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The Wanderer had never seen himself falling in love.
He had renounced the feeling altogether while a part of the Fatui, and had seen little reason to seek it out even after finding freedom. Perhaps, for once the gods had been smiling down upon him when they decided to change his fate.
He met you not long after joining the akademiya. You had sought him out in the grand library one day, claiming him to look interesting, and despite the other students’ warnings, you’d wanted to get to know him.
If anything, it had been your honesty that had lead him to taking you up on the offer, and before he knew it, the two of you had become rather joined at the hip. He often looked for you in his rare free time, or offered assistance in whatever project you had to work on. For the longest time, he didn’t know what the feeling to be.
Months had passed before you’d finally asked him outright; would he want to formally date you. The concept had been foreign to him, but he always understood when you explained it. On the second day of your official commitment to one another, he took you to the Lesser Lord to allow you a glimpse into his past. His reasoning being, he didn’t want to trick you into thinking him something that he was not.
He’d expected you to be appalled, and while you were, you also appeared unsurprised. You said; you’d always had a feeling something was different about him, but despite his past actions, you could see clearly that he had changed. For the better, so you claimed.
He had never expected the feeling of liberation that came with you knowing. Instead of trying to mask the true origin of much of his knowledge, he was able to instead share with you the vast stories of his years before your lifetime. He was able to teach you much about the world, and at the same time, you were able to teach him too.
You spoke much of human relationships; you claimed you were trying to rectify the, truthfully, awful first few impressions he’d had regarding such things. You spoke to him about the meaning behind human love, and partnership. You also spoke about death, and how eventually, it claimed everything. It was the natural order of the world, you told him. He found it funny how much it went against his mother’s beliefs.
You taught him of intimacy, of the ways humans would show their adoration for one another. Over time, he came to deeply enjoy the act of physical affection, lust, and whatever else supposedly came with it. You were one of the first to truly make him feel undamaged, unhurt. Like he were still young and naive and saw the whole world as wonderful.
After much time spent together, he proposed the idea of remaining together forever. Be joined before the starts, or whatever it took; he never wanted to have to live without you. You had eagerly explained to him the ways of marriage, and soon, the two of you had been wed by the Lesser Lord in the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
At the time of your union before the very gods, he had thought little of the future. At the time, he could think only of you and your smile, and the way you leaned forward to kiss him as you solidified your vows, and how he loved you so.
In the years to follow, he often chuckled to himself at the thought of his old colleagues in Snezhnaya, and how astonished they’d probably be to find out that the cold and distant Balladeer had found himself a life partner. Despite how much it surprised him also, he couldn’t bring himself to regret a thing.
He travelled the world with you, taking you to all of his favourite places. The high peaks of Chenyu Vale, the Court of Fontaine, the City of Mondstadt. Somehow, he’d never noticed the change in your features. The first time the realization finally settled in his mind, was looking over old kamera pictures from your days at the akademiya as you celebrated your now fortieth birthday. It was the first time he’d truly realized that you had grown older, both physically and mentally, while physically he had not.
That night, you seemed to have noticed his unusual distance, and had asked him if he thought less of you since you had aged. After all, in your own words, he still looked as beautiful as the day you’d met him. He had assured you that of course he didn’t think of you any differently, as he’d made a promise to you after all. It was simply that, the weight of your mortality had begun to manifest in his mind.
He promised you that your age wouldn’t make a difference, but soon, your way of living was changing. Waking up with sore limbs, unable to travel as quickly as you used to. Of course, he didn’t mind; he had all the time in the world to spend with you, and didn’t care how you decided to have him spend it. Often, he found others would give the two of you strange looks, but he always brushed them off and cared not for their judgement.
After another thirty years, though, the adventuring of your youth had caught up to you. You confided in him something you’d apparently been dreaming of for quite some time; to retire to a little cabin out in the Inazuma countryside, and spend your time tending to the pot of padisarah flowers you had brought with you from Sumeru so many years prior. Of course, he could never refuse you, and he soon found himself living not far off from the coast of Ritou.
You claimed to love the home he’d found for the two of you, and indeed got to work sectioning off a portion of soil to plant your padisarahs. It didn’t take long for them to grow, and you developed a schedule of waking up every morning to go water them. The two of you would spend many afternoons visiting Ritou, and even some spending a night or two at an inn up in Inazuma City.
You told him that his homeland was your favourite place in all of your travels, and you loved that you would get to live with him there until the last of your days. That night, he had squeezed your hands tightly, and struggled to maintain his emotions. He didn’t want to think of you eventually leaving him, despite knowing it to be natural. Humans were not supposed to live forever; he knew that, and yet still it hurt more than anything.
He knew that, as long as everything went according to plan, he still had time left to come to terms with it, but for one night, he allowed himself to crumble.
He had stopped caring for his appearance after so many years; a simple dull blue kimono. You had told him you liked when he wore brighter colours, but he found his life had become too simple for such formality.
He was stood just a little ways away from your cabin, tending to the patch of padisarahs that still bloomed in the warmer months. You had done a wonderful job of maintaining them, and what was once two single flowers in a pot was now a good fifty in the fenced off patch of soil.
There was a small breeze that evening, the moon still obscured by the clouds. The long layer of hair that draped down his neck whispering over his shoulders. He had stopped cutting it when you had lost the ability to, but he cared not for such vain things.
He had sensed her presence just outside the parameters of his land for quite some time, but he turned his attention to her when she finally made herself known.
“Mother,” he stated, meeting eyes with the Raiden Shogun’s puppet.
She was dressed in the same garb as she always was; bright purples, pinks, fancy trinkets and the like. She held her spear in hand, but made no move to use it.
“My son,” she remarked in return. He had learned that those who truly cared for him had grown weak to the erasure attempts of Irminsul over time.
When she didn’t speak further, he returned his attention to the patch of padisarahs.
“Your partner is dying.” She spoke once more, motioning behind him to where you sat on your chair by the cabin, overlooking the sea just below the cliff.
He paused in his movements once more, and exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
“You are aware?” She sounded surprised.
“I am.” He gave a single nod of his head.
“And you are alright with that?” He understood her confusion. After all, she sought out eternity.
“It is the natural order of things,” his gaze rested upon her midsection, unable to meet her eyes, “my partner was lucky to be blessed with such a long life.”
Despite his words, she seemed to easily sense his unease. “I am sorry.” She spoke quietly, and the words sounded genuine.
He took a long breath, before he raised his eyes to meet her own. “Do you know of the afterlife? Will… will my love be alright?”
Her face had twisted to an expression of true, pained sympathy. “I’m afraid I do not.”
He forced himself to nod his head. There was no known god of death, after all. Not in his world at least.
“The feather you left with me in the Shakkei Pavilion,” he reinstated his resolve once more, “I want to bury them with it. May I?”
She was silent for a moment, merely looking over his features, before she lowered her head in a slight bow. “You may do whatever you must, my son. It is yours.”
He could only bring himself to mumble a soft ‘thank you’, and when he raised his head once more, his mother had gone.
Yes, he knew your time was near. You hadn’t eaten in a handful of days, or drank much either. He knew the signs, and he could see it in your eyes as well. You knew it too.
Slowly, he placed down the gardening tools and made his way to the cliff where you sat, taking a seat in the chair next to you where the two of you had once watched the sunset every night. You were wrapped up in one of the blankets he had knitted, hands rested in your lap. When he took his place next to you, your head slowly turned to face him, and your wrinkled features twisted into a weak smile.
He was thankful that unlike some humans, you had retained the majority of your memory even into your elderly years. Sometimes, you’d even still talk to him as if you were as young as he looked and still as youthful in the age of your mind. “My love…” you greeted him with such a quiet voice, as if all the remaining energy you possessed was simply going into paying attention to him. One of your hands began to shakily raise from your lap, and he quickly reached over to take it into his own.
“Your padisarahs are still in bloom,” he spoke, trying to keep the emotions from his voice, “and, my mother just paid a short visit.”
You scoffed at that, the best you could. “That old hag? What did she want?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle through his mix of feelings. Even in your old age you hadn’t lost your sense of humour. “Just checking up on me, nothing much.”
You hummed, and your barely present gaze continued to glance around his features as you only continued to smile.
He felt his chest tighten rather suddenly, and his hand trembled in yours as a shudder wracked through his body.
Your expression slowly fell. “My love… please don’t cry,” hearing such concern in your voice only made the tears come faster, “… I’ve lived a long time, and I haven’t regretted a second of what I did with my time…”
He sniffled rather loudly, yet nodded along with your words all the same.
“Please, my Scaramouche…” your thumb rubbed weakly over the top of his hand, before your tone turned fond, “you’re still as beautiful as the day I met you.”
He sniffled once more, but blinked his vision clear enough to look you in the eyes. Despite the wrinkles of your skin and white of your hair, he couldn’t help but think the same thing.
After a long moment, you turned your head back to the ocean, and you spoke quietly. “Bury me in my padisarahs, my love,” his breath got stuck in his throat as he heard your words, “and when your time finally comes, please return to me.”
He gave your hand a squeeze, and turned his blurred gaze to the ocean as well. “I will. I promise.”
You hummed out again, your voice sounding distant. “I love you, my husband…”
“I love you too.” In the corner of his vision, he saw your head slump slightly. He knew you to only be sleeping for the moment, but he knew you wouldn’t be waking up. He waited until he felt the last of your strength leave the hand still held in his, and he let his tears fall.
My fourth and final betrayal.
My light.
I love you.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been.
After some time, he’d stopped counting the days.
After the wind had stopped blowing, and the sky had fallen, and the erosion of time had taken most things, he returned.
The nameless puppet wandered the land. Skin hardened and reverted to porcelain, cracking under the natural elements, stiffening his limbs. He walked along the sandy coast.
Those left who had seen him in his recent years had regarded him with looks of fear. He had long lost his natural beauty, and what was left was nothing more than his mother’s simple doll.
Still, he was able to walk, and he was able to see.
He traced his steps up a way he had once often walked; along the coast of what had once been Ritou, to a small cliffside just a little further inland.
He had crumpled rather easily after so much time. With his immortal mother long dead and buried, it didn’t take long for his mechanisms to begin to fail. It was a feeling he’d had in his gut, much like the look he’d once seen in your eyes; the sense of knowing one’s time was drawing near.
He had known that it was, and despite the pain of it, had put the effort into travelling across the land once more to a place he’d called home.
He had stopped breathing not long ago; the effort it took to expand in and out his chest requiring more energy than he possessed. He hadn’t spoken much as of late either. His hair had stopped growing, and what remained lay choppy around his ears and obscuring his eyes, luckily aiding to hide his sunken in eye sockets and the cracks that descended down from them.
Most had referred to him as of late as a Yokai; the spirit of a young man who had once lost his heart. He’d been surprised at how oddly accurate the folklore of his existence had become to those who still inhabited the land.
He paused at the end of what was once the fenced off yard space of an old cabin on the edge of a cliff. The cabin sat slightly in the distance, reduced to merely a ruined pile of wood after so many years left uninhabited. However, his gaze quickly left that of the old building at the sight of a small patch of flowers.
Despite so long, the padisarahs still bloomed. Not nearly as many, and not nearly as healthy, but still, they bloomed.
He stepped closer, legs stiff, the fabric of his ragged kimono dragging against his aching limbs, and he blinked at the outline of the figure that was appearing before him.
He hated to think it, but he barely recognized you after so long. And yet, he knew it to be you all the same.
Your body was faint, and translucent, and you carried such youth in your features that he hadn’t seen for many of your final years being alive. He’d frozen stiff in place at the sight of you hovering there.
“You’ve aged.” You remarked, your voice seeming to echo around him. Despite your words, your expression wasn’t one of displeasure.
He wished he could say something to you, but his tongue had long stopped working, and his lips were too cracked to speak without breaking himself.
His silence however didn’t deter you.
“My love,” you held out your arms towards him, “come home.”
With the final bits of energy he held, he willed himself forward as he began to reach for you. For a long time, he’d feared that, in his nature as a puppet, and lacking a heart, he might not possess a true soul either. And yet, his hands fell into yours, and he felt the weight of his joints suddenly become much lighter.
He ascended into the air with you, as the vessel that was his eroded body collapsed and shattered into the patch of flowers.
He felt your palm against his cheek, and he felt words suddenly return to his mouth.
“(Name),” he said simply. He hadn’t said it aloud in such a long time.
“Scara,” you returned in change, smiling so warmly that he felt his years of loneliness leaving him, “my Scara.”
You had once told him that, you hadn’t regretted a thing you’d done with your time. Now, he could say as he kissed you once more, he didn’t regret a thing either.