidants, each other’s confession booths and companions through thick or thin, each other’s everything, if she was so bold as to say.

It frustrated her to no end that Ei was keeping this from her. 

And she knew, even without the physical proof to prove it, that they existed. They plagued her every night, taunting her, laughing at her for being the reason that Ei had to hide them. 

Still. She kept those thoughts at bay, at least for the time being. 

Yae took a deep breath and walked forward, captivating Ei with a greeting smile. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t lose your way,” she teased lightly, and Ei pushed her gently. If she closed her eyes for long enough, she could almost smell the fresh scent of cherry blossoms that wafted through the air while they played hooky from the responsibilities thrust onto them. Nowadays, even five minutes of their time was a blessing to come by, and she was more than just astounded when Ei agreed to give her a full afternoon. 

“Are you certain you aren’t needed elsewhere?” Ei asked her, concern creeping into her words. 

Yae fought the urge to roll her eyes. “It hasn’t even been five minutes and you’re accusing me of being unreliable,” she said wryly, and Ei smiled at her sheepishly. She glanced down below them, where more Inazumans milled about their day. They would be joining them momentarily.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Ei clarified, and she almost sounded amused. “It’s not everyday I capture the attention of the Chief Priest of the Grand Narukami Shrine. You must deem my attention as something important today.”

Yae was baffled, though charmingly surprised, by Ei’s good mood. She was in such a good mood, in fact, that Ei was teasing her.

She laughed instead, finding amusement in Ei’s newfound mannerisms. “A little birdie told me that you let that traveler take you around Inazuma on a date,” she accused, and Ei chuckled at her counterfeit jealousy. “What does she know about Inazuma? You’re better off with me than any more unqualified tourist.”

“I’ll take you up on that wager,” Ei replied lightly. “So, where shall we go?”

“Smart of you to let me take the lead,” Yae said with a tap on Ei’s nose. Ei wrinkled her nose as she did so, and Yae curled her lips into a smile. “Follow me.”

She walked her through the streets of Inazuma City first. She reveled in the gawks of the people at seeing them together, but no one bothered them. There were scatters of whispers of course, but nothing more than that. Ei shifted her eyes from one side to the other uneasily, as if expecting someone to pop out of nowhere and tackle them to the ground. 

Yae tried to ease her by delicately dragging her fingernails up and down the inside of her arm. It had the desired effect on Ei.

“You’ve spent close to a millennium watching over these people,” Yae whispered lowly to her, fingernails still brushing over her skin, “and you act as if you don’t know that.”

“It’s not that,” Ei said back. She pursed her lips, her shoulders pinched tight. Yae frowned. “They’re looking at you.”

Yae tilted her head, as if she couldn’t understand Ei. “People look at me all the time,” she answered, almost playfully. “Such is the life of being a public figure in Inazuma.”

“No.” Ei shook her head. They were almost to the ends of the crowd, where Yae wanted to lead her. “They look at you as if they want you,” she clarified, and she sounded neither angry, enthralled, nor amused. She said it like it was a statement of a fact. 

Yae was befittingly confused by that. 

“So you mean the way you look at me?” she joked. 

She meant for it to land as a tease. 

Instead, it came out as a murmur to the direction of the winds. 

Ei, thankfully, did not answer with more than an inquisitive hum. 

The confusion of the situation didn’t deter her from her hunger. Once they were near the restaurant, her stomach grumbled, loud enough for Ei to hear. 

Ei laughed, gentle as the chimes that greeted patrons into the restaurant. “I’m assuming I will be the one to pay?”

“You’re their god,” she said with a sniff. “I wouldn't be surprised if they have a special tab for you.”

Ei pulled out a chair for Yae and sat beside her. She picked up the menu that was given to them by a gawking waiter, and then perused the menu. “Well, if I don’t happen to have one here, then I’ll ask someone to bring me the required mora,” she said casually, as if it was as easy as a snap of her fingers. Yae made a mental note to bring her here again. “What would you recommend?”

“I’ll get one of everything if you’re unsure,” she told Ei, and Ei hummed at the suggestion. “Their desserts are to die for, if you have space in your stomach for it.”

“I’ll make room,” Ei said in determination, like it was, again, as easy as a snap. She separated her chopsticks and tapped them on the table, allowing Yae to take the reins to answer the waitress for their order.

True to her word, Yae ordered everything on the menu. Other patrons looked at them from the sidelines, stunned by the presence of their god and the chief priest surrounded by mountains of food. 

Their conversation was light as ever. The awkwardness of pushing through Inazuma City was washing away by the second round of meals, and Ei was adorably awkward with her cheeks stuffed with desserts while she waved her arms around trying to accentuate her stories about the Tri-Commission. Yae hung onto every word, resting her chin on her hand and nodding along even if the rants themselves interested her to a very little extent. 

She just happened to find Ei the interesting centerpiece to everything else.

With their early dinner over with, they walked out of the restaurant with full stomachs and hearts, and Yae joyfully led her to an Inazuman tourist attraction after another. Her feet felt sore by the time the sun was beginning to set, but she couldn’t find it in herself to really care. Ei’s sparkling eyes at the wonders of Inazuma was more than she could ask for, and she wondered what had taken her so long to ask Ei for an afternoon out like this. 

She felt melancholic at the thought that Ei had wasted so much of her life away for the benefit of those who had never seen her eyes sparkle like this, or heard her laugh quite so fully, or had seen her in every form that she came. 

But she felt the slight wisps of anger, mostly, that Ei knew that. 

That Ei knew there was no better person who knew her more than Yae, and that she was still willing to keep such a trivial secret from her. Even after everything.

Ei held her hand to hold her steady. They tiptoed on top of the rocks of a stream to cross and rest on its outer banks, and Ei marveled at the fish that swam past them. She continued to comment on the beauty of her world, even as Yae stared at her own, shame and ire tangling itself in her stomach until the emotion was indiscernible. 

“Did you see that, Miko?” Ei asked her in a hushed whisper. Her good mood was unaffected by the turmoil that was stewing beside her, though Yae couldn’t really blame her. “I’ve never seen a fish with scales that bright before.”

“I’ve never seen one with horns either,” Yae said sardonically, and she clamped her mouth shut the moment the insinuation passed through her head. 

Confused, Ei turned to look at her. “Horns?” she asked, and Yae wanted to strangle her for the soft, confused but inviting smile that appeared on her face. Ei laughed, and then added, “Why would you think a creature like that would even need horns?”

“You never know,” Yae said. She watched as two more fish raced down the river, and Ei watched them with rapt attention. “A dog can appear on your doorstep with wings. A cat with tusks might fall from the sky. Or maybe, a pig that has the ability to speak human languages.”

Ei’s smile dwindled to something small. She straightened up from crouching towards the river, and then regarded her for a moment. Yae had to tilt her chin up to look at her. And yet she was undeterred. 

“What are you trying to say, Miko?” she asked, almost as low as the sounds of the gentle water. 

Yae squeezed her fingers together in an attempt to hold it together. She pulled her lips to one side of her face to think of the perfect way to string her words together, even if she had rehearsed it all night and all morning. 

“When have you ever been the type to hide things from me?” Yae asked, just as faintly. It wasn’t quite as gentle as Ei’s.

Ei tilted her head. “When have you ever been the type to go behind my back and take it out of me?” she challenged. Yae’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise, but Ei didn’t give her the chance to breathe. “I haven’t been blissfully unaware of your antics for the past few weeks, Miko, though I desperately wish I was. I’ve been wanting to ask you to stop, but…”

“But you knew you had to confirm it,” Yae finished for her. She was bitter, even Ei could tell. “Were you really that afraid to tell me? Does it honestly look that bad?” She should’ve known from hours ago that her jokes weren’t going to land as smoothly as she wanted them to be.

“You know I would never hide things from you,” Ei told her, morosely. “There are many things that I can tell and show you, Miko, but there are many things that I can’t.”

Which confirmed the existence of her horns, at least.

Yae didn’t feel quite up to celebrating that. 

She wanted to demand answers. 

She wanted to yell. 

She wanted to accuse Ei for thinking less of her. 

She wanted to ask Ei if things had changed between them now, forever and never again.

“Then I apologize,” she said instead, and she could count the handful of times she had said that in her entire life. And left it at that. 

Ei was taken aback. She stared at Yae, dumbfounded, like she couldn’t process that Yae had cut her losses and let it go instead of doing the most obvious thing a person would do in her situation.

Though she recovered quickly, and stepped in front of Yae before she could leave. Like Yae had flipped a switch on her.

“Did you know that you’ve said that to me more times now than you ever had in our entire lives?” she asked softly. 

Yae felt her irritation dissipate into nothingness at Ei’s tone of voice. It reminded her of shared secrets under blankets at night, when neither of them knew who to go to. She supposed that they were at a crossroads now, where the only people they would ever go to were each other. 

“Make your point quick, Ei,” she requested tiredly. 

“You’ve apologized for every instance,” Ei continued. “Every single one. Even if it should’ve been me to apologize.”

Yae thought about that. “Are you talking about the time I hurt my ankle?” she asked, incredulous. 

“Yes. No. Yes— I mean,” Ei said, shaking her head slightly in frustration. “I nearly hurt you over a cup of tea . I got irrationally angry during a friendly spar. I rejected your advances only to humiliate you by commissioning that novel on a whim. And I hadn’t been there for you as much as I should’ve been. We’ve spent this entire day together side by side, and we’ve never been further away from each other.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, Ei,” Yae said, exasperated. “All I wanted to know about was your stupid horns. You don’t have to act all glum about it.”

“But that’s not where it ends with you,” Ei said. She wasn’t confirming it with her, for she already knew. The steady stream beside them filtered out the blood that was rushing into her ears. “You oversee the Shrine in Inazuma. When sins have been committed, it's only natural for you to want them to be atoned. It’s encoded in you naturally. For that, I’ve always been jealous.”

Yae was at a loss for words. “What do you want me to say?” she asked. “Offer you a spot as a shrine maiden? Bring you back to the Grand Narukami Shrine to be cleansed?”

“None of those things,” Ei answered, as if Yae’s rhetorical questions were something to seriously consider. “But you would never leave my side.”

Yae only looked at her. 

“Of course I wouldn’t,” she settled on saying, because it was the kind of truth that should have been obvious from miles away. “I would never.”

“Even if I turned on everything you know me for?”

Yae snorted. “You and your dramatics, Ei, I still don’t know how you can come up with such—”

“I meant every word,” Ei said firmly. 

They stood there, neither of them daring to say the first word. The sun was shutting its eyes over Inazuma, and Yae wanted nothing more than to turn away from the ridiculousness of the situation. 

All of this because she had apologized for realizing that she had been knocked out of her place in Ei’s standings?

She loved to tease Ei about her ability to magnify every frustrating circumstance, but now was just an unbelievable example.

“Everyday I fear becoming a god that brings nothing but fear to these lands,” Ei murmured, breaking the fragile silence that had clouded over them. “I want nothing more than to see Inazuma prosper in its eternity. Though I have reasons, now, to believe that it isn’t entirely possible.”

She couldn’t say that she expected that. Had that traveler wormed her way too far into her head?

“Now why would you think that?” she asked kindly, because something about the way Ei was shifting on her feet, about the way Ei was looking at her, made her think that Ei’s thoughts were tortuous for her to say out loud like that. 

“I have an inkling,” Ei clarified. “And now I know, with my whole heart, that I would burn Inazuma down to the ground if it meant having you here with me.”

She wouldn’t let Inazuma go. 

She wouldn’t allow Inazuma to smolder into nothing but ashes. 

She would vow to be the striking hand to destroy everything she held dear, all because Ei wanted her. 

“I grew horns the day I struck my people first before giving them a fighting chance to strike me down first. All I saw was you and the pain you were in,” Ei said firmly. Though there was a slight wobble to her voice, she held steadfast. There was no regret that she spoke of, and nothing that Yae could convince her of otherwise. “I was scared, Miko. I used to think that seeing Inazuma succumb to the same thing that place did would be my greatest fear. It continues to plague me, please believe me, but seeing you go down the same way, it— that. Stands to be the same level of dread I feel.”

Yae swallowed the bile in her throat. “Are you telling me that you have horns because you… what, prioritize me over Inazuma?” She took a deep breath, and then released it slowly. “You think that makes you a devil? The reason why you have horns?”

“I know so,” Ei argued. “I know you thought about it too. You’re too shrewd to let that go past you.”

“I’ll admit that I thought about it once or twice,” she said quietly. She almost laughed, then. At the height of absurdity that they’ve reached. “But never more than that. Being vulnerable doesn’t make horns sprout from the head, Ei. You would see millions of little humans running around with them if it did.”

“That’s different,” Ei testified, like a child in a losing battle. 

Yae narrowed her eyes, and moved just a bit closer to her. “Different?” she echoed, and her voice had a dangerous edge. She put a nail over Ei’s neck, the most vulnerable spot that she could find. “I’ve seen you let thieves go with a warning for stealing medicine for their sickly children and wives. There are stories I’ve allowed to be published about love and sacrifice, about lovers who would run away from well-meaning families to be selfish. Do you really want to stand there like an idiot and tell me that you have horns because you feel guilty that there is a part of you that wants to embrace me first before your Inazuma?”

“Miko—”

“Don’t interrupt me.” Yae almost drew blood under her nail. Ei didn’t flinch. “Do you know about the things I’ve done to see you again? Do you know what I was willing to do to find my way back to you? Are you going to sit here and tell me that you needed to be dramatic and sprout horns out of a subconscious desire to beat yourself like a lame horse when I’m a perfectly fine example of being arrogantly and openly selfish for you?”

Ei looked lost. She swallowed once. And didn’t speak.

“I love you in more ways than I could write into a half-witted novel. I’ve never hidden the fact that I would eradicate every being in this world for you, Ei.” Yae blinked back the tears. From anger or pure, unspoken emotion— her guess was good as anyone’s. “There is no shame in that. I have never been ashamed of loving you, nor will I ever be. And don’t you look at me like that and think about saying that it’s different, because if lightning struck me down and turned me into an archon, you know better than anyone that the first thing I would do is tell everyone you’re mine, and that you can never be touched.”

Ei swallowed again. She opened her mouth to speak, and yet nothing came out. She looked foolish doing so, and a thousand other things that Yae could list off from the top of her head. 

“Did you know I wanted to do that too?” she said instead, and Yae almost laughed from the crack in her voice. “So badly. Maybe it’s a good thing no one ever made you into a god.”

Yae split into a grin right then. The only reason she never laughed was because the joy was already so distinct on her face. 

“And then I will rule as your little demon queen,” Yae teased. “The closest thing to godhood as I could get, with the downside of you breathing down my neck.”

Ei cracked a wry smile. “Will you be using that in one of your many fox and god novels?”

Yae shrugged. “Will you persecute me for doing so?”

Ei laughed, freely as the chimes of the wind. 

She took a brave step forward, her hands coming up to caress Yae’s face. 

Yae’s heart thumped madly at her chest. She closed her eyes to bask in the moment, waiting for lips to press against her so that she could finally, finally put everything to rest. And maybe, once Ei did so, she could forgive and (maybe) forget about the horns. 

But instead Ei laughed even more, entertained by Yae’s inherent behavior. 

Yae fluttered her eyes open to glare at her as hard as she could. Ei’s warm hands were still on her, and she prayed that Ei was just getting a taste of the little leverage she had left. 

Before she could chew her out, Ei slid her thumb over the middle of Yae’s lips, preventing her quipping any more scalding comments. 

Yae didn’t let that deter her. 

She was only a syllable into whining about Ei’s undeserved revenge when Ei swiped her lips clean, and then kissed full on the mouth with the same fervor that Yae had only ever longed for in her dreams.

When Ei let her go, Yae couldn’t help but ask. 

“Are you at least going to show me your horns?”

Ei blew at her face to distract her, and Yae swatted at her with an indignant yelp.

Five, fluid days passed by and Ei had yet to show her the horns. 

“When,” Yae started, putting down her cup of tea, “are you going to show me?”

Ei told her the same thing that she’d been saying every time. “There’s no reason to show you.” And she sipped her tea. They were having tea in her room, something that had become a ritual for them since they reconciled and rebuilt their relationship from the ground up. 

“Nonsense!” Yae argued, affronted. “You already know how much effort I put into seeing it. Don’t be a sore winner.”

The corner of Ei’s lips jumped slightly in a half smile. “Do you want to see them that bad?” she asked. 

“Abhorrently so,” Yae said flatly. 

Then Ei sighed, and put down her cup. “Close your eyes.”

Yae gaped at her. She leaned over in excitement and said, “You’re serious?”

“You’ve been asking nonstop for almost a week,” Ei explained with a toss of her arms. “If it’ll make you stop, then alright. I’ll show you once, but never again,” she warned.

Yae bobbed her head up and down enthusiastically. “Yes, yes,” she said impatiently, then squeezed her eyes shut to emphasize her commitment to seeing them. “Now show me as soon as you’re ready.”

There was some rustling and moving around. Her ears twitched while she listened in, and she could only just barely keep her tail in check from sweeping side to side on the floor in excitement. She wondered what Ei’s horns would look like. 

Were they long and sharp, like the people said? Crimson red to represent the blood that she reaped? Were they so sharp that Ei could kill a man with a slight piercing? Were they venomous at the tips? Instead of long and narrow, were those horns twisting like a long base of a ram? How about a large antelope? Were they sensitive to the touch? Did they respond to hot or cold temperatures? Could she grab onto them while she sat on Ei’s lap and—?

Ei cleared her throat, awkwardly, like she didn’t want to be there. “You can open your eyes.”

Yae’s reaction time delayed itself by half a second. She was holding her breath for so long that she was beginning to feel jittery, and she only released it when she could finally see. She blinked against the harsh bright lighting of Ei’s room, and found Ei to be sitting across from her like she always was. 

The magic of concealment had been lifted from Ei’s head, and she entertained the palpable fact that Ei clearly needed something strong to hide it. 

She unmistakably had horns, alright.

They were curved upwards slightly, almost from the side of her head, and the points at the tip were enough to kill a man or ten. It reminded her of Ei’s old helmet, though the gold color was swapped out for a glaring crimson red. It clashed with the rest of her outfit too much, and even if Ei was unashamed by the origin of her horns, Yae wouldn’t put it against her to hide them. Unless, of course, she wanted to intimidate someone. That would certainly be an effective tactic.

It looked rather familiar, in actuality, but Yae couldn’t place it. And honestly— she didn’t really care.

Her curiosity had finally been satisfied, even if the reveal felt too cozy and offhand to note down for a new novel. Perhaps that was what Ei was looking for in the first place, a semblance of familiarity in a situation where she was thrown into chaos.

She wanted to reach out to touch it, but she knew that Ei would just bat her hand away with a chiding. 

Actually— she changed her mind. She couldn’t care less of what Ei did.

She reached over the table to touch it, and Ei did nothing to stop her. It was as if she was anticipating it, and Yae hummed a song to herself in the glowing pride that Ei knew her so well. 

“You know,” Yae purred, running two fingernails over the insides of the horns. They were hard, and would certainly take more than a strong hand to snap them in half. She liked that. And Ei shivered. “I’m beginning to think that you got these horns so you can woo me.”

Though Ei was straining under the feeling of her nails on her unexplored, sensitive new body part, she laughed gently under her breath. “Only you would be so delighted to think so.”

“I think so because I know so,” Yae boasted. She tapped the side of the horn. It was dense (something she knew she would make a joke of in the future) and she was rather curious as to what material it was made out of. Or how heavy it was. “Do you feel them when you walk around?”

“I used to,” Ei admitted. “They felt like… the weight on my shoulders, but now on the forefront of my mind. It took some adjustments to get used to.”

“Oh you poor thing,” Yae crooned. She continued to stroke them in curiosity, and Ei was staring holes into the side of her face. “You don’t mind if I take inspiration from this for a pitch of a new novel, do you?”

Ei knitted her brow. “Whatever for?”

“Why don’t you come here and find out?”