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And the most painful part was that even when she was gone, he still coveted a mother's touch.

It was quiet.

Or rather, a lull. The first thing to learn from Sumeru's great forest was that it could be as beautiful as it was destructive. The sky was clear, the sea of azure giving the Sun absolute power over the surface of the Dendro Lands. The gigantic trees offered a few shadows, cool corners in which to momentarily escape the gentle heat, the broad leaves dancing lightly in the breeze, rays passing through, bubbles of light stirring on the grass like glittering gold. The cacophony of birds soothed the atmosphere with the flow of the creek carving its path not far away.

The underside of his feet gobbled up a few small flowers as he passed, the temperature having no effect on him, but he enjoyed the caress of the breeze on his skin. Wanderer reached out his hand, grasping an apple with his slender fingertips. Observing it, judging its carmine color, its perfectly rounded shape, he took a bite. The fruity juice invaded his mouth, but no taste reached him. It was... It was. The fact was, it existed, but nothing more, this morsel had no purpose, at least, in his hands. Wanderer spat out the piece and let the apple fall to the ground.

The landscape was beautiful. The boy admitted it was paradisaical, in appearance. Despite the temptation of beauty, he couldn't trust it. Several long months had already passed since he had officially taken up residence in Sumeru. However, the pressure of an uncomfortable sensation persisted, that of foreign ignorance. Wanderer could learn the history of every twig he broke under his step, but he still felt... Lost. Like an intruder. Like a puzzle piece trying to fill the last empty space. Unfortunately, the shapes didn't conform, and no matter how hard it tried, the piece would never fit.

The puppet often wondered if one day change would be for the better or for the worse. Having already lived through the hell of cruelty, he questioned whether it was even relevant: Whether it was for the better or for the worse. It was an alien notion to him, somehow they shared the same meaning.

Wanderer approached the stream of water. It was translucent, reflecting the majesty of the sun, the grandeur of the plants and the insignificance of the beings that walked the damp dirt. The boy looked at himself in the water, though the timid waves were enough to agitate the pale copy drawn there, his face distorted into an abstraction that gave him the real impression of not knowing what he was observing with such bitterness. Perhaps even a certain animosity.

He barely noticed the presence to his right. Wanderer didn't mind, it was unfortunate that even on his walk he had to be followed by what he wanted to avoid, but he didn't care. His ignorance extended not only to these lands, but also to its own people.

At least, until he felt a hand gently grasp his forearm.

Immediately, Wanderer glanced sharply at the culprit of this gesture. There was no particular irritation or disgust painted on his face, but his pupils, blending into the color of the night, had the bad habit of telling the impetuous flow of his emotions a little too accurately.

Emotions.

He hated that word.

"It's you! You're finally home! Why didn't you tell me? I've been waiting for you for so long!"

His brows furrowed, exasperation filling the flow of his thoughts, though a clear confusion was slowly showing on his facial features. Wanderer was staring at this woman. A young woman, no more than thirty years old. He stared at her hazel eyes, similar to the bark of an Adhigama tree, shining brighter than any of those fake stars he bitterly admired. It was bizarre. What he perceived was pure, sincere innocence, as if she were genuinely happy to see him, the one who didn't know her, the one she didn't know.

Wanderer didn't speak, silent, he traced the line of her radiant smile, a little too much, in his opinion. The wrath of being the target of incomprehensible credulity made him release his arm from the Sumerian's grip. The gesture had been a little too abrupt, causing her to topple forward, then fall to her knees.

But why?

This was the new question Wanderer asked himself as she rose to her feet as if nothing had happened, a few clumsy steps causing her to sway a little to the left and then to the right. She dusted off her reddened knees, removing the dirt and blades of grass that had stuck to them. Why? He asked himself once more, his gaze crinkling at the unwavering smile on those lips, releasing words that were only synonymous with abstruseness.

"I didn't expect this! You're so strong now, I'm impressed. How long have you been here? You know, I tried to get in touch with you, lots of times I swear, but my letters never got a reply. But I wasn't sad! You must have been very busy, right? I'm so happy to see you!"

What was she talking about? It seemed obvious that this woman had mistaken him for someone else... However, there was no room for such grandiosity: the boy was clearly not Sumeru by blood or even by custom. At most, his clothes, loosely fashioned from a mixture of two opposing nations, were the only thing linking him to the land of wisdom. Wanderer didn't understand.

His first mistake was to let irrational questions arise in a place that shouldn't be disturbed. A ruin that should have remained abandoned and in tatters.

"Is this a joke?" Wanderer hadn't got his hopes up; somehow, he'd expected it, that even if she listened to the tone of his voice, she wouldn't realize that the identity she had of him was mistaken.

"Huh? Did I say something funny?" She inquired, he hadn't even had time to retort, not that he wanted to say anything more at first. He had sought the salvation of a tranquility in the woods that nevertheless never managed to lower that shield pierced by a thousand spears lost in the oblivion of the past. And from now on, all he wanted was to return to the deafening ocean of noise that was the city of Sumeru. If it was reassuring, at least the sanctuary of Surasthana possessed a silence similar to that of the depths of his soul, bringing him the similar taste of knowledge tinged with that same imperiousness that followed him like a shadow, constantly reminding him of the absence of a name in the face of a pulverized mirror projection.

Wanderer felt no guilt in firmly pushing her away when her hands had decided to encircle his.

"Who are you? I don't have the patience to put up with this ridiculous act." Said the boy, his words slicing through the air like the blade of a sword that had become the dull hiss of a sempiternal memory. The young woman was so surprised that she didn't even seem to give attention to the handful of dark hair that had slipped between her half-open mouth.

"What? I mean... I know it's been a long time, the last time we saw each other you were tiny but... You__you wouldn't forget your mother, would you?"

The hearing of a simple word shouldn't have been like a typhoon ravaging the shoreline of a beach bathed in the darkness of intense pain. It was just a word. A banal one at that. Maybe it wasn't the word itself that had made him stop functioning, as if he'd lost his heart. An imaginary hand had struck his torso, grabbing that cardiac muscle he hadn't even been born with, tossing it away like common garbage, utterly caustic at the sight of veins and arteries ripping apart to create a lake of nightmares. There was a time when his hand, bearing a name that had lost its meaning, was the one that had ripped out his own heart. Today, only the horrifying effect of the past was repeated in his mind.

Wanderer was capable of many things... But he was unable to speak. He'd forgotten how, or some force inside him forbade him to do so. He didn't understand. He'd once struggled to hold the disastrous meaning of his emotions in the palm of his hand, and now he was back at square one, vainly trying to catch the words and thoughts streaming before his eyes, but they slipped from between his fingers.

Like a gnosis that had been both his dream and his damnation.

The boy had been a privileged spectator of human stupidity, he knew how to disentangle stupidity from delusion. In the veracity of wind-borne whispers, he hadn't expected this. And even more unsettling was the candid honesty in those eyes, whose curves and paints he couldn't read.

It shouldn't have shaken him. It never should have; it was an anomaly, a fortuitous contingency. He knew it, but he, too, was just an idiot.

"Zaynab!"

The intervention of a new voice transported him out of his tumultuous thoughts. A new one -much older than the one said by the name Zaynab- approached. She looked panicked and embarrassed, even more so when she noticed Wanderer's presence. And for some reason, he had the impression that she already knew the present situation, just by looking at the way the young woman tried to cling to him when the older one tried to pull her away, with the almost desperate wails in her voice, the twinkle in her irises.

"You mustn't wander off! Come back, leave this young man alone!" The second arrival exclaimed.

"I don't want to! I have to stay with him, I'm his mother! He's come back to see me, I remind you!" Zaynab vehemently replied. She struggled and hit. It was a sight far too difficult to consider sane, the boy noticed the lady's glances, but deliberately ignored them. The boredom of an annoyance arose, for which he was grateful, preferring it to the state of disorder that had been able to enjoy seeing the day for a few moments. Nevertheless, he stood perfectly still, curious to watch the conversation unfold.

"Zaynab you... He's not..." A sigh, testifying to the cowardly behavior that prevented her from telling the truth, from making her open her eyes to reality. Wanderer's second mistake was being too arrogant to be the one responsible for delivering this excruciating but truthful sentence. "You weren't supposed to see him now! If he didn't come to see you directly, it's because he had something planned. The meeting was for three days from now, a surprise was being organized for his return, that's why!"

His third mistake was not to have refuted this lie.

"Really?" The woman sighed. She covered her mouth and the expression on her face was smothered in guilt that had no business being there. Wanderer only frowned when Zaynab contemplated him like... Like? But his muteness subsisted from being his friend, and on closer inspection, his worst enemy. "I'm... I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to ruin the surprise, I didn't know... We can still do it, right Mariam? Please, I want my boy's surprise!"

My boy?

"I... Y-yes, of course." Mariam affirmed.

"Oh thank you, thank you! I'm so looking forward to it." Zaynab smiled at Wanderer. Again. That smile. "I'll wait a little longer, I promise I'll be very patient! Three days, right? Hmm, I can wait yes, I can! I want to see your surprise! I know it's going to be super awesome, yes, I'll wait for you, like I always have, but this time it'll really be the two of us! Okay, okay... You probably have a lot of things to prepare..."

"Yes, that's why we have to go home Zaynab, now. Come on." Mariam took the opportunity as soon as it showed itself, dragging the young woman by the arm, who this time didn't object. She shook her hand in farewell.

A farewell.

Wanderer suddenly seemed to realize what had just happened, as if all along he'd been physically there but his mind wandering in a distant bubble.

"Wait, you can't..." He decided to remain silent, watching the two feminine foreign silhouettes walk away. It wasn't his problem. No, it wasn't. He was just unlucky, it had happened to him, but it could have happened to anyone else. He was used to getting into all kinds of shitty trouble.

Zaynab.

He wanted to forget that name.

An unfair promise was given to her, she wouldn't see anyone back in three days. There would be no surprises. She would be alone.

She was like a child, acting with great immaturity. Which was a rather ridiculous fact, and one that encouraged one to become disoriented. As if she was an adult in flesh, skin and blood alone... But her brain was trapped in time.

Wanderer sighed.

He was unhappy with events, with his time wasted. He dropped his head to one side, his eyes tracing the unstable shapes of the stream's hydraulic image.

The sanctuary of Surasthana had the same aura as the branches of the Irminsul. Having been close to this divine tree, he retained a vivid, clear and detailed mirage of it. Plausibly, it was only natural, this was the lair of the divinity of dreams and wisdom, everything around her floating in mystery and mysticism. A celestial concept out of reach but a magnet for curiosity, it was no wonder that scholars were at war over knowledge.

Wanderer had his own way of apprehending learning and translating new knowledge or modifying existing ones.

He was curious.

"What are you thinking?"

Hither, a greenish veil formed a bubble, like a globe playing Earth's twin. Kusanali traveled around it. Her feet sprouted plants of dendro power with each plinthless step, long hair as immaculate as the Moon fluttered behind her, following her like the unpredictable flight of a bird. A few carmine dots corrupted the purity of the tremulous sphere, revealing the corrosion of the remaining withering zones.

"Nothing, I'm just trying to stop thinking." Answered the outcast, earning him a small glance from the Archon.

"You can't stop thinking, the mind is like an inspiration, you can hold it back for a while but it will always come back. Don't try to chase away what has to happen, perhaps, you should try to express it?" She conjectured, touching the surface of the globe with her tiny fingertips, which emitted ripples, engulfing one of the stray dots. "So, what do you think? I'm very good at keeping secrets."

Wanderer rolled his eyes, trying in vain to see the abyss at the bottom of the sanctuary. Beneath him, beneath those crystal bridges, lay an infinite void. A cavity that his hauntings had inhabited, and which might have been his tomb had not this divine he hated have an amiability that made him feel pitiful.

"That woman..." He had begun to whisper.

"A woman?"

"I'd gone off near the Yazadaha basin, wanted to get away from the city. And I met?" He laughed cynically. "Well, rather, crossed paths with this woman who..." A hesitation he wanted to bury in that abyss he was observing. "She mistook me for someone else. She thought I was her son."

"And that affected you?" Kusanali asked. To Wanderer's ears, this didn't sound like a question.

"No."

"But?"

"It was unsettling." The boy bent his knees, tapping his nails against the floor in a steady rhythm, similar to a ticking clock. "I was angry, I didn't want to be disturbed, especially by something so futile. I don't care about these people. But... I don't know, I froze when she spoke. I didn't understand. I didn't understand myself."

"You do have a lot to learn about yourself. Don't rush things or torture your mind, everything comes in its own time, and every event holds a meaning that only you can decipher." The child goddess descended from her floating walk, stopping at the edge Wanderer's shoes created. "Zaynab dreams a lot, sometimes dreams exceed imagination and hope blinds us." He lifted his chin, staring at the deity with furrowed brows.

"You already know her name?" It took no more than a few seconds to realize. "You already knew what had happened. Why did you question me?"

"Why not? Being a spectator doesn't grant me the ability to know emotions, that interested me."

"I'm not a book to be studied, Buer."

"That's an interesting analogy of yourself." She replied with a crystalline laugh, to the displeasure of the one she'd taken under her wing. "You know my love of curiosity. And I don't need to write a thesis to explain why you're intriguing to me. You're an individual with very unique variables, your evolution through the different... ecosystems you've been through is like the tension of an adventure in one of those diaries you can find in the desert. Telling a thrilling story that compels our hand to turn the page with hunger. If these kinds of books were edible, I'd gladly savor them."

He grimaced.

"Why do Archons have to be so weird."

"Ahaha, deities are complex, even among ourselves."

"Nahida."

"Yes?"

"Tell me more about this Zaynab."

The fourth mistake was curiosity.

"You'll have plenty of time to learn for yourself." A sentence he didn't like, that was for sure.

"What do you mean?" He hastened to question, rising from his makeshift seat and following the divine little girl wherever her fancy took her.

"You've got a word to keep. You're going to do that surprise, right? In three days." So that was it. He knew it, he knew he shouldn't have stayed like an idiot, stuck in silence. Wanderer chuckled, with a provocative air that failed to sway Kusanali's goodness grin.

"Is the divine arrogance already gnawing at your neurons, Buer? Just because you're the Archon doesn't mean you can force me to take part in the mundanities of your people. They're strangers and I'm an outcast, I don't care about their problems and situations." He justified himself, spitting out his opposition with a rather brittle determination, well, maybe it was just a word that Lesser Lord Kusanali was able to distinguish, and that was possibly why she had stopped to face him with an uncharacteristic authority.

"Why did you refuse to show the truth then?" Wanderer could retort nothing to this. "You were perfectly aware of the lie being orchestrated in the sight of your eyes, the hearing of your ears. But you chose to say nothing. Why?"

"I don't want to be mixed up in the delusion of this woman, whom I remind you, don't know,"

"Yet it's too late, your silence was only the ropes that now bind you to this lie whether you like it or not Wanderer. I think you're in the best position to know how to deal with the consequences of our actions. Assuming is not admitting defeat, when will you learn that?" It was a finely targeted reproach. It was obvious. And his blood boiled with rage, yet refusing the truth wasn't an option, his ego still had enough dignity for that. But dammit, he had no idea she was capable of backing him into a corner with such harsh words.

"You'd better shut up..." He growled through clenched teeth. The Archon's expression assuaged slightly.

"Well, I see we're on the same wavelength. So, a promise must be kept, I insist. I'm not asking you to pretend to a spurious role. I just want you to go and see her, the rest is up to you." Wanderer turned his face away, as he did every time he was incensed, however, he was calm and attentive. "If you wish to tell her the truth and leave, don't hesitate. If you wish to accompany her, I encourage you. But I don't want her to be left in the loneliness of her hope, waiting in vain for her dream to come true."

This time it was something he understood.

And his fifth mistake.

Did he bear this burden just out of gratitude? To thank Kusanali for not leaving him to his fate, as a masterless, dismantled puppet? Or out of respect for her ambition. The heavens rewarded the hard work of lesser beings, but she was the one rewarded by humanity with her own, their hypocrisy punished and lost in the waves of oblivion. Or to make amends for the fact that, despite her best efforts to help him fit in, he would never cease to be a shadow of his identities trapped in the paradox of existence.

Ridiculous.

Lamentable.

Sad.

Wanderer didn't particularly like the Grand Bazaar. It was one of the many places in Sumeru he tried to avoid the most, where public life was too active and voices mingled in a throbbing scramble.

He stopped at a stall proudly displaying handmade wooden sculptures. It was meticulous workmanship and honestly bursting with prettiness. His violet irises were like stained-glass windows that didn't sparkle because of the darkness, and they regarded this tiny wooden doll.

So small that his hand would be like its throne.

But it wasn't his that caught it.

Wanderer stared at Zaynab.

"It's so pretty and cute... Do you want it?" She asked almost rhetorically. He said nothing. "Let me give it to you, it'll be my surprise gift to you." She paid for the doll and handed it to him. The boy took too long to move, for his liking, he wouldn't take the gift, but she gave it to him anyway. "Well? The surprise?"

Sometimes...

No.

Life was cruel.

"I have something to tell you ma'am, it's important."

"Ma'am? Wow! You don't have to be so polite, especially to me!"

"Listen to me." He said more stoically.

"Oh, yes of course..."

He'd had the decency to move away from the center of attention, not wanting to attract greedy stares on something that didn't concern them.

"You really don't realize?"

"What do you mean?" His sixth mistake was to hesitate. "You can tell me anything you know... I'm here for you." She continued.

"I'm not what you think... You're not what you think."

A silence followed. It was heavy and unbearable, strangely enough, like the feeling of a baby being ripped from its mother's arms. It wasn't a common feeling, nor one that should creep into the cracks of scars both recent and old.

Wanderer was about to continue his explanation. In a coldly gentle tone. He had anticipated that she wouldn't understand right away. However, she spoke first.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Uh?"

"They said I couldn't be a mother... That's why the father left with you. I was too weak and... Uh, weird to have a baby. They said. I was a bad mother, very bad, that's why I couldn't have you with me." He didn't push her away when she took his hands. "You're mad at me because I wasn't able to be a good mom, is that it? You don't want me to be your mom? But... But I did everything I could to learn, I promise! I've listened to the lessons and the advice, I've made a lot of effort, I've improved for you! They said that if I kept on like that, I'd be able to see you, you'd be able to be with me... That's why you're here, isn't it? Are you still mad at me? I'm... I'm... I can be a good mom, I swear..."

His seventh mistake was being angry for her.

The injustice of being given a false hope. A lie so beautiful and so horrible. Zaynab was naive. Zaynab was like a kid. Of course she was incapable of raising a child, but did she deserve this fate?

Questions.

Questions.

Hesitations.

Wanderer was apathetic.

His heart was not.


"Don't cry." He said.

"Are you mad at me?" She said.

Stars were liars. But the ones in her eyes weren't. Why did she have to look at him like this? It was cruel. It was iniquitous.

"No."

"Will you stay my son?"

"Yes."

"You want to go home with mom?"

"Alright."

His eighth mistake was being cruel to her, just as life was. And in the lie he offered her, his foot slipped and he fell too.

It was hard to describe what he was feeling. He didn't understand.

Like a child.

The house wasn't too big. Simple white terracotta walls, a dark roof with a picturesque shape, similar to those found throughout Sumeru. A small garden humbly welcomed them; the grass was tall, uncut, and flowers grew. A few Sumeru roses embellished the stone path leading to the Karmaphalian wooden front door.

It was a house like any other.

Ordinary.

Far from special.

"Come in, come in!"

Wanderer's ninth mistake was crossing the threshold.

The interior was clean, it was more furnished than some might imagine. In fact, it was full of material life. Shelves lined with trinkets of all kinds littered the walls here and there, just like the trees that towered over them. There were books too, lots of books, and after a dummy glance at them, the boy wanted to close his eyes. Children's books. Some were for a lost son, others were for a mother who wanted to learn as best as she could.

In this house, Wanderer felt even more of an outcast than on the streets outside.

"Where's the lady who was with you?"

"Hmm? Oh, Mariam? I don't know, she's not with me all the time, especially since I can manage a bit more on my own, since I've learned so many things." Zaynab placed her jacket on a chair. "I've even learned to cook! Well, only a few dishes, but that's pretty cool, isn't it? Are you hungry? I'll cook for you, you'll see it's really good! Just for you, I wanted to learn just for you ahah!"

 

He was an idiot.

Sitting at a table was something paltry to him. Whether it was reading, writing theses in just a few hours, examining the surroundings hand in hand with boredom. But this was the first time he'd ever sat down to eat. In fact, it was the first time anyone had ever made him a meal.

He stared at the plate filled with what was an attempt of a Chawarma. The pancake was slightly burnt, the sauce was dripping everywhere, the smoke was billowing like steam from a train, the meats and rudiments were churning, mocking the presentation, and it was ugly.

Wanderer stared at the plate.

His thumb caressed the iron stem of his fork. He was staring at the dish too long, and eventually he turned his attention to Zaynab. She was smiling. Again. Always. And stupidly. She seemed proud of her accomplishment, seemed happy to have made food for him.

Him.

The unknown. The outcast. The liar.

The illusion of a son who wasn't one. 

Wanderer didn't move. He wasn't eating.

"You're not eating? Is it too hot?" Of course not. Well, the dish was obviously like lava; anyone would burn their tongue trying to taste it. He wouldn't feel a thing, neither the heat nor the taste. That wasn't really the problem. He shouldn't have had any, normally. "I can soothe it a little."

She leaned in beside him, blowing gently on the food, like a child blowing out their birthday candles. The tips of her hair sagged into the sauce, he held back the reflex to pull them out. And he didn't.

"It should be better this way, right? You can eat!" Wanderer wasn't eating. "Why aren't you eating?"

His tone wasn't shy, but something awfully similar. It was disconcerting.

"I can't eat."

"Why?"

How to explain this? She already couldn't grasp reality as it was, she couldn't conceive of a human not being able to eat. A human? That, too, she didn't know.

"I can't."

"Oh, I see you're allergic! I... Aha ah, I didn't know..."

"No, I'm not allergic." Countered the boy, Zaynab looked more nervous than confused.

"You don't like what I've done? I... I'm sorry, Mom doesn't know your tastes. I don't... I didn't know. I just didn't know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll make you something else, okay?" She asserted, as if trying to convince herself more than him. She picked up the plate, probably to throw it away. He stopped her.

"I'm going to eat."

Although he didn't need to, it was possible for him to ingest food, even if it was a completely unnecessary mechanism, and rather unpleasant, to say the least. Wanderer brought the cut-up portions to his mouth, chewed slowly and swallowed. A slow, automatic rhythm, like a working robot.

He couldn't distinguish the tastes, yet somehow he could tell how infect it was. He didn't question why she hadn't made a slice for herself, the answer was right in front of his eyes but she was certainly convinced that she alone didn't like it.

"How is it?" Asked the woman with undoubtedly blatant excitement.

"It's bad. The taste is awful, one of the worst dishes that could have been presented to me." He replied. He noted the way Zaynab blinked indolently, that the twinkle had faltered, her smile frozen. "But if I had to choose between this dish and the best Teyvat could give.... I wouldn't hesitate for a second to eat this Chawarma."

She was consumed with innocence. One compliment and she'd forget the negativity surrounding her.

The plate was empty and resting on the side of the kitchen sink. Well, if it could be called that, it was just a bland little room, with the bare minimum for cooking. Wanderer was sitting on the sofa, watching Zaynab out of the corner of his eye. She was running her fingers through the boy's hair, giggling and admiring. She was gentle in her movements, as if the fear of breaking a precious doll calmed her urge to let euphoria strike.

"Your hair is so beautiful, my boy... The color is like the ocean at night, the light strands, like the reflections of the Moon on the waves. It's so pretty... Would you like me to take care of it? I'll take care of your hair, and your face too!" The young woman leaned over a little more, caressing the mute's cheek as she did with his hair. She was smiling. That smile. Wanderer could only stare at her, trapped in silence. Lost. So much so that even the questions vanished one by one, but he could still feel them in his veins, in every inch of his skin. "Your skin is soft... And perfect! You get that from your mother ahah don't you? If you're so pretty, it's thanks to me!"

Yes.

She was beautiful.

As beautiful as the clouds in the sky. Beautiful like a harlequin shell in shimmering hues, quietly laying on the warm sand as if no catastrophe could reach it. Beautiful as the cunning imprint of the stars.

Beautiful as a mother's touch.

"Sit here, I'll get everything ready."

It was strange. From one blink to the next, the scene changed, the dialogue went on and on, and his perceptions undulated capriciously. He heard the dripping of water into a basin, the clatter of plastic bottles against the floor and the friction caused by the tidying up of the mess. His neck was cradled in a hollow of the chair, his back arched comfortably.

Zaynab returned, placing the container of hot water at her feet. She began by brushing his hair, the object's teeth passing easily through the boy's purplish hair. Then she wet it, although she tried to be careful not to put any where it wasn't supposed to, a few drops ran down Wanderer's face, down his neck and he could already guess the puddle there must have been on the floor.

"I've always dreamed of being able to clean your hair." She said, applying the suds.

Her hands were buried in his hair, massaging each strand, coaxing them with her thumb, not forgetting the scalp. She took her time, hunting every second to extend the sharing she had with him. Wanderer searched for words. And Wanderer looked at her. Again. The stop was far away, too far to reach, so he couldn't look away.

Zaynab was humming now.

A melody that sounded like the wind and a bard. She didn't sing beautifully, but her voice had a unique charm, one that was convincing enough to slip the urge to fall into an immense sleep.

"Isn't the water too hot?"

"No."

"How are you feeling?"

"I don't know... Well, I guess, it's relaxing."

She was washing his hair, the steaming water carrying the soap scum to the bottom of the basin. It smelled incredible. The floral fragrance invaded the room, it was slightly pungent but the touch of sweetness made the mixture delicious. Yet his mind was focused solely on the perfume Zaynab was wearing.

His view was obstructed by the towel drying his hair. She was a little rough, unintentionally, his head sometimes a little too far forward or to the left, it was uncomfortable, but he didn't dissent. He felt fine.

When the old equipment was put away, a new one took its place. Zaynab placed a large mirror in front of him. Wanderer didn't like looking at it, but he did anyway. He was apathetic, but his heart was not.

The sumerian returned with a bevy of boxes and pouches, which weren't very difficult to identify: it was make-up. Dragging a chair behind her, she took a seat opposite to the boy. A small table at her side, she emptied the contents onto the surface, paying no attention to anything, as if the clatter of tubes against the floor were unimportant, or the colored powder spreading like the sea.

"Do you want to make me up?"

"You don't want to?" She asked, not stopping her movements as she sorted through the products of what she wanted to use and what she didn't.

"You can do it."

"Thanks!" She smiled, more shimmering than the Moon, more blinding than the Sun. Why was he trying to summon that smile like a desperate soul reciting prayers day and night to get the Gods' attention? "I'll do my best!"

Like a painter twirling their brush across their canvas, she sprinkled his closed eyelids. Scrupulously, a serious job and yet it wasn't, at least, in theory, perhaps it was different for her. He felt the powder spread over his lashes, she blew on it, making his eyes quiver, he grimaced slightly and she laughed. Then she drew a thin line from the corner of his eyes, following an imaginary line until it stopped perpendicularly to the end of his incisive eyebrow. Her hand trembled, he doubted the line was perfectly straight.

Wanderer opened his eyes once the young woman had confirmed that they were finished. Her expression was one of glory, prouder than an archer would be if their arrow had hit the center of the target. She took his face in her hands, the touch heightening the pressure in his ribcage.

The touch.

Her touch.

One of them released him to blush his cheekbones with a cream. Zaynab pushed his chin a little higher to get a fine view of the boy's lips; he felt the cool, creamy texture of the lipstick. Their knees brushed against each other, and he felt as if his pupils could immerse themselves in hers. The young woman was focused, but she occasionally met his gaze and spread her lips with cheerful flourish.

"I'm done!" She exclaimed, rising and circling the chair Wanderer had been sitting in for the past few minutes. She leaned behind him, wrapping her arms around his collarbones, breathing close to his ears, a naturally maternal whisper. "So pretty."

He refused to look at the mirror.

"You're the most beautiful boy in the universe! You've got your mama's beauty ahah ah! I'm sure the flowers would be jealous of you if they saw you. Like the prince in my books, you're majestic, my very own boy!"

Wanderer was apathetic, but his heart was not.

And he watched.

Studied.

Contemplated.

Admired.

Loved.

It was astonishingly beautiful, a painting that deserved to hang in a museum for many generations to come. The intense vermilion contrasted on his porcelain skin like heaven and earth, opposites but complementary. His dark eyes were in harmony with the brightness of the lipstick, not too showy, but enough to captivate. It exuded a certain authority, the magnificence of hard work, the beauty of suffering.

His tenth mistake was loving the reflection in the mirror.

The heady lyrics of the allegory of his slaughtered dreams made a mother's touch dangerously imprinting. Wanderer didn't understand. He was lost in a reflection that mirrored the appearance of the past. A braid, the petals of a lilac, the delicacy of a kimono. He confused regrets and desires in front of this mirror. Muteness submerged his heart in a viscerally tempting abyss, he ached. Wanderer was in pain. But he felt good. So good. Too good, it was painful. And he found ease in this discomfort.

In this illusion, this lie. A burlesque mirage that immolated the order of his inarticulate emotions.

He felt good.

He could hear screams, sobs and laughter. It echoed in his mind, distant but so close. He wanted to flee, but chains paralyzed him in that chair. Chains that burned his skin, and a mother's touch healed the wounds. Or made them more prominent. He didn't know anymore. It was the same sensation for him.

Wanderer wanted to flee.

The despondency of the present surpassed the grief of a time he'd tried to silence in the oblivion of memory's abundance. He had failed, and was failing again. Every step he took led to inevitable failure.

And he hated that this one was so fantastic.

He was a fool.

An idiot who foolishly fell in love with his reflection and let a mother's touch steal his sanity.

Wasn't it pitiful to be suborned by one's own deception?

The patches of hues resembled Ritou's maple leaves or Narukami's cherry leaves. The sky was like his hair. Wanderer no longer paid attention to the flow of time, so much so that he'd had to peer out the window to realize that twilight was dancing with the night, which was becoming more visible by the minute.

Wanderer watched the fictitious imitations of clouds, tracing the line of their shape with his eyes.

"What are you looking at?"

He didn't react immediately, unlike the reflexes he was capable of would have done. And he didn't look directly at her. Their hands dirtied by various shades of paint, a little was going under his nails; the dozens of sheets boldly bearing drawings with a graphic quality worthy of a child, scattered on the table and one or two on the floor and the misplaced crayons.

"The sky." He replied.

"I like looking at the sky too... Especially in the evening. I like the evening because it means I could sleep soon and I love to sleep. Because I dream a lot and in those dreams I used to see you. But now I don't need to dream any more, since you're here with me!" Affirmed Zaynab, with a joy that betrayed exhaustion by what had been a dynamic day.

"It's late."

"Oh? Yes, it is! Are you tired, my son? I am... But don't worry, I've got a room just for you right next to mine. I cleaned it every day until you came back, it hasn't changed, you can sleep there!"

The young woman took his hand and he simply followed her. As if he had no will of his own, as if his thoughts and choices no longer belonged to him, as if this hand was the master of his destiny.

Zaynab talked a lot. Too much. It was tiring, overwhelming, like a child. But Wanderer listened, drinking in her voice like intoxicating alcohol. He was like a child.

They arrived at a poorly-painted door after wandering through the dark corridor. Zaynab opened the door enthusiastically, letting out a deafening 'tadam'. Wanderer stood in the doorway, scanning the room's interior with a lymphatic air. He felt nauseous, his mind numb, thinking and not doing. Every detail of this room made him want to vomit, scream, destroy, cry, abandon, care.

It was a baby's room.

A white slatted bed, wooden dressers decorated with stars and flowers, a river of stuffed toys in every corner of the room, a hanging nightlight, a music box that continually played the lullaby.

Wanderer looked as if he had no life left in him.

Wanderer was apathetic, but his heart was not.

"Ah..." Zaynab began to laugh nervously, embarrassed. She realized the situation. "This is... Not really a suitable room, is it? Geez ahh... I'm sorry." She searched for words but it was obvious she was about to cry, like a child who'd done something stupid. "I forget sometimes... That you're not my little boy anymore, you're grown up now. But as a mother, I guess I'll never stop seeing you as my baby. My dear son."

His hand trembled.

"It's all right, don't feel guilty. I'm leaving." He said.

"Oh? Do you have a place to sleep?" She was disappointed, but smiled, again.

"Yes..."

"Perfect then, I have nothing to worry about. But you know that if you need anything you can come, right? Mom will always be there for you."

"I know."

The door slammed softly behind him as Wanderer left Zaynab's house. He walked, or wandered, through the garden path, the gate and then the streets. There weren't many people around, but he felt as if his ears were flooded with constant noise.

His cheeks were wet.

The boy vainly raised his face to the sky, in the bookish hope that rain would accompany his return. However, there was no downpour coming from the sky.

Only from his eyes.

The moon was at its peak when Wanderer returned to the sanctuary of Surasthana. The Archon was awake and staring at him, eyebrows exaggeratedly raised, eyes rounder than a bowl of soup, an almost terrified look on her face. As if she was looking at a monster. Or a pathetic puppet.

"W-what happened?" She asked at last, in a knotted voice. He laughed weakly.

"What? I thought you would have looked at everything... Only now you've decided not to be a spectator?"

"Wanderer... Please, talk..."

Talk?

Why would his voice need to speak? The vision before her told the story of immaculate clarity. His hair, which she'd brushed so well, was in shambles, a vandalized haystack; his eyes puffy, turned crimson by the torrent of tears; the colored powder that had spread everywhere; the black streak running down his cheeks; the lipstick partially faded, in fact, there was more of it on the side of his mouth than on his lips, a distressed temptation to remove it.

When his footsteps had disoriented him in the darkness of Sumeru, Wanderer had tried to erase every trace of beauty from his face. The beauty of a lie, the beauty of melancholy, the beauty of a touch, the beauty of affection.

"I have nothing to say, Buer."

"Oh, I'm afraid you have precisely too much to say..." Contradicted the goddess.

Kusanali approached, slowly, as if she wanted to observe a small insect up close and was afraid of frightening it. She floated up to a similar height to the boy. And her delicate hand, no bigger than a maple leaf, grazed the deep scratches on his temples, his mouth, his cheeks. Then those on his neck, collarbones and arms. He didn't like it. He didn't like the way her pupils questioned him.

But when she noticed that the wounds were concentrated at the critical point, his heart, his world rocked. It was a miracle he had the strength to stay on his feet, but his body didn't rise as gloriously as usual.

"That hurts" he sighed with a capsizing tone.

"Oh Wanderer..." The Lesser Lord murmured softly, a wet veil covering her eyes, similar to the one that covered his. "Dreams and lies are sometimes awfully close. Do you regret your choice?"

"I think so... I'm not sure. Maybe the hardest thing to bear is the fact that, deep down, I don't regret it." Her thumb scraped the underside of his eyes, capturing the outline of his tears. "And that I even loved it."

The Archon remained in silence for a moment.

"Do you want to tell more?"

"No."

Kusanali began to wrap her arms around him but Wanderer immediately rejected her, with uncontrolled violence, he didn't look sorry for his gesture.

"Don't touch me!" He shouted. Anger or extreme grief? Hard to say. She gave him a sorry look and stayed away from him. "Don't touch me..."

"Okay, okay. I'll stay here, okay?" Wanderer nodded.

"Now..." He began with a breath that barely calmed him. "Tell me her story. Zaynab... Who is she? Why is she acting this way? Does she really have a son?"

The goddess didn't seem surprised by his questions. She nodded, showing her consent to reveal this information to him. Wanderer followed her to sit at a more comfortable place in the sanctuary.

"Zaynab suffers from an illness, a disability that places a limit on her motor and mental abilities. In a way... It's as if she's stuck with a child's brain. On top of that, her learning is slower than normal, and she has trouble understanding her environment or acting accordingly. Of course, she's able to adapt and gradually learn things, but it's still very complicated for her." Kusanali explained.

"I suspected as much... Is her illness just mental?" He shouldn't have ignored the hesitation that gripped the Archon for those two short seconds.

"It affects her physical health too. Faintness, difficulty with physical exercises, extreme fatigue, low stamina, reduced effectiveness of the senses..."

Wanderer wanted to say something, but the words evaporated before his tongue could even begin to speak them. He sighed, his forehead resting against his knees. He let Kusanali gently pat his shoulder in support.

"Wanderer... Let me ask, what do you plan to do?" The goddess then asked. The boy chuckled cynically.

"Do you think I'd be in this state if I knew what to do? I don't know a damn thing, I'm lost... Just as lost as the day I was..." Pain, pain, pain. It hurt so much. And so much good, oh so good, so sweet but so bitter, so repulsive and so beautiful. Melancholic. Kusanali gently lifted the puppet's chin, he no longer had enough willpower to push her away from him. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a few Aranara wandering around, rare when they came to town, but occasionally, at the Archon's request, some would go to the Sanctuary. One of them gave the little albino something that seemed to be made for cleaning.

"Can I clean your face?"

"I've ruined the art it was, it no longer makes sense for me to keep it." He replied. She nodded, taking this as permission, so she cleaned Wanderer's face of the tormented makeup. "You haven't answered me."

"Hmm? About what?" Kusanali wondered.

"Concerning Zaynab's potential son." The regular movement of the wipe on his skin experienced a caesura before resuming its normal course. She took a breath, as if seeking courage to help her answer.

"She had a son, yes."

"Had?"

"Zaynab knew a man from another land, and became pregnant with his child." Wanderer didn't want to ask about the circumstances of this relationship and what unfolded to a pregnancy. "The father left after the birth of the child, which was a boy. With the difficulties she'd had during pregnancy and childbirth, Zaynab didn't really realize the father's absence, nor the impact it had on her. However..."

"Just say it, you'll let yourself empathize later." Wanderer grumbled, causing the Archon's thin eyebrows to furrow.

"And you'll let your impatience take control of your words later young man. Understand that this is sensitive information and that must be handled with care." Kusanali sighed, her tone softening and resonating with more gloom. "The baby had inherited a health as fragile as the twigs on a tree shoot. And it wasn't long before that twig broke. Sadly, he died a few months after birth."

Unconsciously, his thumb scraped the surface of the wooden doll offered by the woman, the taste of déjà-vu invading his mouth.

"She... Didn't realize it, too?"

"No." She said, as if admitting defeat. "Her son's death had an immense impact on... The whole of her. She had become delirious, showing signs of dementia. She didn't understand why and how, obviously, but the facts were there. She had to be accompanied to help her, and they didn't have the courage to explain the truth to her, it's not even sure she would have understood anyway, but it provoked in Zaynab the belief that her baby had been placed in his father's care because she wasn't fit to educate him. That they had gone far away and would return when he was grown up and when she would learn to be self-reliant and a good mother."

"Cruelties. All they did was accompany her deeper into her delusion and now she's unable to cope! Cruel, disgusting. Why didn't you intervene? You could have prevented this!" He replied.

"What was I supposed to do, Wanderer? Tell her that her newborn baby boy had died and that the father had abandoned her without remorse? She wouldn't have understood this truth, she'd have been all the more lost." Kusanali justified, letting go of the boy's chin, which struck her hand out of reach when she wanted to graze the all the more visible scratches again.

"What do you know about it? You're only a spectator of her emotions and feelings, you can't pretend to understand or predict what she's going to feel. All you've done is let the world make her believe her dreams to the point where there are no boundaries between imagination or reality!" Growled the nameless wanderer, harshly.

"You're blaming me for a mistake that you yourself are feeding Wanderer!" She retorted with a similar firmness that rendered him speechless. "I've already told you about the incident with the Beyuni student. The victims saw themselves trapped in a dream that promised them their dearest wish, and despite the suffering, I stopped the machination of this hope because it didn't bring anything good. You know, Zaynab was approached by 'A moment of dream' but she refused... For the simple reason that she wasn't aware of the loss she had. She was already lost in delusion, and although she knows the difference between dreams and reality, she can't differentiate between somethings she doesn't know. So I judged that it wasn't dangerous for her, not like those people."

"You're convinced she'll never know that truth." Wanderer muttered, calmer but still direct and dry.

"I'm not proud of it, never have been and never will be. But of all the choices I've faced, I think I've made the one that brings the least fallout. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not, but if one day the evidence comes to light that a better solution exists, I'll choose that option without hesitation." She palavered. "I'm effectively just a spectator, just a gaze like any other, a bird following her without coming near. I've chosen ignorance but I keep my eyes open, and you've decided to be an actor. Reproaches coming from you would be like spitting in a mirror. And that's why I'm asking you again, Wanderer, what are you going to do? Do you have a solution?"

He pondered.

Searched.

Sought but found nothing. He dug like a miner who saw gold as his Grail. But these lands were empty and arid, a desert that refused to let its treasures be stolen.

"With the Irminsul we could-"

"So that's it? Haven't you learned from your mistakes, Wanderer?" Inveighed Lesser Lord Kusanali, sternly, a goddess casting judgment on an inferior being. He hated that feeling. "With every mistake, every regret, every obstacle, you want to turn to oblivion? Running away from the consequences of your actions is only temporary. Karma will follow you everywhere, even in your sleep, turning the most beautiful of your dreams into a dreadful nightmare."

"I-"

"Do you even have the power to do this? Mine can barely bind my consciousness entirely to the Irminsul after Apep's rescue, and you ask me to alter the memory of a poor mother? Wanderer, realize the gravity of your words! Look in the mirror!"

No. He didn't want to.

And yet he had.

It hurt.

But it was so beautiful.

"The past cannot be changed. This power you ask in this present, you've exhausted it in the hope of erasing mistakes, not fixing them. Annihilating one ecosystem won't make another flourish, and that's exactly what happened. Because now, when you look at your reflection, no name appears in your memory or that of the world, the oblivion you used didn't change the tragic end of the past and all it brought you was to no longer be the reason for this catastrophe. Are you proud and content Wanderer?" Kusanali was barely aware of the expression on the boy's face when her own was equally shocked. Her hand climbed to the bottom of her face and remorse clouded the sparkle in her eyes. "Sorry, oh.. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be so harsh in what I said..."

"To answer your question... No, I'm not proud of it." Bitterness was painted on his facial features and the vibrancy of his voice. The taste of truth was acrid, probably the reason why so many wanted to run away from it. 

"I lost my way and I didn't want to bring this up, I just wanted to-"

"No." Wanderer cut in, which completely silenced the goddess. "No, I don't have a solution Buer. I don't know what to do, and as I said before, I'm lost. A-and I... Hell, I don't even know what to think. Did I make a mistake, Nahida? Did I make the wrong choice? Every time I try to answer this question, I just get hit with the nagging feeling that every choice I make is just dust. I don't know anything anymore..."

"I don't know more than you... Only you can judge. The important thing is to follow what your heart tells you and what feels right. Whether those choices are right or wrong, a mistake or a salvation, the only thing the heavens will require will be to assume the consequence of the acts committed." She quoted solemnly. Tensions seemed to have subsided for the moment. Wanderer huffed, even though no breath was needed, and rose to his feet.

"And yet you say that as if these consequences would be like a tsunami to take in."

Kusanali gave him no answer this time.

The tranquility of the House of Daena was oppressive.

He could feel the unique flagrancy of the pages of the books around him, the freshness of the plants hanging everywhere, hear the few footsteps of scholars who had their exams soon and he listened to the repetitive sound of his pencil against the desk.

Tac. Tac. Tac. Tac.

An empty sheet kept him company, one that should have been filled hours ago. Wanderer had never had any trouble making the theses that had earned him the jealousy, admiration or suspicion of the other members of Vahumana, or even some of the other Darshans. He didn't care, he laughed in their faces whenever he could, and his writings mocked them just as much. Basically, this was all he did to pass the time, but this dear Archon wasted no time in wrapping him up in the Akademiya's meshes.

Tac. Tac. Tac. Tac.

He couldn't write. He thought, but didn't think about what he should. He was thinking about the last few days, the last few weeks. He thought a lot. But not enough for what was really important. This empty, worthless sheet of paper. Was it important? Yes and no.

Tac. Tac. Tac. Tac.

Wanderer was frustrated.

Was Kusanali angry with him? No, she wasn't, but she wasn't happy either. She'd said nothing when he'd refused to return to the Grand Bazaar. She'd looked away when he'd said he hadn't visited Zaynab for several days. She had sighed when he had demanded not to see her again. She had ignored him when he had fled for the past three weeks.

Visibly, the goddess respected his choices and actions, and just as obviously let her disagreement with them show. However, Wanderer still didn't know what to do. Sometimes he thought about how Zaynab felt, but at the moment, it wasn't convincing enough to make him act.

Tac. Tac. Tac. Tac.

In a quixotic attempt to find answers, he had asked questions of those he deemed conscientious enough to give him a valid opinion. The first was that kid from Rtawahist. 'If the evidence that the star you admire was a false and vile one, would you continue to follow it?' the girl had stared at him funny, having spent more minutes finding words than saying them, out of which she had finally blurted out something: 'Honestly, I'll wonder what change it brings me now that I know the truth. Does my new vision of her change what this star is to me? Even though the truth can sometimes turn out to be dark, it's not necessarily a bad occurrence.'

The second was the Acting Grand Sage. 'What would you do if a given situation seemed idyllic and threatening at the same time? That it promises a dream that could collapse at any moment'. There was no doubt about the frankness of his answer: 'I'd do nothing.' He had been kind enough to explain his thinking, 'The very essence of a dream is its uncertain and hypothetical side, a dream will never be indubitable until the day it becomes reality. To dwell on this is endlessly exhausting. Two simple solutions: pursue the dream or abandon it. And these two solutions only take into account if you arrive at a certain conviction about a path; if you know you're doomed to failure, give up; if you're certain you'll succeed, go ahead at your own risk. If you stagnate in indecision, do nothing and wait. Sometimes people forget that impatience leads nowhere because time will always give you the answer you're looking for, and let's be honest, waiting requires less effort than acting blindly.'

A short answer had turned into an endless monologue. Although, interesting.

The third and fourth were the General Mahamatra and this Gandharva ville forest ranger. 'If you had lied to someone... And that lie made the person happy but you were lost between the cruel truth and the well-being of that lie, what would you do?' Unsurprisingly, the General had been the first to share his opinion: 'A lie is still a lie. It's easy to get lost in these illusions, to the point where it becomes difficult to judge them, especially when the lies are born of a noble cause. I can't give you a definitive answer, but what I can say is that whatever you do, the truth will always come out in the end.'

The second had taken a little longer to answer, he had seemed to be very serious about it: 'I think you have to weigh up the consequences this would bring in both parties. Will the truth be painful for this person but free us from a burden? Would the lie benefit the other person entirely, but we'd be forever stuck in remorse and doubt? Is the lie really what's most painful for this person and what makes us happy? Maybe we hesitate to tell the truth because, in the end, we like the lie. If that's the case, the only thing to say to ourselves is: Will I be able to handle the truth when it comes? Because as Cyno said, it will eventually surface.'

Tac. Tac. Tac. Tac.

In the end, Wanderer had come away with more questions than answers, and his mind was racing, word after word, thought after thought.

Tac. Tac. Tac. Tac.

Wanderer looked up just as his pencil fell back against the desk. He was watching the blond boy in front of him, working more or less noisily on his project, the lead of his pencil moving abruptly on the overstuffed sheet. The artist occasionally glanced at the boy because of his pen noises, but never once complained.

He recognized him, a renowned Kshahrewar architect and winner of the inter-darshan championship. With the little investigation he'd done on Sachin, he'd indirectly learned some things about this Kaveh, nevertheless, Wanderer had always been aloof. Something bothered him about this architect: talking to him was disturbing. Perhaps because of the paradox between the differences and similarities he saw in him.

"You seem to have a lot of things stirring up there." Kaveh suddenly interjected, without stopping his sketch.

"Not your business" Replied the other boy, frowning.

"Unbelievable, so there's no one polite at the House of Daena these days?" Sighed the blond one, visibly irritated. An irritation that left his facial features soon enough, to be replaced by questioning, following the long minutes during which Wanderer had done nothing but stare at him. "...Yes?"

"Would you lie if it brought good deeds for others but not for yourself?" He asked, never leaving the architect's confused then pensive gaze.

"If it would help someone else, yes."

"And if it benefits you more than the other? But that the other doesn't realize the consequences so doesn't suffer directly?"

"What kind of situation is that..." Kaveh mumbled, with a small grimace. "Hmm... I think I'd feel too guilty to continue the lie, it's like taking advantage of someone else's innocence."

"What if the truth is too hard to take?"

"For whom? Us or the other?" Bid the architect, erasing much of the foundation of his design. It wasn't a failure though, at least, for Wanderer; and here he was, starting all over again as if it were trivial.

"Both."

"It's hard to say... If it affects the person too much, I suppose I'd try to find a solution that spares them a little more, even if it means I have to bear some of their burden." Wanderer gave a discreet grunt, Kaveh was too empathetic and sacrificial-minded for his taste and understanding. No, it was wrong. After all, he'd attempted a sacrifice too. But he still didn't fully understand.

"How?"

"I don't know, there are too many variables to consider to assert anything in advance." Muttered the blond loudly, crumpling his paper from gumming too many times, he squashed it in exasperation and pulled out another brand new one. "I'd probably need the other one's opinion. A situation where I could observe the consequences it might have. Then I could make a choice. I suppose."

"A woman has lost her child but is unaware of it and has been deceived by the world, leading to the day you met when she was convinced you were her son. Coward, you reinforced this lie and lost yourself in it too, and now you hesitate, you're lost, what to do?"

"Your questions are really weird and... Uh, phantasmagorical, you know?"

"Just answer." Kaveh's gaze was heavy. "Please." Wanderer added, rolling his eyes.

"Do you like her to think of you as her son?"

"It's not like-" He decided not to deny it, when he realized it wouldn't change the way the architect had understood the foundations of the deed. Like a magician caught red-handed. Kaveh's crimson pupils were... Of a warmth analogous to that which he had discerned in Kusanali's or Zaynab's. "Yes. But it hurts."

"Do you want to tell her the truth?"

"I don't know."

"Are you afraid?" 

Wanderer said nothing. He couldn't.

"What you're doing is wrong." Judged Kaveh, the other seemed slightly surprised, but his expression had grown more sinister, well, until he heard what followed. "But it's also very beautiful. I can't give you an answer that only you can find, it's engraved deep in your heart and even if you think you can't see it, it's there, waiting. Pay attention, be careful, and you'll be able to decipher what it wants, and then, naturally, it'll tell you what to do. Meanwhile, take care of the lie, breaking it too roughly could be more catastrophic than waiting for the truth to come."

"I see..." Was the only thing Wanderer could get out from between pursed lips.

"Don't forget, hope is certainly cruel but also of a magnificence that surpasses anything in Teyvat. We must cherish it while we can and pursue it even if it slips through our fingers until the end of time."

"That sounds like a terrible fallacious race that only leads to death" Retorted the boy, and the architect smiled at him.

"I'd rather run towards death than let it come to me without doing anything."

It was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, but also the one he understood the most with all his soul.

He, too, was a fool after all.

Wanderer glanced at the paper.

Not the one he'd never written on, or the one the blond man had accidentally left on the table when he'd left. But the one where a leaf had just landed delicately, near the back of his hands, as he was putting away the borrowed books. It was small, fragile but pure green. Its origin was not an enigma, which intrigued him even more. Distress emanated from its divine sparkle, then it began to fly again, like a little bird just learning to use its wings and leave the nest.

Wanderer followed the little leaf.

The plant sailed timidly on the waves of the wind, taking him out of the House of Daena. They wandered through the Akademiya's immense corridors, barely paying attention to the passers-by who were themselves busy with other activities. When the main doors opened, a gust of wind swayed the leaf, which had no trouble getting back on track. They spiraled down the stone and wooden bridges, fireflies dancing and crickets chirping in his ears, but only the leaf's particles fascinated the boy, who walked after it with valiant, unwavering conviction.

Sumeru's commerce streets were more crowded than usual, and far more festive than the residential districts could be. The music stretched proudly down the alley, the zestful rhythm of the Tabl Baladi and the loud tinkling of the riqq accompanying the women's dancing in front of the audience, their feet tapping energetically and elegantly on the carpet that served as their stage. The melody of the Qanoun was frivolous but pleasant. All the sounds blended into a tinnitus that deafened Wanderer but didn't stop him, as he continued to follow the leaf.

However, his footsteps had lost a little of their determination by the time he recognized the entrance to the Grand Bazaar. The leaf had entered without waiting for him and he had to take a deep, useless breath before doing the same. The corridor was dark for a few meters, then the warm lights of the place allowed him to discern all the eccentric shapes of the Grand Bazaar. He looked left, right, up... There was no trace of the divine guide, the leaf had disappeared.

Wanderer was attentive, looking for the slightest thing that might reveal why it had brought him here. And amidst the libertine hubbub, he made out an altercation: the deep, prominent voice of an angry man, and... What he would describe as crying. The boy threaded his way through the crowd, his hat giving him credit for not needing to tell people to move aside or make them want to try and push him along the way. He arrived at the source of the commotion. He could partially see the man waving his arms dramatically, ruminating things boldly.

"She bit my arm! She's crazy I tell you, I've been telling her to get out for days and days and she always comes crying to me and now she bites me?!"

"You scared her by yelling at her too! Now she's completely out of control!" Sternly interjected a lady, the merchant only blowing through his nose in response.

"Then... She's got to get used to it, coming here crying and bothering everyone isn't going to change anything." Said another young man, calmly.

"Leave me alone! Stay away from me!" Shouted a voice swallowed by sobs. Loud, ugly hiccups echoed and the crying intensified. Wanderer's eyebrows furrowed at the familiar tone of this voice. He pushed aside the people blocking his view, ignoring their indignant looks, until he could see the whole scene.

Zaynab was on her knees at the ground, curled in on herself and crying all the tears her eyes were capable of producing. She bellowed, her feet smashing the ground like thunder rumbled, trying to get the rabble around her to move away, she cried and screamed, her hands engulfed in the hair she was pulling. She was a sight to behold. Wanderer felt his artificial veins boiling, lava burning and threatening to tear his epidermis.

"Get out of here before I take care of you personally, old bastard!" He vehemently intimidated. "Get the hell out! Don't you see you're only making her worse, you brainless idiots?! You see a woman in distress and the only thing you can think to do is blame her?! Get lost!"

"But she-"

"I don't give a shit! Get the fuck out!" The tinkling of his vision, the way his pupils had begun to glow an intense bluish-green and the anemo elemental particles swirling around him was surely the reason they'd all moved quickly away, mumbling, ruminating, complaint after complaint. However, the only complaints that mattered to his ears were those of Zaynab's eyes.

Wanderer calmed down immediately, crouching down to the young woman's level. Looking for the slightest hint of delicacy within himself to grab her arms and pulled her up. However, she wouldn't let him, screaming, pushing, rejecting him. He ignored the spike pressing against his ribcage.

"Leave me alone! Go away, I said! Let me go, let me go, let me go! HyaaAAhh! Stop, STOP!" This time it was patience he had to hold firmly in his hands, the urge to spit innumerable recriminations and admonish her tartly hung on the tip of his tongue, but he buried this scourge deep in his mechanical innards.

"Zaynab, calm down, you need to pull yourself together, what's going on tell me." The boy's spontaneous tone couldn't leave him, presumably. Every time she clapped his hands, he'd change their position until he found the way she'd deign to accept; every time she shouted a little too loudly, he'd just close his eyelids for a quick second; every time she flailed around to the point of hurting herself, he'd make sure to stop her. "Talk to me."

"I- he's gone, he's gone! He's not coming back..." Zaynab trembled like a leaf ready to crumble, repeating over and over again the grief procured by a person's absence. "I want to see him, I want to see my son, I beg you... Give him back to me, give him back to me! I promised I'd be a good mother! W-why did he leave? I-I'm not well? Did I make mistakes again? I want to see him, I WANT TO SEE HIM!"

"Zaynab, cal-"

"AAAahh! No, no NO! Be quiet! Give him back to me! Where is my son?! Where is he!" She vociferated, cracking the fabric of Wanderer's jacket, and he sighed. He breathed. He thought. Again. Again. Again and again. He remembered while wanting to forget, his memories destined to remain eternal and his memory in denial.

Although the truth can sometimes be dark, it's not necessarily a bad occurrence.

Sometimes people forget that impatience leads nowhere, because time will always give you the answer you're looking for.

A lie is a lie.

Will I be able to take the truth when it comes?

"My son! I want my-" Wanderer didn't give her time to finish as he pressed his hands firmly against her moist cheeks, forcing her to look into his eyes. His pupils in hers almost seemed to make time slow down. Almost. He almost hesitated, But...

I'd rather run towards death than let it come to me without doing anything.

"I'm here! I'm here. Look at me... I'm here, it's me." He said, determined, resolute, defeated. The young woman froze, watching the ghost of her dreams, the reality of a hallucination, the lie of a life. Zaynab's fingers caressed the skin of the boy's face, as she would enjoy the softness of a flower petal, beautiful and ephemeral but giving deserved joy trapped in her hands.

"I-It's you... My son, my son it's you, you're here!"

"Yes, yes I am. I... I didn't leave."

"A-ah aaAahh! My son! My boy!" She cried vigorously, throwing herself into Wanderer's arms and clutching him to her with the obvious fear that he would evaporate again, right in front of her, right in her arms. He was taken aback for a few moments, but pulled himself together, lowering his hat so that curious eyes couldn't see her crying against his shoulder, nor see the way he hugged her back, here in the middle of the Grand Bazaar, in Sumeru, in the routine of the unknown and the ignorance of the known. "Y-you're going to stay, right? You're going to stay with me?!"

"Yes... Yes, I'm staying. I'll never leave." He made the mistake of promising. Another mistake, more lies. He'd made so many that he'd stopped counting. And the only thought that made him undulate to cradle a mother's touch in the hope of consoling her was: please, I beg you, don't ever leave too. "Let's go home."

"Y-yes... let's go home. Mom will make you something to eat and we'll draw, like last time. O-okay?"

Her hand brushed his back like one on the beach. What a beautiful beach, and the sea, he was getting dangerously close to. First his ankles, the water was cold, like his tears. Then his knees, he was getting used to it. The waist was pleasant. Shoulders, he wondered whether stagnating or moving forward was an option; he was thus moving forward. The chin, uncomfortable but peaceful. Careful, the sea was seeping into his mouth! What to do, he was going to drown! Oh no, he wasn't. All he had to do was hold his breath, for as long as possible, he was a mere artifice, he was capable of staying like this for eternity, it was child's game for him.

A child's game.

He moved the pawn six squares, drawing a card and reading it aloud before placing it in front of his cross-legged knees. Zaynab grabbed the dice and threw them, the pair rolling randomly on the floor of the house, making her run after them with a laugh that over time had lodged itself in a special corner of his memory.

The days that followed the decisive events were somewhat inconvenient, for him at least. Wanderer always felt a little extrinsic in the warmth of the living room, the nonsense of the kitchen, the mother's arms and the touch of her words. Every time she looked at him and called him 'son', the term forged itself a little more into his skin, running through his metal muscles, the heart of a creation, the incongruous soul.

"It's your turn!"

Taking the dice handed to him and throwing them much less hard than the young woman, he sighed with his nose when he fell on a malus square. Deprived of half his possessions and back to square one. How ironic. He chuckled at this, hard to tell if it was really out of sheer hilarity or to remind him that this was just a kid's game and that the urge to throw the board out the window was anything but mature.

"I don't like your game." He commented. "It makes no sense, the rules are bogus, the sentences illogical and dramatic and the rewards too rarely profitable. And the board is freaking ugly."

"Well, I love it, it lasts super long and you never get bored! But we can change if you want, and do something you like better." She confirmed, moving her paw like a horse galloping at full speed.

"No, we can keep going."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, go on, draw the card." Wanderer listened to her read the event card, stumbling over certain sounds, syllables or words, nothing too disturbing. "I was wondering, the lady who accompanied you... Where is she?"

"Oh, well considering how much I've improved, the doctors said I didn't need her all the time... Besides, she had other people to help, so now I'm__How did they put it? Ato-... Tomo? Autonomous!" Zaynab replied to the boy's doubtful look. She was anything but self-sufficient after all; yes, she was capable of taking care of herself in some ways, but to the point of not needing any help on a daily basis? Absurd. "And... I've got you anyway, so it's all good!"

The dice slid from between his fingers, rolling in his palm synonymous to a typhoon for them, the dots forming different numbers with each movement, a decision of chance. Was destiny random or absolute, to give what was known as the butterfly effect? This was what had happened, the flutter of an insect's wing, carrying in their vivid abstraction, a future for every detail of a life.

If he hadn't decided to walk by the lake, if he hadn't decided to lie, even further, if he hadn't failed as Scaramouche or tried as Kabukimono.

Today, those names no longer mattered, and only someone else's would haunt him. So he rolled the dice.

"Indeed, it's better that I'm here, otherwise who'd be doing the cooking?" He chuckled.

"Eeeh?! I'm a great cook first! My Chawarmas are great! You eat them all the time." She replied, clearly offended. He laughed even harder.

"But I've never kept the truth from you about how they taste, have I?" Satirically, he pressed her forehead as Zaynab grabbed his hand to shake it in all directions. "If it tastes so good, how come you never eat what you make?"

"Uh... Because I'm just not hungry!" She justified herself, with a scowl that clearly showed the fallacious nature of her assertion.

"But as soon as it's my food, you're suddenly hungry, hmm."

"Your cooking is so good! I could never say no. Even if it was disgusting I'd still eat it, I'd never refuse something from you son."

Wanderer could say nothing in the face of this. He may have been a liar, but he was no hypocrite. He made that mistake every day, without hesitation. So all he did was smile, a stretch as thin as a blade of grass. He didn't see time's passing: The clouds roaming the vast expanse of the sky, the wind finishing its rhymes, the sun setting and the moon waking.

Time went, flowing like blood in veins or rivers in the sea, naturally, imperceptibly.

Days and weeks were like dominoes. Leaves fell to the ground, insects picked them up, branches shivered and flowers hid. Details that escaped him without really doing so, strangely enough; yet he never missed the ones about Zaynab. The way she feared the cold as much as the fire, yet never extinguished her admiration by the warm fireplace, or for the snow that froze her fingers. She loved candles, but was too clumsy, having once almost set her own curtains ablaze. She also liked soups, a lot, and it was one of the only dishes she was able to make decently. In a way, he was prouder of it than she was of herself.

"You should go home." Wanderer said, crouching down next to the Snowman he was partially helping to make. Just enough to make him look like something, he'd let her do what she wanted next. And Zaynab could be very stubborn at times: from the fact that she'd almost torn the head off the sculpture on the pretext that the nose she'd made was ugly - which was true, but Wanderer had seen a charming side to it - or when she refused to listen to his advice, despite him being right.

"No. Why? I want to finish this first." She replied as if she didn't have the tip of her nose red, as well as her cheeks and purplish lips.

"It's not so bad if you don't, anyway, the snow will melt in a few days."

"So what? Today it's here, isn't it?"

Wanderer rolled his eyes, or thought he did. Maybe he'd just looked away; for him, this kind of reaction to Zaynab didn't make the same sense as with anyone else, so he got confused sometimes. She was too stubborn, and he didn't like being wrong, even though he was often in that situation.

He'd ended up dragging her into the warmth of the living room as soon as he'd seen that she couldn't stop shivering from the cold. His eyebrows were furrowed, he wasn't happy. And he was worried, certainly. The Sumerian was sneezing, still shivering, looking tired. Her skin reddened.

"You probably have a fever. I told you staying out that long wasn't a good idea." He sighed. She was fragile, like those twigs ready to snap, like those crumbling leaves, like a mirror ready to fall.

His hand came to rest against her forehead, wanting to check her temperature. Wanderer remained unmoved, wordless, soundless, expressionless. He felt nothing. He couldn't tell hot from cold, burning from icy; temperature was a notion far removed from his physical understanding. But he knew the signs she was showing were related to a fever.

"So? Do I have a fever?" Zaynab asked, pressing her forehead a little more strongly against the palm of his hand.

"Hmm. Yes. Your immune system is weak, don't put yourself in danger for nothing."

"It's not dangerous..." She grumbled. "It'll pass very quickly."

"I'll make you some soup."

Her eyes lit up with excitement, she nodded with haste, smiling as she knew how to do so well. Like no one else was capable of. He wanted to go into the kitchen, but she grabbed his arm first. He relented as she rose, blanket encircling her frail body, and her hand sliding over his forehead.

"Let's see, do you have a fever too...." She moved her hand a few times, a doubtful look on her face. Curiosity, confusion. These words came back commonly. "Hm... You don't seem to have a fever... I've never seen you get sick."

"I never get sick."

"Wow! Unbelievable!" She blurted out. "I'm so happy to have made such a healthy son!"

His throat clenched on itself, hard, so much, immensely, it hurt. His jaw tightened to the point where the horrible song of his teeth was almost audible. A healthy son. Wanderer was torn between the feeling of imposture that pounded in his heart, and that of illness. In his case, were emotions his disease? It made him weak, he who could only be the illusion of a human, but he wasn't one and never would be. Maybe it wasn't a disease per se, but it was making him sick without a doubt.

"But that won't stop me pampering you anyway!"

"Hmm." He said. "I'll make the soup now."

Subtle and sweet.

That was how she liked her soup, and how she hummed at that moment. As much as the outcast cared for her on a daily basis, sometimes he felt like he was just the one being assisted by the young woman. Just the timbre of a voice managed to bring him back down to earth, out of a hectic cataclysm, which was nonetheless created by this very phonation he had come to terms with. Loving and cherishing it. The paradox of heaven and hell. Both were similar, after all.

When he had finished his preparation, he poured the liquid into a ceramic bowl. The smoke didn't bother him, and he held the supposedly burning recipient perfectly between his palms. Wanderer turned around, ready to announce the arrival of the dish, but he didn't speak. Hair in her mouth, a little drool on her chin, the blanket on the floor barely covering her feet: Zaynab was in a deep sleep.

Not very surprising, he'd quickly discovered how easy it was for her to fall asleep.

"And a soup made for nothing." He complained.

The bowl was placed on the edge of the counter as he went to her side. The boy watched her for a moment, trying to read his own thoughts, but nothing in particular came to mind, which was rather puzzling. Or rather, everything was concentrated in his heart. The affection he could no longer deny, the family he was letting take control. He wanted to feel it again, a mother's touch.

Again. And again. And again.

He picked up the blanket and covered her, then took the strands out of her mouth and wiped the drool with his sleeve. He stood there, undecided. When had he become so... Hesitant. There was a time when his decisions were made before questions even arose. He sighed again.

Thus, he ended up sitting on her left, crossing his arms and closing his eyes with no intention of dozing off. The weight of Zaynab's head pressed against his shoulder. Then, eventually, the weight of his on top.

Waiting as the Acting Grand Sage had described was not cumbersome. Time was proving once again how quickly it could go. Hours, days and weeks had been a mere gust of wind, and now time was forming into months. The trees were majestic, their leaves green and bright like grass in the soft earth. The buds were now meadows of flowers, the petals beautiful and the air filled with fragrant perfume.

Despite the changes, the meaning these lands had taken on was sempiternal. Wanderer was attentive, learning and memorizing like when he read books from the House of Daena, but this book was different, it was wonderful and strange, wicked and exciting. The details were no longer hidden, he knew them by heart, more than he would have liked and yet not enough for his taste.

Zaynab adored spring.

To classify it as adoration was an understatement, in all honesty. And Wanderer found it fascinating how much she loved flowers; he linked this to the fact that, in his eyes, she was one herself. For a thousand and one reasons: beauty, amenity, dazzling and terribly alterable. As someone who obsessed over every detail, this one also obviously hadn't escaped him. After all, Zaynab's health had always been fragile, and although he'd never tried to question Kusanali further on this subject he refused to study, the facts were all too obvious.

She, who occupied her life running, tinkering, laughing and smiling, her time seemed to be getting shorter and shorter. She was wearing herself out, most likely. Many of the things she used to do had become almost like a chore, and she smiled about it. Even now, Wanderer still didn't know whether he loved that smile or wished it was no longer etched on his mind.

The only thing he remembered there was that she loved spring.

The embrace of the sun in that flawless azure sky, the rustle of foliage and the melody of birds. The ballad of the wind accompanied by the ephemeral intonation of a lyre and the vast feeling of dendro particles, much more present at this time of year. Wanderer didn't have much of an opinion on the seasons; to him, they were just a facet of the world, nothing very interesting.

Nonetheless, he had come to adore spring, too.

"Eehhh! You're coming! Come on, come on, hurry up!"

The boy's eyelids fluttered at Zaynab's sudden exclamations. He hadn't even noticed that he'd been stuck in his contemplation of the sky for so long. He looked at the young woman who was gamboling from right to left, floral crown mingled in her brown hair and dress fluttering more elegantly than a feather, despite her wacky movements.

"It's so beautiful, everything is so beautiful! Look my son, those flowers are so beautiful up there! Aahh ahaha ah, I'm sure they'll look wonderful in your hair!" She affirmed at the top of her lungs. "Follow me, come on! Don't be so slow!"

"I'm taking my time observing, you should do the same if you love the scenery so much." He grumbled, but nevertheless set off to follow her. She, who stuck her tongue out at him; she, who showed him her stretched lips; she, who laughed louder than the waterfalls; she, who ran up the hill.

Wanderer watched her climb, jump, throw her arms from side to side, then saw her slow down little by little until she fell under her own weight, at the top of that hill. He didn't necessarily like running, however, he rushed towards her as fast as he could, and didn't care if his face was more stoic or worried.

Zaynab coughed several times, wincing a little, her cough cut off by a few chuckles or sharp breaths.

"W-wow, I__ I underestimated that hill ahhaha ah..!"

"I already told you to be careful dammit! You know damn well you can't try that hard." He grunted under his disgruntled and slightly guilty expression.

"Sorry... I was just having fun. I'm just happy to be able to walk around with you and enjoy this time." She mumbled, lowering her head and tricking her fingers in the textile of her skirt.

Wanderer huffed, relaxing his grip on her shoulders. He wanted to look away, but couldn't. Words hung on the tip of his tongue and thoughts littered the deep walls of his skull. Questions that visited him regularly, questions he hadn't wanted to ask the deity, questions he didn't want Zaynab to know, questions he preferred to ignore.

Ignorance.

In the end, no matter how much he learned over and over, he would continue to choose the ignorance he hated so much.

"We're not going home, are we? I don't want to go home!" Interjected the young woman.

"You need to rest."

"No!"

"So stubborn." Wanderer growled, frowning. "I may as well just carry you and go home."

Zaynab said nothing more, as her eyes argued for her, the mental demand she had was more than blatant to him. He silently let her know that his advice was better. But Zaynab was like a child desperate for a toy at the market.

"Please... I promise I'll rest well afterwards!"

And Wanderer was less and less able to say no to her.

The wind was strong, it slapped and whipped against his skin, his hair swept back. And on his back, Zaynab was screaming. Smiling from ear to ear, her laughter like an offering to the nature around them. Wanderer was running, solidly holding the legs of the sumerian woman who was experiencing a moment of intense euphoria.

"WouHouuuUU! AHahahAHAH! Yeah! Faster son, run faster!" She shouted hoarsely, her hands trying to catch the gusts of air that made her hair fly like a bird. He was the one whose feet touched the ground, but the freedom of his steps aroused the belief that he was also flying. So free, in fact, that he didn't notice the smile discreetly forming on his lips. One that hadn't existed for centuries, one that had only appeared as a weakling, a broken object, a throwaway.

And who now understood the meaning of that freedom.

"Don't fidget too much, you'll fall!"

"I won't! You're so strong, I'm sure you'll never let go!"

His grip was determined, she was right, he would never let go, never. And at that moment, it was he who asked her, without actually doing so, to never let go.

And time passed, saying hello and goodbye, like the sun and moon, animals and all sorts of lives. Hours were more like months, and months formed the pyramid of a year. These strange lands were an everyday life he knew better than the words in those books he no longer needed to chew on. His memories had become those close to the present, in a stolen but cherished past.

Zaynab was his everything.

Her touch was his everything.

When she'd had a nightmare and refused to sleep all night, so they'd counted the stars until dawn and his hand hadn't left hers. When she'd accidentally spilled boiling water on him while she was taking cooking lessons and had had a panic attack so immense she'd cried for hours in his arms who'd had no burns, no after-effects, no sensations that would justify the tears shed. Or the day she'd arrived at the Akademiya with a botched cake for his so-called birthday, a cake that had never been finished, the taste wasn't there, as always, but he'd savoured it like the most wonderful of dishes, and in return, she'd wandered her hand through his hair.

When she smiled and looked at him.

When she cried as she hurt him.

When she called him her son.

Time was beautiful and time was villainous. Time was eternal and so fleeting. Wanderer knew, but Wanderer was ignorant. The comings and goings in the living room, how many steps it took to cross it, where the floorboards were broken and the dust accumulated the most. The untidy dishes, the plates on the table, the stains on the chairs. The infant's room, the mother's room and the unmade sofa. It was all normal.

That is, until reality whispered the truth to him. After all, normality wasn't something he was allowed to enjoy. Wanderer had made up his mind, long ago, and time had bewitched him to the point where he no longer cared about the truth. However, it had never left him: following him like a shadow at his feet, like a ball and chain at those of the criminals, it mocked him, played with him. Wanderer should have known better, it wasn't the first time.

It just seemed that the truth was still not what he had expected. And the one he had feared the most.

"Are you afraid of something?"

Wanderer opened his eyes, pondering Zaynab's question. His head lodged comfortably on the young woman's thighs, who herself was zigzagging her fingers through the boy's hair. He raised his hands to encircle the bottom of her face.

"I don't know. I think I'm afraid, but I don't know what of." He murmured.

"Whatever it is, I'll protect you." She said. But it wasn't true, Wanderer didn't believe her, he was the one who was a shield for the little flower she was. But here, in her hands and under her eyes, yes, he felt safe.

"Hmm." His thumbs caressed Zaynab's ungainly feeble cheeks, a bit sunken and her complexion more pallid than he remembered. Then, his forefinger tapped her cold-colored painted lips, whose skin was chapped, a few small vermilion pebbles here and there. Finally, his thumbs touched the dark circles under her eyes that resembled the veil of night, while his similar gaze, followed the shapes of her pronounced collarbones and emaciated limbs. "What about you? Are you afraid of something?"

She was beautiful.

The hands of darkness amused themselves by tormenting her, but that didn't stop him from haloing her, so that it was impossible to see her in any shape other than the seraphic one he'd made of her. Ah, how he would have loved to see her with a braid, flowers on her ear and a pretty kimono.

Perhaps he preferred her like she was, in fact.

"Hmm, toads, Fongus, mushrooms.... AH! And also breaking my figurines, and hurting the butterflies and my flowers when I walk. And of course, I'm afraid of losing you."She confided, her voice evaporating like a twilight cloud. Wanderer, too, had this fear; he'd lied again, just a little. "I don't want to lose you..."

The curious hum of her voice didn't go unnoticed, nor did the predominant twinkle of her pupils. She stared at him, not as the unwilling child but as the adult with wisdom too great to bear.

"What is it?" He asked. Wanderer let himself be guided as Zaynab pulled him fully upright to face her, eyes to eyes. Her hands were in little spasms she couldn't control, the veins popping out more than a leaf's. She placed them against his cheeks, just as he had done a few minutes before.

"I just wanted to look at you, did I ever tell you I like your eyes?" She said, but it didn't fool him. "Why are you frowning, did I say something wrong?"

"Don't hide anything from me. You know I don't like it when you lie."

"But I'm not lying! Your eyes are really-"

"Not that." He cut in as Zaynab was suddenly silent. It was obvious that she wanted to look away but refused to do so. The shine revealed itself as a wet blanket, she bit her lips and Wanderer had to give himself a mental smack not to stop her immediately.

"I want to talk to you..." She articulated incomprehensibly.

"We do it already?"

"N-no! I mean I'd like to, I mean if you wa-"

"I'm listening."

She moved her fingers slowly against his face, in a way that hinted that she was discovering him for the first time, or rather to etch every last bit of him into her memory. She touched like a mother meeting her baby, like a mother watching her child grow, and like a mother ultimately singing in his ear.

"I love you my son." Wanderer was surprised, he shouldn't be, it wasn't anything new since she'd said it so often. Why did this one seem different? Oh, well... Because she was crying. He followed the trail of tears down her cheek. Sadness or affection? Abandonment or resolution? He couldn't make sense of the emotions he saw before him. "Y-you learn so fast, I never understood the books you read despite trying, all the time, you're so smart and I'm so glad you get to study at the Akademiya! Don't stop, keep learning and learning to become the best hmm? A-and keep on being so nice, but not too nice... Y-y-you're so confident, sometimes I've tried to imitate you but I could never do it ahah... O-oh and please take good care of your hair! Like I showed you! B-because it's so beautiful, like mine... Take care of yourself when you go out, don't hurt yourself or the flowers, e-eat properly morning, noon and night! I-I know you don't like the food I make, but don't forget to stay healthy, you've got to eat right, okay? A-and also..."

Zaynab spoke.

For long seconds and minutes. Wanderer listened to her without saying a word, like a child to his mother, like a pious man to his deity. Each of her words lodged in a corner of his mind, distracted at times by her cries, without missing a single syllable, yet he was afraid her words would slip away.

"Where are you going?" He rushed to say.

"Nowhere... I'm staying. I'll always stay." Zaynab moved closer until their foreheads were glued together, she strained to smile, and it was so truthful. It was the truth. "Nothing matters, I'll always stay by your side, there's plenty of room for me near you isn't there? So I don't worry, I don't worry anymore, I know you'll be fine, since I'll always be with you." It didn't take much for her to burst into tears, taking a lost Wanderer in her sickly arms. He didn't like this feeling, the one he'd fought for so long, the one that had returned, the one that had never actually freed him. He could barely feel her arms around him, so he hugged her back, cautiously, with love, with fear, with ignorance and too much knowledge. "I-I love you son! I love you, I love you... M-my son... My son! I love you, I love you. I won't leave you, I won't leave you promise, promise, promise! D-don't be mad at me, I beg you don't be mad at me I'll be there! Even if... Even if__ I'll stay!"

This time, it was Zaynab who lied.

The night was already thick when she calmed down. She wiped the underside of her eyes and rubbed her nose, sniffling. Her eyelids were heavy and she seemed weakened. She needed to sleep.

"I-I'm sorry... I realized I never told you the wishes I had as a mother. And I guess fatigue has made me all emotional Ahahah! But... I'm better, I feel much better!" She declared.

Nevertheless, Wanderer wasn't sure if she was aware that she'd already told him that more times than he could count; and that what she'd confided, wasn't really her wishes as a mother.

"Hmm." Wanderer nodded, scrutinizing her from every angle, much as she did too. "You should get some sleep, you look tired."

"Yes... I am. I'm going to sleep." She grasped his hands in hers. "Can I sleep with you on the couch? Just for tonight... I want to stay close to you tonight."

"Hm, okay."

Zaynab smiled, as Wanderer had always admired, loved and hated. Like the river that swept away his emotions but inevitably carried them back, it was the inextinguishable sea of sand and that of stars, resplendent, flamboyant and almost terrifying. That smile gave rise to so much fear and so much longing, hope fading, reborn from a graveyard still too fresh of use and old of existence.

They laid down, one beside the other, facing each other to contemplate their respective faces, they looked at each other like two souls waiting for the sun to set to let the moon take them away. The cuddle of a lie. She breathed out what he represented one last time and closed her eyelids, in a way that struck Wanderer with a stupor that didn't hurt at the time.

Zaynab fell asleep happier than he'd ever seen her.

Wanderer woke up first.

He decided to observe her before going to prepare breakfast. Zaynab was deeply asleep, not moving at all, caught up in her dream. A smile on her lips, a marvelous image playing in her resting mind. The coldness of her body adorned by the blanket and her hair on the nape of her neck.

He placed the plate on the wooden table that had carried his cooking so many times, and waited to see if she would wake up to eat with him, a book open to his right to not to be subject to boredom.

At noon, Wanderer watched the two bowls of Masala cheese balls. He'd just finished them, so the potato and sauce were still steaming, surely too hot for a human's tongue, so he didn't mind waiting a little longer for Zaynab to wake up. So he was the first to eat.

The smoke was gone... In fact, he was pretty sure the dumplings were cold by now. Wanderer got up, going over to Zaynab laying on the sofa. She was still deeply asleep, hadn't change since this morning, having made no move, caught in her dream like a statue lost in time. A smile on her lips, an abstruse image playing in her mind. The coldness of her body accentuated even with the blanket and the hair on the nape of her neck.

However, Wanderer didn't want to interrupt her sleep. At least, not yet. So he waited, going out into the streets of Sumeru to avoid any anxiety.

The skies turned into a vivid orange  as the puppet came back to the house. Wanderer opened the door, depositing the books he'd collected on the floor near the entrance, then headed straight for the kitchen without a glance at the sofa. He prepared dinner with the automatism of a robot, the artifice of a daily routine and the lie giving way to the truth. The clatter of the plate against the table could almost have made him think he'd broken it. Why the sudden excess? Perhaps he was becoming impatient, this time he didn't want to wait for the smoke to evaporate.

Zaynab was asleep, deeply, with an eternal taste, she hadn't made a single movement since she'd closed her eyes the day before, caught in her dream like a statue frozen in time. Smiling, a stagnant image played out in her mind, far away, somewhere he couldn't reach. The coldness of her body chilling with it the blanket and her hair on the nape of her neck.

"Hey... Zaynab." He called, finally. Wanderer crouched down to her height. "You need to wake up now, at least to eat dinner, you can't sleep all the time and eat nothing."

The house's silence was the only response he received. The outcast sighed, shaking the young woman by the shoulder, gently so as not to rush her. One, two, three, four. He shook her again. Lifting her hand and letting it go, it crashed mercilessly against the leather of the sofa and slid to the emptiness of the floor; then pushing her head, it only fell to the other side. Nothing.

"Zaynab." He said more firmly. "Wake up."

Unlike the one stolen by sleep, Wanderer felt his emotions form a storm in his anguished, traumatized heart. The awakening of past memories building in the mirror, that reflection he had shunned and hated. His movements became jerky and thoughtless, as did his breathing, which he had no use for on himself but wanted to see on her.

"Zaynab! Wake up now. Zaynab, Zaynab, wake up Zaynab!" He ranted, looking for any way to get her to open her eyes. He pushed his ear against her mouth, no sensation reaching him. No movement, no sign, she was ice: her limbs, her eyes, her smile, her lungs, her heart, her life. "N-no ah... I, Zaynab. P-please? You really need to eat or you'll get sick, a-aah and.... And you'll lose strength and be very exhausted. I know you're tired but you've got to have that dinner hmm? Come on, wake up, listen to me, fucking talk to me I don't know but do something, shit! Zaynab! I beg you!"

Wanderer was drowning in the desperation not to let a mother's touch slip through his fingers. To the point where he wasn't even aware that he was manhandling her to the point of almost knocking her off the sepulchral couch, tugging at her brunette mane that he'd loved to compare to the wood of trees, squeezing her arms into which he plunged his fingernails like he'd loved to plunge into delicate embraces, compressing her chest and suffocating her lungs that had stopped letting in air long before he did.

A torrent devastated the beach of his thoughts, he no longer understood anything, he no longer knew anything. The promises of an illusion were blocking his vision: that of his eyes, that of his reason and even more that of his heart. Wanderer was like a child who had taken the wrong path, without a map or a voice to guide him, he looked around in panic, asking out for help. He crushed his body against Zaynab's, calling for a miracle, calling out her name and calling out to feel the touch, a temperature against his skin that could detect nothing.

Thus, he could only lie to himself, until reality became too obvious to ignore. Just for a moment, to enjoy this last instant of miraculous hope, the mirage of his wishes.

Wanderer embraced Zaynab, like roots planting themselves in the earth.

"Look how beautiful the stars are." He sighed into the zephyr, the strands of his night-like hair waving gracefully. "But they love to lie. So do I. I've lied a lot, and I'm really sorry for that. But I've never been so sincere either."

It was easy to make out the tropical forms, even in the dark; the moon was particularly bright that evening. A few beasts grumbled in the bushes and fireflies twirled with the wild leaves. He was careful not to step on the flowers.

"What do you think? Hmm, I think it would look good on you." Assured the outcast, kneeling gingerly to pick the plant, which he then placed in Zaynab's hair. He carried her in his arms, close to his beating heart, as if it would make hers beat in return. It offered him the chimera of a real life, not just an artificial one. "Beautiful."

Wanderer kept walking, he didn't care where he went, as long as it was far away, far enough to protect the lie. But he was just a fool, and a liar, because the truth had already caught up with him.

"Wanderer." A new voice. He decided to ignore it. "Stop, please. What you're doing is useless, I'll take care of it." The Dendro Archon said gently.

"No. Leave me alone." Retorted the puppet, not deigning to glance at her. Although he knew that Kusanali was diligently following him. "If you dare to take her from me, I'm not likely to be impartial towards you."

"I've already defeated you once, if I have to do it a second time, it's a conceivable option.... But one I don't wish to employ Wanderer. Especially not under these circumstances. Let me handle it personally... It's my responsibility."

"I said no. I want to keep her, don't take her from me." The aboriginal curtain of the divine power of the little girl with the wisdom of the forest and the desert fell like a wave over him. Dendro particles penetrated his mechanical flesh and that of the woman he was carrying. Gradually, Wanderer saw her disintegrate, right before his eyes, the realization of a fear that made his emotions churn like an overworked engine ready to explode and cause irreparable damage. "No, no, NO! What have you done! A-aahh no don't take her from me! Where is she?! WHERE IS SHE BUER?!"

"It's already been 62 times that I've tried to reason with you Wanderer. I had no other choice... Well, unfortunately, it seems you still haven't learned from your mistakes." Oh that, yes he knew.

"You have no right to take her from me! How dare you?!" Wanderer shouted. He lunged at the Lesser Lord, as he would lung at death, grabbing the little goddess by the garment in a way that was almost murderous but far too pathetic to be so; it barely made her bat her eyelashes, staring down up at the boy she'd saved from one madness but accidentally sent into another. "Give her back to me!"

"We need to talk." Clamored the Archon, her eyebrows furrowed but her expression as bruised as his. "Please, let's talk..."

"Let's talk... Ahah Ahahahah AHHA! You want to talk?" He laughed bitterly, anger painted on his pupils ready to give way to tears. Even he couldn't deny it anymore. Death had struck again on someone who didn't deserve it, while he continued to take those fake breaths. "What exactly do you want to talk about? The way I've been a fool, a fool who couldn't even see between the vile nets of hope offered by what I thought was my salvation! Or the fact that you lied to me, deceived me and betrayed me! Giving this lie in a silver dish that has done nothing but burn my heart and make me suffer!"

"Wanderer I__" Kusanali winced as he tightened his grip further, the skin of her throat pinched in the collar that threatened to cut off her breath. She didn't struggle, nonetheless, only resting her hand on the outcast's. "I thought I'd done something right... I thought I'd done the right thing. I-I promise you I didn't mean to hurt you, I was trying to help you, I thought.... That you could have had something you needed together, I really t-thought it was.... The right thing."

"You thought? You thought it was right..." His teeth gritted as he said this, rage slipping from between his vocal cords. He pulled, forcing the goddess to be on her toes, she who was on the verge of tears, as his heart was. "What the hell made you think that was okay?! Don't fuck with me! You lied to me! You knew... You knew, you fucking knew all along! You knew Zaynab's condition, you knew mine, you knew, you knew! You knew she was going to die soon! And yet you still sent me to her, maliciously, fooling my sight, luring my mind and mystifying my heart! And you told me nothing, nothing when you saw that I was falling deeper and deeper into this trap, this poison that corrupts my veins and my blood. It flows through me and it hurts! YOU KNEW!"

Kusanali was crying, her sobs reflecting the image of the moon, her eyes showing the distortion of his face by those emotions that would never cease to torment him. She didn't know what to say, she hiccupped but didn't look away, bearing the accusation, the rancor, the grief with a power equal to the metal of a thousand rock-honed blades.

"I__ I'm so sorry..." She murmured, which only accelerated the pace of Wanderer's exhalations and inhalations, whom was becoming far too agitated. It was only a matter of moments before everything went to pieces, before he lost what little control he wasn't even aware of.

"Sorry? Are you sorry? No... No, you're not. If you were, you wouldn't have done that, if you were, you would have told the truth, if you were, you wouldn't have taken her from me. If you were really sorry, you'd give her back... So, if you're sorry. Give her back to me."

"I can't Wanderer..."

"GIVE HER BACK!" He shouted anyway. "If you're sorry, Buer, give her back! Give me back Zaynab! Fucking give her back to me, give her back, give her back to me! Give me back my mother!"

Barely a second passed as the last two words left his lips, now pursed to the point of bleeding. Wanderer jerked away from Kusanali, who tried in vain to keep him close to her. He shook his head, convincing himself of his own error, of the existence of this lie that should never have been born and had to disappear. His fingers tugged at his hair, the hair that a mother's touch had so pampered, the hair he wanted to pluck, the hair he didn't have the courage to do so.

"No...A-aah ah, n-no, no no no. She's not my mother, she's not my mother, s-she's a-aah ahah not my mother." His knees met the foreign ground, he curled up, to hide from the world, to hide from everything. Tears rolled down his cheeks, digging a macabre tunnel as they passed, marking flesh for a lifetime. New, invisible scars were strewn with every drop that became one with his clothes or the fresh grass. "S-she was... She wasn't my mother. She wasn't__A-aAhh... AAh. AaAAAh! AAHH!"

And Wanderer screamed.

Howled in terror.

In suffering.

In love.

In sorrow.

And regret.

His voice echoed across the night horizon, frightening a few birds and deer nearby. Wanderer wanted to get rid of his heart. It hurt, so much... The pain had been beautiful with her, but now that she was gone, it was unbearable. His body rocked from side to side, his spasms and sobs stopping the continuity of his cries, which broke one by one, weakened, allowing taciturn silence to accompany him. Sniffling, drooling slightly, he was in a horrible state. He just wanted to... Disappear. Again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... It's all my fault." Kusanali murmured, having joined him, taking his hands in hers, a pale imitation of the hug she wanted to give him. But she guessed it wasn't the best idea, right away.

"I... I'm still blaming you for mistakes I've made too..." He managed to articulate. "I'm just an idiot. I j-just chose ignorance b-but the truth... I knew it all along too. I knew it, I've always known it." Wanderer looked at the goddess, unable to resist his endless tears. "But I was just a coward who chose ignorance... Who let himself be blinded by his desires. These past illusions haunt me and I keep falling into this thorny ravine, which pierces me again and again. I-I can't escape it Nahida, I do believe it's my destiny."

"Oh, Wanderer no..."

"So why? Tell me why? Why do I have to be like this, why do I have to live like this? The past is only becoming present again. And the irony was that I wasn't even given a name. An identity that never existed... And I'm still devastated. It's so pathetic." The boy confessed, his palm scraping the underside of his eyes, getting wet at the passage. "I'm crying for a mother who wasn't even mine..."

Kusanali couldn't find the right words. She was powerless against the war going on in the puppet's very soul; she could only be a spectator of his misfortune, as always. Wanderer had already shown her the bottom of an abyss he reached with every failure, so he didn't care if she saw him torn apart by neurasthenia. His eyes releasing icy peaks into his cheeks scratched by blood carmine nails. No matter how hard the goddess tried to minimize the wounds, those seared into his being were far too visceral to heal, so those he inflicted on himself physically were but dust in the lost ruin he had become again. Or had always been.

For in the end, there had been no change at all, it had all been a dream projected by a mother's touch. The one he'd hoped for more than the propriety of his own life. And the one that made him bow his head like a nobody, imprisoned and stripped of everything but what he had incurably tried to make disappear.

There was nothing to be done, Wanderer would be apathetic for eternity, while his heart would never be.

It was quiet.

Or rather, a lull. The first thing to learn from Sumeru's great forest was that it could be as beautiful as it was destructive. The sky was clear, the sea of azure giving the Sun absolute power over the surface of the Dendro Lands. The gigantic trees offered a few shadows, cool corners in which to momentarily escape the gentle heat, the broad leaves dancing lightly in the breeze, rays passing through, bubbles of light stirring on the grass like glittering gold. The cacophony of birds soothed the atmosphere with the flow of the creek carving its path not far away.

The underside of his feet gobbled up a few small flowers as he passed, the temperature having no effect on him, but he enjoyed the caress of the breeze on his skin. Wanderer reached out his hand, grasping an apple with his slender fingertips. Observing it, judging its carmine color, its perfectly rounded shape, he took a bite. The fruity juice invaded his mouth, but no taste reached him. It was... It was. The fact was, it existed, but nothing more, this morsel had no purpose, at least, in his hands. Wanderer spat out the piece and let the apple fall to the ground.

The landscape was beautiful. The boy admitted it was paradisaical, in appearance. Despite the temptation of beauty, he could no longer trust it. No one could say how much time had passed since Zaynab had been officially proclaimed dead by Lesser Lord Kusunali, then buried in the grave he had personally prepared, against all odds. A form of adieu, in a way, the last gesture of a son. However, the pressure of an uncomfortable sensation persisted, that of foreign ignorance. Although Wanderer had learned the history of every twig he broke and every flower he disfigured as he walked, it no longer made sense, everything had lost its meaning and he felt... Lost. Like an intruder. Like a puzzle piece trying to fill the last empty space, unfortunately, the shapes didn't conform and no matter how hard it tried, the piece never managed to fit.

He'd only seen the world through someone else's eyes, and now that she was gone, he was like a blind man without a cane. Wanderer had only been the puppet that thunder had sewn together. Slave to his demons lodged in the heart of a friend.

Wanderer approached the stream of water. It was translucent, reflecting the majesty of the sun, the grandeur of the plants and the insignificance of the beings that trod the damp dirt. The boy looked at himself in the water, yet the timid waves were enough to agitate the pale copy drawn there, his face distorted into an abstraction that gave him the real impression of not knowing what he was observing with such bitterness. Perhaps even a certain gloom.

His memory played back a few passages of memories that refused to leave his head. Nevertheless, despite the urge to smash his skull like a pestle to make them go away, he patiently contemplated the hydraulic image. The outcast knelt at the edge, the grass slightly wet, the stream singing to his ears. Delicately, as if handling a precious, fragile treasure, he picked up the little wooden doll that had been home in his pocket.

His gaze drifted to the right, where once a hand would have caught his, while the playful voice of a young woman would have mistaken him for the son of her imagination. Alas, the forest was silent, an acerbic peace he would have wished into the contingencies of the past. He wished he'd been disturbed right now.

"I must say goodbye. No... An adieu" He began, his thumb against the smooth wood of the doll. "Keeping it will only haunt my nights, my memories are enough for that, I don't want to soil your gift with the poison that I am. I want you to rest in peace... And I want the role you loved me with to go in peace too, to the land in which it was born, and in which it will die. You have the right to have your son with you, and a part of you will always be with me. Thank you for everything, Mother."

Wanderer brought the doll against his forehead, taking a deep breath to keep from being overwhelmed by the pinch of his heart. Finally, he opened his eyes again, resolute, determined. He bathed the artifice in the water before releasing it, as it was swept away by the current.

He stared at his reflection, confused and unreadable. He was a wanderer from one role to another, from an old story to a new one. This one was particularly impactful, one he couldn't forget even if he tried. No name had been added to the pile that followed him, the irony being that the mother hadn't even given the son a name, and yet she'd loved him more than anyone else in the world, so this role may well have been his name, for the briefest of moments in an inexhaustible life.

And now he had to let it go. To let her go. Her and the lie.

With his back turned, he left, his heart heavy, his soul sobbing. It was a very unpleasant sensation to see himself stripped of the happiness he had harbored, even if it was only words solemnly reciting those mistakes he had made and the lies he embraced far too easily. In spite of it all, he still loved, just as he was hurt.

And the most painful part was that even when she was gone, he still coveted a mother's touch.