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“Dozens.”
“Dozens, you’re certain?”
“Well, at the very least there’s more than our own world.” Mona chuckles, then pushes her reading glasses up. “Our mutual friend is walking evidence.”
Dozens…
Fischl, head resting on a table, watches as Mona pulls out a thick book from one of the shelves. Its cover is a velvet-red and bears a golden engraving similar to the mage’s scryglass. Striking, and undoubtedly, rare (perhaps even a first edition). Mona lumps it onto her study table, plops down onto the nearest chair, and prepares her pen and paper. Automatic — like the tick of a clock towards midnight hour.
Will she ever get to writing that first draft of her textbook? She’s seen Mona remain in the ‘research’ stage for over a year now.
If only I may imbue everyone with my creative genius, Fischl laments, looking out the window to the afternoon weather.
Endless rain streaks down. Tiny, ceaseless rivers that leave droplets in their wake. The roof above pitters and patters and clangs, seemingly threatening to give way at any moment as the sound echoes throughout the room. For as expensive as all of Mona’s books and equipment are, she apparently cannot spare a cent to reinforce the ceiling.
And then, a crackle of thunder. Loud. Glaring. Chill envelopes the air.
“Tell me,” Mona says, jotting notes as her hand highlights a passage from the burly tome, “why the sudden interest? Looking to expand the Immernachtreich, are we?”
Fischl furrows, indignant. “The Immernachtreich is glorious enough as is.”
“Ah, of course it is.” Mona says. She inhales sharply for a beat before continuing. “It was Alice who proposed it, you know, this whole multiverse theory. Although that woman says things with so much certainty you’d think it was fact even without a shred of evidence.”
“And what are the specifics to this… inquiry?”
“Oh, you know.” Mona waves a hand, putting her pen down and facing Fischl. “Multiple versions of us out there, somewhere. Nothing academics haven’t proposed before, actually. But Alice’s theory just differed in one key aspect.”
“Hm?”
“She said that there are certain… constants throughout the universes. Things that never change, never differ. Like two siblings or the flap of a raven’s wings.”
“Even—” Fischl gulps. “Even a crush?” The word almost felt dirty as she spoke it.
Mona blinks in surprise. Then a smile forms, slowly yet surely. “Yes, I suppose that is possible.”
Fischl stops, motionless and staring. And for a moment, she doesn’t hear the patter of rain or see the endless, streaking rivers. Just the dumb laugh of a boy with a bandage on his nose and the silver of the clouds coloring his hair.
Stupid. It just had to be him.
She buries her face deep into her arms; an attempt to hide the involuntary red on her cheeks. The Prinzessin will not be seen this way.
“Well, looks like the rain isn’t going to stop anytime soon.” Mona closes the book, snapping the two halves together. “In other words, you can tell me all about it.” She stands up from the chair. “Coffee?”
“Cocoa.” Fischl says in a muffled voice.
Mona nods, walking to the kitchen.
And maybe it’s the hypnotic sound of the rain clashing against the roof. Or the eternal flowing rivers on the window. Or the crackle of thunder. Or the thought of his dumb laugh on evening commissions, like an unchained melody released under the tapestry of night.
Or perhaps it is everything, everywhere…
Fischl falls asleep. And she dreams.
“So, whatcha think?”
“Of what?”
Bennett frowns. “What I just said!”
Fischl looks on with a puzzled expression. They’re sitting on a bench, scratched cobblestone wall behind their back and a view of the fountain square a few feet towards the front. Mondstadt at night is a sea of soft light: lantern oil churning and billowing across buildings and rooftops. And as the crickets sing a song of prayer, the evening wind sifts through, pushing in inconsistent bursts.
A passer-by comes, but only on occasion, as if the night’s wanderers had made a pact to not interrupt the clandestine meeting of young hearts.
One of the city’s towering windmills had distracted her — its spin eternal so long as the breeze blessed it. What would that be like? To just spin, and spin, and spin…
But the Prinzessin mustn’t be distracted by such things; she is focused. Determined. Concentrated.
“You explained it poorly, that’s all, it’s taking me a while to process!” Fischl folds her arms, shaking her head. “Besides, can you say with absolute certainty that one of your fathers is the best authority for this sort of thing?”
“A cool wizard told him.” Bennett relaxes his posture, then leans his head backwards on the wall. “While he was out traveling.”
“Dreams connecting to other worlds…”
“So, it got me thinking, right?” Bennett scratches his cheek. It’s an easy tell for when he’s excited or nervous. Which is most of the time, anyway. “About us.”
“Us?” She spots a lantern flicker in the corner of her eye.
“Yeah, like, what if the other Bennett and Fischls are together?”
“Have I not taken you on as a partner? Somewhat.” In the Adventurer’s Guild sense, at least. Her parents have yet to approve of a romantic connection; one of the reasons for their midnight meetings.
“But maybe it wasn’t ‘sort-of’ for them. Maybe it wasn’t all near-misses and sneaking around at night. Maybe for them, it was always.”
“Always?”
“Bullseye, you know? All hits, every shot. Like you with your bow.”
Fischl blushes, quickly masking it with a sigh. “Your idealism will be the death of you.”
“Think about it!”
“You propose that there is always a Bennett who loved a Fischl, or vice-versa?”
“I mean, I hope so.” Bennett chuckles. The moon’s glow illuminates his face, tiny shadows forming with each little crinkle of motion. “We can dream, right?”
Fischl has this memory, lucid yet blurry at the same time.
A small village, and on its border next to the woodland, a house. Their house. Quaint. Comfy. A far-cry from the icy rooms and corners of her childhood.
And on a sturdy desk, her fingers clatter away at some strange, mechanical contraption. Over and over and over. Papers pile up around her, weighted with random trinkets, lest a mischievous wind from an overhead window disrupts her (attempt at) organizing. The publisher, after all, expects a first draft within the week.
It’s only fair, she tries to tell herself. Fischl’s kept fans waiting for the next installment of her new series for over a year now…
But you can’t rush art!
She uses dolls – ones she made herself – to roleplay and outline the stories. She’s amassed quite the collection over the years: the traveling hero, looking for their long-lost sibling; the drunkard God posing as a bard; the loyal wolf-boy; the strict, witch librarian.
Then, Fischl hears a creak at the door and the sound of ragged boots entering the room. She beams. “Your arrival is later than usual.”
“Lotsa commissions today, sorry.” Bennett laughs, and it is as if an old record has been put on the player once more. He walks over, bag of fruits in hand, and plants a lazy kiss on Fischl’s forehead from behind. (These kisses are her favorite.) He looks up, staring at the in-progress paper. “Which one is this again?”
Fischl sighs. “Book two. New series.”
“Oh. Right.”
She rolls her eyes, and they land back on the unfinished passage. “This scene eludes me. How, pray tell, is she supposed to confess her love if all she’s been doing is avoiding the problem?”
“Why don’t you ask Oz?”
“Who?”
Bennett stares, as if considering whether she’s joking or not. “You lost your memory or something?” He lays the bag of fruits on the dining table, producing a loud, startling thump. “Our raven.”
Raven…
Fischl blanches. Suddenly, she feels a deep ache in her heart, like her chest sinking in pools upon pools of water, although she doesn’t know why. And the whole house becomes hollow all at once, blank as the white of the unfinished page.
Bennett doesn’t seem to notice; he smirks, lips forming into a position that is so familiar yet so foreign at the same time.
“When we met, remember? Oz was there.”
Fischl remembers the first time she met Bennett.
A flood struck on the first day of high school; just her luck. She remembers how the water looked as she entered the campus – watching as the grime and dirt and slush flowed in endless, swirling circles. There were at least five abandoned slippers, and a piece of small plastic that upon looking back, Fischl realizes might have been something else entirely.
And through it all, the rain persisted; an endless, streaking river. (Where has she felt that before?)
She remembers crowding inside the clinically white building hall, drenched, with the other freshmen. She remembers the teachers desperately trying to organize everyone, raising their voices in frustration. She remembers the dark grey sky like a pool of the moon’s surface, and the shrieking caw of ravens retreating to safer pastures.
And she remembers a small boy sheepishly coming up to her, handing her a purple ribbon that had fallen from a tuft of her own blonde hair.
She blinked. “Have we met?”
Before he could answer, another student took the liberty of shouting directly at Fischl. “Bennett thinks you’re cute!”
And Fischl swears, she’d never seen someone erupt more swiftly into a panicked haze. “Wait a minute, I can explain!”
The rain persisted.
Fischl remembers the first time she met Bennett.
She sat on a wooden chair, in a balcony of stone and cobble that overlooked the vastness of a kingdom fit for the Prinzessin. She remembers sipping cocoa, occasionally glancing away from her book of velvet-red and gold. She remembers the sunset coloring the fields and signaling the tillers to end their work for the day. She remembers the charged and refreshing wind, a sign of changing times, of old becoming new.
Oz flew forward, wings in a steady beat. “Your Highness, you have a…” He paused, then coughed. “…visitor.”
Fischl turned away from her book and scowled, eyes as sharp as daggers. “And who dares interrupt the leisure of my eminence?”
“I do!”
A boy with silver hair sauntered towards her. The old, patchwork-glove on his hand scratched the back of his head as an anxious chuckle trickled out of his mouth. “Your, uh, Highness.” He performed a rushed bow, arms stiffly at the sides like a lock to a drawer.
He seemed familiar, then. Although Fischl does not know why.
Another wind passed through, slightly brushing the goggles resting beneath the boy’s chin. She spotted the bandage on his nose, and the scars littered around his shoulders and arms made much more sense. He was infamous around these parts, after all.
“Ah,” she says, “The kitchen staff talks of you. The Adventurer Who Bears the World’s Curses, I presume?”
His posture slumped. “Wait, is that what they call me?”
Oz cleared his throat. “Mr. Bennett brings a gift, mein Fräulein.”
“Hm?”
“Oh, right!” Bennett dug a hand in his pouch and withdrew a small package the size of his palm. The wrapping was a sheet of brown, purple ribbon adorning. “A gift from me and my fathers’ household.”
He hands it over. She remembers her hand slightly grazing his. And she remembers it even if it was for less than a second. She remembers unwrapping the gift, right then and there.
A locket. Oval-shaped, silver as the stormy clouds (or his hair). And within is a ticking clock. And Fischl was reminded of the day ending, and the ephemeralness of all things, and the sunset-tinged grass in her kingdom.
And she was reminded of her dreams when sleep arrives in a horse’s carriage, leading her to lands she does not know the name to, and times too far removed for her to place. And sometimes in the dreams there is the impoverished magician, or the reptilian cavalry captain, or the devotee songstress.
But in all of them, without fail, is a clumsy boy with silver hair. Or is that what she hopes to be the truth?
“You like it?” Bennett asked.
She gazed; words lost.
Fischl remembers the first time she met Bennett.
She remembers taking her first commission from the Adventurer’s Guild, eager to make a name for herself within its ranks.
She remembers her commission partner more.
(It happened just like this. She’s sure of it.)
“We met at the steps of the Church, remember?”
“That so?”
“Yeah, during Windblume.” Bennett yawns, head resting on Fischl’s lap as he lies down. “We were both really young, though, I think. Two of my dads brought me there and your parents brought you.”
Fischl knows that’s what happened. She’s certain. There – on the magnanimous steps as the looming cathedral towered above. But why can she feel it happened so many other ways?
She starts combing a hand through his hair in soft, rhythmic motions. She can see him flutter his eyes gently like the kindred spirit of a delicate bird’s wing, breaths steady and firm. She can’t help but smirk. He always likes this.
“I was supposed to give you a Windblume back then, you know.”
“And why ever did you not?”
“I was shy!”
Fischl huffs. “Your eyes must have been too naïve in the past to grasp the truest extent of my greatness… that, or they were distracted by another.”
“That’s not true! I remember asking one of my dads if Barbatos sent an angel when I saw you—” Bennett cuts himself off, dilating, as silence fills the air. An attack of crimson collects around his cheeks, then he finally speaks after a few seconds. “Uh… forget I said anything.”
Fischl feels the heat rising in her ears as well. “A-agreed,” she manages.
But then Fischl thinks of Bennett giving his Windblume to another, all those years ago. And she thinks of Bennett loving them, just as much as he loves her now. And she thinks of Bennett and them marrying in the Church while she watches silently in the front row, crumpled wedding invitation in her hand.
She can imagine it. She has imagined it. She’s dreamt it and felt it and, maybe, she’s lived it…
Fischl feels sick.
She gives a thin smile. “You’ve fallen for a wingless raven, Benny.”
Fischl remembers kissing Bennett, the first time and all the other times after that.
She’s usually the one to initiate, much to her own surprise. She grips his hands to start, threading her fingers through his as if pieces of ancient tapestry at last being sown together. Fischl looks at him, and he looks at her. She moves closer, and closer still, until they breathe the same air. And then it happens. Electric. Intoxicating. Addicting. They usually go for more afterwards.
But not the first time, that one was different.
She remembers crying in her bedroom after a rough day, and she remembers Bennett at her side, watching the great Prinzessin der Verurteilung be awash with tears.
What is he thinking? She asked herself then. Does he think less of me now? Weak, vulnerable Amy?
She remembers getting an answer when their lips somehow found each other. No one motioned first, as far as she could tell – the wind simply pulled them together, reuniting missing pieces of a puzzle.
And it doesn’t really matter, quite frankly, because she remembers giggling soon after, planting tiny kisses on Bennett’s forehead.
Fischl dreams of kissing Lumine under the bleachers after their economics test. Lumine pushes her against a pole, and when their mouths meet, Fischl feels every crack, every crevice of her mischievous smile.
Fischl dreams of camping trips with Razor; just the two of them, and no one else. She leans against his sturdy shoulder, almost falling asleep to the faint crackle of the fireplace. As the moon reaches its peak and their gaze tires of the stars, they retreat into the tent – and the crickets sing a song of passion and desire.
Fischl dreams of nights with Barbara, secretly smoking cigarettes behind the church, walking to her apartment. She remembers wine. And she remembers Barbara screaming her name over and over, like some sort of holy prayer.
And Fischl dreams of all of them doing the same to Bennett.
Jealousy is the hobgoblin of the mind, her mother used to tell her. Dubious, fooling.
Fischl remembers her first date with Bennett.
She remembers a grand ball in the castle’s main atrium. Above was the night sky, framed by a glass ceiling of impenetrable splendor. She remembers the stained windows on the upper walls – depicting scenes of victory, forgiveness, and defeat. She remembers her purple dress, but she remembers her date’s little bowtie even more.
“M'lady,” Bennett said as he greeted her near the entrance. He held out his hand, an eager tint sparkling his face.
Fischl groaned. Corny as ever. Yet she smiled and took his hand.
Then they danced – to the best of their abilities, at least. She remembers three separate instances when they bumped into another couple, at least two incidents of her stepping on his foot, and one where Bennett tripped and fell on the ground flat on his face. She remembers screaming far too loudly than what was warranted at the time, and she remembers Jean helping him to one of the seats.
And as they sat on a table with the rest of their friends, eating and hurling insults, Fischl could feel nothing but intense warmth. The chilly breeze was like warm velvet, and the ground a silkscreen of stars as she laughed and grinned and laughed some more. A serene evening; terrifyingly beautiful.
She remembers Bennett escorting her home, and sneaking him in through her balcony of vines and leaves. She remembers talking for an hour, explaining all the memorabilia and knickknacks in her room as Bennett listened intently. She remembers making out until the trees and the flowers grew tired of the sound of their lips clashing (although they didn’t care). She remembers feeling the heat of his body brushed up against hers, and the thump of his heart growing louder with each passing, clandestine minute.
And she remembers the crickets singing a song of passion and desire as they fumbled their way through the first time.
Fischl laid there in the bed, tracing invisible scribbles on Bennett’s bare chest, watching as he drifted into slumber. And she wondered if anything, at all, could top this moment.
She grabbed the locket resting on her nightstand, and she remembers the clock being stuck at midnight. (Where did she get this from, again?)
But none of that happened. Not to her version of Fischl, at least. There never was a ball, and Bennett never held her close deep into the night.
She feels sick.
Fischl remembers her (sort-of) first date with Bennett.
She remembers the commission exactly: take down a Hilichurl camp near the Whispering Woods, collecting lamp grass and windwheel asters along the way for an herbal mix to treat those wounded. She remembers the enticing money, put forth by none other than one of city’s wealthiest patrons. And she remembers a boy with silver hair begging her to take on a partner.
“Please!” Bennett cried.
“And split my well-earned renumeration?” Fischl asked, “Unlikely.”
“It’ll be a whole lot easier with the two of us.”
“Easier? Must I refresh your mind of the incident last week?”
He exhaled a heavy breath. “Look, I’ve explained this to everyone! Klee burned that tree down. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Accomplice to the crime, then.”
“C’mon Fisch,” he wined, at last revealing his secret weapon: puppy eyes. “Please? I could use the money.”
And really, how could she say no?
She went about it with the intention of showing off, in fact – drawing her bow and arrow as she leaped into the air, hitting bullseye each and every time. One down. Two down. Four down. An aim fit for the ruler of the Immernachtreich.
She remembers not paying enough attention to her six, and a stray Mitachurl almost smacking her in the head had it not been for Bennett’s sword.
Fischl blinked, nodded, and continued. He did the same.
And as they collected plants and flowers under the beating rays of sunlight after all had been said and done, Fischl remembers thinking that they worked exceedingly well together, far better than she had expected.
And a stubborn piece of her mind lingered on his corny jokes, on his little idiosyncrasies, on the melody of his laugh amidst the cruelty of the world.
It was then that she toasted to the fools who dare to dream of love and romance and all the sweet things of life. For she had become one of them.
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
I will inscribe these words upon every star, every sun, every moon; every flower, every castle, and every droplet.
You’ll feel it when you close your eyes, and the wind barrels towards you like gusts from a raven’s wing.
I will take the place of all the poets and all the bards and all the storytellers. And every time love is written in the margins of the page, it will be to you.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
“But maybe it wasn’t ‘sort-of’ for them. Maybe it wasn’t all near-misses and sneaking around at night. Maybe for them, it was always.”
“Always?”
“Bullseye, you know? All hits, every shot. Like you with your bow.”
“Your idealism will be the death of you.”
“Think about it!”
“You propose that there is always a Bennett who loved a Fischl, or vice-versa?”
“I mean, I hope so. We can dream, right?”
When she awakes, the first thing she sees is Mona’s frown. Then it’s the window, and the patter on the roof. The wet outside has not relented yet.
“What sin have I committed this time, Lady Megistus?”
“Letting the cocoa I made grow cold,” Mona says. She nudges the steaming cup across the table. “Drink up, now. Let’s not put it waste.”
And then, a light rap on the door – almost impossible to hear given the rush of rain. Mona hums, walking over to the entrance. She opens it.
“Well, speak of the devil!”
A small sound of panic involuntarily seeps out of Fischl.
“Uh, I make sure to go to church at least once a week, Miss Mona,” Bennett says.
“Neither here nor there, my boy.” Mona says. “What brings you here? Fischl, I presume?”
Fischl hears a gulp, then the sound of a nervous yes. Her heart flutters.
Oh, to be young and in love. Mona sighs.
She watches as Bennett gives Fischl a locket. Silver. Beautifully engraved and crafted. That one won’t wear out easily.
And she watches as they chat and laugh, shared hot cocoa in-between their forearms.
Mona glances back to her notes and the big, burly tome she had pulled out from the shelf earlier, performing a quick scan of the contents of the former.
Yes, she thinks. This is sufficient enough.
She brings out her favorite pen and a stack of white paper, and begins to write.
“Dozens…”