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The Wanderer's night began as any other – He gathered a breath in his artificial lungs, blew the gasping candles out, and padded over to the bed where his companion lay in a heap, snoring softly.
The inn was a small and sad place, he thought as he reclined into the scratchy material. Since he rarely needed the sleep, the Wanderer had considered settling for any less than the barest of comforts an insult. It hadn't seemed to bother the sleeping samurai at all, though, seeing as he often fell into restful dreams as soon as his head hit the pillow (restful only for one party, as the Wanderer learned quickly on their travels). But it didn't bother him anymore. In fact, it only made him want to reach over, and sweep those snowy bangs back behind the shell of his ear, and he'd kiss the samurai's brows with the night having sworn to secrecy.
No matter how intimate Kaedehara Kazuha had grown with the Wanderer, such sinful thoughts should never be greeted by the sun; Kazuha could leave lingering touches over his arms all he wanted, as he guided them to harness the winds and despite the puppet's protests that he was more than proficient with his Vision. As well, when they woke up each morning, often entangled, with Kazuha nuzzling into the crook of his shoulder.
"A little longer… The sun shall wait for our leisure," the samurai would mutter, his voice drowsy with sleep.
And then the Wanderer would have no choice but to stay trapped with him for the rest of that morning.
But the Seven forbid the Wanderer return such affection so blatantly. It was much too unbecoming of… whatever title he wished to assume. Kabukimono, Balladeer, The Prodigal, well, they paled in comparison to any teasing name Kazuha happened to latch onto the past few months of their journey not only through Inazuma, but one in search of a name as well – Hat Guy , when the two wanderers first met under the canopy of Sumeru's forests. An alias granted by the God of Wisdom (he was sure it was in some sick display of authority), but also something of a fond memory when Kazuha had called it out, never without a trace of laughter in his songbird voice.
Aoi , which followed. The Wanderer had thought Kazuha to be a poet with a little more creativity, but he begrudgingly admitted it was befitting of his wardrobe. He suspected that Kazuha'd drawn inspiration from the Hydro Nation too, at that point in their travels, since it was quite literally impossible to look upon those lands without something blue beaming back.
He shuddered at the memories, finally shuffling to push his back against Kazuha who did not even stir. Only for warmth, he hummed. My sleeping stone.
Then, Hajime , beginning , which was a little on the nose, but he appreciated the sentiment nevertheless. Unfortunately, it'd been quite the challenge for the locals of Chenyu Vale and Liyue to pronounce. Which may or may not have been a great source of frustration for the Wanderer, but unceasing entertainment for his gentle companion, as they made the long trek down to Liyue Harbour.
"That has got to have been on purpose. That illiterate excuse of a merchant has got to know of my past, and now chooses to make a mockery of who was once Shouki No Kami. I will not stand for this impiety," Wanderer scowled back at the diminishing silhouette of said merchant, who merrily carried on with his day after having invented a new cursed spell in an attempt to pronounce Hajime, of all names.
Kazuha hid his chuckle behind his fist, and Wanderer had to bite back a smile. Rarely did he make an effort in the department of humour, but in truth, he had wanted Kazuha's smile to be for him only that night. Kazuha guided them to a quieter street in the bustling scene of the Harbour at dusk, and Wanderer thanked his ever-observant soul, not just because he did actually have half the mind to storm back to the stall and commit certain atrocities, but also because he'd always preferred the quiet anyway.
The paths where he could hear the trees rustle over incessant chattering of people, the threads of wind spinning down to tousle Kazuha's wild, almost cornsilk hair, in the amber glow of Liyue streets.
"Such is the price of poetry, my Hajime," Kazuha responded, lips caressing the name like it was the most treasured thing in the world. And suddenly Wanderer could not breathe. He could only stare at the samurai, mouth hanging agape like an idiot. Mine . My Hajime. That caused Kazuha to break out into laughter again, the little gap sitting adorably between his front teeth demanding the Wanderer's attention.
"I jest, I jest. I could not call it poetry, however pleasant it is. A name should be at least as pretty as its owner.”
Just like that Wanderer had been ready for a new name.
"Speak for yourself," he'd huffed, turning away to hide his face, unsure if his skin even had the capacity to flush, but unwilling to risk Kazuha noticing as much. That is what he told himself.
But perhaps the bed was softer than he'd admitted, (he often did not acknowledge contentment, a frivolous thing), or that anywhere with Kazuha was warm enough to feel like a home, because the next part of the story escaped him, and the Wanderer slept.
—
In his dreams there were sakura trees.
He sat under one such tree, which he knew to be Flower's First Blushing Bloom. The very one Kazuha had taken him to in Chinju Forest. The one their lips had met under . He knew this, somehow.
But the intoxicating purple leaves did not glistened as they should have, in the moonlight. Instead, they seemed to quiver, shuddering. Even the streams in the forest swam quietly, as if afraid to break the silence. Statues and stones alike, stilled around the Wanderer. Although more eerie than Chinju usually liked to be, Wanderer leaned against the ashen trunk of the tree – It was not an unusual dream, after all.
Thus, the voice that came from behind did not startle him. (Not enough that he flinched, at least.)
"Kabukimono, have you come at last?"
He turned his head to look and its owner, catching sight of a braid, a purple and white kimono, pure as a dove, sitting on the opposite side of the tree. He didn't need to see a face to know who it was.
"My presence is no small honour, you know. And yours is a nuisance of similar magnitude." He said simply, gazing at the cold moon.
The voice hummed, in agreement, perhaps. "Yet it is you who chooses to return each night.
"Surely, the All-Knowing God would not let his dreams be denoted by the stars and gods, neither of which are real to him."
At this Wanderer scowls, pushing himself up to stand before the irritatingly-right figure. The grass does not even rustle beneath his feet.
"You are not Ei, not even her shadow. Just a transient thought I may banish at any moment, and yet you speak with such temerity."
Makoto laughs with a fist before her lips, reminiscent of a certain young man, seemingly unperturbed by the Wanderer's shadow now looming over her being. He looks into her eyes, unyielding, coy, hiding a sea of secrets within.
"Still, you have not. Could it be that you are awaiting something? …Someone, perhaps?" She said it in the way an old friend would inquire about one's day, a stray remark, barely with intent to have it answered.
"I would rather enjoy this memory with my companion. Without you or your sister's arrogation tainting even my dreams, I pray."
"Oh? Who said anything about my sister?"
Sevens-damned, insufferable-
But the figure that was not-Ei, nor Makoto winked into a flurry of sakura petals, billowing into his face and scattering themselves into the rivers and soil. The sweet scent of newbloom filling his nostrils and beckoning what was simmering beneath his skin. He wondered if someone revelled in his disgust, knew of his distaste for all things so sweet and forced it into all of his senses, all of a sudden.
He knew what came next, but could not stop his ichor, blood, or whatever it was that kept his heart beating, from running cold.
The silence became heavier yet. The air was dread, it joined his dread, but despite Makoto's claims of his dominion, he would not escape once he heard the first steps from which the dream shattered. No… Please. If only one night.
The voice that rang from the other side of the trunk was unmistakably Ei's, this time. It did not even bother with the pretence of kindness, as Makoto's often did. Instead, when she spoke, only thousands of samsaras of patience kept the Wanderer's feet rooted. Not that he had anywhere to run to, anyway, not in this space.
"I could not keep you. I could not give the Gnosis to you. I would not see you suffer, had you been given a heart."
Scripted lines. It may as well be the Shogun puppet, so desolate that a heart was as distant as Celestia.
"I suffered because I wasn't given a heart!" He might have screamed against the bark. An eternity ago, he would have, but Kazuha had led him a long way from where he used to reside - A hollow chasm where he could indulge in all his self-pity, forgotten by the world.
But he had seen a flicker of blue in the corner of his eye. In the beginning, only his imagination, salvation born out of a desperate boy's will that was the only thing that had not abandoned him. And from this, he grew wings. The seelie was real, after all. Intangible and always escaping his gaze, yes, but he lifted his wide-brimmed hat to see better and it showed him the beautiful, feigned sky. Look, look at the voracity of life.
No longer did the Wanderer hide his face. His acquaintances and foes knew it no longer; Even his mother would only frown in bemusement, reaching for a memory that escaped the omnipotent Archons.
"You don't need anyone to love you, little boy." It was such a voiceless, drifting thought, not even his dreams heard it.
Or maybe it did, in the way dream-Ei leaned around the tree and Wanderer could not recognise her face.
The figment shifted into a thousand maple leaves, and its crystallised sunset eyes left Wanderer with a feeling of the howling wind between his ribs. A bandaged hand reached towards him, Maybe you were wrong , dancing on those fingertips.
Of course he was.
Wanderer heard more than felt his mechanical lungs heave and he stepped back from the crumbling forest.
From the river, a gaze burning into his back. From his gaze, turning to his reflection, a river. The beginning, and his destiny, one could say.
Had his hair always been this long?
—
“Wanderer, Kokoro ,” A familiar voice tugs him from his slumber, a soothing caress down his back.
Wanderer turns to face him, groggy and still gasping for air he did not need. Yet, he could not help but appreciate the moonlight spilling over Kazuha's shoulders, and his cheek, painting his hair as quicksilver. There was comfort in such a sight, he thinks. Such a blessed existence, for his heart to be so opulently human.
"Did I wake you?"
Kazuha only shushes him, running his knuckles along his cheekbones; He didn't even realise there was moisture there.
"Why do you cry, Kokoro ?" (Let me carry your burdens, my heart.)
Wanderer could not stop his tears. Not in his dreams, not when Kazuha holds him like this – One sacred hand on his back, one wiping his imperfection dry, so he shakes his head as best he could.
Kazuha smiles, sweetly, when Wanderer's hand comes up to rest against the back of his, pulls it to his lips and kisses his fingertips. What could pride and divinity offer, if not the moment after? Kazuha curling ever closer and stealing a kiss from the corner of his mouth? Wanderer thinks he must have died in his dreams.
"Come with me," he whispers with a hoarse voice.
—
The wind is chilly, since he left his layers back at the inn.
But huddled against Kazuha, his head resting against warmth and a scarf, it is not so bad. The sea sloshes against the sand between the pairs' feet, a rhythmic undulation, and staccato to the song Kazuha hums to the clouds. The tune reminds Wanderer of spring in a simpler time.
"Have I ever told you, the stars, the sky…" he begins, fidgeting with the samurai's fingers in his own.
Kazuha pauses then, always such a sense for the weight behind words, and waits.
How far the Wanderer had travelled.
If he squinted he would see Tatarasuna. A heart in a box. Life on a timer, a golden feather in hand.
Yet he chooses not to, opting to look at the man beside him who had taken his bloody pulp of a heart, and forged it into an instrument of (dare he say?) love. Thrumming with this thing he had looked in every crevice of the world for.
He did not find it in betrayals, nor the people who had not betrayed him. It didn’t reside in the remnants of dead Descender, certainly. At the orders of eternity and transience, it flitted over them, but did not stay for long. And as much as Wanderer wanted to say it lay with a divine being, he knew its beauty was threaded through his ephemeral, stubborn, eloquent mortality.
Kazuha. Kokoro, he would say.
The truth of the world could wait, then, he decided.
Tonight, Wanderer wanted to feel his heart. He grips Kazuha’s hand.
“Nevermind, sweet song.” And then he stands, dragging Kazuha up, runs for the moon and along the meeting of the water and land.
Kazuha’s whoop of surprise frees the laughter from his own godforsaken chest as he runs and runs, the breeze turning into a colder and harsher sting against his flesh, but Wanderer thinks he has never felt so known.
He slows a little, turns his head to catch Kazuha’s toothy grin behind him and does not stop.
Instead, the wanderers veer towards the sea. Their sandals slosh and push against their movement as they fill with saltwater, Wanderer faintly feels one of his slip off. Let the Dark Sea have it; He’s feeling gracious tonight.
They run from the world for a while: There is Tenshukaku to their distant right, but they fly past it and leave it in another world. A crackling, roaring whirlwind of electro behind them; A journey for another day.
And when Wanderer finally stops, Kazuha almost pulls both of them over as his momentum rips his hands from Wanderer’s, threatening to send him crashing down into the water.
But Wanderer is always there to catch him, pulling him back on his feet.
There the Wanderer stands, breathless and panting, pressing his hand to his chest, knee-deep in the waves.
Aoi, Hajime, Fujin, Meiro, Kitakaze, Kokoro, even Hat-Guy, or simply, a wanderer, throws his head back in abandon, as if he may present the beads from his eyes to the Moon Goddess as a final offering.
Here, take what you will, before I return to my heart.
Kazuha thinks that he will spend the rest of his life writing poems about the sight, and none will capture the wanderer’s resplendence.