Chapter Text
The names on her arm spell her death. It's as simple as that– when (and not if, when) she meets the person whose names are printed on her arm, she will die.
Quickly, maybe– like spring rain– or perhaps it'll be more drawn out. Maybe it'll be like falling asleep next to an open window, the bustle of the people outside slowly simmering down into nothing but a faint echo. She'd like that, she thinks, but she has no say in the matter. She is going to meet her soulmate, and then she is going to die.
She has had more than long enough to mourn her own death, to the point where she almost looks forward to it. Not dying, really, but to the meeting that will inevitably come before. The two things are the same, at least in terms of how she thinks of them, but she cannot help but long for one even as it precipitates the other.
It's only natural, she figures, to want to meet your soulmate. She thinks she's far from the only person who's traced out the letters on her arm, wondering what it'll be like to meet the person they describe.
Most people only have one name. She, of course, being extraordinary in the most literal sense, is not most people. Her soulmate, like her, is atypical.
Kabukimono
Kunikuzushi
The Balladeer
Scaramouche
She's wondered, briefly, about what kind of person has so many names, but the question answers itself– the kind of person who's going to kill her.
She would very much like to know exactly what kind of person that is. Their dreams, their desires, the way they'll look at her. Although she's long gotten used to the fact that she will, Mona does not particularly want to die, so the kind of person who'll make her lean into its embrace willingly must be simply extraordinary.
They have to be the kind of person who befits all those names– Names are very important, after all. She can hardly go outside without hearing an expecting parent fuss about what to name their baby, worried about how it'll look printed on their soulmate forever. People really do care a great deal about their fated other halves, and she cannot really blame them. She hasn't met hers, clearly, but she does understand fate.
She named herself. She chose "Astrologist Mona Megistus" because she liked the way it sounded, and because she thought her soulmate deserved the opportunity to know her at least a little before they met.
It'll be useful for speeding things up, she thinks. She has a certain amount of curiosity as for what being with her soulmate will be like, and so she really does not want to waste time getting to know each other.
Sometimes, she hopes she goes slowly, just so that they have the opportunity to have more conversations with each other. She thinks that time together would be endlessly fascinating, even if she's never able to pour over them herself.
She's willing to die for that opportunity. She chocks it up to her researcher's spirit, because if it's not that, but her inner romantic, then–
Perhaps she's already dying. Perhaps she's always been dying. Kabukimono is dying too, or must be, and maybe her real curse is to die after him, having only known a set of names.
~
Shoved between the pages of some of her larger astrology tomes are thin paperback romances she uses in lieu of bookmarks. They're cheap, disposable things, printed on low-quality paper with lurid and tropey plots.
One, marking the spot of a star chart she's currently researching, follows a woman who believes she will never find her soulmate, and then falls for a gentleman thief whom is eventually revealed to be her destined, pseudonymed, lover. Another, marking her place in a recent Akademiya graduate's thesis, describes an otherworldly girl, the last of an ancient race, possessing a soulmate but cursed–
It is no matter. She should not devote her time to such things. She hasn't even read any of them, anyways, hardly knows why she keeps buying them.
Sometimes, she pulls them out, and gently traces her fingers along the letters of their titles. She does not ever open them. She does not know if she's sensible or a coward.
~
She dreams, sometimes. It's normal for astrologists to dream, normal of them to dream of the future, even, but the dreams she has have always been of a particular flavor. They're pleasure and pain, both felt so intensely that they manifest as the same thing. There's a hint of bitterness on her lips, maybe like veal and maybe like a butterfly, and then she wakes up.
Her master, the old hag, had always seemed to know somehow when she'd had one of those dreams.
"You ought not to dream about him anymore," she'd say.
"I won't," Mona would lie.
~
There are moments when time itself seems to slow into a thick slurry, when one's own experience of time becomes so disparate from reality that the two things can no longer really be called equivalent. This is how she thinks of her time in the dark sea.
The dark sea was named poorly. It is not dark, nor a sea, but merely the place beyond the reach of Celestia. The only accurate thing its title suggests about it is its lack of love from that god.
It is not a good place to live. Nobody there is there by choice, having been ousted out of their original homes in the archon war, and their hatred had warped the very land itself. Even she, knowing nothing else, had known that this could not possibly be the way things were supposed to be.
The Seelie once lived in Teyvat, she's been told, but as far as she knows she's the only one left. The chaos of the dark sea is all she can remember of her early life, so she can only imagine that she is the result of some ill-fated pair who had tried and failed to resist the grief to which the rest of their race had succumbed by making a physical escape. It did not work for them, but she in her ignorance was spared and left to face the world alone.
Flitting between fights and hiding from storms, her perception of time too slowly warped. She did not begin to consider the day as a unit of time until her master taught her to do so.
She's always felt that meeting her soulmate would have the same sort of effect on her, being so similarly life-threatening. Maybe the slowness wouldn't stop, and she'd live the rest of her short life afterwards as if moving through syrup, each fraction of a second extended into something infinite.
"Hi!" Calls a strange voice. "Looks interesting, mind if I join you?"
She lets her mirror– she'd been investigating the mysterious meteors with Fischl and Lumine– dissipate, and looks up. It's been, charitably, half a second. She feels it has been days.
She recognizes him from her dreams. He's pretty. He moves with the unassuming grace of a murderer, like he's walked right out of her nightmares. He looks through her, and smiles, but the mask he wears is nowhere near enough to disguise the rot that's infected every inch of his body. He is the only person who will ever know her well enough to undo her.
She wishes that she could stop her astrologer's intuition right there, but it is unaffected by the slowing of time acting on the rest of her mind.
He's a fatui harbinger. He has killed, and he does not regret it. He will do it again. He means to do it right now. She knows she has to move her and her friends to safety, but foolishly she watches him for just one more second.
He's really very pretty. She doesn't mind him at all, doesn't even mind the fact that his hands are so darkly stained. It excites her, she's forced to admit– what will she bring out in him, and more crucially, what will he bring out in her? That, she thinks, is going to be what kills her. Hopefully, he won't care so much, given that he's already killed so many others.
Only a few moments have gone by since he first spoke up, but she gives them as much attention as she can possibly manage. You do only meet your soulmate once, after all. She's looked forward to this.
And then reality, as it always does, asserts itself once more. She spirits her friends away to safety, and the fact that her death will be slow sits uncomfortably in her mouth like a pinned butterfly on musty cotton backing.
It is inevitable now. She's already curious about him, and given who they both are, she knows there's only one place her curiosity can lead. She may have come into existence well after the downfall of the rest of her race, but nevertheless she knows just how many of them had fallen in love with a memory.
Despite everything, it's nice to meet the Balladeer. The ticking hands of the clock invigorate her in a way nothing ever has before, and that is not even to mention the lazy curve of his smile. It was fake, but it was pretty.
She wants to see him again. Maybe he'll tell her what that desire says about her. He understands her better than she does, after all.
~
The traveler goes off to investigate more of the meteors, and she stays alone with her starlight. She does not do a reading– the only thing she's curious about right now is that which is forbidden to her– instead enjoying them purely for their beauty.
She spots a flash of cyan nearby. A shimmering seelie hides behind a nearby ruin, as if in awe of how she'd managed to survive when they could not.
"Hello," she greets. "Are you lonely?"
The seelie flashes, a series of slow blinks, and she moves in closer. They brush up against her, as if to revel in the tenderness their race is denied.
She lets them. The life of a seelie, for all their power, is fated to be a tragic one. The withered kind most common nowadays is but a remnant of their former power, a victim of paralyzing grief for the totality of what had become of them, and then–
And then there are those who died, and whom she is soon to join. The seelie before her drifts away, beckoning her to follow them home. She trails after them, not so cruel as to deny them the comfort of companionship.
They still live, albeit weak, but she has a soulmate, has met her soulmate. Her stars are set– she is to break the only taboo of the seelie race.
It is an old story, a story far older than her. It is a story she feels to be true in every ounce of her being, can practically feel it etched in the space between her bones.
Upon falling in love with a human, a seelie will die. This is the way things are. This is why soulmates and murderers have always been the same to her, why she knows the name of the man who will end her life.
The seelie she'd been following reaches their court, relapses into rest. Her slumber will be more final. She has always known things would end this way.
She doesn't mind. Fate is easier to deal with when you accept it.
~
She finds him on the beach, in the ruins of Pilos Peak. He seems somehow smaller than she remembers, and she marvels at the fact that so much violence can be wrapped into so delicate a frame.
She did not honestly expect to see him again so soon, but she is certainly not disappointed. She delights in it, actually. She longs to know just how he'll do it, just how he'll charm her to her grave.
Perhaps that is unbefitting of her. She doesn't care.
He looks at her, the stretch of sand between them fading away into nothing, a displeased look on his face that cannot hide the panic in eyes. He's upset about something. Maybe her. Maybe everything.
"Astrologist Mona Megistus," he says. His attempt at a casual tone is admirable, but his breath hitches the slightest bit when he reaches the end of her name.
His arms are covered, she notices. Try as he might to seem like he doesn't care, he'd memorized her name. He'd known, from one glance, that it was her.
"Scaramouche," she replies, hoping her smirk is audible. "Or do you prefer the Balladeer?"
She knows he is a harbinger. She knows how harbingers style their names, knows which names he must be going by now. She knows he must know about the first two names on her arm, wonders if he'll eventually desecrate her with any others.
He scoffs, as if trying to disregard her whole existence in a gesture. It doesn't work. She knows him too well, for they are made of the same stardust.
"It hardly matters. Not when I mean to kill you."
He probably means it as a threat, but it just seems so dreadfully obvious that it's all she can do to hold back a laugh.
"And when you kill me, darling," she purrs, stretching out all the long, languid L's, "how will you do it? Calmly, sweetly? Will you kiss me first?"
… She hopes he does.
Lumine, whom to be honest she's forgotten was next to her, looks at her strangely. She's said something she probably shouldn't have, but she can't say she regrets it. Scaramouche, meanwhile, bursts out laughing.
"You think I'll ever touch you? Why, because of fate? Well, allow me to let you in on a little secret. The stars, the sky– it's all a gigantic hoax. A lie."
He's telling the truth, she's certain of it– at the very least, it's something he genuinely believes. She has half a mind to agree, knowing full well what Celestia is capable of, but she's also got a reputation to maintain.
"The stars are a lie? What are you talking about?"
It's not dishonest, really. She does want to know, and she is mad at him for saying it like that. He laughs, the sound malicious and melodious.
"You are so naive it kills me," he spits, mirth not completely absent from his tone. It's funny, of course, given that of the two of them she's the one holding more of the cards.
Despite that, she considers giving up that advantage. She probably ought to tell him what will become of her. She has a sneaking suspicion he'd care, and a more reasonable voice telling her that in any case he deserves to know.
She doesn't. He leaves, not without sticking some of his subordinates on her.
That night, she dreams, and dreams as always of him. He has a face though, this time. She bites his lip when he kisses her, and his typical bitter taste is cut up by his hot, spicy blood.
~
She runs into Lumine, later, who somewhat hesitantly invites her out for lunch. She, of course, agrees.
The walk to good hunter is quiet, and probably awkward, but she's too wrapped up in her mind to mind. She knows where this is going. The problem is what to say.
They order, and stare across the table at each other for a moment.
"... So," says the traveler. "What was going on between you and the Balladeer?"
"He's my soulmate," she replies, as simply as she can manage. It's the truth, she rationalizes. She doesn't have to make things any more complicated than that.
Lumine blinks, as if needing a moment to process, and then blanches considerably.
"He… you… what?"
"He's my soulmate," she repeats. "It seemed natural to taunt him with, at the time."
Sara arrives with their food, and she happily digs into her salad as the traveler continues to stare at her with an indescribable emotion plastered on her face.
"... And that doesn't bother you?"
"Why would it?"
"He's a harbinger! He–"
She raises a hand to cut them off, and takes a slow sip of her tea.
"I know what he is," she says. "It doesn't bother me. I trust that fate will work out in the end."
She almost continues, almost begins to say that no matter who her soulmate was she was always going to end up dead, but then the memory of his face flashes in her mind's eye and she stops. The full truth feels somehow too intimate to be shared like this.
Her master used to say she was too much of a romantic, that her dreams were the type that would kill her one day. She hates to admit it, but her master, as always, was right.
~
There is a loud banging on her door. This does not really surprise her. She has an unfortunate habit of being hard to get in touch with, given her tendency to become entranced by her work to the detriment of all else. Sometimes she makes promises she never intends to follow through on to work on that– given that her life has a time limit, she'd like to spend her time solely on the things that matter most to her.
The thought that this is how all humans live comes to her, like a butterfly, and then flutters away, just as ephemeral as it had been in the front of her mind as it is in its absence.
She opens the door. Fischl stands on the step, looking extraordinarily pleased with herself.
"Lady Megistus! I bring most excellent tidings. I have just received word that the most glorious Immernacht hath returned to this worldly realm. Our kingdom is soon to be reborn, and given our closeness, I thought it only right to invite you to take part in its return."
"What?"
~
Summer vacation is a bit of a foreign concept to her. The idea of breaks, the idea of seasons, have not been one she's ever cared to court. Time is a precious thing, especially for her, especially now, and it seems foolish to waste it on frivolity.
She goes, though. She foretells that something strange will happen at their destination, and she's curious to see what it is.
They– Fischl, Lumine, and two others they'd picked up before leaving– spend the first day on the islands in relative peace. Mona's almost a little disappointed.
And then the fatui show up– she excuses herself from the others, and checks if he's there– he isn't, and she's not sure how she feels about that— and then the first mirage appears.
They navigate through a maze of Inazuman architecture, all the while confronted with fragments of what can only be fragments of Kazuha's past. Something powerful had to have been behind this, something on the level of a god, but getting out is a more pressing matter than thinking about any of that.
They finally locate Kazuha, locked in a room, and he tells them what to make of everything they've just seen.
"My family has been in decline since my great-grandfather's time," he explains.
The traveler looks at her.
"A certain malicious figure sought to ruin our reputation."
The traveler looks at her.
"That's awful!" Exclaims Xinayan. "And that's why you were so worried in those conversations with your father?"
Kazuha nods. "Yes, exactly. I no longer let the past burden me now, but for a while I was quite worried about what would become of our legacy."
"Did you ever find out who was behind it?" Says Xinyan, continuing.
"Yes, actually. I have no desire to settle any personal score with him, but if he ever threatens Inazuma I will not hesitate to fight him– he's since become a fatui harbinger, you see. I believe he goes by the Balladeer."
The traveler looks at her. Fischl gasps.
"Ah, that most wicked villain! Lady Megistus and I have had the misfortune of crossing paths with him before. He is a formidable opponent, certainly, and is of great risk to the glory of the Immernacht. If the day ever comes where he threatens our glorious kingdom, or the lands of any of my vassals, I will not hesitate to take up arms against him."
"What mein fraulein means to say is that she and Mona have encountered the harbinger you speak of, and that she would gladly help you if you had reason to fight him."
Kazuha smiles softly. The traveler looks at her.
She doesn't say anything. She knows that it would be proper of her to agree, and more importantly, kind of her, but she doesn't. Speaking against the Balladeer already feels like betraying herself, and that's how she knows it is already too late. She should not have come here. She's wasting time.
~
Xinyan's mirage appears. And then Fischl's. And then she begins to worry a little about what will be in hers – she has her secrets she'd prefer to keep.
Not even about him, really, although she'd rather not talk about that, but even smaller things that really do not matter.
How she'd gotten her vision. How she'd gotten her name. How she'd looked up at the stars one day, and been so moved she braved the deadly journey from the dark sea to Teyvat just to have the chance to study them. Such memories are what make her up, and she likes to keep them close.
Nevertheless, when she locates it the next morning, she alerts the whole group and they all go off to explore it. There is, in spite of her reservations, something to be said for companionship.
She cannot say she isn't a little excited to see what her so-called greatest wish is, too, and she suspects that it won't be something she can accomplish on her own.
After some time traveling to one of the most faraway islands, they find a large reflecting pool, which can only be the entrance. Mona finds herself entranced by it, unable to rip her eyes off her reflection. She moves to jump in, but Lumine holds out an arm.
"... Wait, Mona," she says. "do you think he'll be in there?"
The he goes unspoken. She knows full well who the traveler means, what they are trying to get her to admit.
"Probably," she replies, and jumps in.
~
The rest of the group follows after her quickly, still visibly confused from the conversation outside. She ignores their looks, moving forward. She'll talk about him only when she wants to.
The space inside is large, and dotted with spots of starlight. In the center is a large, dark pool. She cannot help but be reminded of that place beyond Teyvat which, despite everything, is and will always be her original home. She does not miss it, but she dreams of it.
"Wow, Mona, this place certainly suits you!" Remarks Xinyan. She's kind, very kind, and Mona can only hope that she lives for a long while yet.
"Only the best for a great astrologist such as myself," she says, only half teasing. The earlier tension dissipates.
… She isn't lying. She does like the look of this place. It's a shame it's inherently transient.
"It looks like there's a path this way," Kazuha says. Sure enough, there's a hall leading off the main room. With no other clear clues, they set off down it.
Eventually, they wind up in another room covered in water, only this time the ceiling is open and she can see the reflection of the stars.
"Do you recognize this constellation?" Asks Lumine.
She takes a moment to look it over, but the lines are intimately familiar to her. Light has no presence in the physical world, but that simple fact isn't enough to stop her from being able to recognize these stars from touch alone.
"Of course. It's mine."
As soon as she says it, the stars begin to shift, and everyone jumps in alarm. They soon settle into a new shape, one she doesn't recognize, and she calls on her hydromancy to tell her what it means.
The second she realizes just who's constellation it is, she flinches back. Reading any further would be unwise– no astrologist is allowed to view their own fate, after all, and that includes the fate of the one with whom they are most intertwined. To read this would be to read herself.
"Mona?" Says Fischl, concerned. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes," she adds quickly. "It's nothing bad. Just forbidden, that's all."
The traveler looks at her. She looks back, daring them to speak. Eventually, they break with a sigh.
"It's his constellation, isn't it?"
She nods. She hadn't known it before, hadn't been able to look it up, but undoubtedly Peregrinus reflected in the water beneath them belongs to Scaramouche. Constellations usually only show the fates of vision holders, but given the totality of his, well, everything, Mona is not surprised to see he's an exception to that rule.
Peregrinus is free, untethered, but that untethering is not without consequences. You do not gain anything, not even freedom, without losing something else. She must lose herself if she wants to love, and he seems to be paying that same price for a different goal. She doesn't know if he's achieved it, yet, but she wishes him the best.
… She can only hope he's not too lonely.
"... This wouldn't be the same 'he' you mentioned before we came in here, wouldn't it? Who exactly is this guy?" Asks Xinyan, gentle but not without pressure. Mona admires her, her way with other people. She has never been able to meld in with them half as well.
"I think it's Mona's place to answer that," says Lumine, not without a touch of judgment in her tone. Mona both cannot blame her and cannot bring herself to change– fate is absolute.
She sighs, looking up towards the real stars– as real as they can be in this place, anyways. She makes a note to look out for his constellation the next time she goes stargazing.
"I suppose you've forced my hand," she laments halfheartedly. "The only reason I didn't want to mention it was because I thought it would dredge up things best left undisturbed, that's all."
She half expects the traveler to interject with some statement to the contrary, but they don't. She sighs again, looking across the room to meet everyone's eyes.
"The 'he' we've been talking about is my soulmate. He's the same Balladeer responsible for the downfall of Kazuha's family."
They all look at her, speechless. The silence is cut by a voice inside her head.
"You do know what those names are, don't you?" Says her master.
She blanches. She knows this memory.
Mona considers herself to be many things, but never a coward, which is why she forces herself to walk instead of run back to the main room. If she can escape this, she would like to.
"Mona, wait," says Kazuha. She doesn't think she wants to know what he has to say right now. "You're not looking for him, are you? Even if he's your soulmate, he's dangerous. It's best not to associate with him."
"Kabukimono?" The Mona-memory says. "I think they've always been there. I know they're important."
By the looks on everyone's faces, she can tell they all hear it too. She does not address it, instead replying to Kazuha.
"I'm not looking for him. I'll run into him again when I run into him again." She starts back down the hall, hoping to dodge the second half of his statement. She knows full well he's dangerous, probably more so than Kazuha could ever understand, she just–
"Those names belong to your soulmate," her master explains, voice grave. "That is, the one person the universe has deemed perfect for you. That is why you must never seek them out."
More than anything, she has always hated the implication that she can't take care of herself. Her respect of her soulmate in spite of his crimes does not mean that she is incapable of making her own decisions. Her desire to meet him does not mean she desires to die.
He'll kill her, and she'll let him. Such is the way of fate. It is nobody's business other than her own.
"Is there really no way for me to speak with them? Not even once?"
"Mona," presses Fischl. She and Fischl are good friends, she thinks; and good friends are supposed to look out for each other. She cannot help but wonder to what extent. "Don't feel like you have to be with him just because of fate–"
"That's not why," she snaps out of instinct. She regrets it almost immediately. There are not a lot of pretty ways to repackage that into something that will satisfy everyone. She begins to move faster.
"... No," says her master, her voice having taken on a sadder note. "Your fate is unclear even to me, like a paper that's been erased and rewritten one too many times, but I know you, Meg. You're a romantic like the rest of your race. You'd fall in love with his memory if you had the chance."
"You can't mean that," says the traveler, running after her. "You can't want to fall in love with him–"
"That's the only thing she's ever wanted, actually."
They've reached the main room. Where there was once merely darkness, though, now stands the outline of the Balladeer. He smells like the sea breeze off Musk Reef.
"You're not really him, are you?" She breathes. "You're just the him from my memories."
The old hag, she hates to admit it, was right. It hasn't happened yet, but even this can kill her. It's like an apple seed– eat one and you're fine, one hundred fifty and you're dead. Remember him once, and she lives. Remember him always, and she dies.
(She has not stopped thinking about him, not for a moment.)
"All that means is that I know you better than anyone," he says. The tones of his voice are painfully familiar even as she knows he isn't real. "I know what you want. That's why I'm here."
He chuckles. She takes a few tottering steps towards him, as if drawn in magnetically. She doesn't know if the others say anything, doesn't know if she can hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat.
"Tell me then," she says. "If you know what I want, tell me."
She thinks she knows what she wants. She wants to live, and she wants him, but she cannot have both. She wants to hear him say it.
"And give you that satisfaction?" He smirks.
"... Mona?" Breaches Xinyan. Her tone is once more warm, genuinely concerned. "There's something more to this, isn't there? With what that voice was saying earlier…"
She looks back towards the others. Besides Xinyan, they are all a narrow range of pallid shades. Kazuha's even got one hand on his sword. She, though, is unafraid– caring, even.
"Yes," she says. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out.
"Can you do it, or will I have to?" Teases Kunikuzushi. He is not himself at all. The real Balladeer, wherever he is, does not know of this. She does not want him to know. He does not deserve to have that guilt pushed upon him.
She tries to speak again– the truth is so simple, really, but she cannot quite say it.
Scaramouche looks her dead in the eye.
"You've always known that I'm going to kill you," he says. "In fact, I've already done it. You're dying, Mona, and I'm the reason why."
There is another stretch of silence. It's broken by, of all people, Kazuha.
"Did you see a prophecy, or–?"
"No. Nothing like that."
She breathes in, out; spares a glance to the gloved arm lousy with his names. Only after looking away once more does she allow herself to turn around completely.
"Are you familiar with the myth of the seelie?" She asks.
Fischl nods slowly.
"Some of the older adventurers mentioned it before. They say the seelie used to be a powerful race, but–"
Her face goes white once more, and Mona knows she knows. The horror surprises her, a little. When you live with something long enough, you can forget how bad it is, and a part of her would prefer to stay enclosed by that ignorance.
"It's true," she breathes. "It's all true. I am going to die when I fall in love."
The truth falls out of her like overripe fruit from a tree, exploding as soon as it hits the ground. Various expressions of shock color all her friends.
"Was that really so hard?" Says Kabukimono, a certain sarcastic lilt to his tone. She can only hope his real reaction will be half so understanding, if she ever has to tell him.
He, his illusion, meanders towards her, as if sick that he's no longer monopolized her attention.
"Are you able to figure out what it is you want now? That's why I exist, after all."
That's right– she'd nearly forgotten. This mirage exists to show her that which she most desires.
"I want–" she starts. There is no want. There is only fate. There is no point in wanting, when everything is pre decided.
And yet–
"I don't care if it kills me," she admits. "I want to know what it feels like to be in love."
They were right, her friends. She does want to fall in love, and fall in love with him. She wants it so badly she doesn't care about anything else. In another person, she'd call the urge suicidal, but she knows herself, knows how she feels desire, and so she knows that–
Scaramouche smiles at her, and it is not teasing at all, but very soft and very sad.
"You're almost right," he says quietly. "I'll take it. The truth is, I think the real Balladeer wants that too."
He is an illusion. He knows nothing of the real Kunikuzushi.
But the illusion is born of her, and the real Balladeer is her soulmate. She and him are the same. The illusion, she thinks, is correct.
They do not reach for each other. She only wants to know what he feels like when he's real.