Chapter Text
“Nahida said I shouldn't agonize over differentiating the Durin of Dragonspine from the Durin of Simulanka. Since I’m both of them now.” Durin said, his voice muffled by a mouthful of pita pocket. He was lying on his stomach on a high branch of a big tree that was losing its battle to the long weeping roots of a strangler fig.
Sethos had somehow spotted Durin hiding all the way up here in the canopy. He’d been on his way back from helping some person in a nearby village and scoring the food as a thank you. Sethos was a “people person” —like Nilou—always getting paid in things they didn’t ask for because they were effortlessly friendly and helpful to everyone. He’d been happy to share his haul with Durin. And Durin, who’d forgotten to bring snacks when he wandered out of the city, couldn’t refuse with his growling belly.
“But I haven’t seen Nahida in a while,” Durin said and quickly took another bite.
“Why not?” Sethos asked, sitting with one knee pulled up on a branch just below.
“Mmmm—” Durin hummed in full-mouth non-answer, watching a leafcutter bug carry a clip of green leaf across the branch. His wings hung like heavy drapes framing the sides of the branch he was lying on and his knees were bent on either side, feet hooked securely on the bark so he wouldn’t fall.
He wasn’t allowed to fall anymore. He had to be careful. Hat Guy wasn’t here right now and Durin couldn’t fly in this body yet. His wings were too weak and clumsy, and he was too heavy.
He swallowed and puffed out a harsh breath to help the bug go faster.
It fell off the branch.
Durin stared towards the ground. Immediately he felt guilty.
“...I dunno,” Durin muttered and shoved his mouth full of pita pocket to pretend that didn’t happen. He rested his chin on his folded arms and chewed with his whole head, stiffly like a chomping robot. He added, dejectedly, though the mouthful, “Nahi-a can see thoughts. And ‘reams.”
His simple logic was eaten by a bird or something and all he knew was that it wasn’t fair to Nahida. It wasn’t her fault half of him was scared of her—or scared of being known.
“Nahida promised not to read my thoughts or enter dreams without permission. I trust her but… um, half of me trusts her…”
What’s deeper than thoughts or dreams? Is it memories? Is it a cold winter mountain? Apprehension towards humans’ everythings? Colorful soldiers or fragile animals that despise me ‘cause I hurt them? Monstrous reflections and the messed up world from my existence? Slow decay of flesh, sinew and bone over centuries like buried pages, rotting fruit, myths or histories inked with poison…
“I can’t think about it now,” Durin said hastily. “But I think each Durin deserves their own voice so maybe I can understand them—me. So they don’t both… So I can know what belongs to who. And choose–…”
‘Choose who to blame’ tasted bitter, stuck to his tongue. But Durin knew better than to go there. He obviously knew who feared Mini Durin’s friends. But blame was too complicated a venom so he swallowed it back.
Sethos hummed, shifting his weight and leaning back against the trunk. “I get where you’re coming from. It’s like having different people talking over each other inside one tent, right? The fragments you catch don’t make sense unless you can distinguish the voices to give yourself context.”
Durin turned his cheek to look down at Sethos. “Yeah. But they have the same voice and they don’t really like each other. That’s where ‘indecision’ or ‘freeze’ comes from. They’re the same loudness if they want to be heard.”
Sethos’ green eyes were bright and thoughtful. “Is it like a little dove and serpent on each shoulder, telling you contradictory things?”
Durin pinched his brows in thought. He imagined a miniature Mini Durin flapping his wings like a pastel moth hovering above his right shoulder. The extra-miniature Dragonspine Durin was, at first, a flying dragon, like a bird that’d been dunked in black ink, dripping from its shadowy wings onto his left shoulder (he’d never seen the Dragonspine dragon alive, just its corpse. Except for a very blurry shadow reflection in a frozen lake deep in memory or maybe that was a dream or he made it up. Plus the artistic renditions from Mondstadt legends that didn’t really agree on details besides being mostly ‘a dragon’ and ‘shadowy’ and ‘horrible’).
But no. That wasn’t symmetrical enough. If Simulanka Durin got to be the Mini version, then Dragonspine Durin was dead. The clumpy wet ink was red and oozing down Durin’s shoulder. The shrunken dragon just laid there like the drenched corpse of a drowned baby bird.
“Or,” Sethos continued, breaking Durin from the self-indulgent details, “is it like polar opposite flatmates cramped together inside the inner-realm of your mind?”
Durin opened the lid of his head by his horns, plucked both Durins from his shoulders and dropped them inside his skull. He shut the lid.
“They’re inside,” Durin declared. “They don’t come out, really.”
“Well, I can see why they’d be a bit on edge then. They probably want open air and a horizon to look at, y’know? I think I’d be a lot less amiable too if I were trapped in a room with no door all the time.”
“They’re better there,” Durin insisted. “Also they’re not real outside my head so that doesn't make sense… Mini Durin flies around like— oh, we had a butterfly in my class so we could watch it change from a prickly caterpillar. For a couple days after it came out of the chrysalis, we kept it in the enclosure thing. When we let it free it flew up and got eaten by a bird in like five seconds…” Durin’s expression twisted distastefully at the thought. “That part wasn’t the point. That’s not why they stay inside my head. That’s like a story. But I do think Fake Durin would— Nevermind…”
Sethos raised his eyebrows curiously but didn’t say anything.
“Dragonspine Durin doesn’t want to leave,” Durin continued. “He’s still. Except for the red oozing out from him. Like on Dragonspine. Fake Durin doesn’t like that, but Dead Durin can’t really help it. —wait. Adults don’t like when I say ‘Fake Durin’ and ‘Dead Durin’. But there’s a difference when I’m human-ish.” Durin narrowed his eyes and peered down at Sethos a little testily. He liked Sethos. He didn’t want Sethos to not get it.
Sethos ‘psh’ed, “Grown-ups are judgy.”
“Mhm,” Durin agreed, satisfied. “Anyways, Dead Durin is heavier but smaller now. He thinks in dark blue—which is weird actually because that’s not his color.”
Sethos chuckled. “Lemme guess, is FD purple and DD red?”
“Fake Durin isn’t real because he’s from a storybook and Dead Durin isn’t helpful because he’s dead but not enough,” Durin insisted. “And they’re not dragons anymore actually. That wouldn’t make sense. They both sound like me to me—the ‘human’ Durin. So they must be ‘human-ish’ too now. That’s why they’re Fake and Dead. But Mini Durin’s friends don’t…” Durin trailed off.
Sethos was idly stripping a large teak leaf down to its skeleton, piling the green scraps on the branch like a salad feast for a fuzzy caterpillar there. Durin squinted at the creature—its body was an explosion of bright green spines that looked like tiny pine trees. He’d seen those before. He was certain he knew what it was called, but the name was evading him.
Durin pointed. “Is that a venomous one?”
Sethos paused, tilting his head to look at the fuzzy traveler. “Good question. The bright ones usually mean business—nature’s way of putting up a ‘Keep Out’ sign, right? I’m not sure if this little guy is a stinger or just a show-off.”
Durin eyed it. “Don’t touch it.”
Sethos let out a warm, easy chuckle. “Yes, sir. Loud and clear.”
Satisfied with that, Durin settled back onto his stomach. “Anyway, I forget what I was saying…”
“So FD and DD in your mind-realm. They don’t always get along but—”
“They don’t always not get along,” Durin said. “But mostly because Dead Durin doesn’t do much.”
Dead Durin and Fake Durin had opinions on this conversation. Durin knew because they always had opinions about themselves. But Durin thought it was more fun deciding the aesthetics in his mind-realm than listening to either of them.
“Fake Durin wears lavenders and creams and pinks like Mini Durin’s dragon form. He’s bright colors because he’s a show-off, not poisonous. Usually he’s standing up or moving around or kicking around the stringy, splotchy-shaped neuron pebbles on the floor— that’s what the floor is like because it’s in my head— it's like a rug but the fuzz of it is a bunch of like the neuron diagrams we learned in science. Also, Fake Durin’s noisy. He says whatever he thinks. In my head. That’s why he stays there. Except I’m more him around Mini Durin’s friends because Dead Durin hides usually. Especially with…Nahida. And Albedo… Also, Fake Durin can’t fly anymore because I can’t fly yet so it wouldn’t really be fair if he could.”
Sethos gave an understanding nod, his fingers finishing the last of the teak-leaf salad. “Fair enough. Can't have one half of the tent living it up while the other's stuck on the ground, yeah? That’s just good leadership—then you can both learn together.” With a friendly smile, he looked over at Durin, still lying with his wings hanging heavy against his sides. “But hey, I’ve heard you’ve been putting in the miles and practicing with Hat Guy. You’re not just letting the wind do all the work, are you?”
“Yeah…”
“‘Yeah’, the wind does all the work?” Sethos chuckled. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“I just can’t fly yet.” Durin said, slightly annoyed by the subject shift. He actually didn’t want to think about flying. Especially not about how Mini Durin and Hat Guy used to fly together all the time. Now, he can’t fly anymore and Hat Guy’s busy all the time…
Durin dropped his folded arms to hang on either side of the branch he was on, like his useless wings. It was starting to get kind of uncomfortable lying here but he didn’t feel like moving yet.
“Dead Durin’s either curled up in the corner or buried in the neuron carpet. He’s dressed in red or black, or maybe just dark muddy goo, even though he’s human-ish. He’s harder to get. He’s also…the ‘bad’ one. Which is why he doesn’t really like being here.”
“Is that what you think of him?” Sethos asked.
“I don't know. He’s hard to get.” Durin scratched idly at the tree bark in front of him. “Albedo said he'd be angry and dangerous. Mini Durin was supposed to contain him. But he’s mostly just quiet…”
Maybe he’s biding time and solitude so he can take control and do horrible things later… otherwise… it’d be even more pathetic if he’s just that helpless now.
Sethos hummed. “Quiet and hard to get, huh? You know, in the desert, we don't judge a ruin by the sand piled on top of it. Sometimes the quietest places are just the ones that have been weathered the most by the wind. If he’s spent all that time on a frozen mountain, it’s no wonder he’s curled up. He’s probably just trying to find some warmth, even if it’s in a dark corner.”
Durin peered down at him over the branch.
Sethos’s smile was soft and genuine. He spoke with stories like Nahida. “To me, it sounds like one of you is the dawn as the sun peaks over the treetops, and the other is the desert at dusk. They can't exist without the other—one’s essential for life, and the other offers needed respite from the desert heat. Honestly, I think I’ll be good friends with both of 'em. As far as I’m concerned, Durin is my friend.”
Durin looked away from Sethos’ sincere, encouraging smile. Half of him was unable to accept it, even if it was real. Especially things that were real. “I have a lot of dreams I don’t understand now… A lot of them have snow. Dragonspine, I guess. So, Dead Durin…” Durin said, a little uncertainly. “Most of my dreams are– like– his, now… Probably because I listen to more Fake Durin when I’m awake—only ‘cause he’s louder. Dead Durin doesn’t like people. That’s why… It’s not fair to my friends…”
Durin didn’t know how to explicate his thoughts. Saying what he wanted was impossible. He didn’t understand. There were two wants and two stories, two Durins contradicting each other. And Dead Durin, buried in the neuron carpet in a pool of dark ooze, resisted through the unhelpful feelings in the goo. He made a mess in Durin’s mind-realm for which the only explanation he could offer was, you don’t understand; they can’t understand.
He’s scared, Fake Durin would say, which wasn’t helpful because Durin could already feel that and it didn’t make sense, but it kept him away from his friends anyway.
Sethos hummed thoughtfully. “Tell you what. Next time he wants to come out of his corner, let him know he’s got an open invitation to join us for lunch. I’ve got enough snacks and stories to go around for a hundred Durins! I’m not the type to turn my back on friends just because they're a little quiet or ‘hard to get.’”
“Like Hat Guy?” Durin turned back towards Sethos with a little smile, Mini Durin’s fondness lit up by whatever neuron carpet strings Fake Durin kicked around in his place. “He says you’re everywhere.”
Sethos laughed, a bright and genuine sound. “Well, he’s not wrong! But hey, being everywhere just means it’s easier for me to find my friends, no matter which version of themselves they're feeling like that day.”
Maybe that was also why Durin thought Sethos might understand. He wasn’t just Mini Durin’s friend. Somehow, he was friends with everyone. He understood people. Maybe he could understand the hiding human-ish dragon ones too.