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“I want to go home.”
It’s such an odd sentiment. It makes his eyes burn with tears he refuses to shed over something so contradictory to what is undeniably true. He is home. This apartment, up top in the Palais Mermonia, given to him when he first arrived all those centuries ago, this is his home now. He has never been without a home, even if what he has considered home has changed.
The first one, the very first, was the sea. All of the lakes and rivers poured into the oceans of Teyvat where he had lived for millennia. That was his home. When that was taken, when his own life was taken, he found a new home, in a new body. A small house, built by humans. Nothing fancy, nothing pretty, but it was home. And when that home became empty, when even he had to leave it, he returned to the water. Not the same sprawling seas he used to call home; no, it was more of a giant lake. But it was still home. When that was destroyed, poisoned and tainted by the abyss, he was given this one.
He has always had a home. He currently is home, sitting on a bed he has been able to cover with pillows and blankets and anything soft he could ever want. The shelves are lined with sea shells and mechanical parts gifted to him by the melusines. Everything in every room of this apartment is exactly how he wants it. The perfect definition of a home. But still, in his mind, it echoes.
“I want to go home.”
If this isn’t home, where is? Humans often say home is where the heart is, but even among the melusines, even with Wriothesley, sometimes a melancholy so deep sweeps over him and all he can think is “I want to go home”. He can hold tight onto Wriothesley and bury his face in his neck, talk to Sedene or Aeife or any other melusine he meets about their day, but his heart will still ache for home.
“I want to go home.”
Perhaps home isn’t a place, or a person, but a time. This thought only bothered him once in his past life; when he laid on the ground, vivisected by that usurper’s god of life for their own creation. All he had wanted was to return to the seas, as if by staying down there he could avoid all that the usurper brought.
Home means comfort and love, yes, but it also means safety. Guaranteed safety. Stability. It means peers, friends, family to be close to. Home is a place, yes, but it is also a time in one’s life carved out specifically for all of the things a home is meant to be.
Home is something he hasn’t had in millennia. Something he probably won’t have for another few centuries at best. Or something he will never have again. Not truly, not fully.
His eyes still burn, and he still refuses to cry. He lays back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, his throat tight as he forces down the emotions threatening to bubble up and out of him. This is comfort, this is stability, but this isn’t home. It never was. It’s merely an approximation, something close to home without actually being home. Close enough that most times it doesn’t matter.
But sometimes, sorrow pulls him so far under that he can’t bring himself to move. Sometimes, fear shines so bright that he hides in a corner hoping the usurper won’t recognise this body. Sometimes, his loneliness becomes so potent that he wants to hold those he cares for as close as possible and never let them go. Sometimes, being somewhere that’s merely ‘close enough’ to home isn’t nearly enough for himself.
A light drizzle taps against his window. His cheeks are wet from the tears that managed to escape, but he can’t bother to pay them any mind. He keeps his eyes glued to the ceiling, darkened by the clouds outside, and whispers to the empty room.
“I want to go home.”