Chapter Text
“Are you sure you want me to do this?” the Dendro Archon asks the gold-haired traveler as they stand in the darkness of the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
“I’m positive.”
“I can’t bring her back, you know. Irminsul cannot revive the dead, and even then, her body is beyond its reach. He still won’t have her.”
“..He’ll be fine,” the gold-haired traveler continues to assure the God.
“He has long since become part of the Abyss- it’s what holds him together. As he was once a man of Teyvat, we can try to separate as much of it from him as we can, but the stain will never fully be cleansed, or he will die. The man will forget, but the Abyss will remember. It may try to take him back.”
“We will find a way to prevent it, if that is the case.”
“‘We’? Paimon won’t even remember!” the descender’s white pixie exclaims.
“I’ll fill you back in when the morning comes.”
The Dendro Archon lets out a small sigh. “I didn’t think you would feel such sympathy for one of your enemies,” she says, folding her hands on her lap. “Very well, then. Come morning, your foe shall cease to exist, and in his place will be an ordinary man. The people of Nod-Krai will already know him as one of them, but he will need to settle in on his own. I will try to cleanse him of his past entirely, but I’m sure the Abyss will resist. Please be wary of any unforeseen outcomes.”
The gold-haired traveler nods resolutely. “I will. Thank you, Nahida.”
“Don’t mention it!” The seriousness fades from the Archon’s voice. “You saved both me and Sumeru. If this is really what you want, then it’s the least I could do for you.”
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.
.
.
Falling.
Endless darkness, pierced by holes of white light.
Tearing.
Flesh.. tearing apart.
His flesh.
Everything burns.
█████████… Where is █████████?
He needs to.. save.. █████████…
He can feel each layer of his body being shredded, peeled, torn...
Searing pain.
Unimaginable pain.
Unbearable pain.
Pain.
Pain.
P̷a̴i̴n̵.̴
P̷̢̛̹̩͝a̷͈͚̾͆i̶̯͌̔ṇ̵̎̉.̵͍̮͚̓͐
P̴̧̝͇̼͉͋̃̈́̈́͂́͠Ạ̸̪̬͖̏͑̅̃̏̍͜█̸͚̞̼͎̬͉͓̈́̀̄̊̕█̴̲̤̱̕.̷̛̤̩̲̗̀̈́ͅ
█████
.
.
.
A gasp leaves his lips, and his hand flies to his chest.
..Grass.
He’s.. laying on grass?
He slowly sits up, looking down at himself. Pale skin. Grey clothes.
..Why does his body feel.. empty..?
Like it’s.. missing things. Very important things.
He feels weak. Frail. Sluggish. Torpid.
Something is wrong, but.. he can’t tell what.
“There you are, Rerir! What are you doing all the way out here?”
His head snaps to face the direction of the foreign voice. He thinks he should recognize it, but he’s drawing a blank. A girl with blond hair and a peculiar outfit is running towards him, waving an arm. But he thinks he knows her? He doesn’t know the girl’s name, or where he knows her from, but it just feels like.. he’s supposed to. The girl certainly seems to know him, though.
“I was.. looking at the moon last night,” Rerir answers, his voice wavering with uncertainty. Is that really what he was doing? It sounds right in his head. “..I must have fallen asleep.”
“You need to start taking better care of yourself!” the might-not-be-a-stranger replies in a cheerful tone. She extends a hand, which Rerir hesitantly takes. The girl pulls him to his feet. “Seriously, this is the fourth time this week!”
They stand by the edge of a cliff, and can see the cannon peaking up over the side in the distance. One of those purple Frostnight Scions stays idle not far from them, but they somehow haven’t drawn its attention. It seems he didn’t go far, but the real question is how he wandered up here. He can’t recall doing such a thing.
But more importantly.. he has no idea what’s going on. Why does he feel so dazed? Why are so many things.. missing?
The girl leads him down the cliff, and guides them to the path that goes back into Nasha Town. Towering buildings of scrapwork are everywhere. Dozens upon dozens of people go about their days under the afternoon sun, making the place appear lively. A few even wave to them, and the girl waves back. Whenever she does, he does the same, albeit awkwardly. He feels like this town is supposed to be his home, but.. it’s all only vaguely familiar to him. Like something he’s seen in a dream, but hadn’t fully committed to memory before it slipped through his fingers upon waking. If he were left to navigate the streets on his own, he would surely get lost.
He’s dragged to some sort of open air establishment, where the girl he’s with speaks to the lady in green tending to it while he examines the metal flowers on the counter.
She leans against the shopboard, pointing at herself with her thumb- which he only just notices is mechanical. “As expected, I’ve already found him, so we can call off the search. Now, about that reward..?”
“Understood. Your reward is right here. Thank you for completing the commission,” the woman replies in a monotone voice. A small bag of mora is passed over the counter.
The might-not-be-a-stranger takes it by the drawstrings, dangling it in the air as if feeling its weight, judging it. Seems like she was expecting more. She must’ve not checked how much the reward was before taking on the job.
She sighs after a prolonged moment of silence. “Whatever. Mora is mora. Not a big deal.”
The girl then turns back to face Rerir. “Boss Nefer was looking for you, by the way. You know it’s best not to keep her waiting.”
She begins to walk in a new direction, looking back like she expects him to follow. He quickly catches up with her, not knowing where else to go. He has no clue what’s going on. The name Nefer is only vaguely familiar, but also not at the same time- like everything else.
“..Someone put up a commission to search for me?”
“Of course! Someone always does when they realize you’re missing again. It’s practically routine at this point,” she answers. “Don’t tell me you hit your head last night.”
Her tone is joking, but.. maybe that did happen? He’s struggling to recall things he definitely should know, like something is causing the memories to evade him. He doesn’t even know if they’re there at all. But there is no pain in his head…
“I…” Rerir slows to a stop, forcing the girl to do so as well. She turns her head back to him in confusion. “..I think something is wrong…”
“Huh? Are you feeling okay? You didn’t catch a cold or something, did you?”
He shakes his head. “No… It’s worse than an illness… Everything feels wrong… I-I don’t know what’s going on, or who you are, or why I’m here, o-or…”
His voice trails off again. Does he even know who he is? He knows his name is Rerir, but beyond that…
He catches sight of his reflection in a nearby window. Faint at this distance, but visible. Messy brown hair. Blue eyes. They’ve always been that color.. right? ..Something’s wrong with his appearance, too, but he can’t tell what.
The girl is quiet, making a few weird expressions as she goes through some sort of internal dialogue. She appears unsettled by the way he stares at himself. It’s fair that she is. He’s looking at his own reflection in a window as if it’s something unfamiliar to him. The passersby must think he’s mad.
“Uhh… Okay, uhm… How about you head home and get some rest, and I’ll tell Boss Nefer you’re too sick to come in today?” the might-not-be-a-stranger suggests. “I’ll even send a doctor your way!”
Rerir thinks about it for a second, before realizing a glaring issue. “And.. where exactly is my home?”
She sighs, running her hands over her face. “I’ll escort you there, I guess…”
He would be a fool to decline her kindness. It’s not like he’d make it back on his own, anyway.
The place that is apparently his house hides in the upper layer of Nasha Town. The girl makes sure he can unlock the front door before quickly departing, promising that she’ll get a doctor to check on him shortly.
His home looks empty. He could say that it’s just spacious, but that would be a clear lie. There’s only the bare minimum of furniture inside. Does he really live like this? It has to be his house; he had the key in his pocket…
Something is wrong here, too.
Or.. is he the thing that’s wrong?
He doesn’t know the answer at this point.
Rerir briefly wanders in the dark before finding a lamp he can turn on. The small fire inside flickers to life, bathing the room in warm light. There is nothing notable about the place he stands in, aside from its lack of personality. It’s just an ordinary living room. It’s almost depressing to think he really does, indeed, live like this.
He comes to a halt before a mirror that hangs on the wall. He wipes away the thin layer of dust on the glass with his sleeve, staring at his reflection again. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but for some reason, it keeps drawing his attention. It’s the same as it had been in the window. Brown hair that falls to his shoulders. Brooding blue eyes, the color of the night sky fading into a lighter shade. Clothes that lack color apart from the few gold embellishments. Pale skin, with darkness beneath his eyelids. It’s familiar. Normal and unexceptional. Everything is the way it should be. Nothing about him stands out at all from head to toe.
..No.
He leans closer, his attention focused on his eye- specifically on his pupil. He even raises a finger to it, carefully pulling down on his lower eyelid to make it open wider, as if that would give him a better look. Around his pupil is the shape of a four-pointed star, but aside from that, there’s nothing out of the ordinary. He brushes aside the hair in his face, and the other is the same. He feels like he’s forgetting something about them, but again, he can’t figure out what.
..He must be going crazy. That’s the only explanation for why nothing seems right to him. Has he always been like this?
Rerir collapses back onto the nearby couch, running a hand over his face as he tries to piece things together in his mind. The girl he was with… Was she a friend of his? Some of the things she had said made it sound like she was also his coworker. And that name she kept bringing up- Nefer, was it? Is that their boss? What is his job, anyway? ..He finds himself not wanting to think about that, for whatever reason, so he discards the thought for now.
The girl had said it was a regular occurrence for people to come looking for him. Does he disappear often? For what purpose? He thinks back to when he woke, laying on the grass staring towards the sky. His brain tells him he had been looking at the moon the night prior, which feels correct, but he has no recollection of the details, so he has no idea if that’s what actually happened. Why would he be looking at the moon, anyway?
…
The moon…
..Why does he feel such burning hatred when he thinks about it..?
A knock on the door startles Rerir out of his thoughts. Is that the doctor the girl said she’d get for him? That was faster than expected.
Turns out the doctor seems to already be acquainted with him. But- of course- he has no idea who they are. Does everyone in town know who he is, or is it just coincidence?
The doctor makes his checkup brief. Too brief, in his opinion. It makes him wonder if they’re even a professional. They ask him a bunch of questions about his health that he can’t answer. How is he supposed to know if he’s felt ill at all in the last week when he can’t even remember anything about himself, let alone the previous day?
He notices how their breath stills briefly when they check his pulse, but whatever it is, it must not be too big of a concern, because they say nothing, instead just dismissing it with a single shake of their head. Rerir decides that if the doctor doesn’t think it’s worth bringing up, then it’s not worth inquiring about.
In the end, the conclusion he is presented with is unsatisfactory.
“Yeah, I’ve got no clue. Maybe you were hanging around a ley line disorder too much and it’s having ill effects on your brain. Either that or you have dementia.”
“That’s your diagnosis?”
The doctor shrugs. “You’re in Nod-Krai, Rerir. This is probably the best answer you’ll get- especially if your response to every question you’re asked is that you don’t know,” they huff, mildly irritated. “If it’s really that big of a concern, I’d suggest going to Fontaine. They actually have good medical technology, unlike here.”
Rerir sighs, holding the bridge of his nose in between his fingers. “I’ll just accept your initial guess, then. I’m too young for dementia,” he grumbles.
..How old am I, anyway? His body doesn’t feel old, so he can assume he’s in his twenties or thirties.. maybe.
“Great! Glad we got that figured out.”
“What do you suggest I do, then?”
The answer they give him is just as disappointing as the first. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a Spantamad graduate.”
Of course you don’t know.
He thanks the doctor for their time, despite their lack of proper aid for his dilemma, and ushers them out of his home. Payment is not requested- the might-not-be-a-stranger must have taken care of that. The sofa creaks beneath him as he returns to his previous position, staring up blankly at the ceiling.
So, in summary, he has no recollection of his apparent home or the people who seem to know him, he can barely remember anything about himself aside from his name, and not even a self-proclaimed professional can tell what’s wrong with him. What luck. Had he done something to deserve this misfortune? ..Nothing supplies an answer.
The silence is maddening. Is there another voice that’s supposed to be within the walls of his home? The quiet just sounds wrong to him. He isn’t used to it, but he can’t recall ever living with anyone else. But then again, he can’t recall much of anything. He doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be, aside from “Rerir”. Is he even meant to be here..?
..Of course he is. He has a house, a job (by the sound of it), and there’s at least a handful of people that seem to recognize his face. He has probably been living here for a while. Maybe even forever. Rerir is a normal man from Nod-Krai, living in Nasha Town. There is nothing special about him.
..Right?