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this unfathomable flower
"There are seven nations on the continent of Teyvat, six common types of fae on the tundra of Snezhnaya. Even the light itself may scatter into seven hues."
You do not know what first prompted you to begin the tale, your own tale, one you once swore you were going to leave behind in the vast, cold wasteland that is the far north. It was too heavy a burden to carry, and as you made your way south, away and away from the court and the heartbreak, you could have sworn the memories were shedding off you like the dry petals of a flower.
It was not the first time the young adopted son of the current Starshyna had visited your station. It amused you to see him bring you supplies, like meager offerings, not knowing they would serve any but you on this lonely piece of land jutting out of the sea; this place that once was meant to be your grave. But you never did forget your courtly manners, and so you started to offer him tokens in return; small things that might balance the transaction, utilitarian in nature and fleeting. Nothing that might plausibly be considered as a claim staked.
"Have a glass of water before you go, young Illuga," was the first, which the youth had gladly taken, parched from the long journey.
A token became a staple became a ritual became a running joke you shared with him. Before you quite knew it was happening, you were offering him more - a seat at your table, a taste of your cooking, a tale much like you told curious patrons at the taverns and auctions, and then, one day, a glimpse into your private collection, so carefully stored over so many years, and with them, a story. Your story.
The Topaz - A Memory of War
It starts with war, as it always does. The blood red topaz which had been plucked from a too recent battlefield, in its facets smoldering the flames of war still. "It is said to have dropped from the spear of the Mountain of the Fae himself," you tell the wide-eyed youth as he holds the gemstone up to the light. You know this to be true because you grabbed it yourself, a desperate attempt to cling to anything left in the village before it all burned to the ground. Instead, you spin a yarn of how it might have changed hands to find its way to you, had it been found by an unfortunate mortal. As if any mortal may have survived that petty struggle for power.
Afterwards, you consider this tale may have scared the young man off, impressionable as humans are at that age. You later learn from the Starshyna about the pitiable manner in which he found the boy, and your throat tightens as you draw an uncomfortable parallel between your tale and Nikita's. For had the man not done much the same as you, desperately wishing to preserve anything beautiful from the wreckage of war?
The Tourmaline - A Cornerstone of Stability
Many moons pass before he gets the chance to visit you again in your lonely isle, and when he does finally row his dinghy down Paha way again, he apologizes profusely, saying he knows you must have a hard time getting supplies here when they cannot ship them from Piramida. He is still learning the ropes of being in logistics, but he will do better in the future, he promises. He needs not know that your stores are still full, as the only guest you have seen in this span of time has been another lone ratnik, wounded from a skirmish, who washed up south on shore and followed your blue flame to safety. You had patched her up and sent her on her way with a hefty bag of food for the road, a lantern full of oil, and a story to tell her comrades.
You insist he eat something now, if only to start putting a dent into the pantry before anything rots, and as you wait for the meat to simmer in a stew, he coaxes another story out of you. Not the kind you tell others, of your exploits at the auction houses, nor of your encounters in the lonely patrols along the coast, but from your collection again. He wishes to see the pretty gems you once showed him when he was younger, and he shyly asks you, "Can you show me another gem from your box, Sir Flins?"
You are surprised to find him asking after a tourmaline, its surface still ice cold to the touch. "This," you tell him, "is the cornerstone of the Belyi Tsar's palace in Snezhnograd, which was built to look as though it had been carved out of the motherland's glittering heart of ice itself." In truth, Monomakh Snezhnyi had indeed carved his palace out of glittering ice with his own two skilled hands, preserved in perfect blue stillness in the eternal cold of the land. The jewels had adorned its facade, like condensed dewdrops embedded in the ice, as they were pulled out from deep beneath the earth alongside the frozen water. This particular one in your collection was all you had rescued from the pandemonium as red flames made their way into the court, melting the tsar's seemingly eternal reign.
Perhaps, you think as you place this memory of a wreckage back into its cushioned box, you have been picking up the pieces of the life you left behind all along, and they have merely been kept in ice as well, ice that is slowly beginning to melt under the watchful gaze of a radiant dawn.
"I may soon acquire another jewel I have been on the lookout for, one said to have once adorned the longsword belonging to the tsar himself," you promise the young man, now older and less unsure of his place in the world than the first time you laid eyes on him. "Perhaps I might tempt you to come see it once I have it in my possession."
The young man promises to come by to see you soon regardless, should his patrol schedules allow it. He is diligent, you can tell. He reminds you of Sigurd, who came before Nikita, more than he does the current Starshyna. You can merely hope he does not end the way Sigurd did, wandering the land even in death, oath forever unfulfilled. Such is the fate that looms over those mortals who walk the precarious path of the warrior, you know all too well, as you yourself have buried your fair share of them since you awakened into this new life. Alas, you do not wish to have to bury this one before his time, not if you can help it.
Something within you shifts, and you resolve to keep an eye on him if nothing else, to try and keep a mortal from his fate. You think of dewdrops encased in ice.
The Sapphire - A Token of Nobility
It takes you longer to find the promised gem than you might have expected. The seller is reluctant to part with it after a rumor reaches his ears that this gemstone might be worth more than he has been led to believe. You lead him on a merry chase throughout the land, patient in the knowledge that the gem will find its way back into your hands sooner or later, as they all do. In the end, you trade with him a tale of the noble who originally lost it in a bet, of Kyryll the Azure Flame, now forgotten to history, and which you thus relate to the young ratnik at your doorstep now.
"As I mentioned once before, this was a gift from the Belyi Tsar himself, one of many given during a certain banquet, for he enjoyed giving baubles to the nobles that flocked to his court. Nobles are fickle creatures, and the fair folk were renowned as especially hard to please. Perhaps this is why our nobleman chose to wager this gift away, as the transaction would prove to be far more valuable to him than the gift itself. After all, this was but one of many in his collection by now, and the rule of the Tsar seemed immutable, as eternal as the peace he had secured with an iron fist."
In truth, the Tear of the North had once been embedded in Monomakh Snezhnyi's famed longsword of sorrow, this particular pear shaped jewel representing the courage of Snezhnayan soldiers fighting for this precarious peace in the north. It had been dislodged during a battle, one Kyryll had been a crucial part of, and thus the jewel had been gifted to you as a token, that you might remember this hard earned victory. You had grown weary of war, of the pomp and circumstance of the court. When the opportunity had presented itself, you had weighed the wager the more interesting of the two paths. Now, it is all that remains of the Tsar's tears.
The Citrine - A Tribute from the Dead
He comes to see you more often these days, though you know all too well that he is busier than ever, now that he holds a command position in his own squad. The Nightmare Orioles feels a fitting name for them, as cruel as it is a reminder of what these young men go through. These days, he greets you with a shy kiss, which you feel as a fleeting, warm fire in the tundra of your heart.
Today he comes with a fresh complaint, as well as a story of his own. He has gone to the auction house, he says, but they have no record of the gem that adorns your back. And of course they wouldn't, as this bauble was one given by celestial authority. Yet he does not look mad. Instead, you detect in his demeanor a strange excitement.
Finally, a revelation - he has been given a gem of his own, in the solid amber of the deep earth. It is a great responsibility, you remind him, but of course you never doubted him for a moment. In celebration, you let him choose another story from the box of treasures. Perhaps still thinking of his Vision, he chooses the citrine; a memory encased in its amber hue which you are almost remiss to recover. It feels like an ill omen, having this story rear its head now, when you should be celebrating. But you are a man of your word, and thus you tell a tale about death.
The abyss had corrupted the land, bringing with it a rift that would tear the land asunder and plunge it into chaos. The fair folk had been gutted from their gilded cage, vanished from the court and sent to wander a land that was theirs no longer. This arrangement suited you, for after the death of the Tsar, your heart no longer knew peace. For a time, you tried to outrun the guilt, but it followed you like a tireless hound, reminding you that you had grown complacent, that you should have done your duty, that you could have done more. Could you have prevented all that transpired? You are not so vain as to believe so, not then, and certainly not now, but you still knew you should have done more.
There was talk of an uprising, but what could a body do with no head to guide it? You, like so many of your brethren, had been left to wander, like leaves carried by the winds of change. All you did then, all you know you did then, was flee. Yet duty still found you, from time to time, in the desolate road south. Your path set you downstream of many a mortal's last moments, and what were you to do save your purpose? You guided them, the pale blue fire in the wastes, feeding a legend that followed you all the way to Nod Krai.
"Have you heard the tale of the blue flame?" You ask of the youth, who proudly informs you that he has, that this is one of the favored tales told around the fire among the ratniki.
"Back in the days of the calamity, it was customary to offer a token to the Aarnivalkea, to ensure your soul might cross into the next life. Yet, in times of war, many a dying soldier find themselves with a light purse, and are thus unable to offer up the necessary coin.
"This citrine, found perhaps in the dirt in the cave the soldier crawled into to die, was the only token he could offer the Aarnivalkea, for he had no coin to give. It was enough for the crossing, of course, as it always has been for the ferryman, for it is not about the coin itself but about the ritual of the offer itself."
In offering you a story, you always saw the transaction as balanced. The dead owe you no debt, after all. You wonder what dues you're paying off by sharing your own tale now.
The Amethyst - An Offering to a Grave
The legend of the blue flame was rekindled long before the flame itself awakened back into the world, the stench of blood the fuel that gave you life once more.
As if a minor deity, you were presented with offerings at your grave as you slumbered the centuries away. You understand why people feel the need to leave such offerings, as desperate pleas to the departed they can no longer reach. If only mortals could see these ghosts, perhaps they might understand the futility of their efforts. After all, a ghost is merely the imprint left behind by the soul, the smoke that lingers after a candle is blown out. An echo of a memory. You do not begrudge their company, for theirs is a pitiful, yet quiet, existence. So long as their last desire remains unfulfilled, they shall linger until they are eventually taken by the ley lines once more. Such is the way of the world. In the meantime, they are your guests of a sort.
You can see him all too well now, this echo of the man who loved you in life. He started appearing not long after the battle where you witnessed his fall, where you rushed to hold him as the light left his eyes and the warmth left the hand you held for him. He is not the first ratnik you have accompanied in their dying moments. He is not the first mortal you have guided to his grave. He is not the first ghost you have stood beside, listening to the echo of their last desire in life. He is, however, the first to make you wish to carve your own heart out of your chest. Instead, you stand quietly beside him once more, and you listen to his request.
"Can you show me another gem from the box?" he asks you, his gaze never actually meeting yours. You are not certain what his eyes see now, but they look to the past, to a place you can never go back to. Normally, you would ignore what the dead ask of you, knowing they are merely echoing the desires they perished with, but when have you ever been able to refuse him anything before?
You tell him of the amethyst that was placed before your grave, its texture rough and beautiful, like the serrated mouth of a fantastical creature. You had wondered if this was how they imagined you, if this was what they prayed for at your grave, something sharp and dangerous and beautiful to protect them from the long night.
When you awoke, it was to the pandemonium of a battle, one which made you feel pulled back to the last days of the fae court once more. Your first battle now was against indifference, for you had already sworn not to fight again. It was all futile in the end, after all. No matter how hard one strove for a better world, what did one ever achieve that could not be torn down in flames in a matter of days? You could feel the corruption of the Abyss again, and as your senses awoke, you could smell the sharp tang of blood and iron spilled on your grave. How long had you slumbered? How long until true death could await you? You tried to turn your senses away again, to let the world continue to pass you by, when a plea reached your sensitive hearing.
It was a simple thing. 'The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, free your heart from dreams of the living...' The first words you had heard spoken in over four hundred years, and they were a heartfelt oath, a pact unknowingly signed in blood. Your fire rekindled, you stepped out into the world once more to help, to devastating loses. These mere mortals, whose very existence was akin to a single wave upon the shore in the vast expanse of time, had managed to put you to shame. For what did you know of bravery, you who had languished in the dark of your own despair? What did you know of hope, when you had extinguished your own flame?
In the bonds forged that day, you had sworn to protect humankind. Perhaps, more importantly, you had decided to give the world another choice, to see it as a kindness and not as an act of cruelty. As you set the amethyst back into its box, a mere piece of this most prominent of offerings left at the Aarnivalkea's tomb, you wonder if the world mocks you for your fleeting hope, if it bares its teeth at you now.
The Ruby - The Heart of the Abyss
You have discovered he will only appear at dawn, as though even in death, he still wishes to see the light triumph over darkness once again. This is a sentiment he had confessed to you once, as the two of you lay under the stars and the horizon started to lighten. You're not certain when you started seeing him as your light, his radiance almost blinding as he led you through uncertainty, but you think now of that night under the new moon. You had exchanged simple vows, of comradery, of friendship, of love. And as the day had dawned, he had related this simple secret to you, and you had watched the sun rise in silence. Perhaps this is not so dissimilar to that moment. Perhaps this is why you keep coming back to him now, day after day.
"Can you show me another?" the shade asks of you. Most days, you ignore this request, and you simply stand vigil beside him until the sun is fully out and he vanishes for the day once more. There is only one more gem to show him, and you fear what might happen when you tell him there is no more.
"Can you...?" he asks again, something new, something old. You give in, as you always do to him. Today, you show him the Heart. You have never been certain of the exact nature of this stone - a ruby, perhaps a spinel. But no matter its composition, the value lies in the story, as this is all that remains of the Rächer of Solnari's heart. It was a prize won from a hard earned battle, one now purified of its abyssal corruption thanks to the efforts of a golden haired traveler who has since moved on. It had come to you once again after the battle, as it had come to you the first time - by mere chance.
This small gem had washed ashore near the scene of the climactic battle, after you had witnessed a portal open to what felt like another world. Perhaps you never learned from your mistakes, for you once again plucked it from the dark soft sands and carried it with you. Now, you can tell him of the world he helped create, in detail you never did get to go through for fear of worrying him unduly with something that had already passed. You wonder now how he might have reacted, to learn of your brush with death at the hands of a light cannon, to hear of the fiercely coordinated battles you and your companions had to go through while he fought another day in the mundanity of the battlefield, keeping the Wild Hunt hoards at bay that they may not overwhelm them in numbers.
"The ratniki did their duty splendidly, for without their aid, the valiant heroes would never have been able to vanish the foes that threatened all of Nod Krai." No amount of commendations would ever suffice to honor their valiant sacrifice, but you had seen to it that an effort was made regardless, both for the living and the dead.
He had made a fuss as you presented him with his own medal, engraved with his name and a date. All he had done was flee, he had told you, while you stayed behind to continue fighting valiantly. You're not certain if you ever managed to make him see his own worth, but you proudly pinned that medal on his coat that day regardless, right over his heart.
It does not escape you that you once more hold the burden of a heart that has shattered, only this one, try as you might, has no more pieces with which to mend itself.
The Citrine, Revisited - A Gift to a Lover
The days blend into one another now. You do not wish to count the sunrises anymore, but they never seem to last long enough. You're not certain you have long enough before you are once again witnessing them alone. The ley lines are not kind, nor are the cruel. They merely take what is their due, but you have grown indulgent. It has been too long since he last spoke to you, so you are certain his time grows ever shorter, his presence all the more feeble. This is why it surprises you all the more to hear when he calls out to you, in the memory of a whisper, "...sir Flins?"
How long has it been since you last heard that sweet voice utter your name? You cover your mouth before a mournful moan can escape from your lips, for this is not what you want him to hear. You know what the shade requires of you. One last story. One last gem. Only there are no gems left to show. Once, long ago, you were at an auction, looking for a ring and the perfect stone to go with it. You wanted something that would capture his essence, his radiance, and you finally had something in mind already. But time is never kind, and fate is all the more cruel. You never got to make that purchase, as the intended recipient fell in battle not long after.
You present to him an offering from a dying man in a battlefield who had no coin to give. You hope it will be enough, this token given to the last love you ever shared, will ever share, for you have nothing more to give.
"This is the last of the story," you tell him. "What might have been a page more in the long life of a simple fae turned to be instead a quiet and anticlimactic end. I apologize, dear Illuga, that I could not offer you more."
You rest the citrine upon his grave, and watch as the light of dawn shines upon its facets like a dance. When you look up, the shade is gone, for good this time. This offering shall have to be enough for his crossing, as it always has been for the ferryman, as it shall be your last crossing as well.