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When the Wanderer wakes, his cheeks are stained with hot tears and he flinches, clenching his hands around the bedsheets under his grasp.
He smells lush vegetation, fresh from the dew that had settled overnight. His artificial skin prickles, slightly sticky from the humidity. The blankets fall around his hips, probably pushed aside in the middle of the night because of his restless sleeping.
He exists, and it’s morning, and he remembers everything.
Katsuragi. Niwa. The sick child. The Doctor. His whole other “reincarnated” life, where he spent centuries wandering a world he had erased himself from.
The Traveler’s face, constantly screwed up with worry during their conversation yesterday.
Once, a fire raged inside the Wanderer that would have liked nothing more than for him to curl his hands around that throat and extinguish that life from existence. Unsurprisingly, though, that flame has petered into nothing now.
He owes the Traveler everything. He wouldn’t have this second chance at life without them. Despite what Lesser Lord Kusanali said about being incapable of “balancing the scales,” the Wanderer will find a way to pay them back somehow.
He sits up and wipes the tears from his face. Lesser Lord Kusanali is waiting.
…
…
The Wanderer finds Lesser Lord Kusanali where they had last spoken. When she turns to face him, a soft smile stretches across her lips and her eyes flicker with something akin to joy. Why would anyone make such a face when seeing him approach?
“Good morning,” she says. “Did you have a good evening?”
The Wanderer takes his place at her side and crosses his arms. “As good as it can get, given the circumstances.”
There had been a lot of rumination; his thoughts were one giant tangled ball of yarn that he hadn’t even begun to sort through.
And there had been a lot of tears, but such private matters were nobody’s business but his own.
Before Lesser Lord Kusanali can ask him more about that, the Traveler approaches with the talkative thing floating at their side.
“Good morning, Traveler,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says. “I’m sorry to say that I haven’t made any new progress on Irminsul since we spoke last, but there is still much to discover.”
“That’s okay,” the white floating creature says. “Traveler wanted to drop by and say goodbye before we set off again!”
“Where will you two be going next?”
“We’re off to Fontaine, ruled by the God of Justice. Do you have any advice for us about meeting with her?”
“Unfortunately I don’t, aside from whatever I’ve told you before. I wish you the best of luck on your journey to finding your sibling,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says.
“Thanks!” the little creature says. “Are you ready to head out then, Traveler?”
Traveler’s eyes linger on the Wanderer a little longer than is comfortable and he scoffs.
“What? Worried I’ll go on another spree without being under your watchful eye?” the Watcher asks in a mocking tone.
The Traveler’s expression shifts again to something with even more worry, and the Wanderer arches an eyebrow.
“…Oh? And what’s that look for?”
“Could it be that you want the Wanderer to go with you?” Lesser Lord Kusanali asks.
The Traveler nods.
“I still have business to attend to with Lesser Lord Kusanali,” the Wanderer says. “Come find me later if you still need my assistance.”
“And that’s a promise, right?” the floating fairy asks.
The Wanderer nods. “Yes. I do still owe you, and I’m not one to make light of my promises. Now, get out of my sight. You have more important things to be doing than bothering me with your selfish desires.”
“You heard him, Traveler. Let’s get going,” the fairy says.
“We’ll be here if you need anything,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says.
“Goodbye,” the Traveler says in a rare moment of loquacity, then turns on their heel and follows their little assistant out of the room.
“You have tasks for me, I trust?” the Wanderer asks. He drops his crossed arms and looks down at Lesser Lord Kusanali.
“That’s correct,” she says. “Follow me.”
The Wanderer follows her out of the room and across the walkway into a hallway. As they walk, Lesser Lord Kusanali throws her head over her shoulder and smiles.
“You don’t have to call me Lesser Lord Kusanali, you know. Since we’re friends, you can call me ‘Nahida.’”
“Fine. If you really insist,” the Wanderer says.
“Have you thought of a new name for yourself yet?”
“I haven’t. Honestly, I don’t really care what people call me,” he says. “They’re all the same to me.”
“As I mentioned yesterday, names have power. It’s important that you choose one that represents you well. So, take your time to think on it, and I’m sure one will come to you soon enough.”
“If you say so,” the Wanderer says.
Nahida leads him into a room lined with shelves that have wooden cubbies, each section stuffed with scrolls of various colored parchment.
“This is my archive room,” Nahida says. She approaches one of the shelves and runs her fingers across the aging wood. “I don’t let many humans enter because the materials are fragile. Even the slightest shift in temperature or light could risk degrading the delicate parchment. That’s where you come in.”
Nahida turns toward the Wanderer and smiles. “You’re not human, so you don’t produce any natural oils, and so long as you wash your hands before touching anything you won’t risk dirtying anything, either. Which is why I can only depend on your assistance in this matter.”
“Sounds like pretty banal work,” he says.
“Perhaps, but still necessary nonetheless,” Nahida says.
“Alright, I guess I can help with this.”
Nahida approaches the first shelf and gestures for him to come over. “Let’s get started, shall we?”
…
…
Sorting scrolls isn’t so bad. The Wanderer could have been sentenced to a life of doing a lot worse. He could have been sent back into the abyss, for example.
But instead, he’s sitting on the floor, back slouched, sorting through faded ink on scrolls. He unrolls each one delicately to determine where it should go before allowing it to naturally curl back into itself. He then replaces the ribbon around the scroll and slots it into the place it belongs.
He listens to fingers brushing against paper and the crinkles of it bending under his fingertips. He smells aged paper and dust. He doesn’t feel temperature, fortunately, so that at least doesn’t bother him.
Wanderer wishes the thoughts would leave him alone. Nahida must have assigned him this task intentionally knowing it would give him nothing but free time to ponder his life and its meaning.
She shouldn’t have been so considerate. The last thing he wants right now is idle time to think about his life.
Nahida sits next to him, her legs crossed, working away on that magical console she’s so proficient with.
“You know I’m capable of doing more strenuous work,” Wanderer says as he finishes tying up another scroll, the ribbon perfectly placed, and leans forward to slot it into the cubby at shoulder’s height. “You don’t need to hold back from assigning me something more difficult.”
“I know,” Nahida says. “But I thought this would be a nice change of pace after yesterday. You relived hundreds of years of loss and painful experiments at the hands of Il Dottore in just a few seconds. You need to give yourself time to process all of that.”
“I would rather be spending less time processing and more time doing.”
“But that’s just a temporary solution to a larger problem,” she says. “It seems there are still some things you need to learn, such as allowing others to worry over you sometimes. You don’t have to push yourself or dismiss your feelings because they feel inconvenient. Part of having emotions is doing something with them. If you just stew in them, they don’t get you anywhere.”
“Hmm…” Wanderer hums. His eyes cast down, staring at the scroll under his fingertips. He sighs and rolls it back up.
“I have an exercise that I would like you to try,” Nahida says. “The next time you feel something, whether it be joy or sorrow or anger, simply feel it. Don’t push it away or ignore it. Allow yourself to relish in the feeling of just being.”
Wanderer scoffs. “That’s so…”
Stupid. Weird. What that fuck is that supposed to even do?
Remember humility, he tells himself and drops his eyes onto Buer again. “For someone who isn’t even human, you sure a know a lot about how they work.”
Nahida giggles. “That’s right. That’s because there was a time when I studied them very studiously. The best way to understand something is to study it and, more importantly, experience it firsthand if you can.”
“Do you experience emotions?”
“Yes, I do. For example, I know that I have a deep love for my people,” Nahida says, bringing her hand to press against her chest. “When I see a child swinging in between her parents’ hands, I feel their joy. When a merchant spills a basket of apples across the walkway in the Grand Bazaar, I feel his sorrow. And then when a child runs by and steals those apples, I feel his anger. This is called empathy.”
“Interesting…”
“You should try it. Compassion and empathy are qualities that every human is capable of, but if you don’t foster them, they will flounder. I’m confident you have the capacity for them.”
“I don’t have a need for such frivolous things,” Wanderer says.
“Maybe you don’t need them, but you want them, don’t you? To have a heart means to have qualities like these.”
Ugh, she just had to go and drag that word into this.
The Wanderer rolls his eyes as he tucks away another scroll. “If you’re really so insistent on me trying, then fine, I will. But don’t be disappointed when nothing comes of it.”
“I could never,” she says with a patient smile.
…
…
An hour or so later, Nahida leaves the Wanderer to finish the scroll sorting by himself and he allows himself to ruminate a little more deeply about his life.
All of his memories as the Balladeer gracelessly collide with the centuries he’d spent as an aimless wanderer. The two halves war against each other, one half pitying and mourning what could have been and what was. The other half, meanwhile, is simply trying to process the feeling of not being erased from existence as it had wanted.
Yearning, resentment, nostalgia, and other emotions he didn’t even have words for create a pit of acid in his artificial stomach.
Focusing on these feelings as Nahida wanted instead of pushing them away proves to be difficult, mostly because they’re so painful.
Before the Wanderer can stop himself, he’s dug himself into a hole of remembering Niwa’s heart and Tatarasuna and the burning red hatred he’d felt at believing he’d been betrayed.
Wanderer remembers Niwa, poised over an anvil with his smithing hammer curled tightly in his calloused hand, landing a sharp strike to the metal he was working. When Wanderer closes his eyes, he can still hear the echo of it in his ears. He can still hear Niwa’s teasing tone, and the smile he made whenever Wanderer succeeded at forging something, even the smallest, shittiest knife.
Before Wanderer can help himself, he’s spilled tears all over the parchment in his hands and shoves it to the side.
He presses thin fingers into his eyelids and sweeps away the tears crowding his lower eyelids. More tears come, and more memories, the regrettable things. A pang of fear flits by, thinking Mother will discard him again once she sees him like this, which only causes him to clench his teeth tightly together. He doesn’t even know it was possible to still be affected by her. He thought he’d long ago discarded the desire to garner approval from others.
Is it natural to feel this way? Is there no surpassing these feelings?
Wanderer is curled into himself, his palms pressing into his forehead as hair falls into his eyes, when he hears the door open and feels a gentle hand on his back.
“Are you alright?” Nahida’s voice asks.
“I’m fine,” he says with some bite, turning away from her touch.
He scrubs the tears from his face then sits up again, briefly lifting his chin to the ceiling to set himself right again.
“I think that’s enough work for today,” Nahida says. “Come, I have something else I want to show you.”
“This better be good,” Wanderer says.
He shuffles to his feet and Nahida gestures him out of the archive room and into the hallway once more.
…
…
Nahida leads Wanderer to the end of a hallway and gestures to a tall wooden door.
Following the encouraging jerk of Nahida’s head in its direction, Wanderer opens the door for her.
It’s a small room furnished with only a few things, including a bed and nightstand. Wanderer notes a stack of books on a table in the center of the room and an opened window overlooking a courtyard outside.
“Have I been relegated to housekeeping duty now?” Wanderer jokes with a cross of his arms.
“Not at all,” Nahida says. “This is your room. Since you’ll be having an extended stay in Sumeru City, I thought it appropriate to give you a space that you can call your own.”
“I don’t have use for such things,” he says. “It’s not like I need to sleep. And I don’t keep worldly possessions anyway.”
“That’s understandable, given everything you’ve gone through. Consider this a representation of your autonomy. Ownership of self, having the freedom to come and go as you please. And of having a place where you know you can return to when there’s nowhere else.”
“You mean like a home,” he says.
The smile on Nahida’s lips gives her away as she says, “Maybe, if that’s what you want to call it.”
…
…
Nothing of much interest happens for the rest of the day. Nahida takes Wanderer out for a walk around Sumeru, and every human in the vicinity comes up to greet her. She’s well-respected among her people, Wanderer knew that, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. That doesn’t mean he has to enjoy being ogled by all of them, though.
He sneers and keeps his arms crossed the whole time. Just because he agreed to come along for this showcasing of Nahida’s new assistant doesn’t mean he needs to be happy about it. It’s such a giant waste of his time, exchanging pleasantries with measly humans who he won’t even remember the second the interaction is over.
Nahida surely notices — she’s the perceptive God of Wisdom, after all — but she doesn’t comment on his behavior.
Instead, when the day gets late, she tells him there’s one last place she wants him to see.
“And where’s that?” Wanderer asks, failing to tamp down the nugget of curiosity that rises up at her words.
“I’ll show you,” she says.
…
…
It’s been a long, long time since Wanderer watched a play.
The only theater he’s familiar with is Kabuki theater, which he used to watch when he lived with the blacksmiths at Tatarasuna a whole lifetime ago.
He’s taken aback by the feeling of nostalgia that washes over him when he watches people take their seats, the audience discussing the play before the interlude begins and the curtain rises. Technically, there is no curtain, as it’s just a low wooden stage above the floor and the audience members are all sitting on mats with their legs crossed.
The God of Dendro chose a very low-profile play to attend tonight. It’s not like the Wanderer had anything else going on, but he can’t really figure out why she’d want him to join her for this. He leans back and crosses his arms, trying to keep the look of disapproval off his face. Certainly there’s something better he could be doing than wasting his time listening to humans recite the same story a thousand times in the same predictable format.
“I’m glad you agreed to come out today,” Nahida says. “I always feel a little more confident approaching other people when there’s a friend at my shoulder.”
A friend, she says. How inane.
“If that’s what you’re worried about, then you need to discard of those thoughts immediately,” Wanderer says. “Nobody has anything but respect for you.”
“They might revere me and love me, but that won’t stave away social awkwardness,” Nahida says.
“Social awkwardness,” Wanderer repeats.
“I have a hunch you’re familiar with it, too,” Nahida says with a smile.
“Tch,” he scoffs and looks the other way.
He’s never once fretted over such inconsequential things. It doesn’t matter what humans think of him or how he comes off to others so long as he gets what he wants. As he’d thought before and he’ll think again, he might not be acting on evil impulses anymore, but that doesn’t mean he needs to kiss other people’s feet.
Music begins to play, the thrum of drums echoing throughout the plaza where everyone is stationed. The audience quietens as the actors step onto the stage and Wanderer directs his eyes toward the play.
…
…
The play has a little bit of everything.
There’s a hero, a king, mischievous nymphs, and a comedian. They travel indiscriminately between deep forests and urban palaces (not unlike a certain Sumeru City and Avidya Forest). A lot of the lines are relayed using poetry.
There’s rejection, longing, desire, duty…
At its core, it’s just another story about humans living their lives. It has its conflict in the middle, a witty statement or two from the comedian, and then a nicely resolved ending.
The audience loves it. Everyone applauds when the hero defeats the villain at the end, and Wanderer follows Nahida’s clapping with a begrudging roll of his eyes.
It really doesn’t take much for humans to be happy. But that doesn’t mean that needs to be a bad thing.
When the cast comes out for a final bow and the audience is released into the dew-dipped evening, Wanderer follows Nahida back toward the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
“Did you enjoy the performance tonight?” Nahida asks.
Wanderer shrugs. “It was alright.”
“I loved the hero’s character. Even though he had to make a hard decision, in the end, I still think he made the right one.”
She’s talking, of course, about the great sacrifice the hero had to make to get the girl. Risk everything in the sake of love, all the usual jazz.
“Humans are always like that,” Wanderer says. “Throwing their all into situations without thinking everything out thoroughly. They truly will do anything to get what they want.”
“You could say the same of yourself,” Nahida points out.
Ugh, now he feels like an idiot.
“Sorry,” Nahida says with a faint laugh. “Maybe that was too on the nose.”
“No, you’re right,” Wanderer says.
As much as he wishes that she wasn’t.
They walk the rest of the way in silence. Wanderer knows he doesn’t need to lead Nahida all this way but her company isn’t all that bad. He even appreciates it, sometimes.
Nahida stops in front of the entrance and turns around, doing that silly thing she does where she pulls her arms behind her back and smiles with a dash of mischief in her eyes.
“Hey, Wanderer. Have you picked out a name for yourself yet?”
He can’t help the smile that stretches across his lips at this question. He had just been wondering to himself whether she was going to ask him about that, and there she is, reading his mind.
It’s almost like Nahida had known the first thing Wanderer would do with all that time she gave him this morning was decide on his new name.
“Actually, yes, I have.”
“Oh? And what is it?”
“Tachiyaku,” he says.
“That is an interesting choice,” Nahida says. “That’s the name for young adult male roles in Kabuki Theater.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Why did you choose that as your new name?”
“Other people have always named me after stock characters in theater. Each time someone uttered my name, I was reminded once more of my existence as a puppet. Truly, it is an inescapable fate. And as such, I might as well embrace it.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You finally have a chance to shape your own fate. You could pick something else if you wanted.”
“No, this feels right. I see no point in trying to escape the truth.”
“Even if you’re human?” Nahida asks.
Tachiyaku scoffs. “At my core, despite whatever beliefs you might have about me aesthetically, I am still biologically a puppet.”
Nahida’s lips spread into a wider grin. “But I’m not hearing you deny that you are not, in fact, human.”
“We already had this discussion before.”
Granted, the discussion had been a little different then. He had asked “Are there any differences between puppets and humans,” and she had given him such a compelling response that it had been the last thing he’d needed to motivate him to finally take the step and bear the burdens his past self had wanted to cast aside forever.
Even thinking about it now, it’s too much. Everything is still so fresh, and Nahida hasn’t been encouraging him to take all of this time to himself for no reason.
“Regardless, I am glad that you found an answer that satisfies you,” Nahida says. “It certainly is a good name. It suits you well.”
“Yes, it does,” Tachiyaku says. “If that will be all, I’ll be on my way.”
“Before you go, Tachi,” Nahida says.
“Already using nicknames, I see,” he says.
Nahida laughs. “Yes, well. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to show you a little more of the human world today. I know it’s not really what you want to be spending your time doing, but I think it’s worth experiencing, even just a little.”
“It’s not so bad,” he says. “More importantly, you don’t need to be going out of your way to spoil me. Other people might get the wrong idea if you’re treating me too well.”
“You insist that you’re not a good person but you’re not exactly bad anymore, either,” Nahida says. “Allow me to worry about what other people think about my image. All you need to worry about is being happy.”
This time, Tachi bursts into a laugh. That’s the most ridiculous thing he’s heard in a while. “Whatever you say, Buer.”
When she simply smiles in response, Tachi’s expression softens, too.
“Have a good rest of your night,” Nahida says. Then she pauses and changes her stance, setting her legs wide and placing her hands on her hips. “And I expect you to be up bright and early for work tomorrow!”
Now she’s just poking at him for the hell of it. He shakes his head, dismissing the statement with a wave of his hand.
“Of course. See you,” Tachi says, then twists on his heel and strolls back down the walkway and toward his room.
“Good night,” Nahida calls from behind his back, and he shares a secret smile with the stars.