Archive of Our Own

Underneath the glow of pale moonlight, even the Alcore’s large wooden deck seems almost gentle. Silver, like molten metal.

Huddled at the decks center, a bit further up the ship, is the boisterous crew. With a massive bonfire that is teetering between endangering the crew and exciting them, the night's peaceful edge is shattered by the roaring noise of dancing and singing, laughter and hollering from quick handed games and dandy flirting.

There is food and mead, sweltering dishes brought back from the harbour, and tonight is a celebration of another dangerous gamble that the crew had miraculously won by the skin of their yellowing teeth. The Queen of the Crux and slayer of the Leviathan, Captain Beidou, has sailed back toward the faintly glittering lights of Liyue on her own to visit someone. They’re not far, but they aren’t allowed to dock. Even pirates cannot be so bold without the proper paperwork.

At least that’s what the Wanderer has overheard. Pirates gossip, and recently they have chatted about a scorned lover the captain holds close to her heart. He doesn’t really care why she left, he’s just along for the ride. But it’s an important habit. He always listens. It keeps one alive to have open ears ready for any opportunity. Or any weakness.

And with the sea Queen gone, her little family of pirates is enjoying their temporary freedom. Bursting into the stocks to find the cheeses and the spice, the alcohol and the meat. Setting up this big flame on a wooden ship just to prove they’re just as daring as the rumors. Once she returns they will be polishing the deck until the seasons turn, but that is for the future, and this is the present moment. With a person to gamble, drink, or dance in circles around, all tomorrows seem far and detached from the joyfulness of the present.

Once, he thinks he might have been like this. Kicking up sand on a beach; dancing with a sword in his delicate hands. Trying hard to impress. Being impressed by others. And never once being held back by himself. His ego was too shallow and barbed to allow him to do something so frivolous and fun anymore.

He can’t dance. Held in place like a statue. Years of worldly experience have stolen what faith he had from his core. But he watches the joyful scene from the shadows, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. It’s not such a bad sight.

“Oi, that was my cup. Get your own!”

“D– yar not beatin’ me!”

“Dancin? Ah– I don’ really dance…”

There is a lot of noise. So many voices and flashes of color, and it doesn’t look like it will be stopping until dawn.

The Wanderer takes in a breath he doesn’t need, filling his core with the cool energy, focusing on the numbing swirl before dissipating it, sighing the power back out in a glowing stream of light. It doesn’t seem to make him feel anything. Other than the slightest touch, an abysmal sensation, and then it is gone.

… This was going to be a long night.

He should have hopped off the ship when they were still in the port, but he had been leaning against a sleeping Kazuha. Even the smallest movement would have roused the poet, and he had not slept in two full days from the thunderstorms while they were out at sea. He needed to regain his strength, so the Wanderer had waited for him to wake without moving a muscle.

Unfortunately, now he is trapped on this vessel, watching an event that he wants to join but cannot convince himself to enter. He is an outsider here, regardless of how much they insist otherwise. And even if he wasn't, these sorts of human activities are not things he can enjoy.

But he does enjoy seeing the poet at the center of the light, a mosaic of shadows to warm the firelight. His haori brightly reflects the glows, the oranges and reds popping out like embers. His white hair looks almost blonde near his face and grey where it is kissed by the moon. He’s been sat down by the crew, begged to tell an animated story about defeating an incredible warrior. Something from his past as he wandered alone.

As he tells it, he sips a cup of warmed saké, a rice alcohol they are both fond of. And each time he finishes it, the red cup is refilled by the captain's second in command who says loudly,

“Once Beidou gets back ya won't be allowed a single drip of the stuff! So enjoy it now, lil’ lord!”

Though Kazuha makes no move to push the bottle away, the Wanderer reads his wobbly speech and unrefined sitting posture for what it is. He’s had enough. From here is going beyond tipsy. Kazuha is not one who can hold his alcohol, yet he has been absorbed entirely in the triumphal atmosphere.

Tomorrow, he’ll be clinging to the side of the ship, vomiting and cursing himself. But like everyone else here, that is tomorrow's problem. And he is enjoying himself in the present moment. The Wanderer envies his freedom.

The story he is telling, and quite poorly by now, is one that he has told the Wanderer himself, but without any of these pointless theatrics. His head laid in the other's lap and his eyes closed as the breeze blew through the rolling hills. Kazuha’s voice had been barely above a whisper as he recounted not his incredible, boastful bravery, but all of his trembling and sincere fear during that day.

The real story goes that while he was alone in Inazuma, after the Vision Hunt Degree began and took everything he had left leaving him hunted as a criminal, to be executed on sight, the samurai passed through a dying village.

A haunted village, or so said the denizens of that dwindling place. Cursed by the Youkai.

The reality of the tale was that it was a man driven mad by the war, killing off the good people there in an animalistic hunt, believing them to be soldiers stationed there temporarily. Once he had figured that out, Kazuha and him had dueled, though it was not much of a fight for him, and of course the one still standing had been victorious. The lone samurai, Kaedehara Kazuha.

But there was a twist —- that man, when Kazuha had struck forward to end his suffering, turned to black liquid and fell without a trace. The villagers hadn’t been entirely wrong. The man was not merely a man, but somebody who had fallen prey to some monster of the night, and his hatred and grief had fed it until it fled his body to infect someone anew.

When Kazuha returned to the village to share the news, the people there no longer recognized him. They had no memory of the monster that had been terrorizing them, nor of all the people they had once loved and buried just days prior. It had shaken Kazuha to the core, and he had not stayed there any longer. Desperate to get as far away from their terrible fate as he could.

Though he has told this story many times before, when he reaches this conclusion the crowd circling around him cheers, and one man claps him on his shoulder. He startles at the hit, lost as he is in his own mind, smiling awkwardly when he comes back to himself. Unsure of whether to laugh or frown.

The Wanderer has seen enough.

Instead of bemoaning his exclusion any longer, he decides to retire to the ship's quarterdeck for the night. It is still loud. But it feels better to be a little bit above it all, looking down with only the darkness to keep him company. It is cooler here, the ocean waves like smelted ore that swirls up and down, over and over, creating a hypnotizing view.

When he leans up against the wall of the ship the sway isn’t a bad feeling to relax into. The water is glittering and bubbly as it moves and flows across the surface of the haul, and as he imagines how deep and dangerous it is just a few feet below his core jumps with worry. He’s never been able to swim, but that makes the sea all the more compelling. Like it’s a game between them to see who goes down first. The ocean may think it will win because it is vast and vicious, but he is tricky and tenacious, and he thinks he could match it just fine.

If he squints, he thinks he can see the lights of Liyue harbor. The city never sleeps, especially on a night as pleasant as this. With Lantern Rite ending, the last of the celebrations are dialing back. Slightly warm but not too humid with a good breeze and only the smallest chance of rain. And if he strains his ears he thinks he might be able to hear the bells announcing boats coming and going from the port. They don’t do that in Inazuma. It’s just a bit interesting how different it is, so near yet so far from each other.

He’s had to discover the hard way that there is much he hasn’t experienced. Even after three hundred years after being brought to life, his actual lived experience is limited to almost nothing.

Time passes quickly after he settles down with his legs crossed, taking a meditative pose against the crows nest. The noise from below being swallowed up by the churning winds. He runs his fingers through the air and then takes some fully into the palm of his hands, carefully turning the whirlwind to different shapes before letting it rest and return back to the ocean breeze. Meditating, finally grasping the concept after it eluded him for so many years of trying.

But one sound that works at breaking any meditation is footsteps. Footsteps approaching him, coming up the steps, the creak of wood from the weight of a moving creature.

He shouldn’t startle as he does, but he leaps up out of habit, his defenses raised like a knight's great shield. Tolerance is the word he’d use to describe his relationship with the Crux pirates, and anything more than that he shares with only their lone samurai.

But oh, he knows the gentle tap of Kazuha’s shoes. The way he barely puts his feet on the ground. Always a bit sneaky; afraid to make too much noise and attract hostile eyes. And when the top of his white hair comes into view from below the Wanderer can let go of the breath he’d been holding in. The power of Anemo dissolves from his center, and his bared teeth return back to their gums.

Which creates a conundrum, as he isn’t prepared for Kazuha to suddenly become one with the liquids and collapse right into his body like a fainting madam.

The Wanderer can’t even think at first, the weight of a human man far too pressing as he stumbles, graceful as a paperweight being knocked off a shelf, and he only narrowly avoids hitting the deck with a stream of Anemo catching him from being crushed between the boards and the weight above him. He wraps one arm around his companion's waist and uses the other to barely soften the fall of them both the rest of the way to the ground.

He isn’t sure whether to scream with indignation or pitifully pat Kazuha’s drunk back. Both seem equally appropriate.

Instead he settles on a softer retaliation, lifting his free hand to smack the samurai on the forehead.

“Are you mad? Get off me!”

The swordmaster with cheeks as pink as a sakura tree fully bloomed. He lets out a muffled laugh into the Wanderer’s glowing chest that’s halfway to being a giggle.

He isn’t like most men raised as lords, offended by everyone and everything. He doesn’t need his honor, he doesn’t need a grand palace to feel respected or appreciated, and he doesn’t need social decorum or etiquette to restrict who he truly is.

Kazuha, he has a good sense of humor. And he is infuriatingly hard to compete with because he isn’t offended easily. No petty jabs or threatening gestures rouse him. Placing his motivation grows increasingly difficult the more the Wanderer learns about him. They shouldn’t get along as well as they have, but he cannot find the right words to describe why he can’t resist spending another evening— or night— with his company.

As evidence of the man’s unique character, after only a momentary consideration he perks up like a lotus seed and grabs the Wanderer’s hat, sweeping it right off his head. He throws it aside like a porcelain plate, and it hits the deck with a heavy, expensive thud.

Kazuha looks on, proud of his outburst. Perhaps he’s been waiting to do that for a long while.

“You know, that was a very rare thing you just threw?” The Wanderer asks, raising a brow. “What did my hat ever do to you to deserve that? Now it’s dirty.”

“Hide you from me.” Kazuha replies with surprising clarity, eyes twinkling with starlight.

If only his smile wasn’t so big. Chin raised and lips dimpled from how wide his joy stretched. If this was anyone else he may have been able to convince them he isn’t sotted, speaking flowery words into being without any humility didn’t seem too out of place for the resident writer. But not the Wanderer. The Wanderer can see he is a total drunken mess.

“I think you should ask permission before throwing my things.” The Wanderer reasons, giving an insistent push on the samurai chest. “And also treat your company better, you reek like rose and plum. Don’t spread that stench onto me.”

“Ah,” The Samurai leans back and does a deep bow that impressively bumps the Wanderer’s outstretched hand. “Oh, gozen .”

“… You mean gomen?” The Wanderer corrects, allowing out an amused sigh. “I don’t think you’re going to remember this night in the slightest.”

“I may have drunk too many drinks.” Kazuha correctly assumes, cheerful. “I am sober!”

“Something got lost in translation there. I think it’s time for you to drink some water and get some sleep. No more drinking and definitely no more speaking.” The Wanderer huffs, grasping the samurai's forearm and pulling him up onto unsteady legs.

“I was supposed to ask you something?” Kazuha asks aloud more than he states. “Dun— don’t remember. What wasn’t said?”

The Wanderer replies in a snicker. “Such an age-old question.”

At least now, he is free to stand up straight and he does so without delay. Fixing his posture and smoothing out his sleeves. Kazuha watches his hands, all his fussing, and when he doesn’t say a thing about it the Wanderer leans forward and fixes his companion’s shoulder guard.

When he still does not react, the Wanderer pulls the drooping hair-tie that is hardly holding up his hair. It had already begun to fall. Meaning to fix the mess in front of him, he stretches the twine out and wraps it around his thin fingers into a tightly wound circle.

When he goes to apply it, Kazuha catches his wrist, pushing his hand back.

“Stop that.” He says, scratching his reddened cheek.

“Stop what? My attempts to make you presentable? Isn’t your hair uncomfortable? Isn’t it tangled? Let me fix it.”

“I want it down, it's a— it’s chold out here.”

“It is cold, yes. But you’re more than welcome to go inside. If you desire, since you’re chilly.” The Wanderer agrees smoothly. “But if you stay, you will have your hair up for me.”

“I forget how traditional you are.” Kazuha grumbles, running a hand self-consciously through his hair.

“It isn’t just tradition, Kaedehara. You are supposed to have standards. You just weren’t raised right. I wasn’t taught by wealthy teachers but even I know loose hair is more likely to get tangled.”

“Can’t it be down for just a bit?” Kazuha complains, like a child throwing a tantrum. “It needs to be washed anyways. Don’t touch it, you’ll get your hands dirty. Leave me be.”

“Throw my hat. Push me down. And when I do these nice things instead of tossing you off the ship you won’t even accept them!” The Wanderer complains, his real goal concealed by his false devastation.

“Oh, alright alright.” Kazuha murmurs, letting go of his hair. “I have a sensitive head, don’t pull too hard.”

“I’d never make the lord cry!” The Wanderer exclaims, shimmering in his success. “Now, come over here, under the moonlight. Let me see. Closer, over by the fence. You can lean on the side.”

Unsteadily, Kazuha sits down again, leaning with his elbow laid out beneath his head which he lays on and pouts as much as the Wanderer’s ever seen him.

“Don’t look at me like that…” The Wanderer sighs, taking a seat. “You’re the only one I’d do this for, so please act a little more mature about it.”

On one side from him is the old rickety boat, and on the other is certain death. He enjoys these kinds of perilous situations, even though they are largely self-inflicted. The fear of death is not only thrilling, it feels like life itself is finally running through his body.

Kazuha looks out at the water too, and the Wanderer wonders what he is thinking about. What if he is thinking the same things as him? Does he feel the same way? Is the sea enticing, or does it frighten him? At times like this the Wanderer wishes he could peel away the samurai’s skin and see what he hides beneath it all. The Wanderer can be peeled like that, then resculpted and put back together— with some staples and some time, he will heal from any invasion. A torturous reality that benefits everybody but himself.

It guts him that he can be opened and witnessed and he cannot do the same to others. Not like how he has been treated. He cannot share such vulnerability with them, he has to dance with words and actions to achieve a similar result. People cannot be opened like a book, they are not a daruma tower to knock down layer by layer. Only he is so easily accessible.

Running his fingers through the samurai’s hair, he wrinkles his nose at the dirt and grease, but he has been properly warned and he continues on unhindered.

“You need a bath.” The Wanderer comments, playful.

“I warned you.”

“Yeah, you did. Being stuck at sea makes you look like a warrior.”

“Is that…” Kazuha pauses before he asks. “A compliment?”

“Well, soldiers do have a certain amount of beauty to them. It goes hand-in-hand with the musk and the grime.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever complimented me.” Kazuha says, glancing back at him with a pitiful expression on his face. “You, you’re drunk as well?”

“Do I not compliment you? Is silent respect dead these days? How is it not praise to be witnessed without criticism?” The Wanderer deflects, drawing lines down the samurai’s head.

Like he has been doing since they met, Kazuha laughs to himself, gleeful.

“You think the poet doesn’t want to hear pretty words? I love pretty… pretty… I love pretty things. Words! Words are beautiful!”

Snorting, the Wanderer holds the Samurai’s gradually relaxing head like he’s holding the moon. It glows the same color— the grease only makes it reflect the light more. It is precious, it contains his mind, and without it he would not be the person he is. So the Wanderer cradles it between his two hands like it could shatter at every touch.

“I think plenty of things about you.” He admits, sectioning off pieces of hair. “But those thoughts aren’t deserving of being said aloud.”

“Says who? I have to politely disagree!”

“It isn’t all that poetic.” The Wanderer explains. “So the poet in the room would be unimpressed.”

“You don’t have to impress me, I’m easily impressed! I just want to hear from you, your thoughts. Very impressive thinking.”

“Except when I complain. You don’t want to listen then” The Wanderer whispers, and the swordsman closes his eyes.

“You hide your feelings, I don’t hate your complaints, I hate that you hide the truth from me.”

“Ha.” The Wanderer dryly laughs, starting a braid behind the samurai’s ear.

Focusing on the task accompanied by the papery sound of the waves beneath them, the Wanderer lets his hands be his guide rather than his eyes. He doesn’t know what creation might come from this, but he has plenty of inspiration to work with.

“I think… when you are writing that you look like a scholar.” He says softly, memories half-recalled coloring his vision. “When you finish with a poem you know what you do? You always do it.”

“What do I do?”

“Smile.” The Wanderer replies with a smile of his own. “You smile and you bend the corner of the page. Every single time.”

Kazuha hums, readjusting how he sits.

“I had no idea.” He lies, and though the Wanderer recognizes the lie, the goading act to make him continue, he falls into it willingly.

“That’s right. And you drool when you sleep.”

Kazuha laughs loudly, shaking his head in defeat.”How undignified I am!”

“You always tie the laces on your left leg first. When you’re nervous, you fidget, but that’s no secret really. What is our little secret is that you don’t finish any job or work on time because you get distracted by the birds in the sky or the fish hopping out of the sea.”

“Shhhh.” Kazuha gestures, leaning back against the Wander’s legs. “Can’t tell anyone that. It would blow up the image people have of me.”

“While we’re on the topic, you never finish your drinks. No cup of tea gets finished. There’s always a little left. You’re welcome, by the way, I finish those off for you. Here I thought you hated being wasteful. I guess being easily distracted means sometimes you even forget to finish your drinks.”

Once the Wanderer begins in earnest, he finds it hard to stop. Growing more animated as he seems to get sick of all the small details his mind has noticed and bundled away to never be spoken about, buried beneath layers and layers of self-restraint.

“Whenever you get this look in your eye, it is sort of a reflection, I know you’re going to start waxing poetry. The creative process is happening at the moment. So I think to myself— he should be on stage. For you to be the storyteller… the audience would be enraptured.”

Silent to all that, the Wanderer’s confidence builds, and he begins to babble as he braids the other side, talking about even the insulting things he thinks. Just to see how far he can press. To test the waters and jump back when he finds where they boil.

He points out that Kazuha wields his sword poorly on the left side. That his facial hair when it grows out is blonde not white. That he pronounces words in Liyuean too strongly, and the Wanderer knows because he was once an international diplomat. It was good when Kazuha slept through the night, because often he did not.

He isn’t a poet, he isn’t sure how to arrange his words or organize his thoughts. He knows how to monologue, going back to the days when he was on stage, and beyond that when he was a Harbinger that silenced all who questioned him. Instead of trying to be something he is not, he just wants to show off what he does well.

“You’re a little oddly shaped, but I don’t mind it. You're all boxy, and you don’t build much muscle in the expected places. Yet your face is all curved, like a peach. You’re not like the blacksmiths, I think you look more like your mother.” The Wanderer guesses, undoing the portion of hair he finished to do it over. “Your scars are so deep but you aren’t ashamed to admit they’re there. I imagine how you got them, in the dark… when you strip without any class left in you. Wonder if you even remember how they happened.”

Mapping out sections on Kazuha’s head like a diagram in the Doctor’s laboratory, he images the sectors of the human brain. Of minds in jars, how he couldn’t bear to look at them. Now he wishes he had. He could have asked the Doctor how the human mind worked. Learn why people do the things they do. Instead he refused to be on the same level as the curious minds he scorned.

“I don’t have scars like that. Does it hurt to look at them?” He asks quietly, revealing the only scar Kazuha has on his head. Parting the hair to trace it, the jagged line looks like it came from a blade.

“You—“

“Wait, I’m not finished.” The Wanderer interrupts, anxious about what Kazuha might say if he lets him. “You’re a terrible liar, were you aware? You keep pretending to enjoy your tea black but I know you prefer it green. You just don’t want to buy two, so you let me decide. I know this yet I just love the scrunched up face you make as you force yourself to enjoy it for me, so I pretend I don’t notice so you’ll keep making funny faces. I love seeing you struggle. Not for sadism's sake, you just solve any problem you want to, and I don’t understand it. How do you do it?”

“Sometimes I think I hate you.” He finds himself admitting, shocking even himself.

Yanking the hair into shape, he fiddles with the soft tips of either braid. “Maybe I just wish I did. See, I can never find anything hurtful to say about you that I don’t also enjoy to some degree. The whole tirade was meant to be mean, but it wasn’t. You’re sweaty, but honestly, it smells good. Your eyes are too big but they’re filled with these emotions you won’t let show on your face. You are hard to fool, but that means you force me to be held accountable, and being honest feels good too.”

“And your hair—“ The Wanderer grumbles, pulling the single red streak out from where he’d laid it aside for last. “This bloodline— it means you were always meant to be here with me. I hate that it feels beyond my control, that it was going to happen regardless of what I did. I want it to be my choice. But it doesn’t feel that way anymore.”

The Wanderer is so focused on what he is saying that he hasn’t noticed how tense the swordsman has become. When he goes and yanks the hair once again, Kazuha has truly had enough.

“Mercy, mercy.” He begs, grabbing the Wanderer’s hands without turning around. “You promised!”

“Ah,” The Wanderer drops the strands. “So I did. My apologies, I was lying.”

Huffing out a breath, Kazuha gives him an exasperated pat. “Finish it. And while you do I will tell you what I noticed about you.”

“Please don’t. Unlike you, I don’t want to hear it.” The Wanderer lies, carefully taking the almost finished hair-do and tying the pieces around each other.

“Really? If you don’t want to hear it, I won't say it.”

Grinding his gears, the Wanderer forces himself to smile. “Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t need some pirate praising me to know my worth.”

“Wonderful, then I will insult you instead.”

The Wanderer’s brain slows to a halt.

“I think your haircut is dated. Your hat is ugly. The lack of red in any of your clothes really does not match whatever you put across your eyes. You’re shorter than me, but you keep wearing shoes you cannot fight in to pretend that you aren’t. And your taste in food and drink needs some expansion, it is too boring.”

“... I really didn’t think you had it in you to insult anyone.” The Wanderer admits, slightly impressed.

His cheeks hurt from how long he has smiled for, the response pulled from him by force. It was frankly ridiculous, to be ridiculed and yet love every second of it. To agree with every word yet refuse to be different. They had never been so open with each other, though the poet wrote plenty about his beauty or his bloodthirst, he never spoke his mind about what frustrated him.

“Perhaps I should see you drunk more often.”

“You cannot handle me.”

“Apparently all it takes is pulling your hair.”

“You’re right. What I meant was you cannot be trusted around me.”

Finishing off his hair, he looks it over proudly. It has been over a century since he last did the hair of anybody, but none would know it. The style has turned out thematically akin to a hero in the theater, with certain elements of the wild and the royal. With a few stray strands the Wanderer leaves be, mainly because they are charming, and the rest he has properly pinned up in a top-knot with several small braids to add character.

“Doppio gioco, you look like a whole different man.”

Touching his head, Kazuha seems largely indifferent to all that work and effort. Flicking it with a finger.

“Heavy.” Is all he says.

“Tasteless.” The Wanderer mutters, wishing he could immortalize this moment for himself.

“I really cannot remember what I came up here for.” The poet says, leaning back and staring up at the starry night. “It was so urgent then, now I just feel nauseous.”

“Perhaps you’ll remember tomorrow.” The Wanderer suggests, helping Kazuha up onto his feet and down the steps with a hand laid across his back. “I don’t doubt it was important, it’s you after all. But if it wasn’t life threatening then it can wait until you’re more clear headed.”

“You’re just so smart!” The samurai begins to babble, holding onto the Wanderer like he’s lost at sea. “How do you say so many right things? I ri— really like that about how you think. That you think. Don’t worry about me, I can handle some stairs. Just a few more sss– steps here, nothing to worry over. Hey, what's your secret name again? I know I like your name. Wasn’t it… Oh, I forget.”

Snorting, the Wanderer catches him before he stumbles down the last step and onto his knees. “You don’t even know my name. By the Archons, did you drink a whole jug of sake all by yourself? I’m sorry Kazuha, but this is hilarious.”

Pushing white hairs out of his face, the samurai looks affronted by his own zig-zagged walking.

“I like alcohol!” He proudly announces, and the Wanderer could burst into tears from how hard he laughs at the suddenness of his statement.

“Such honesty!” One of the pirates who the Wanderer doesn’t care to know overhears, standing closer to the ship’s center than they are, eavesdropping on their light conversation.

“Let’s crack open one more round for the little man!” Another calls.

“Ahoy!” They all say in unison, louder than even before Kazuha had come upstairs.

Inexplicably, the Wanderer’s skin crawls.

Annoyance and fear intermingle like poison in his body, and he squirms under the weight of being noticed by those around him without his guard up. He’d not meant to laugh that loudly. With a harsher smile toward the crew, he pulls Kazuha away from the noise.

“Bunch of vulgar swine.” He grumbles, rubbing his face.

“Ah, but are you not the thief shouting robber?” Kazuha asks, talking too loudly. “We’re all criminals here! Yes, I do love a bit of violence! Don’t you? Say— we should dance, won’t you dance?”

“You cannot possibly dance. You can barely hold yourself steady now.” The Wanderer deflects quickly.

“Why don’t you lead, then? I’ll just follow yur, your, steppings. The way you move.”

“I don’t dance anymore.” He says in a clipped voice. “You need to settle down.”

“Then you did dance once?” Kazuha asks, sounding excited. “I’m a terrible dancer!”

“All the more reason to go to bed.” The Wanderer isn’t joking anymore, and something about his frown; his tensely raised shoulders, tells Kazuha that he is unhappy.

He follows along in silence after that, walking with him through the door and to the small, claustrophobic hallways that sway and dip with the waves in the sea to reach the room they have shared. The Wanderer doesn’t sleep, so the bed is all for the poet. The rest of the room is similarly empty of any indents, his presence lacking focus. The only thing that shows he has been here at all is the tea set filled with bitter matcha.

Giving the samurai a tap, he pushes him by the shoulders down onto the wooden bed that is saved only by a small, unfurled cushion like those popular in Inazuma. Lighting a candle for their mutual benefit, he sets it aside onto a wooden table.

He fetches him water, blows any lingering dust, or worse— bed bugs, away from them with a gust of wind, and cuts a large loaf of bread.

Though he doesn’t verbally command him, the samurai obeys the outstretched hand and consumes everything handed to him. Munching down the stale bread and drinking a few glasses of water in an impressive show of thirst.

“There, that’s better isn’t it?” The Wanderer says, satisfied. “Now, sleep. I’ll check on you in a few hours. You’re going to be ill no matter what, so here’s a pan. Be sure to aim for it.”

Turning around, he reaches for the candle on the table.

He physically startles when Kazuha suddenly blows it out instead, throwing them both into darkness without warning.

Yet there is no blade in the pitch. No sudden attack or frantic embrace. Just the darkness, and the gentle, rhythmic sound of the poet's breathing. The Wanderer takes an almost timid step back toward the bed, the floor creaking beneath his foot, and he narrows his eyes as though to see more clearly, but he cannot see any better in the dark than his companion.

Compelled by something— he reaches out.

Because he wants to confirm that there is still something there. Someone, there. Not a monster, or a memory. In the darkness his mind is left to race to every possibility. Upsetting himself and growing worked up on the burning memories of monsters he knew quite well.

The feeling must have been somewhat mutual— because without a word spoken aloud, their hands meet. Outstretched into the room, reaching for something. Reaching for one another.

Kazuha reacts faster than he does, tightening his hold and intertwining their fingers together.

After a moment, the Wanderer mirrors him, laying his smaller fingers down atop the knuckles he cannot see but can feel the living warmth of.

The samurai lets out an almost relieved breath, and then laughs quietly.

“You are worth trusting.” He says, his voice in perfect clarity.

“Did you not believe I was before?”

“I just needed to prove it to myself.” He says.

“Then, you’re not that drunk?”

“I’m a little drunk.” The samurai admits, moving his thumb up and down the Wanderer’s own. “I wasn’t acting, or, I wasn’t acting by much. The ship’s cradle makes me feel more sick than I really am. The others are just used to it in a way I am not. I’m not built for the sea. I feel better now that I’m lying down. You were right. You’re always… very right.”

“You should still get some rest. It has been two days since you slept through the night. Tonight should be different.”

“I missed all of Lantern Rite. I was going to give you a gift.” Kazuha bemoans, his voice deepening the more tired he grows. “I am sorry I pushed you. I promised I wouldn’t push. I just thought… you just… you stared like you do, and I thought you wanted to dance too.”

“Go to sleep.” The Wanderer hushes him. “I am not upset with you.”

I’m upset with myself. He doesn’t add.

“Next year,” Kazuha says quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “Next year, I will do something better for you.”

“...” Guiding the samurai's hand to lay back next to his chest, the Wanderer listens for a moment.

Ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump. His heart beats like a gong, always in tempo. Soothed and quieting as he falls into a light sleep.

“I very much look forward to it.” The Wanderer says under his breath, giving his calloused hand one final squeeze before pulling his fingers free.

He lingers for a little while after that. He doesn’t count the minutes. Or the hours. He loses all track of time. He just sits. Listens to the sounds of life he cannot mimic coming from his companion and the gentle thrum of life found even in the center of his wrist. He leaves when he desires to, which may take him mere seconds

It may also take him a very long time.

***

Sitting alone, he lets his legs sway off the edge of the crows nest. The party has died down, most too drunk or too exhausted to keep it going, and the fire has been rightfully extinguished down to black ash and embers. The Wanderer watches the sun begin to rise, not yet visible but coloring the sky in the slightest hue of red.

Red on blue. Blue on red. He could write a poem about this.

The thought makes him sigh, but in a wistful— almost playful way. With a smile dancing across his lips.

He isn’t surprised when the door to the haul opens and a familiar head of hair shuffles out. Pail in hand, the samurai dumps the contents over the side of the boat, grimacing. Stifling any humor he might have otherwise found at the others misfortune, the Wanderer hops off his perch and floats down like a leaf on the wind.

Senses as sharp as a sword's edge, the poet looks over his shoulder the moment the Wanderer draws close. He looks worse than he did and much better at the same time. His gaze isn’t clouded anymore, his red eyes looking at the Wanderer with a softness like wool. The purple rings beneath his eyes are not so puffy anymore, though the color has largely drained from his face down and into the bucket he holds.

“You’re up early.” The Wanderer scolds, though there is no force behind it. “Was that really enough rest for you?”

“I always rise with the sun. And my stomach is one big whirlpool.” Kazuha remarks, his voice a bit hoarse. “Did you help me to bed last night? I only remember… I don’t remember. It’s flashy.”

“You were quite inebriated, yes.” The Wanderer agrees, smiling but saying no more. “I did try to warn you that today would be harder if you kept going.”

“I’m sure.” Kazuha says while really saying ‘I doubt that deeply.’

“But you had fun, I believe. It wasn’t all bad. You didn’t fall off the ship into the sea. So that’s an improvement from the last time they wanted you to tell stories.”

“I did not fall, I jumped. For dramatic effect.” Kazuha corrects, but he shivers at the memory of it. The cold ocean water and the stormy skies.

“Just be glad it was in the port.”

They lapse into a pleasant silence after that, Kazuha leaning against the ship's fence while the Wanderer watches the sun finally peek its head up out of the sea.

“Did your parents ever tell you the story of the sunrise?” The Wanderer asks after a moment, and the poet turns to look at it as well, smiling.

“That every morning, the sun's mother washes him in the waters of the sea, so he comes out to shine brightly during the day, made into a new man by his mothers love? That was how my parents told it.”

“I suppose that is close enough.” The Wanderer mumbles, rubbing his arms. “That was … It was the first story I ever memorized. I made this dance for it. To go with the rising sun. Every morning I would practice it until the sun reached its zenith, and it was too hot to keep working it out. I’d dance in the lapping waves, and the water would sparkle because there was a type of glittery algae that came out with the stars. I would know the day had started when they disappeared from the water, gone from between my toes. The water would turn red for just long enough for me to miss it when it was gone.”

The samurai scoots a bit closer, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“I never really was a worshipper of Ei. Nobody on Tatarasuna was, except Nagamasa. We were much closer to Watatsumi and its people than the mainland and its structured religion. Their more ‘savage’ ways rubbed off on us. Dancing to pray for rain… dancing to raise the sun from the sea… I would even dance in the snow, if it dared to come, to pray for a warmer day tomorrow and the longevity of the soil.”

“Is this why you will dance no longer? Your faith has… moved away from you?” The samurai asks, his posture so open and inviting.

“No.” The Wanderer softly replies, staring longingly at where the sky and the sea seem to meet in conflict. “No.”

“I just never had a reason to anymore.” He admits, offering out a hand. “I want… I need a reason for everything. It is too much to accept that sometimes things happen without reason. Everything done to me— it may not have a reason. Meeting you— perhaps there was a reason, but I may never know it beyond the steps I took myself to make it real.”

Tenderly, Kazuha takes his hand with his own.

“I don’t have a reason for this dance. Except that I want to do it. You make me happy, and I once danced in the hopes of bringing forth future joy. So, let this be a tribute to that same prayer. That things get better from here— and I make you happy, sometimes, too.”

To the Wanderer’s delight, the color seems to return to the samurai in one big rush. His face flushing from his ears to his cheeks, his smile crooked and awkward and shy.

“I really, really don’t know how to dance.” He admits, a little breathless.

“Didn’t you say… you’d follow my steps? The way I move?” The Wanderer whispers, drawing him close. “I’ll help you. Just imagine… you’re the sun, and I am the waves in the sea. All you need to do is shine.”

Pulled along hand-in-hand, Kazuha listens raptly. When the Wanderer lays a hand across the samurai's chest, he moves to mimic him and do the same. Gently, the Wanderer lets go to catch his hand, maneuvering it around to lay across his back instead.

“Like this.” He corrects. “It is symbolic. This is a dance from Snezhnaya. They dance well there. More partnered dances than ours in Inazuma. You lay your hand in mine, and I lay my off hand across your heart. You catch the line from my heart through my soul and onto my back. See? Now, we move our feet back and forth. Like we’re two gears moving in perfect time to each other, revolving in different directions but meeting here in this dance.”

Humming, Kazuha does his very best. Though still groggy from his fitful sleeping, he steps in time, and he avoids squashing any of the Wanderer’s toes even as the pace picks up.

“Right! Just like that! You’ve cut yourself short, Kazuha. You have a natural rhythm.”

Huffing out what might be a laugh, or a complaint, once Kazuha seems to have the hang of that, the Wanderer brings them to a stop and decides to be a bit more daring.

“Now, something from home seems fitting doesn’t it? I’m afraid I don’t have the proper regalia, or the bells, but you wouldn’t know the difference anyways would you?”

Running a testing hand across the samurai's shoulders, the Wanderer circles around behind him. The electric feeling fills him from head to toe with a long dormant skill he’d suffocated for so long. Once he starts, he cannot seem to stop the skillful step of his feet. The feather-light touch of his fingertips as he circles in a daring embrace only to smoothly fall back the moment the samurai turns to face him.

“This doesn’t really feel like dancing…” He says.

“Nothing is stopping you. Try anything, that’s how you learn. You may be the sun, but you can still move across the sky. Perhaps a spin?” The Wanderer offers out his arm, and the samurai takes it and does a little twirl. “Just like the sun, see? Everything you see can be a dance. That is how I was taught.”

“Hmm, how abstract.”

But his eyes glimmer with interest, and he looks around, beginning to tilt like a flower toward the Wanderer. He reaches for the sky, toward the fluffy clouds and the final twinkling stars, then lowers his gaze toward the Wanderer as though he has reimagined him— seeing not just his friend but the stars themselves.

“There it is.” The Wanderer proudly proclaims. “That is the right way.”

And when Kazuha clasps their hands together, forcing the Wanderer to go along with him, he allows it. Lets him do the leading, appreciates his respectful touches but longs for something more.

Dancing in a pair, then losing their hold on each other, it is an odd dance. Sometimes, it is not a dance at all. More of a game between the two of them, a call-and-response. The Wanderer hides his hands, so the samurai puts his own onto his hips and draws him back. Then he gets too bold, pushing his nose into the samurai's neck, feeling his pulsepoint, and the man turns around to cut him off and play with his feelings

It is only after the Wanderer laughs, something ripped from his lungs which draws up and out from the oldest, most young side of himself, that the tone changes.

Twisting out from his grasp, Kazuha straightens suddenly and pushes the Wanderer down against the ship's railing, leaning down over him with his hands pressed down on either shoulder to keep him from getting up.

He doesn’t speak, at first. His breath is hot and sweet, like rice wine, though a bit soured. His eyes are also a bit red around the edges, and the Wanderer belatedly realizes he has been tearfully driving his misguided passion. Maybe he’s upset, but for a reason the Wanderer doesn’t fully comprehend, and he’d put up with it for as long as he could. As he so often did.

“I remembered what I wanted to ask you.” Kazuha says.

Uncomfortably close to the ocean, the Wanderer decides between staring into the honeyed eyes of a handsome man and the terrifying fall into the sea; he prefers the water. Watching as it crashes against the hull in a less relaxing display of power. He hums just to show he’s heard him, digging his nails into the worn wood beneath his awkward hands.

“Alright.” He flatly says, avoiding taking in any air. “Sorry I stepped on your toes. I’m rusty.”

“I don’t care.” Kazuha dismisses that, blinking slowly. “I want you to stay with me.”

“Huh?”

“That was it, what I needed to ask. Last night, I wanted to tell you to stay with me.” He says again.

The Wanderer can't resist looking back now. The poet's hair has come undone, knocked out of place, and his fringe hairs frame his face. Surrounds his vulnerable eyes.

The Wanderer picks his first question carefully.

“… By stay, you mean…?”

Kazuha seems a bit confused by the question, turning his head to the side like an owl. He looks at the Wanderer like he’s seeing something in him for the first time, and he isn’t entirely sure he can understand what that is. Then he lets go of him without hesitation, stepping back.

The Wanderer pushes himself up, shaken.

The swordsman has stepped back, pacing lightly in unsteady lines. He hadn’t done anything and yet he seems to be suffering under some great guilt.

“Kazuha.” The Wanderer calls.

He stops and looks up, then goes back to pacing when the Wanderer gets closer.

“I’m frankly baffled. Are you asking for intimacy? I can do that. Stop pacing, it’s nothing unusual. Humans often ask this from me.”

“No— and don’t say that.” Kazuha says, shaking off the hand the Wanderer sets on his shoulder.

“Then why’d you back down? Why stop dancing?” The Wanderer wonders aloud. “Staying with you… of course I'm going to stay. I’m on a ship in the middle of the sea. Where would I go? There is nothing for miles and miles.”

Kazuha mutters something incomplete, stepping faster, and he stumbles on his own feet, expecting too much of himself with a drink in his veins.

Catching him in an embrace, the Wanderer draws him into his arms. He resists, but only half heartedly, like it is a trained behavior more than a conscious one.

“No more of this, you’re going to fall off the ship. Your mind is playing games with you. I know. What you see isn’t what is happening here and now. It’s just the alcohol, you know that.”

But Kazuha remains stiff against his side, staring at his feet.

Oh, to be able to understand the human mind. It really would be a skill he would never go without. If he only knew.

He doesn’t understand, and the oppressive weight of not knowing is suffocating. He should know Kazuha. They’re very similar in character, even if they don’t always agree. If he understands anything about himself, surely he should be able to recognize it in another. Human or otherwise— he isn’t beyond comprehension. But he hesitates, uncertain. Not as decisive of a person as he once was.

Guiding Kazuha by his chin, he lays a hand across his warm face.

“Here’s what I’m thinking. You’ve gotten into my head. I’ll never be who I was before our meeting. Even if you left me, I would never lose you. I will go mad and still picture you. Do you… feel that too? Is this what you meant? Stay with me? My thoughts are always yours, and it hurts to think of what I was before you.”

He shouldn’t be surprised when a tear breaks from Kazuha’s eye, but he jumps at the sensation. The salt water is not from the spray of water outside of them, but of revealing his hidden emotions.

“Yes.” The poet says. “It is something a lot like that.”

He’s not sure who does it first. He just blinks, and tastes the sea, pressing against his lips. A nightmare replaced by a dream, his mind seems to shake and stutter, too slow to fully grasp what he is taking in.

His body moves almost like a marionette on a string with a master yanking the line taunt above him. He thinks he might step, or stumble, either way he opens his eyes and starts to feel more sensation.

The press of lips against his own isn’t cruel or sharp, it is downright inviting. He slowly realizes he’s moved to press Kazuha against the ground, and he really doesn’t remember falling, but he feels somewhat like he’s the one being held down even while he looks down from above.

With soft kisses, Kazuha has him locked in an embrace that has him swaying so hard he can’t tell if it is the ship or his wobbly knees, too overridden with emotion. Things he has never felt, for anyone, exploding like fireworks in his mind. He isn’t sure how he should kiss him— if he should kiss him, so when he manages to break free he presses frantic touches across his face with his lips, drawing a pattern of constellations in his mind.

“Please don’t die before me.” Kazuha whispers, catching the Wanderer’s face in his hands and laying a much gentler kiss onto his lips. “That is what I think most of all. I’ll do anything, just don’t let me lose someone I love again. But your poetry was better”

“Love?” The Wanderer echos, drawing back.

“Are you stupid?” Kazuha mutters. “I’d do anything for you. I worship the ground you burn. The words you say. Immortalize your image in my— Yes, you are stupid. Right, let me start over.”

Linking their hands together, the poet lays those hands across his chest. Beneath the ribs, his heart pounds, no longer the gentle and steady, stagnant and unchanging force the Wanderer had grown used to.

“This is my love.” He explains, his voice a little strained. “You understand, it is so strong it wants to escape my chest. It’s a bit painful, some of the time. But it is also the strongest feeling in the world. I thought, when I first met you, that I would live to regret it. Because I wasn’t doing it for the right reasons. Now I am sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”

Though the Wanderer has no heart to compare, he knows the feeling. Instead of using words, which are so often his enemy, he meets Kazuha’s eyes, and simply nods.

“I felt the same.”

“We often seem to.” Kazuha agrees.

“I’m beginning to see why.” The Wanderer murmurs, glad for so many reasons that in this moment, he is alive.

“I’ll audition for a stage production if you swear to write poetry.” Kazuha whispers in his ear. “And for as long as you’re willing, stay with me. I will never forget you again.”

The Wanderer’s heart opens like a flower, and he has no words to compare. No amount of poetry could ever explain his emotions. So, returning to his oldest gift, the one which he has hated for so much of his life, he lets himself feel.

But it is true. Feeling beloved by the new morning sun is a truly wonderous thing.