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She watched, a contented smile playing on her lips, the lively gathering of people that surrounded her. Food and drink were passed from hand to hand, and as Nilou got up from the blanket they were all sitting on, a bunch of them applauded excitedly as she immediately started dancing all around the place. Music was playing in the air, and the birds chirped above their heads as they sat, and laughed and sang at the front door of the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
“This picnic is amazing, Nahida!” Paimon exclaimed excitedly, offering a plate of delicious desserts to her. “Everyone is here!”
Nahida’s smile widened, and nodded as she slowly took in every person that had come to join her on this magnificent day. Her closest friends, the saviours of Sumeru, Dunyarzad and Collei too, and of course, the one she has come to affectionately call ‘Hat Guy’. He directed an almost imperceptible smile in her direction as he silently drank tea, and Nahida returned it as warmth spread all over her chest.
“I am happy, very happy” she murmured to herself just as Nilou bowed, signalling the end of her performance.
The picnic went on and on, the sunset slowly claiming the sky around them, and Nahida found herself hiding a small yawn. It had been an outstanding day, but now, she needed to rest.
She got up from the blanket and cleared her throat a bit before announcing her departure, thanking them all one by one for joining her today, the biggest of smiles etched onto her face.
But to her surprise, all her friends insisted on accompanying her until she was safely tucked in bed, to watch over her as she closed her eyes and let her dreams flow into the night.
Nahida happily agreed, simply because she was willing to be in the company of her friends as long as possible. She turned and marched to the door of the Sanctuary of Surasthana, followed closely by all of them.
Once inside, she walked up to the center, to where she usually rested, and summoned a bed of flowers and leaves, and green cushions made of feathers. She stepped closer, lowering herself until she was sitting on it, directing one last warm smile to the group of people that came to say goodnight to her.
But they were not smiling anymore… Their eyes, devoid of light, looked down at her, before one by one started turning around to leave.
“What’s wrong?” Nahida breathed out, raising to her feet again.
Paimon and the Traveler slowly shook their heads, their expression grim as they also silently turned to leave.
“H-hey!” Nahida called, but as she stepped outside the bed and made for them, she was suddenly stopped by an almost invisible barrier.
A green barrier, surrounded by chains made of pure white energy.
“Unfortunately, this is where you belong, Buer” the last person standing in front of her spoke, his eyes apathetic. “Sumeru doesn’t need you anymore, and neither do I”
And with one last look at her, he also turned, his Inazuman attire swishing behind him as he disappeared into the darkness.
“Wait!! Don’t leave me here, please!” Nahida screamed, her small fists hitting the barrier uselessly. “I- I will work even harder! I promise!”
And as tears started falling freely down her cheeks, everything turned dark around her.
-----
Nahida choked on air as she gasped, her eyes immediately flying open, and her body jerking up into a sitting position.
Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, deafening her, and she sobbed aloud as her eyes were still not adjusted to the darkness around her. Where was she?
The solemn atmosphere of the Sanctuary of Surasthana started appearing before her eyes as she blinked her tears away. Panting, she struggled to get up from her bed, blindly pushing around cushions and leaves as to make way for her body to leave the confines of the soft surface.
She was trapped, wasn’t she? She probably fell asleep at some point she didn’t remember, but the last memory she had was of everyone leaving her alone, caged like a bird.
She desperately threw herself towards the barrier, ready to beg to whoever might listen for her liberation.
But her body didn’t stop where she thought it might, because she kept falling over, until she hit the ground.
She stayed like that for a few seconds, confused, wondering where the barrier was. Fresh tears formed in her eyes, and she shakily pushed her body up, her legs wobbly. When her hair cascaded over her eyes, she realized that it wasn’t tied up in the usual side ponytail, and as she patted her body down, she discovered that she was wearing her white nightgown.
When did I change?
She blinked a few times, pushing herself to her feet. “It was… a dream?” she whispered with trembling lips. “Or maybe it was real and I don’t remember when-” a choked sob cut off whatever she was going to say next. She was terrified, her small hands flew up to shakily grab at her pounding chest, and she realized the nightmare had felt all too real to be a simple dream.
Nahida whipped her head to one side of the Sanctuary, where a corridor led to a room which she hoped would still be occupied by the last person who spoke to her in her dream. …Dream? Vision? Prediction of the future? A memory from the past? She didn’t know, but she hoped he was still there. She hoped that he hadn’t caged her and left her alone.
-----
“Release her this instant”
He clenched his jaw tightly, frowning at the sound of his own trembling voice. He had hoped to sound commanding, to compel the blind fury he was ready to unleash at any moment now… But his fear and horror were more powerful than any other feeling. He was terrified of the man in front of him after all he’d done to him, yes, but he swore to himself he would kill him for it. He was no longer afraid for himself. However, the tiny Archon thrashing around in the bloody claws of the one who was known as Dottore arose a new kind of fear he had never experienced before.
The man tipped his head back and laughed amusedly at him, mockingly even, while he tightened his grasp around the small arm that was turning red under the pressure.
“You betray us, fail to be a successful experiment even with the aid of a Gnosis, then seek shelter with her” he shook the Archon in his grasp to emphasize his word, her pleading eyes turning to him in silent supplication, “and after all that, you think yourself capable of ordering me around?”
He forced his voice out in an almost desperate scream after what he had just heard. “How do you know all that?! I removed the world’s memories of me! You shouldn’t be able to remember me… Irminsul-”
Dottore laughed again, more wickedly, louder.
“You poor fool” he tsked. “Irminsul is not powerful enough to deter me. My experiments are beyond anything and everything comprehended in this world, and I am set on making them succeed, even if they failed once”
Dottore’s eyes were covered by his mask, but he didn’t need to see them to know he was pointedly glaring at him. And he understood the meaning.
“So… you will experiment on me again? Until you feel I am worth something to you?”. He hated his weak voice again. He sounded as if he had surrendered already, when that was far from the truth.
“Well, I think a new approach is in order, don’t you think?” Dottore smirked, and then looked down at the Archon in his grasp. “What about a combination of your strength and her wisdom in a single entity?”
“W-what?” he almost choked, his eyes desperately seeking the small girl, who returned the stare with terror crazed eyes.
“But to do that, I need to extract her powers… and her brain”
A second later, as if the world around him had suddenly gone into slow motion, he felt himself unable to scream, to summon his Anemo powers, to run to her. He was powerless to move, while a clawed machine rained down upon the Archon who had finally showed him what kindness was after half a millennium of suffering alone.
Everything turned black, but he swore he could hear the sound of skin tearing apart.
-----
He almost threw up when his body jerked awake, and he turned to the side to poke his head out of the bed as a powerful gag shook his whole body. He was covered in sweat, his crazed eyes unfocused as blurred images of his dream still danced around his mind.
He slowly laid his head back against his pillow, and cursed under his breath when he noticed the fresh tears dampening the corner of his eyes and his cheeks.
He was safe. He was in his room, inside the Sanctuary of Surasthana, and Dottore did not remember him. He did not. He won’t hurt him again, and he certainly won’t hurt the Dendro Archon. Over his dead body.
But… what if he did…
What if his understanding of the world was beyond the powers of Irminsul? That was a man who defied the laws of Teyvat again and again, and the gods had never punished him for it.
The gods… Nahida.
He immediately sat up straight and harshly yanked his covers away. He needed to check up on her, he needed to make sure that his dream had been, in fact, just a dream, and that the Dendro Archon was peacefully sleeping where he last saw her.
As he was about to leave the bed, his ears perceived the sound of small feet approaching, running towards his room.
He froze when the tiny frame of the God of Wisdom pushed his door open, her eyes red and puffy, and her lips trembling. Their eyes connected for a second, before she broke down in a string of sobs as she trotted to him, her arms reaching forwards.
“W-Wanwan…!” she cried, and he realized that he had never been happier to hear that stupid nickname coming from her, even if it was even worse than ‘Hat Guy’.
“Come here” he found himself murmuring with urgency, prompting her to approach him for the first time since they met. The tiny mess of white hair and clothes collapsed into him without a second thought, and embraced his waist.
He slowly raised his hand to pat her head, but had second thoughts, self-aware of his own actions.
“To hell with it” he thought, berating himself for his restrain when the only thing he desired the most was to embrace her. He felt like crying again, this time from relief, when he felt the weight of her, her ever-present scent of leaves and flowers, and the gentle heat pressed to his own body that signalled that she was well and alive.
She released him after a moment, even if her sobs had barely subsided, and looked up at him with the same crying face she had entered his room with.
“Why were you crying, Wanwan?” she asked softly, scanning his wet eyes and cheeks. “Did you have a nightmare too?”
He widened his eyes for a moment, and quickly used the back of his hand to rub his tears away, not because he was ashamed of showing emotion in front of her, the one who truly accepted him for who he was, but because he simply didn’t want her to worry about him.
“I’m fine, really. You should not ask me that while you yourself look like you have been haunted by a ghost” he frowned, slowly patting the bed so she could sit beside him. “Tell me what happened”
She hesitated, but didn’t want to push him to talk, and even less wanted to be alone at the moment, so she climbed the bed and let her legs dangle over the edge, next to him.
“I… have the feeling…” she started, sniffing as she tried to repress her tears, “that I had been trapped somehow, for a very long time”
He raised an eyebrow at that, curious, but let her continue.
“The nightmare I had, it had felt too vivid to be a simple dream…”
-----
They fell silent after her recollection of her nightmare, each immersed in their own thoughts about the matter. It was him, eventually, the one who spoke first.
“I… I’m afraid that I can’t do much to help you understand that dream of yours” he murmured, avoiding looking at her. “But what I know is that no one in Sumeru wishes you harm. Your nightmare will never be real, because the love and appreciation the people have for you is genuine. I see it every day, in every corner of the city”.
A small sob was the only answer he received, but it was enough for him, because at least she had stopped trembling.
“Besides,” he continued, resting his elbows over his knees as he ducked his head between his shoulders, a deep frown directed towards the space between his feet, “as long as I’m here, nobody will dare to raise a finger against you, because I won’t let them”
At that, she gasped, because his voice had imperceptibly turned shaky, but his tone also hid a conviction, a resolution that was not directed at her, but at himself. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of nightmare he’d had to make him suddenly speak like that.
-----
He had let her join him in his bed, because the Dendro Archon was still too shaken to go back to the dark and lonely center of the Sanctuary.
They laid side by side, still awake, but he checked on her from time to time, wishing she could go back to sleep so her face looked peaceful again. For her, of course, but also for himself. It was unnerving to see the source of his comfort be terrified, shaking and crying as she looked like a lost child.
There couldn’t be two lost children inside the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
He tightened his jaw at that fleeting and unwanted thought, because thinking like that meant he had already placed the Dendro Archon in a role previously occupied by another Archon, at least inside his head. Thinking like that meant he had not run far away from his past yet.
“There is nothing wrong with you staying here with me” her soft voice suddenly said, bringing him back to reality. “I will take care of you as long as you need, and…” she paused for a moment, turning her body to him under the covers, "if you decide to stay, I know you will eventually learn to take care of me too without regarding it as an obligation, Wanwan”
“Stop reading my thoughts this instant” he growled, shutting down his mind so she couldn’t have access anymore. “I’m only here to settle my debt to you, and as soon as I’m done, I-”
And for the briefest of moments, probably because the mere nature of the thought shook him to his core, his mental walls tumbled down again, allowing the Dendro Archon to see a blurry image, one that made her understand his previous tears and words.
She smiled, reaching a tiny finger to poke at his cheek.
“He won’t come here. He doesn’t remember you, and he has no reason to come back for me now that he got the Gnosis”
He whipped his head to the side to look at her, his eyes wide, hiding a twinge of fear that he hadn’t been able to conceal from her wise gaze.
“Don’t let the thought of him be a deterrent for you to leave Sumeru if you wish to do so, please” she added.
He didn’t say anything else about the matter, because there was no need. That he made sure to close his mind again so she could not see how his conviction about leaving Sumeru was wavering by the day, was not something he was willing to admit, not even to himself. That he was the happiest he had ever been now that he was by her side, would take innumerable years for him to say to her out loud.
But they had time, and in that time they would be learning together, and maybe he indeed would admit that his care for her had started to become genuine a while ago, and that he would die at the hands of Dottore for her if he dared to harm her. And maybe, he would also learn that she too, would made tremendous sacrifices for him if needed, even though he would probably not believe her if she told him so now.
She slowly dragged her small hand across the space that separated their bodies, and couldn’t supress a contented smile as their hands bumped together as he too, was reaching for her fingers.
She didn’t know what expression he was making as his bigger hand enveloped hers, and she didn’t look to quench her curiosity, because she didn’t want to leave that moment of mutual understanding they both had fell into.
“You can come here whenever you have a nightmare… or if you simply feel lonely” he whispered.
“Thank you, Wanwan”
“Tsk, that stupid nickname is a nightmare itself”
A bubbly giggle escaped the confines of her still sore throat, and she tightened the grip on one of his fingers.
The Dendro Archon of Sumeru and a Wanderer from Inazuma closed their eyes at the same time, allowing themselves, from that night onwards, to feel safe in the company of the other.
“Goodnight”