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From the moment the puppet was created, it knew it wasn’t female. Even if it had the anatomy of a perfect young woman, something in it just said that it wasn’t truly a girl.
It pretended as if the ‘something’ was nonexistent. It focused solely on doing everything its creator, its mother, told it. Hoping that she would give it a heart, something to make it feel human.
Until it fell victim to the fate that befalls all toys: thrown away like dross in the wind once its creator got bored of playing with it. Except the creator, in the puppet’s case, was its mother too.
Isn’t a mother supposed to love her child, even if the child is a failure? This is the question the puppet asked itself, its last thought before its creator cast him into slumber.
The first betrayal.
~~~~~
The Kabukimono disliked the sound of the hammer hitting the metal, but they endured it. After all, the humans endure this sound too. So they wiped the nonexistent sweat off their brow, tucked a stray lock of dark indigo hair behind their ear, and continued working.
“Hey, Kabukimono, just a question…” Niwa Hisahide. One of the few humans the Kabukimono didn’t just tolerate but harboured actual affection for.
“Go on.”
“Doesn’t it get irritating to have to fix your hair every few minutes? Why do you like to keep it long?” Niwa asked curiously. “…Of course, if it’s just a personal style preference, I won’t bother you about it anymore. I’m just curious,” he hastily added.
“…” The Kabukimono had no words. They never actually thought about it. Why did they keep their hair long? Was it some kind of filial piety to their creator, even if she threw them away? Was it a futile attempt to look more like their mother? Or perhaps they felt a sense of attachment to their hair whenever they saw the human girls with their long locks, even if they themselves didn’t quite feel feminine?
Niwa’s innocent question followed the Kabukimono throughout the day.
The next day, when they returned to the forge to work alongside their human ‘friends’, their hair was choppy and short. A sharp glare at anyone about to question the change was enough to make the humans back down, though Niwa didn’t show any intention of wanting to ask. Maybe he could sense that the Kabukimono wouldn’t be too comfortable with answering questions.
Maybe Niwa is a true friend, the Kabukimono thought.
Things were looking up in their life. A man named Escher had revolutionised the forging process to help smith weapons using ‘Crystal Marrow’, and business was rapidly improving.
Then people started dying. The Kabukimono went to the Shogun to request an audience, only to be rejected. When they returned, Escher told them that Niwa had fled and left the people to their fates. To make matters worse, Niwa had left the Kabukimono a box containing the heart of a subordinate he had killed.
It horrified the Kabukimono that someone they had considered a friend had performed an act of such immense cruelty, but perhaps they should not have expected much from humans.
The second betrayal.
~~~~~
The puppet chanced upon a boy plagued with an illness and found that they quite liked being with him. A fledgling barely out of the nest, just like them. The boy had no one to care for him. So the puppet did the ‘human’ thing to do, the kind thing to do, and stayed with him.
One day, as the boy was sewing a little doll for them, he asked them, “Why do you look like a girl, but refuse to be called one?”
A bitter taste rose in the puppet’s mouth. “Because I’m not. I don’t care what I look like. Inside, I’m not a girl, and that’s what matters to me.”
The boy hummed. “Well, do you mind if I call you a boy, then?”
The puppet was prepared to say no. They were used to having no real gender. But they found that…maybe they could have a try at being male. “…Well, I suppose I don’t mind.”
The boy nodded as he continued sewing with slightly-trembling fingers. “Okay.” A pause as they both did their own things in a much more comfortable silence. “…Whether you want to be a girl or a boy or anything else, I promise I won’t leave you.”
And that was it. The puppet decided that he wanted to be a man, and so he was one. A puppet staying with a sickly boy, living a tranquil life as a happy family of two. It could’ve been a happy ending.
Then tragedy struck. The boy succumbed to his illness and broke his promise.
Leaving the puppet alone once more.
The third betrayal.
~~~~~
A man called Pierro found the puppet wandering across Inazuma. “Come. Join the Fatui and take your place at the banquet against the divine,” Pierro told him. Intrigued, he accepted. He joined the Fatui’s ranks and had his divine power unlocked, in exchange for becoming the lab rat of someone named Dottore.
Over the next century or so, the puppet led an expedition to the Abyss as ordered by the Tsaritsa. A series of injuries and repairs and enhancements later, he finished his expedition and returned to Snezhnaya. In return, he was given the name Scaramouche and the position of The Balladeer, Sixth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers.
He felt…powerful. Not just physically. He could order those pathetic humans around, kill as many as he liked except for a select few, and suffer absolutely no consequences. He had so much control over the lives of others and himself.
Except for one thing, which Dottore was currently working to change.
“When are you going to be done? I’m not lying on this stupid bed for the next couple centuries,” he groaned. “It’s literally just removing my boobs. What the hell’s so hard about that?”
Dottore sighed. “Do be patient. Modification of a puppet’s body—actually, modification of any kind of body, while keeping it alive—is precision work. Especially around the chest area, considering all the vital organs around there.” He paused. “…And it’s an operating table, not a bed.”
“‘Precision work’ my ass. Work faster.” Scaramouche scoffed. “I don’t have all day.”
“You don’t have just one day,” Dottore retorted. “You have, according to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa, ‘As long as it takes for you to recover from the procedure’.”
Scaramouche laughed. “Recovery? I’m a puppet, I don’t need to ‘recover’.”
“Well, you do need time for your body to replenish all the…whatever the Electro liquid that replaces your blood is…” Dottore replied.
“…Fine. But can you not drag it out?” Scaramouche huffed. “I’m getting bored.” Besides, having the Doctor stand over his half-nude body was making him ever so slightly uncomfortable. Not that he’d ever reveal that.
Dottore, being the piece of shit he was, laughed. “No promises.”
It felt like eons before Dottore was done, and even after that, Scaramouche had to ‘rest’ in bed to recover from the surgery.
It felt good the next time he threw an underling against the wall and heard their spine snap like a twig. He was still getting used to having a flat chest, but he liked the feeling.
It made him feel less like he was pretending to be something he wasn’t, and more like he was being who he wanted to be.
~~~~~
Scaramouche had obtained the Electro Gnosis, then bailed out and travelled to Sumeru, where there was a giant mechanical vessel awaiting him. All according to Dottore’s plan to make him the Archon he deserved to be, through an artificial vessel powered by the Electro Gnosis.
However, what wasn’t planned was the pesky Traveler, the one whose life he’d used as a bargaining chip for the Gnosis, showing up with that irritating Paimon and the weak Dendro Archon. All three—two, actually, considering that Paimon was substantially more useless than the other two—with a plan of their own to stop him.
Of course, he did what he had to: fight the Traveler. Plenty had tried and failed, but he knew he would not. Given the kind of companions they had right now, he easily pushed the Traveler back and grabbed that useless Lesser Lord Kusanali (emphasis on ‘Lesser’).
Just as he’d lifted her up to his level, something shifted. However, he felt no pain. Well, except for the burning sensation of the tubes connecting him to the Shouki no Kami, but wasn’t pain a small price to pay for the vengeance he would enact on everyone who’d wronged him?
He decided not waste time on a villain monologue when he could just carry out his goal. He pulled the Gnosis out of the Dendro Archon before simply dropping her. Her tiny body made a satisfying thud as it hit the ground, coupled with the snap of bones cracking, Dendro energy pouring out of the ‘wounds’. Scaramouche laughed maniacally, the Traveler and Paimon’s horrified expressions energising him. He defeated the two idiots easily.
But something shifted, and he suddenly found himself back at the point when he was holding the lesser lord. Huh…? He decided to ignore the strangeness of the scenario, killing the trio again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Over and over, he defeated the trio, only for time to be rewound. No matter how fast he defeated them, no matter how he killed them, no matter how mangled he made their corpses, it would start over. Was this to be his punishment? Trapped in an endless cycle of killing and defeating?
Then suddenly, he was back again. And the strange feeling he’d felt right at the beginning…vanished completely.
“The data collection is almost complete.” That was the first time Lesser Lord Kusanali had spoken. “…Do you know how many times you’ve tried to take my Gnosis from me?”
“…The power of dreams…” Scaramouche realised what had happened. He’d been trapped in a samsara cycle. “…When did you use it on me?” he asked in anger.
Then he recalled the moment when he’d pulled her to his height and felt that strange feeling.
“…” He paused, before chuckling. “You can’t even defeat me in a dream. How can you possibly hope to defeat me in the real world?”
The lesser lord had the audacity to ignore him, turning to the Traveler. Saying something about the Akasha and how they now had the knowledge and battle experience of everyone in Sumeru at their disposal.
Oh well, not like there’d be any difference, with how pathetic the Traveler was. Scaramouche continued the battle.
But the Traveler, armed with knowledge of all his attacks and the battle experience of everyone in Sumeru…proved too powerful even for him.
After a hard-fought battle, the Shouki no Kami fell to its knees, sparking.
This wasn’t how this was supposed to go! He was supposed to be the one coming out on top! He’d worked so hard, endured so much agony, caused so many to suffer, only for these three insufferable pests to defeat him…
Then Lesser Lord Kusanali floated up to the Shouki no Kami with a determined expression. She reached out her hand, and Scaramouche registered the sound of breaking glass as the Electro Gnosis started floating out of the vessel towards her outstretched hand.
Scaramouche’s eyes widened in horror. “NO!” he screamed. “Not the Gnosis! Anything but the Gnosis!” He resisted the urge to beg with her, to offer her anything in exchange for letting him keep the one thing that he truly yearned for. He tried to reach out for the Gnosis, ignoring the burning pain on his back at straining the tubes connecting him to his vessel.
Who cared about the vessel. All he really needed was the Gnosis. His Gnosis. His heart.
But try as he may, he achieved nothing except making his back hurt like hell, and Lesser Lord Kusanali grabbed hold of the Electro Gnosis.
Suddenly, he heard a ripping sound as the tubes holding him tore in half. With nothing holding him, he toppled forward and started falling from the dizzying height of the Shouki no Kami’s head.
Falling down, down, down.
He closed his eyes. He felt…at peace. Truly at peace, for the first time since his creation.
No more betrayals.
No more dysphoria about his identity.
No more thoughts of unworthiness.
He hit the ground.
A wave of agony all over, then blissful nothing.
~~~~~
Scaramouche opened his eyes. …Wait. How was he alive…?
No. Surely this was an afterlife of some kind, or maybe he was a ghost-
“Ah, you’re awake. And here I was thinking you were too far gone to be fixed.” He turned towards the source of the voice. It was the man he’d struck with lightning by accident.
“…Fixed…?” He looked down at himself. He was in a new set of clothes fusing Inazuma and Sumeru fashion, and frankly he quite liked the colour palette. But more notably, there were no cracks or scratches or even sensations of pain. He was completely whole.
The young man nodded. “Lesser Lord Kusanali asked me to repair you. Truthfully, it was quite the challenge, considering you are both extremely similar to and completely different from a human. But apparently I did a good job. …I’m Tighnari, by the way.”
“Don’t care, didn’t ask.” The snarky words were out of his mouth before he could even thin. He was just so used to treating everyone as either replaceable objects or idiots he had to work with. No one had ever made some semblance of an effort to treat him with kindness, except maybe Tartaglia. “…Sorry. …For the comment, and for…striking you with lightning,” he said in a gentler tone.
Tighnari sighed. “I forgive you, but both the comment and the lightning strike weren’t really…” he trailed off, ears flicking. “…Anyways, Lesser Lord Kusanali wanted to talk to you in private once you were repaired and functional.”
Just then, the door opened and the Dendro Archon stepped inside. “I told you, just call me Nahida. And there’s no need to bow. Tighnari, you may take your leave,” she said gently. Tighnari nodded and stepped out. “…Now, Scaramouche, we have plenty to talk about.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he replied. “I messed up. Give me whatever consequences you can think of. I’m sure no matter how horrifying my punishment is, I deserve it.”
Nahida shook her head. “I disagree. …This might be hard for you to register, but it was all Dottore’s fault.” She gently explained how Dottore had disguised himself as Escher and showed the Tatarasuna craftspeople how to forge Crystal Marrow weapons, knowing full well the harmful effects of the material, then murdered Niwa and cut his heart out while Scaramouche—then known as the Kabukimono—had been away. She answered all of Scaramouche’s questions with endless patience, not minding when she got interrupted.
When she finished she said, “…I also know the secret of your identity.”
“…Which secret? I hold many pieces of undisclosed information that even you haven’t heard of,” he replied with a casual tone. But inside, he was scared. What if Nahida would judge him based on the Raiden Shogun’s cruel actions (that he indirectly caused)? What if Nahida thought him a weak failure because of how Ei had abandoned him? What if she knew that he had been made as a woman, and chose to judge him as such?
“Do not worry. I will do none of that.” She sat down on the bed, looking up at him with infinite wisdom in her green eyes. “…Remember. You do not have to be associated with your creator. You do not have to think of yourself based on how she thought of you. And you are who you choose to be, not who she wanted you to be.” Nahida placed her hand on his shoulder. Hesitating, before giving him a side hug.
“…” Scaramouche had half a mind to push her away. But he looked down at her. She’d been starved of love and affection for five hundred years. At least he had acquaintances, friends, even family at some points. …Besides, while he’d never admit it…he needed a hug too.
If he hugged her back and the duo shed a few tears, no one was around to witness it.
After that little show of emotion, Scaramouche talked to Nahida a little more before she got up to leave. Just before stepping out the door, she turned back. “…A reminder, Scaramouche. You are who you choose to be. Choose your own path, one that you will be proud of when you reach the end.”
Scaramouche’s gaze lingered at the door for a while after the petite Archon had left.
Choose your own path.
~~~~~
Scaramouche stood before the Irminsul, gazing up at the beautiful pale branches with sakura-pink leaves. Pity that he’d never return to Inazuma to see the real sakura.
He had contemplated the possible effects erasing himself from Teyvat would have, and decided it would be more than worth it.
Without him, so many people would have lived happy and healthy lives. He’d caused nothing but pain and misery, and he was sure that most would agree,
Like a paper riddled with mistakes written in ink, the only way to get rid of the mistakes would be to throw it away. Throw himself away.
He would forge his own path, a path of sacrifice. One life for many.
He wondered if the youngest version of him would be proud of him, for having the courage to make this kind of decision, or disappointed for everything else he’d done in the past few centuries.
He stepped into the Irminsul. “I wish I’d never been born at all.”
World forget me
He stepped back, confused.
What was he doing at the Irminsul? …Who was he?
He sat down. Flashes of memories(?) slipping out of his mind like sand between his fingers.
After what could have been a second or a year, he got up. No use moping or pondering about pointless questions.
He resolved that from this day forth, he cared not for who or what he had been in the past.
He was a puppet. He had nothing more than the clothes on his back, the hat on his head, and the resolve to choose his own path.
He was the Wanderer, and nothing and no one could change that.
~~~~~