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The cool cobblestone road of Mondstadt is something Cyno will never get used to. On his bare feet, the material is different from the mostly warm pavements of Sumeru City but it is not an unwelcome one. It was night time and the overall air of the place is so different from Sumeru, like he stepped in the Grand Bazaar except the merriment was spread out in the entire City of Freedom and to all of its people. Amidst the aridness of the desert and the humidity of the forest, Mondstadt’s breeze is a gentle blow over his coat covering his bare body. He knows Mondstadters enjoy this weather all year round. Even in absence, the Anemo Archon is kind.
His visit has also been timely, remembering what a cheery Lisa said about it being the Ludi Harpastum season. The increasing inebriation of Mondstadters around him makes him think of his nation. In this time Sumeru City would have been much quieter, only the growling of Sumpter Beasts and quiet chatter of merchants passing by resounding through the streets. In this time, the most crowded area would have been the Puspa cafe, filled with students doing late night research in hopes that the caffein would keep them awake.
In this time perhaps the General Mahamatra is just Cyno, penning his words and carefully crafted sentences, mulling over his intentions and reservations to the one of whom his letters are intended for. There are piles and piles of crossed out words and crumpled paper in his inn room’s bedside that he ought not to waste, someone would be mad at him for doing so. But matters of the heart are too mysterious to be concluded within a span of an entire thesis, much less the cheap parchment he bought in bulk from some passing Liyuen merchant in Caravan Ribat.
But this time, he is in Mondstadt for a job only he can do. Being in the city of the wind has strayed his mind too far when he has dealings to do in the morning to come. Tonight he is free, however, and Lisa invited him to some establishment called Angels’ Share to exchange pleasantries and taste what Mondstadt has to offer. He would have politely refused but she is his senior, he must come. He cannot disappoint.
Although perhaps he should have after all, Cyno thinks when Angels’ Share creaks its barrel wood doors and rambunctious laughter (the loudest he’s ever heard, a Forest Watcher will be displeased) overwhelms his senses. The scent of mixed alcohol in every corner of the pub vaguely reminds him of the Rtawahist Spirit Borneol, and Cyno is not surprised if Mondstadters have drunk enough that the next time they open their eyes is to a drink with their own Anemo Archon on the other side.
(“It was like Mondstadt’s own homegrown forest,” Cyno comments deadpan over the dinner table sometime when he comes back home. Home, he’s very pleased to repeat. “No I swear, I’m not making a joke—”)
“The festivities are fifteen days? The Anemo Archon must have gifted these people livers of steel.”
He sees Lisa from the top floor waving at him and Cyno, as he climbs up the winding wooden stairs, is relieved that this floor has calmer patrons. The table is already plated with snacks and drinks enough for the both of them, and Lisa ushers for him to sit.
“Miss Lisa” Cyno coughs quietly, reserved, oddly shy and bare in the face of his senior, looking smaller and so unlike his person as General Mahamatra. “You didn’t—”
“Hush you. Whatever it is you want to say, I know what it is.” Lisa placates, settling some plate of fried Philameno Mushroom chips before him. “Hospitality is a courteous thing, General Mahamatra. Allow me this one!”
He doesn’t miss every syllable, every clack of words and lips biting in the matter of saying. There were clear hints of amusement, foreign from the usual shade of fear. Hospitality is a courteous thing, that much he agrees to, and he will nod to it that he decides refusal would be rude especially when it is done to a particular Miss Lisa.
She is someone who could have been a grand sage but ran away to be a librarian, (Although Cyno has been less supportive of her decision, unlike when it came to someone else.), and she is the same one who picked an easy looking dish seemingly acquainted with his palate. Impressive for someone he hadn’t been acquainted with in a while.
And Lisa is not the only scholar Cyno knows to have packed their bags and left the ivory halls empty in their wake, nor is she the only one who knew what he may have liked to eat. A daunting realization, having said people he knows of doing the same thing to be a grand total of two. He dismisses the coincidences, the sample size is too small in any case, and gingerly picks a piece for him to taste. Cyno notes its less earthy flavors than the ones from Avidya and makes a mental note of taking a few of these home. Home, a place that didn’t only come with endless sand.
(His mind nowadays sway too close to the quiet conversations over the dinner table, as if there is nothing else to think of. Everything in Mondstadt’s loving climate is somehow a reminder of passing glances, little whispers of take care, gentle reminders of valuable respite. Cyno questions if it is the effect of being in a foreign land and wonders why his mind does not wander back to his job where he thought he is more attached.)
“I’ve asked our teacher for your assistance in the matter, not knowing that you’ve already risen through the ranks. I do apologize if I made you come all the way to Mondstadt despite your busy schedule.” Lisa serves her apology over a demure expression of culture in pouring him a drink of a bottle, labeled fashionable and succinct: Monstadt’s famed Dandelion Wine. Although whatever bit of apologetic face she wore has gone when Cyno shrugs and accepts the cup, swirling it mildly to observe.
“I suppose you already met the young Collei?" Lisa continues.
Cyno does not sip immediately, opting for another bite and then some. Lisa looks a bit too pleased at the mention of the child. “A request from you is undoubtedly an urgent matter, more so that the predicament has some dwellings of forbidden knowledge with roots from Sumeru.”
Lisa hums and leads her eyes aimlessly at the table, considering a thought until she doesn’t. “I’ve left out a few details in my letters. Mondstadt would love to care for this child, but she ultimately does not belong here. However,” she wags a finger at him. “These topics can wait in the morrow! How are you, Cyno? General Mahamatra! What an action packed lifestyle my cute junior lives by nowadays. It suits you, you know. You were always so upright.”
She’s never changed, Lisa hasn’t, keeping herself as forward with words of endearment Cyno could never get used to even after all these years, especially with all the years that stretched between where he felt like a brick wall has built itself in between.
But Lisa continues on and on as the evening begins to settle and for every glass of Dandelion Wine that fills his glass (Four, for now. Cyno will allow himself to be baited), her chatter crumbles brick after brick. A soluble mix of Teyvatian and Sumerian with the coarse accent of a Mondstadter in between questions if she still spoke the language of his people fluently, and it brings him to a once upon a time brought by the wind.
It fills a sense of nostalgia in him, amidst the cheerful praises to wine and wind and the Anemo Archon’s name in gleeful worship. The coat that keeps him modest in Mondstadt society clings to him close, like it was his uniform in the Akademiya or the old Matra garb both hung abandoned in some wardrobe, the banters of drunkards flit in his mind like some scholars who couldn’t agree on the knowledge of something he bothered little about.
If Cyno closes his eyes, he can smell the gathering of old books and pressed flowers approaching. In Pardis Dhyai, the greenhouse is at the right amount of sunlight haloing from above, and where the flowers bloom and brush against his arm in the idleness of the moment. He's toying at someone’s loose garbs and hums at all their right intervals, or nods even at the white noises. He clenches his fist over the fabric he toys but still feels the callouses that come with being the General Mahamatra.
The General Mahamatra comes to others—no one could come to him. And yet there is a slippance to the protocol carefully observed and practiced that comes in all ears and tail.
A coquettish smile settles and eyes glaze over Cyno, some turquoise shade tinged with brown, and giggles without abandon, only to lightly slap over Cyno’s hand toying on fabric. Their eyes meet, scarlet to green, and he feels all the layers upon layers that Cyno has built for himself melt at the beatific face.
Maybe, maybe, the slippance has seeped from more than just his protocol. Maybe, maybe, it manifests itself in finding that his schedule has been changed thoroughly, giving way to longer free times when work allows it. When he craves home cooked meals even after expensive dinners, or when he makes himself bear the humidity of the forest much longer.
General, a voice says amused, are you still listening?
Lisa is in mid pouring her seventh glass when Cyno regains himself back in the rustic environment of Angels’ Share as his eyes shot open. His sixth has barely been touched.
“General,” a voice says again, Lisa’s, not one sweetened by Dandelion Wine but just as amused, “are you still listening?” She was quick to understand.
He feels embarrassed in the face of Miss Lisa who has invited him for a night of courteous hospitality, and yet here he was jolted by a daydream, rude to her by thinking of something else, someone else.
“They do say that this wine has its… certain effect on people, like a dandelion being carried by the wind bringing back memories one must have missed.” Lisa explains to him carefully, purposeful, like it was the principle of things. Anemo Archon blessing, she waves. In Sumeru, the unexplainable is hounded by some scholar in dire need of a topic. In Mondstadt, the unknown is a vestige of their archon’s love.
“I’ve been told I’m a bit of a lightweight,” Cyno straightens up and explains unembarrassed. It was just four shots. “ I think that is the more plausible reasoning.”
Lisa hums like she is dissatisfied - she is - and Cyno catches it like he captures the most bitter prey in the desert. Fuck, he swears - not really - more like the most appropriate word that easily captures the impending doom pulling his stomach down to the lowest of the abyss. What exactly is in Dandelion Wine and what was Miss Lisa expecting for him to spill?
“A mora for your thoughts, General? We’ve yet to finish the bottle. Maybe a memory you’d like to share, some exciting action about your job? Or a, I don’t know,” Lisa grins. “A lover back home?” She laughs heartily before downing her seventh glass in one go and shows no signs of refilling. Instead, her eyes bore straight back at him and it felt, to Cyno and everyone who was willing to hear him out, like a thorn growing on a rose and less of an inquiry.
She was off the rails of the path she made but now Lisa is back on track and pulls Cyno with her, chained and shackled. He had no way with words that didn’t base on established principles or theorems, or had a count of less than a hundred thousand. He is cultivated in the matters of picking his battles, great at finding his prey and even greater at taking them down.
He thinks that this is unfortunate for Miss Lisa. There is no cell of gossip in his blood and his preambles are justice instead of hearsay. A lover? Was it a yes or a no? Maybe? The certain gleam in Cyno’s eyes says that there's definitely someone, and the silence he holds is enough for Lisa to know that she need not to push the dagger any further.
Cyno grimaces. This is what the people he interrogated must have felt like on a lesser degree.
He is thinking too much that Lisa smiles at him apologetically for the second time this evening, as if she can physically see the steam rising.
“I don’t mean to put you on the hot seat, Cyno." Coy. She's testing waters. "If you don’t want to say anything, I won’t pry.”
Cyno sighs. The seat has already been warmed for him anyway. “H—” he pauses, contemplating. “There may be someone I met from the Akademiya? I don’t know.” He chuckles at the uncertainty like it is a laughing matter to be held. “They are my friend, this much I am certain.”
“But”
“But what Miss Lisa? I’ve been told in solemnity that a Matra’s path is a lonely one. I don’t break my promises, but promises made too far and long in between…it didn’t seem fair.”
“A Matra’s path is a lonely one”, he was told once by his superior as they sat in uncomfortable silence. Cyno - he is used to solitude, used to spending the entirety of his life bustling with tasks and responsibilities, taking matters with his own hands, no ties to anything but himself and his cause.
What he is not used to - someone waiting for him, home cooked meals piping on the table, a soft brush against his arm, a too loud laugh and a phrase of see you again that was more question than a closing statement. If he were to be promised by someone the rest of their tomorrows, full of soft skin and fur under bawdy words, Cyno is afraid of a heart on his hands that never held anything more precious. He is afraid that there would be nothing for him to say.
But
Lisa clicks her tongue. Her glass remains. Cyno picks up his own.
“Oh Cyno,” Lisa’s voice lowers to the edges of disapproval, “I thought you were different from them.”
Cyno sputtered over his drink, but he managed to keep enough composure in place. Too careful to spill Dandelion Wine in his hand that practiced with pens and weapons instead of glass, too careful to spill whatever was left of what he caressed in his heart for Lisa to judge. The comparison to some unknown them, who hasn’t done any good in Lisa’s eyes, is jarring to a fault. He peers at her with a tinge of naivety as the day was young.
This is Mondstadt, he is free. The Anemo Archon will not judge him if he does not know any better.
“What do you mean?” he whispered on this moment when Lisa stressed herself with enough stress, taking that awaited swig of her next glass of alcohol, and a deep sigh that Cyno could only think is reserved for situations in the matters of the heart.
“Have you heard of the Uncertainty Principle, Cyno? Some Vahumanan Mondstadter proposed it.”
Cyno slowly nodded. He knows and he knows where this is going.
“Then I won’t stretch it out but you should know what this scholar says: every concept has a meaning only in terms of the experiments used to measure it.” Lisa points out. It’s getting warmer with her and the Dandelion Wine in her hand. Cyno is glad for the set time he made to meet the girl tomorrow morning to not be too early.
Her chin finds its way to her palm unamused. “You laid your options, but never sought for a meaning outside of these options. Relationships are not something with clear cut conclusions.” She snorts out, no slack in her words, very un-Lisa like, it’s the Dandelion Wine talking.
It’s Cyno now who smiles at her apologetically. Although truly, it’s only for her on the surface. It is meant for himself instead. It’s not as if he doesn’t know these things but before he was General Mahamatra, Cyno is still just Cyno.
He is used to loneliness, or so he claims.
This, he gestures madly in his head behind his thinly veiled apology, these things called feelings. He’s not used to it. He’s not used to this re-enactment of his shortcomings as a person, being frothed to him in the scent of wine and song and a chant to the Anemo Archon in his wake, rightful reproval be damned.
Cyno sighs, a deep one, reserved glaringly only for situations in the matters of the heart. Lisa rambles on, it’s both her and the Dandelion Wine doing the insisting.
“The uninhibited mindset of Sumerian intellectuals truly knows no bounds. The celebrated scholar who proved the uncertainty principle did not lose precious sleep just for General Mahamatra to dismiss his work. You never know Cyno, you never know what your beloved would want until you tell them what you feel. And you’re wasting such a beautiful name—I know I don’t know it, but I’m sure it’s pretty enough to warrant itself as an ending to ‘ I love you’ from the General Mahamatra!”
“--Nari”
“I’m sorry?” Lisa blinks, watching as reality unfolds itself. May the Anemo Archon smile down to his warrior.
“That’s his name.” Cyno says, emboldened, holding it like a chalice to the gods. He repeats it to Miss Lisa like a preamble to his coming home where there are plenty of smiles and plenty of tomorrows that he himself would promise.
“Tighnari.”