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You have a stupid look on your face. He knows it, without even having to turn around in his seat to confirm it. He even knew it had been you without turning, not that you made a proper sound upon entering his forest home, but the way you had shuffled in without a word, your steps hesitant but wanting, before the wood frame for his bed had creaked just loud enough to stir him out of his concentration. Now, minutes have already passed with your silence, the occasional shuffling of material against material being the only sound you make.
“________, welcome back,” he finally calls. You hum, but it sounds muffled from his end of the room. “… you’re staring again, aren’t you?”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” You chuckle at this.
“No one likes a know-it-all, Tighnari.”
“ You do.”
“Heh, that’s true.”
There’s a small break of silence between the two of you, besides the resumed scratching of his quill against the parchment and the distant chatter of the forest rangers. It is a patient silence, one the two of you often revel in whenever there isn’t any field work to be done, a rarity considering your professions.
Tighnari, the chief officer of the Forest Rangers, a Forest Watcher, and you, a young, nomadic adventurer with a love for all things nature— your paths crossing had been coincidental, with him on a routine patrols through the Avidya Forest and you completing a strange commission from the Guild for a Akademiya student looking to create a stronger, more robust fertilizer for improving vegetation that had you hunting down Hydro Slimes. You’d been so enthralled with the idea of being able to grow and harvest crops at a more opportunistic rate that you took the commission on in a heartbeat, beating even the Traveler to it through your enthusiasm alone, that you’d forgotten to watch your surroundings.
At the time of when he came across you, you laughing as you crawled out of your unconsciousness after being targeted by a small group of floating fungi, he could hardly blame you for being taken by surprise after a hearty explanation for your presence.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if this worked? It could be brought to other lands where plant growth is near impossible! Like, Watatsumi Island!” You’d laughed again, the excitement in your eyes near uncontainable.
But your injuries were no laughing matter. You’d been victimized by the elements of Hydro, Dendro, and Pyro, your clothing and hair scorched and your arms and calves blistered from burgeon. It took a long time for your injuries to heal that had you unable to leave Gandharva Ville, but in that time, you had found a friend in its chief. Your first few weeks in Sumeru prior to the incident had been most eventful, and Tighnari was ever pleased to learn that you didn’t arrive here ignorant to nature.
“The problem is with these adventurers is that they think wherever they go, they can act first and think later, but who does that help? Especially when the one’s who’ve received Visions think they’re suddenly the greatest because their flames can take care of enemies fast, or their lightning can increase the jumping power of a mushroom— nature is not something to be parasitized. It’s embarrassing that they think so little of it.”
He couldn’t agree more.
You’d never actually been to Inazuma thanks to the Sakoku Decree their Raiden Shogun enacted, so you’d only heard about Watatsumi’s situation, and in wanting desperately to see the unknown plant life that you’d yet to see unlike those from the rest of the seven nations, as well as desiring to one day be able to be a liaison for this soil-experimenting Sumerian, you jumped ship from your volunteer position with the Forest Rangers to jump on a ship for Ritou. If not for you having a Vision of your own, Tighnari would have highly debated chasing after you once he’d learned why you left.
Inazuma was not unlike the stories you’d heard from the more seasoned adventurers you’d spoken to. How even the earth was charged with Electro elemental energy thanks to the various ley lines hidden beneath it; how the Sacred Sakura tree of the Grand Narukami Shrine had grown out its roots throughout the region and spread its seeds in the form of sakura blooms— but the only things you were really concerned over were collecting enough of a soil sample to bring back to that Amurta student, and most importantly, collect a sea ganoderma that “grew” on Inazuman shores.
Are they alive? Or are they a type of fungus? How long does it take for one to “spawn”? Considering the numbers in which they appeared, you had these and many other questions to ask. And naturally, you needed samples to bring back with you, not just for your curiosity’s sake, but as a gift for Tighnari, as thanks for all that he’d done for you. Supposedly, he’s never seen one in person before. You only wish he could have gone with you. Despite his own duties, he found himself wishing he could accompany you, too.
Tighnari didn’t expect you to be back so soon, however. Knowing what the distance was between Liyue Harbour, the main port of which you would have to embark on your journey from, and Ritou, the main port on Inazuman soil you would arrive at, and what items had been on your itinerary, he expected you back in Gandharva Ville in no sooner than nine days, two of those days being used for sea travel. It’s only been four, something that only clicks in when you’d just sighed.
“______,” Tighnari calls, his tone almost too flat to be considered pleasant; you flinch. “Come over here, please.”
“… but your bed is so comfy,” you mumble tiredly, despite being wide awake.
“I don’t want to have to stop doing what I’m working on if it’s nothing, so come here— please .”
Game over, you think miserably.
In the five months since you began staying with the Forest Rangers, you learned full well the extents of which Tighnari’s wrath could take. Now, since you’ve already been back during this small time without saying a word, or even joining him at his desk to properly greet him ( even though he could’ve just turned around for a second , you think), his initial suspicion has slowly elevated into the situation before you. And as you rise off of his bed and trudge toward him, you instinctively begin preparing yourself for an earful.
Heaving a sigh, you turn at the last second to lean against the edge of his desk to the right of him. Tighnari gives himself a moment, sparing a breath down at his half-written letter to finally look at you. His lips part almost instantaneously, his forest-like eyes widening in response to your bodily visage.
“I-It’s… not as bad as you think,” you’re quick to try and explain, but he’s already on his feet, chair pushed back to make room for his close quarters pacing. “Tighnari, calm down…”
“Don’t tell me to calm down,” he says sharply, but there isn’t any bite to his words— you can tell this much by the way his tail anxiously sways back and forth behind him.
“… sorry,” you mumble. You clear your throat lightly when he decides to lift your arms up by your wrists, three fingers from each of his hands dragging them upward and between you. But this hurts. The way you wince proves it. Carefully, Tighnari lowers your bandaged arms back down to yours side, but not before casting your shoulder a look of disdain. “Tighnari?”
He looks away from you instead to rummage through one of the drawers of the cabinet next to you. “Go and sit on the bed,” he instructs you. “Take your shirt off.”
You instantly flush with heat. “H-Huh? Why?”
Scoffing lightly, “ I’m redoing your bandages .”
“O-Oh… but they’re brand new. Don’t waste your supplies on this …”
“They’re not good enough,” he murmurs. Briefly turning to you, he slips a couple of fingers beneath the top layer of bandaging. “See? This should be tight but breathable. You might die from an oxygen overdose with this wrapping job.”
You can’t help the snort that escapes you, in time for him to begin corralling you back to his mattress.
“It’s a shame how you and the General Mahamatra bicker so much when your jokes and comebacks can be just as lame,” you say, allowing him to lower you back down. He shoots you a look. “But on the topic of the bandages… I guess I’ll have to inform Shirin of her most unsatisfactory work,” you mumble to the side, though your one eye remains on him. Three words catch in his throat, an offended, “I didn’t mean —” slipping out before he cuts himself off with a small huff. You can’t help the even smaller giggle that escapes you.
“I know you didn’t mean that. I was lying, anyway. I did this myself with my own two hands—” when you raise them for emphasis, you end grimacing at the harsh, crackling electrical burns ending at the base of your palms. “Ah, well, maybe that was a bad idea in itself.”
“Wait, is that —? ” Tighnari’s eyes move past you and toward his nightstand, where sitting in a carefully sealed glass case sat the blue sea plant. “A sea ganoderma?”
“Yessir,” you say, tone proud. “I almost died getting this one, but it was one of the purest grown! Right next to a lightning sakura tree, sharing the same oxygen and minerals and nutrients and still growing under such a condition? Inazuma is amazing, Tighnari— oh, you’d love it.”
“A lightning sakura tree?” he repeats, his ears dropping into a furl. “When you say you “almost died”, do you mean these injuries are from—”
“Yes, but I’m alive, and that’s what matters here.”
“______. You know how I feel about you downplaying your injuries. You were electrocuted. Are you alright?”
“I…” At the softened look on his face, you pause. You hate worrying him just as much as he hates when you hide getting hurt, but his expression is so sincerely concerned that lying to him about the extent of your injury seems almost blasphemous. “I-I’m not… okay. That’s why… I came back early.”
Another brief moment of quiet allows for Tighnari to collect himself, saving you from that earful you feared.
“… I’m at least glad… you had the common sense to do that,” he says, joining you at the edge of the bed. “Quite unlike the first time I met you that you’d gone and done things on your own with that commission of yours.”
At this, you laugh, though the pressure on your back makes your skin ache.
“You’re friends with the Traveler, aren’t you?” He nods. “Didn’t she ever tell you that I stole that commission from her?”
Tighnari shakes his head at you while helping you to unzip your shirt from the back. “No, but that certainly sounds like something you’d do.”
”Hehe.”
He lays your shirt in a neat fold near the foot of his bed, draping it over the edge, only to turn back to you and sigh.
“What a mess.”
“… is it really that bad of a job?” He sends you a knowing look over your shoulder. “In my defence, I was doing this on a moving ship, with no mirror.”
“I don’t know if it could’ve been done worse.” He pulls off his gloves, finger by finger. ”Hold still now; I’m going to unravel it and I don’t want to hurt you.”
Skin flushing once more, you nod. “… o… okay.” He fully disappears behind you, shifting on the bed to get comfortable, and in the corner of your eye, you spot the tip of his tail swish into view rather rapidly. “You… don’t have to be nervous,” you murmur, unable to raise your voice much higher considering your position. “I-It’s just me.”
Tighnari hums, though in a higher octave than normal. He touches your one shoulder with the tips of his fingers, silently alerting you when he begins undoing the poorly tied knot at the back of your arm. How did you even manage this? he wonders, brows knitted. Unable to pry it apart, he ends up snipping it off with a small pair of shears.
Naturally, this isn’t the first time he’s had to take care of you. Before, and in the more serious cases, he had Shirin’s help, being the doctor of the Forest Rangers. Burns and burgeons, accidentally drowning in trying to fetch a patch of nilotpata lotuses, falling down hills and receiving scrape over scrape scars, that time you were ran over by a sumpter beast? — you were covered in old injuries, your curiosities always getting the better of you. Despite his grand disappointment in you each time you’d returned battered and beaten, hands full of your bounty, but grinning as if you’d won some great prize, he’d take care of you, a willing aide to your obvious self-sabotage.
But this time, somehow, it’s become more intimate than it is professional.
Maybe it’s the fact you were in his room, sitting on his bed, just the two of you rather than Shirin or Collei assisting and watching in the infirmary. He’d always been conscious of the fact that he found your level of curiosity and love for nature fascinating— idiotic, too, no doubt about it; he could no longer count on his four limbs how many times he’s had to try and talk you out of your latest, most hair-brained ideas. But even as you returned to him , to see him — “ I was just passing through to Mawtiyima, but I wanted to visit you first!” — the lecturing became less aggressive, his choice words for you having less of a sting to them as they left his mouth.
He didn’t have to call you a dummy anymore — “ I am well aware of my shortcomings, but where’s the fun in being careful? I promise , Tighnari; I’m not purposely injuring myself…” This much was already painfully proven, pardoning the irony. At least, he stopped using the word as an insult. It became affectionately said, Tighnari finding himself further and further down into the hole you dug where you always seemed content to wait for him.
“You know, there’s probably a reason she’s so patient for you,” Cyno once pointed out, post-visit to Collei. “ You, and your lack of sense of humour.”
She did call my jokes “lame”, didn’t she, Tighnari recalls glumly, ears flattening, but as if having made a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn less than five seconds later, they perk up. If he’s right, than what is that reason?
“It’s just me”, you’d said. Well, that appears to be the problem at hand, now, doesn’t it?
You find yourself grateful for the warm air swarming the Avidya Forest. With your upper half bare to the emptiness of Tighnari’s treetop hut, you surely would have caught another chill like you did back in Inazuma. Although, perhaps not, considering this time, you had company.
You don’t inherently mean to do it, but shrinking forward and into yourself had seemed like the appropriate thing to do while Tighnari finished undoing your poor bandage work. Your hands, which still tingled from the effects of your electrocution, found their way to holding onto your knees, steadying your racing mind from focusing too hard on how soft his fingertips felt against your scalding flesh.
Oh, you truly could ignite on the spot, if only your Vision would permit it.
You had only held onto two regrets from committing yourself to a life of journey and adventure. The first, was you leaving your loved ones behind (without a word, mind you; you knew full well they would try to stop you at every turn), and the second appeared after becoming acquainted with the Forest Watcher sat before you, knowing you could never stay in one spot and love him as hard as your heart desired. He grew on you as fast as an oyster mushroom, his stubbornness and straightforward demeanour something you looked forward to seeing only every time you could.
Tighnari doesn’t even realize he’s paused, hands hovering between him and your bare back, his eyes glued to the fractal scarring spanning from the top of your spine downward, smaller tendrils curling around your arms. They’ll fade, he knows this — his have already started to, according to Cyno and Shirin — but seeing them on you? He’s seen your hurt in one too many ways. But this …
“Tighnari,” you whisper, turning your chin over your shoulder to see him, lips parting in response to his obvious distress. You’ve never seen him so… so appalled; so stiff, as if he’d been rooted to the very earth beneath him. “T-Tighnari, I—” you reach toward the end of the bed to grab your shirt, ignoring the pain searing along your shoulders and pressing it against your chest before turning fully to him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t careful. I-I was cocky; I thought I could dodge it, but that plant, it… it was so stuck, I—”
“Just… stop,” he whispers, stilling, his breathing slightly laboured, “for a moment.”
You suck in a breath of your own, an attempt to get yourself to remain silent. The expression on his face, you realize after taking a moment to study it, is near unreadable. But why does he look like he’s seen a ghost? you adamantly wonder. It takes you so long to realize that not a look of horror or shock… but one of recollection. One of remembrance. One of fear. Eyes trained on one of the violet crackles adorning your arm, his ears suddenly twitch, almost as if something takes him by surprise or shocks hi—
Wait… shocks?
It’d dawned on you painfully slow. If it wouldn’t have hurt the rest of you, you would’ve given yourself a smack to the forehead.
Things couldn’t have made more sense now, his silence uncharacteristic and, if you were to be honest, a little disconcerting. You loved hearing him speak, even if was for the reason of chastising you or his half-hearted insults at your obvious discretion against choosing to use even a crumb of intelligence.. You’d never seen him so quiet over one of your injuries before, but this is the first time you’d gotten yourself so obviously hurt by the Electro element. The marks crawling across your upper body were dark and prominent and fresh— Tighnari hadn’t seen his as up close, only through the reflection of two mirrors, their image distorted by the angles. It’s different, seeing them how the doctors at Pardis Dhyai must have after the incident; how Cyno must have when he came to check on him.
It’s different seeing them, because now, they’re on you, too.
“… is that… why you were away for so long before?” you dare to ask, voice barely above a whisper. “You were hurt?” He doesn’t answer, but his eyes have a tell.
You don’t apologize again— you know there’s no point; he already knows how strongly you empathize with him. Pressing your shirt more firmly against you, you lift yourself a few inches closer to him, and raise your spare hand to rest against his cheek. He blinks, easily more times than necessary, but it brings him back into having enough focus to look up at you.
Your gaze wanders across his face, searching; waiting. Always waiting, for him. Your bottom lip is pinched so tightly between your teeth that a split has appeared near the center of it, and somehow, it triggers a reaction in the young Forest Watcher, his own hands rising from his lap to hold you, to run a thumb from one of his smooth hands across your lip.
“… please don’t hurt yourself more,” he pleads, his voice hoarse. “Not for my sake.”
You instinctively run your tongue over where you sensed the sting, Tighnari barely moving his finger out of the way in time to avoid it— his cheeks tint rouge at the thought.
Your own cheeks grow warm when you tilt forward to touch your forehead to his. His eyelashes flutter until his eyes shut, the comforting touches you supply slowly bringing him out of panicked state, and subconsciously, his tail swishes toward you, quick to curl around your calf.
“For your sake, I’d do anything, Tighnari.”
“I… I think you should apply to the Akademiya,” he says, lightly pulling at the bandage to stretch it before wrapping it twice around your bicep.
Enough time had passed that you both finally agreed that having you sit half nude on his bed wasn’t exactly ideal (though, for as hard as he tried not to once conscious of his staring, it wasn’t exactly easy to watch you turn back around). And so, with the salve still fresh and pasted across your skin, Tighnari got to work, adept fingers moving quickly to wrap your torso up so you could face him again.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, with all of these commissions you do, not only the ones for Sumeru, but all over Teyvat, that have much to do with ecological betterment experiments, you’ve gained that experience and first-hand field knowledge— coming from an Akademiya alumnus, I think you’d be the ideal Amurta applicant.”
“Tighnari, please,” you say, your lips curled upward toward your warmed cheeks. “I know it’s probably not your intention, but you’re fluffing my ego too hard…”
He chuckles at your clear enjoyment of his words. “My master is the current sage… If you are ever interested, it would be easy to ask him to put in a word of recommendation for you. I could even write a letter, myself.”
A laugh escapes you from being slightly overwhelmed by his suggestion.
“You know, I-I never thought about it before. Surely I’d have more opportunities to work in nature and learn about medicinal plant cultivation, which I’ve always loved…” Tighnari snips the bandage from the roll and sets the tools back down to tie off the strip. “… have I held myself back, under the belief that because I became an adventurer, I’d just stay an adventurer, forever? Taking commissions, making mora— that’s not at all what I wanted from this…”
“You’ve been an adventurer for a while now,” Tighnari reminds you. “And while you’ve had time to think about it, that doesn’t mean you’ve come to any conclusions. But that’s fine, too, of course. Do you know yet, what it is that you want for yourself?”
Your eyes meet. “I want to do so many things, Tighnari,” you say, smiling. “What you do here in the Avidya Forest, for example. What that fertilizer experimenter commissioned me for, for the purpose of bettering the lives of everyone and not just himself? Discovering new plants and fungi and finding out their uses? Helping people? This forest? Oh, I want all of that for me desperately. ”
Beneath the glow of the lanterns lit around his room, you fondly note the sudden rosiness to the soft apples of his cheeks.
“Then starting here … wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?”
“Starting here… with you … you mean?” He nods, his tall ears bobbing with him. You find your grin widening, and before he can stop you (not that he would ), you place your hands on his cheeks and draw him close so as to press kisses from his cheekbones and down to his lips, lingering there just a little longer. You pull back in time to witness a fog-like daze pass over his reddened face. Giggling, “It would be the best thing.”