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Wanderer is at his wits end with Lesser Lord Kusanali. 

He huffs lightly as he climbs the steep stairway up. Even as he approaches, his mood wavers lightly… it’s been quite a while since Lesser Lord Kusanali insisted on Wanderer taking living space in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, and at the time the request was surprising on its own—though more so when he finds, time and time again, she has still not informed the guards of his presence. 

This generally leads to having to endure the stink-eye they send him, which is not pleasant when Wanderer is not allowed to kill them. He could, of course, disregard whatever rules Lesser Lord Kusanali has laid out for him (which are few and far in between) though he feels the disappointment he would receive would wash out whatever brief elation that would be gained from doing it in the first place.

But, the railings are new.

Lining up every edge of the sanctuary, railings stand proudly, coming up to his hip. It was a recent development, as Sumeru rebuilt homes and gardens in the wake of Dottore’s grand disaster, the deity had requested for the railings. He’d been quite puzzled for it initially, seeing as Lesser Lord Kusanali has never once, ever, been worried about the possibility of falling… although, could it have been that when she fell from her coma, the thought briefly crossed her mind?

Maybe, but it’s all neither here nor there now—Wanderer knows these railings are for him.

“Wanderer,” Lesser Lord Kusanali clasps her hands together, child-like in her wonder and quite inquisitive in her eyes. “You made it!”

She’s there before Wanderer even makes it past the books heaped at the threshold. She looks the same as ever, though her arms have a trenched pattern indicative of a proper nap. There is the thin patina over her glossy eyes, wide and shiny.

He briefly pushes back his sleeves and the furisode-like tails that brush his knees. There was a particularly gusty wind today, enough to disturb the moors around rural Sumeru. It was a strange experience to fly against such a rambunctious wind, but not unpleasant: it was more so that he disliked the wandering eye he got from scholars in the countryside, because they’d come riding to him, up to the old inn-door, insisting for his time.

Well, none of this is anything the Dendro Archon needs to be privy to. Wanderer makes a noise in the back of his throat, something like a throaty exhale. His arms come to cross over his chest. “What is it?”

She doesn’t seem to take his curt reply in any kind of hurtful fashion, only herding him towards the small tea-set she’s laid out for him to curl cold fingers around, seeking warmth he would never feel.  “How have you been?”

“...You saw me yesterday.” Wanderer purses his lips. “I live here.”

“Well, yes,” she smiles, her chubby cheeks pinching in a smile, nose crinkling with a giggle. “I meant your day. How were your lectures? You did go, didn’t you?”

“I have no desire to listen to humans prattle off nonsense for two hours,” Wanderer scoffs. He runs a tongue over his teeth, remembering in particular, a professor in the Haravatat Darshan who was adamant she was older than everyone present and had everyone refer to her as madam despite looking no older than the average scholar. 

“So, you went!” her smile grows bigger, and she leans across the small set to press her fingers into the groves on the cold tile. Her bangles clank and clink together, fitted to her small wrist. “I’m glad. I understand you don’t like the company of others, but it isn’t good to be alone all of the time, either.”

“What’s this about? I have you, don’t I?” Wanderer says absentmindedly, and though his tone is mocking, she doesn’t scold him for his offensive gestures but rather, indulges him. 

“You do,” Lesser Lord Kusanali insists, and something unfurls in Wanderer’s chest at the reassurance—a strange feeling overall, considering he thought himself to be above needing senseless affmiration. “but I meant someone other than me. How are you getting along with your peers? I’ve heard they’ve taken a great liking to you!”

Wanderer scoffs, a mocking laugh escaping him. “All the so-called scholars are of simple mind. I cannot believe you expect me to socialize with that lot.”

Before she had sealed it away, he had spent quite some time delving into Sachin’s research after Lesser Lord Kusanali had likened his worldview to Wanderer’s. He’d been quite content sitting at Puspa Café, trying to make sense of what he was reading—it could really only be him, since the rest of Vahumana consisted of soft imbeciles. 

Anyway, during this time, he had been approached by a group of scholars. One had shuffled towards him quite maturely, with a poor imitation of a french cocked-hat on his forehead and lace bunching at his chin.

“You’re Hat Guy?” he asks evenly. “You represented Vahumana at the Interdarshan Championship, right?”

It was less representing and more like keeping a close watch in case anything went wrong on the behalf of the Lord of Verdure herself, but Wanderer doesn’t dignify him with a response. He takes one look at the coat of the claret velvet and shielding breeches of brown doe-skin, likening him to another particularly annoying desert-dweller. “So what?”

“I’m Kourosh. From Zubayr Theater,” he clasps his hand, clattering and clashing on the cobbles of the stone-floor. “Nilou sent me!”

Wanderer remembers her, only vaguely. He does appreciate her efforts in Durin’s reformation. She also doesn’t take his sharp tongue to heart, and neither did that Fontainian girl, Navia—so he has little personal quarrel with her.

“The Theater is thinking about putting on a Kabuki performance,” he says, breathless, and when Wanderer’s eyes flick to his obviously Fontainian hat, he stammers, “well, right now we’re putting on a rendition of—something else—but we thought, um, obviously… you’d be able to help with accuracy.”

Huh. This got a noise out of the Wanderer. “Because I’m Inazuman, or because I’m a part of Vahumana?”

“Well, it’s just—we heard that you wrote an astonishing essay on Inazuman societal issues, and some other Inazuma-related aspects in the historical nature… and of course, you are Inazuman, so that helps, also…”

“No,” Wanderer says flatly, as the vague image of the Kabukimono with his great veil appears to him; listening to the faint whistling at the forge, the Inspector’s black-eyed daughter observing his feminine clothing, his dainty hands and arms. “I can’t help you. Better yet, don’t do it at all.”

“I would’ve liked to see the treats of Kabuki Theater,” Lesser Lord Kusanali nods seriously, hands stopping where they were plaiting a dark red clove-knot into her long white hair. “Maybe next time…”

“Stay out of my head,” Wanderer presses his lips together, and he feels his synthetic skin, woodborne and pale flush with the words. “Who knew the Lesser Lord would be so nosy?”

“I’m sorry! You just seemed so lost in thought,” she protests, but looks properly chastised. “Naturally, I got curious… as the God of Wisdom, isn’t it in my job description to be curious? And how many times have I told you? It’s Nahida.”

“Buer.” Wanderer presses his lips together. “Enough with this childish nonsense.”

“Fine, fine… Kusanali is fine, no need to go back to that.” she amends quickly, rising upright. “At least drop the Lesser Lord. I hear it all day!”

Her face is peaked and pressed into a protest, but Wanderer doesn’t dignify her with a response. She’s been overworking herself, as she is usually—there is only so much a foreigner can do in this regard. He focuses on his tea again, the wooden ludo set that this child-god had trudged up from somewhere. Two of the four colors remain unplayed, stacked high in their respective boxes as the spaces are littered with pieces. 

He wonders if this is truly what’s amusing to a god. Did she seek to analyze the choices he would make? Was this boredom, yet, or worse, did she keep his company because she wanted it? It cannot be victory, because if it is, it’s a cruel one: she’s bested him, in more ways than one: for what could a discarded, prototype puppet provide in the face of a god, that a human could not?

If anything, it’s company, he supposes. The Lesser Lord and him, the two who know each other best: immortal beings, widely different in experience despite their shared age of a measly five hundred, yet here all the same, playing a childish game together.

“You should eat something,” she makes a move, then, and with it she brings out two wrinkled figs, wrapped carefully in one of those hand-sewn discarded handkerchiefs that Wanderer practiced his sewing on. She had never commented on the imperfections, only folding the cloth with a small, private satisfaction, as though cherishing the attempt more than the result. “It’ll make you feel better! Food is fulfilling, as is purpose, of course, and though I would never be so bold as to ask you to eat, I hope you will, in time, come to cherish such a remarkable act as this…”

The figs are wrinkled, their skins furrowed like bark pressed under sun and time, and for a moment he wonders how long she has been carrying them. Only the Lesser Lord would count something as inane as eating to be remarkable. 

Hold on. What did she say about feeling better? “I feel fine.”

“So you say,” her cheeks pinch into a smile. It’s a look that the wayward foreigner has come to associate with a kind of exasperated fondness.  “Really, Wanderer… Do you think I can’t tell when you’re burying your feelings?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of my mind?”

“I did!” she protests. Her petulant arms cross over one another, and her eyes fitted with a bright twinkle. “You’re easy to read!”

“For the love of—” Wanderer inhales, feeling his jaw tense as he unclenches his hands, if only for her to place two pieces of wrinkled fruit in each. He clicks his tongue. “You’re meddlesome.”

“Is it not proper of the god of wisdom to be such?” Lesser Lord Kusanali smiles knowingly, as she makes her move upon the board once more. Ludo was a kinder game to play with the child-god, since with chess, he could count on his hands the amount of times he had won against her. Still, he indulged her in a game of chess whenever she asked, if just for the look on her face when he did win.

Ludo, though, which was much more luck-based and chance-reliant… well, he had much more of a winning shot. 

“Hm… you play aggressively,” she crosses her arms, leaning across the board. Wanderer does not flinch away from her, focusing instead on the furrow of her brow, pressing her chubby and fat fingers against the barrel-organ of the small, velvet wood dice-shaker. “I can never tell if you’re going to take my piece or not… sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. Does choice exist before one makes it? Or is it the meaning that appears only in the instant a person’s fingers lift the piece from the square…”

“Cut the nonsense,” Wanderer rasps, leaning away from her, trying to cut short what will undoubtedly become another one of her long-winded nonsensical analogies. Truth was, Wanderer never knew if he would or not—not until the moment his hand closed around it. Sometimes it was the soft, pulpy cavity of his chest twisting at the thought of causing her distress, or the crueler snarl and cold burn wanting to cause her distress. “I know you need something from me. Spit it out.”

“Well, I do have some business in the Girdle,” she admits, her white-sun hair bright against the green of her prison-home. “I know the desert isn’t somewhere where you feel at ease…. But you’re still the one who can weather its harsh nature best. Will you accompany me?”

“Just send me. Is there a point in you coming along? What good is a prisoner if you do not use him for things like this?”

“If I only sent you, I would be no different than someone who orders you around,” Lesser Lord Kusanali replies, so disarmingly sincere that Wanderer finds his mouth invoking her name on an exhaled breath, raspy and disapproving. “Besides, I think it would be a great bonding activity!”

“For you?” Wanderer scoffs. “Or for me?”

“Hm…” she touches a finger to her chin, her face arranging itself into what was an obvious display of thoughtfulness. She is so expressive, Wanderer thinks, and however foolish it feels, for someone like himself—who feels everything so intensely, it feels like camaraderie. “Both!”

Wanderer directs his gaze back to the board. It’s probably got something to do with forest-desert relations, but that’s not the kind of thing Wanderer tends to worry himself with. “Where to?”

“The old Tanit camps,” she replies, and it evades Wanderer so—she seems to hold his gaze with her wide, inquisitive green eyes upon saying this. “And Aaru Village. I want to go through Caravan Ribat.”

Wanderer knew of them. The Tanit had been a respectable marriage of tribe, village, and town, though the despicable struggle for power had destroyed them, as it does most things, including gods, people, and Wanderer himself. The thought skims close to the surface, and he tucks it away below his tongue before it fully blooms. No need to let her see that—which she surely would, if she read his mind. 

“Any particular reason? Surely you don’t intend to pay respects to such a pitiful and prideful group?”

She seems unbothered by his scorn, as she always is—she takes it in stride, almost preferring his blunt nature to the candied words of the Sages. My heart longs to reconcile past and present, she had said once, when he’d mocked her over her acceptance of his degrading nature, that includes you.

Lesser Lord Kusanali seems to think on this for a moment more, pausing as her hand closes over her piece on the board, staring unblinkingly on the small four hand-painted on the die. 

“There are many ways to pay respects,” she says warmly, “But no—I do not consider what I wish to do to be one of them. And Tanjiyy is there—he is Vahumana, too. Maybe you can make a friend!”

“No thanks,” Wanderer says flatly, skirting his tongue over his teeth. “What business do you have there?”

The Lesser Lord’s face scrunches into a giggle. “If I don’t tell you, will you not come?”

“Don’t act childish. You know I will accompany you regardless.”

She’s rolled a good number, and her small piece, chipped at the very edge of the cheap wood, is pushed forward towards him. Her arms are too small to reach so far, so Wanderer pushes it to its place once her blunt fingernails can no longer graze it. 

“Before she was killed, Babel sought control over the Orchard of Pairidaeza and the Jinni. I’d like to understand how close she came to achieving that, and therefore judge the intensity of her life’s work as a threat to Sumeru.” Lesser Lord Kusanali says evenly, tapping her chin, “After the mess with Dottore, I can’t take any chances… and, of course, I’d like to pay my thanks to the people of Aaru Village for their aid in Sumeru City’s time of need!”

Wanderer would say it if he were given a chance, but King Deshret was the greatest of fools for creating that Oasis. Though it served a noble purpose in its proud stance as a cemetery for the Goddess of Flowers, how different was it, truly, than seeking eternity for your nation?

He allows the thought to steep, its bitterness settling low in his chest. What was it that possessed the gods to seek the notion to preserve a single moment for so long?

“Babel wasn’t chasing it out of grief,” the Lesser Lord says, and Wanderer knows that she’s aware of what he's thinking of. “Hm… I suppose it would be more accurate to say she wished for Dominion. And if she made any progress, it means someone else could follow the path she carved.”

There is no great sorrow that comes when Wanderer hears this, just a strange sort of bitterness and a terrible ache in his chest. 

“We can head out tomorrow,” he says, and that’s that.

He ends up going on his own.

Lesser Lord Kusanali had greatly underanticipated the mediocrity of her Sages, and thus had a myriad of issues pop up in the few hours before they had agreed to set off. Wanderer only allows himself a taste of disappointment before he nods curtly. 

She’s upset, he can tell. She had packed him sweets and water, canteens of things he does not need and will never need, clasping her hands together as she tells him don’t be reckless.

He reached Caravan Ribat in record time, now that he was on his own. He could’ve been there much sooner had he just flown, but he quite enjoys the forest, and—

“Hat Nara,” Ararycan is there, edges of his bright blue cadence singed as though he were bent over a hot-stove, slaving away. “Hat Nara is heading to Valuka?”

Wanderer stops mid-stride, shoulders dropping in something between resignation and reluctant tolerance.

“…I wasn’t aware word travels so quickly among you. Do you not have anything better to do besides gossip about my affairs?”

If Aranara could beam, there would surely be one upon Ararycan’s chubby face. “Vana hears everything. Hat Nara should come by Vanarana—try Arapacati’s Taste of Warmth…”

“I’m heading to Valuka on Lesser Lord Kusanali’s orders,” Wanderer exhales. They did make good tea, and it wasn’t as if a detour would delay him immensely. Still… “Maybe on the way back.”

“Be careful of sharp things, Hat Nara. Many Nara Valuka… and Apshvaana in the waters.”

“I’ve been through sharper,” Wanderer says. Spinococodiles and Eremites pale in comparison to the sheer horror that awaited him upon Dottore’s operating table. 

Ararycan doesn’t share the sentiment, only nodding thoughtfully, “like Hilinara.”

He regrets not taking the detour for the tea, though, as now he stands firm and tall at Caravan Ribat, behind an Eremite woman with an ample bosom and backside, sniffling and shaking burnt hands as a Scorpion had taken her tongue. The unwelcome pity from the Kabukimono is ever-present, though he has no words to show for it, only the sharp tongue of the Balladeer itching to congratulate her on her stupidity.

There are with him, a few other travelers—weary, hunched from hunger and the climate of the desert. It’s half a day’s journey to Aaru Village, and while Wanderer prefers the solitude of traveling on his own, flying himself over the Wall of Samiel would attract more attention than he felt like presently dealing with.

The Wall itself earns itself a twist of Wanderer’s lips when it comes into view. Towering, brutish, and quite famously ugly. Surely there had been a less offensive way to prevent the sandstorms from ravaging the woods, and one that did not draw so much ire from the desert-dwellers… Although Lesser Lord Kusanali had acknowledged the need for it, she had found it unpleasant herself. It defends against sandstorms, yes, she had so graciously said one evening, as Wanderer held a serrated fish knife to the desert eel, but has also blocked the spread of wisdom's blessing. Is divine wisdom not meant to shine on all people?

Well, nevermind that. There’s a small caravan of Sumpter Beasts and Eremites escorting scholars to Aaru Village who gladly take him on. Vision-users are helpful to have, he supposes, especially in the desert. It was a good thing, then, that their initial distrustfulness of his foreign appearance and ornate clothing were dispelled by the heart-beat like pulse of his Vision.  

They set off at noon. Wanderer keeps to himself, as he always does. 

The scholars chitter amongst themselves, while Wanderer pushes his hat over his face and closes his eyes. Nonsensical conversations and awkward small-talk wash over him, the palimpsest of countless crossings, and he, a figure neither welcome nor unwelcome, quietly jostling in the back of the carriage. 

He dozes only in the shallowest sense—more akin to a brief bout of relaxation than any true slumber, even as the desert swallows up the caravan, the heat blazing into the small of his back from the space in his loose garments. Thankfully, extreme temperatures scarcely affected him as they would a human, and he could cease breathing to avoid dust in his internal systems. 

All this considered, while the humans around him struggled in the heat, passing a poorly dented canteen of water amongst themselves, Wanderer was quite comfortable. They leave him alone as well, only attempting once or twice to rope him into whatever conversation was at hand or offering him water, which he had declined. 

It was only a few hours in when someone had the grand idea of attempting to form some kind of friendship with the wayward stranger. It’s no scholar, as they had tired from the climate and ended up shedding layers to save face, but Wanderer could tell when someone was watching him.

“If you have business with me,” he says flatly, “speak it.”

“A man of few words,” the Eremite says, who was a burly brown-skinned man. “I meant no offense, stranger. I can tell you come from far away. Where is it you travel to?”

Wanderer hands are poised across his chest, leg over the other. “Unless you plan on discourteously dropping a guest off in the middle of nowhere, I’m headed the same place as the rest of you.”

What escapes the Eremite can only be described as a hearty laugh. It’s a warm thing, if not mildly oafish. “What an interesting demeanor you have… you remind me of my sister, Safie. So confident and quick-witted…”

Wanderer regards him with mild disinterest. “You’re Aybak?”

And then internally curses himself for replying at all. Replying only incited more meaningless drivel as conversation, but for Wanderer—who had an infallible memory, down to the minute detail—the name, as annoying as it was—had sparked recognition. 

The woman had hounded him outside the Wall, insistent on guiding him through the desert. It was only with centuries worth of practice had Wanderer managed to smother his immediate instinct to chop off whatever hand had grazed his arm. 

“You know me!” he guffawed—which was a ridiculous notion. Aybak was renowned in Caravan Ribat for keeping the peace between rowdy Eremites and prissy scholars so it was neither here nor there if Wanderer knew of him. “Well, Safie isn’t my real sister. We're a very close-knit group, so we call each other brother and sister. You’ve met her? She’s always coming and going. The youth these days really don't care to settle down.”

Wanderer is already getting a headache. 

“And you—stranger, I can tell you’re a man of few words… Say, I heard from the Akademiya that there was a foreigner by the Dendro Archon’s side… could you be—?”

Well, that’s enough of that. Wanderer quite enjoys the anonymity he has now, though it was a far call as his time as Lord Scaramouche of the harbingers. “You’re giving me a headache.”

Aybak trudged alongside him, kicking up tan swirls as the Sumpter Beasts came to take a rest stop at a nearby oasis. There’s a brass nozzle in his hands as he hoses down the mud sticking to the claws of the Beasts, a great long thing that wraps like a snake over his hands. “You seem tense, friend.”

Friend. The word scuttled across Wanderer’s nerves like something with legs.

Wanderer does not have friends, and if he did, they were not humans—measly, weak, pitiful humans. It was really a ridiculous thought, to be thinking of friends. What good were friends to a puppet-thing? He had the Aranara, stray cats that scuttered over the edges of Grand Bazaar sniffing his hand for some remnants of a dinner, birds that sought refuge from the weather under the wide expanse of his hat, and as loathe as he was to admit it, his jailor, Lesser Lord Kusanali.

Wanderer only tilts his hat over his face and closes his eyes, feeling the brush of the finials of the shakujo twinkle against the clink-clank of the carriage. “Don’t say something like that again.”

They leave him alone for the rest of the trip.

Aaru Village is quite plain. 

He brushes sand from his clothes, cleaning off the fine details of the embroidery on his socks. The press of the fine grain isn’t so much painful as it is discomforting. He would argue that being forced to listen to the foolish followers and descendants of King Deshret that took up residence in Aaru Village was the price he paid for his lack of struggle regarding the desert climate.

“First time?”

Wanderer turns. A tall woman regards him in a fashion unfamiliar to him, but her manner of speaking and distinct appearance clues him in instantly. 

“You can rest here, before you head off,” she says, fixing the edges of the gold ornament resting upon her breastbone. “Nights in the desert are cruel. Foreigners are not an unusual sight to Sumeru, but no traveler from afar generally wanders into the desert.”

Her amber eye is gentle and curious, if not slightly suspicious. Her face is fragile as milk, strangely comfortable and long, even as the Hydro Vision upon her person draws Wanderer’s ire. “I’ve no need for anything like that. I’m a student in the Akademiya.”

“A scholar,” she amends, “well, we have plenty of those here.”

“You mean those exiled fools,” Wanderer’s lip curls in mild distaste. “Do I seem like someone of that caliber?”

“You seem like trouble, to me,” she replies evenly, “However, you are welcome in Aaru Village nonetheless, as long as you do not bring harm to it. It is my job as the Guardian of Aaru Village, scion of Al-Ahmar—”

She lifts her chin as Wanderer decides to stop listening. He was above it all, so as Candace stood tall reciting, he finds himself leaving her behind. 

He makes his way up the rickety old bridge, ignoring the pointing of kids at his attire, his wide-brimmed hat, or the brush of his shakujo as kids run their hands over it—whatever will entertain them. He is not self-conscious, precisely. He stopped being self-conscious somewhere in his first century, and it had come back briefly—humiliatingly—only in the days after his erasure from Irminsul, when he had emerged blinking and newly-named into the squint of the Sumeru sun and did not know of his name.

“We met briefly, didn’t we?” Candace is behind him again, her shield an axon and decorated with all sorts of depictions of the goat-king etched upon it. “During the siege of Sumeru? Though I suppose Cyno would be unhappy with such a word… are you here on official business?” 

If the Lesser Lord sends him out an errand, as she often does, it’s always official business to him—though she herself persistently denies this, and he, too, does not feel the same way running odd-jobs for her as he did running them for the Fatui—he, nevertheless, does not treat it with any more laxation. If he is entrusted with something, it is because she felt it is something she could only leave in his hands.

Even, say, something as menial as passing along thanks. Though this, too, he feels, is a way for her to look out for him.

“Lesser Lord Kusanali sends her thanks,” he says blandly. 

“As expected, of course,” Candace receives warmly, and as if waiting for her to appear, she casts her gaze over his shoulder. “Is she not here? Though the desert-folk may worship a different God, the Lord of Dendro is welcome here, too. No one here will give her any kind of grief… you need not worry about this. Only those who obey the rules shall be guests in Aaru Village. As for those who don't..."

Wanderer tips his hat down to hide his face. “It’s nothing like that. She’s busy.”

“Hm, I imagine so. Dottore left quite a mess, didn’t he? I don’t deny that she has her arms full.” Candace amends, her gait loosening considerably. She fixes him with her amber eye once more. “Will you be staying long? We have lodging.”

“No need. I have no interest in hanging around,” Wanderer brushes a bit of sand off his shoulder, surveying the surroundings. The Tanit camps shouldn’t be too far from here, and though he dislikes flying in the desert, the view from high above Khaj-Nisut makes up for it. “I’ll be off soon.”

“Where are you headed? If you have a moment, I think Sethos would quite appreciate an appearance from you…” he takes note of the faintest curve of her lip, as if amused, “It seems that he’s been stuck with the Ibis King and his friends, who seem to have an endless stream of chatter to supply him with.”

Wanderer nearly snorts. He’d been too preoccupied to be properly introduced at the time, but he had seen Sethos’ winded expression from too many hours cooped up in the Temple of Silence with those three nuisances. Even then, what could they do but bore Sethos to death with games of chess? Though it would be annoying indeed, there was some amusement to be gained from watching Thoth play a meager game of chess with Sobek and Heryshaf. 

“Pity I won’t get to see it,” Wanderer says, but the thought alone is enough for him. “I’m heading north.”

“Safhe Shatranj?” Candace inquires—a good guess, considering the recent events. 

“Tanit camps.”

At this, her eye twinkles curiously. “Whatever for?”

For Lesser Lord’s Kusanali’s ill-timed displays of condolences, honestly, however much she claims otherwise. Wanderer only pushes his hat down over his face and busies himself by looking around the area as nonchalantly as he can manage… which is not very impressive considering the amount of kids running circles around his feet, tugging at the various ornaments and fabrics. 

To her credit, Candace only shoes some of the kids away with affectionate shoves of their heads, fistfuls of brown hair running through her jeweled hands. “Official business? I won’t pry. At the very least, come have a drink. There seems to be plenty of company to go around.”

At this, Wanderer follows her gaze to the Village Chief’s house, where he can see the brief silhouette of Uncle Anpu offering a drink or two to Cyno—if Cyno were here, it was likely he was accompanied by that whole band of idiots. 

“I’m fine,” Wanderer presses his lips together. Who knows how long he might get roped into hearing about that architect’s latest grievances—whether it be of his roommate or his latest clients or some kind of inability to pay rent for the month. 

“I insist,” Candace is saying to him, but Wanderer gets the faintest feeling that she’s only inviting him so she can keep an eye on him for the time being. His presence was never generally a good thing, and he’s quite sure he’s probably putting her on edge right now. “Sethos says you’re the perfect buffer for Cyno’s nonsense. I’d quite like to see that for myself.”

Damn Sethos. Wanderer hopes Sobek is chewing his ear off right now for all sorts of things.

“Only for a moment,” Wanderer says tightly. 

Candace’s smile is disarmingly polite, even as her light amber eye regards him slowly. He really should have taken this as a sign, because when he follows her to the tavern, unfortunately, it seems Kaveh is more than a few drinks in. 

He’s flushed head to toe, blonde hair plastered to his mouth. To his considerable surprise, it seems to be Tighnari who’s humoring him: fanning himself with a punkah, as if attempting to beat the heat. The night is kinder to him than the day is, and he doesn’t seem too bad off. 

“Hat guy,” Tighnari seems relieved to see him, for whatever reason, “Thank goodness you’re here. Any more and I would have Cyno carry Kaveh to Birmistan on his back.”

Wanderer’s eyes dart between the visible drunkenness of Kaveh’s person and Cyno, who seems to be generally unphased by it. In his hands is a shiny, reflective pack of TCG cards, of which he’s laid out between his unassuming opponent, who happens to be a very familiar looking Scribe.

Wanderer has ran into Alhaitham once or twice before, mostly during his Acting Grand Sage days. He’d often been spotted by Wanderer standing straight in Lesser Lord Kusanali’s Sanctuary, reporting languidly on some topic he could clearly not care less about. The first time or so, after he’d taken his proactive leave, the tinier god had turned to him and said—

“Well? How do you like him?”

Wanderer scoffs. “You’re asking for my opinion?”

The young Archon had folded her hands behind her back, the faintest smile touching her lips. “Mhm. I think he’s interesting. He has a very unique perspective…”

Alhaitham looked precisely as he remembered him, with an expression so detached Wanderer wondered if there was anything in his head at all. The noise of the tavern washed around him like water about a stone. If he minded Kaveh's increasingly dramatic complaints, he gave no sign of it.

“—and another thing,” Kaveh insisted, “the budget was only twenty three thousand mora. Am I a miracle worker? It’s just another expense out of my pocket… cutting costs will cut the integrity of my work…”

Wanderer took a seat at the far end of the table and said nothing. Alhaitham, to his credit, drew little attention to Wanderer’s presence… this was, he had come to understand, the particular way of their non-acquaintance. He found some camaraderie in Alhaitham knowing both of them had been on the receiving end of the same pair of small, luminous eyes. It suited him. It suited, he was fairly certain, Alhaitham.

What did not suit him—what had not, if he were to be perfectly accurate, suited him for some weeks now—was everything else. He hadn’t lied to the traveler—he really did quite a bit lighter following Dottore’s death. But some part of him, too, felt more content to die now than ever.

He accepted the cup Candace pressed into his hand without looking at it. The tea was desert-brewed, heavily spiced, the kind that Sumeru's wandering tribes sweetened nearly to the point of indecency… 

"—twenty thousand, Alhaitham, I said twenty, or perhaps I said twenty-three, but the principle remains the same—"

Tighnari had abandoned the punkah in favor of pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Hat guy… could you…”

“No,” Wanderer says, wrinkling his nose down at the tea in various levels of distaste. “I’m errand running. Someone else take him. I’ve heard the General Mahamatra can lift twelve men at once.”

“That’s just rumors,” Tighnari says exasperatedly, around the same time that Cyno says, “I can.”

“What’s he getting drunk for now anyway?”

“Celebration drinks,” Tighnari’s ear flicks, and he shifts his arm so the tiredness of waving the fan doesn’t take too much of a toll. “We invited you, too, but you seemed to be kind of out of it.”

Had they? Wanderer wasn’t sure. He had been in a daze these last few days, which he realizes now is probably the true intent of Lesser Lord Kusanali’s sending him here… pass along my thanks. You need the air. The desert is good for thinking, Which is synonymous with, I am worried about you.

She was a very upfront and direct sort of person, but perhaps its testament of how well she knew Wanderer, and exactly how to get behind his defenses. Because she was, beneath all the gentleness, possessed of a strategist's instincts that she deployed with the light touch of someone who preferred never to let you know she was deploying them at all.

He had wanted Dottore dead for longer than most of the people in this room had been alive .This was not, he knew, grief. He had understood grief, and it was not this. Lesser Lord Kusanali had looked at him, in the days after, with something that was not pity because she knew he would not tolerate it.

“You're allowed to not know what to do with yourself,” she had said. You've spent a very long time knowing.”

The familiar buzz is coming over him. A slight daze—though slight is perhaps too modest a word for something so total, so thoroughgoing—that he’s been in for the past few days… meandering buzzing in his ears as most words fly past him. He watches them go with something that is not quite indifference and not quite grief, a cousin to both which does not have a word in neither sumerian nor inazuman. Nothing feels real, and he gets the odd sense that if he were to die right now, he’d truly be happy. 

He doesn’t know what it is. It seems Dottore's death had pushed him over the edge—that's the easy explanation, and he'd like to keep using it. the events of Nod-Krai as well as every other insignificant thing in his life had cumulated into one, and he could get past the feeling of drowning. The water in his ears is as thick as old blood, furiously still. 

The only thing in focus is the TCG cards on the table. In particular, the face of the Raiden Shogun gleams up at him, and suddenly he is so nauseous he feels himself wanting to lay down.

“Hat guy?”

The world comes crashing back. Tighnari is looking at him with concern, and his mouth feels incredibly dry. 

“What?”

Tighnari seems to think about saying something, but Kaveh nudges him, to which he schools his expression again. “I was just saying that Sethos will be insufferable if he learns you were here and didn't say hello."

Just don’t tell him.

Candace takes the cup from him—which, good riddance, he hadn’t drank a single sip. "You should stay the night. The road north is unkind after dark, and there is no errand in the world that cannot wait until morning, even for a God.”

Wanderer was suffocating. Heat is crawling up his neck, and the misery in his chest hasn’t alleviated one bit. Is this the closest he will ever get to humanity? He could almost hear the lesser lord in his ear, talking about the mundane and to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it—how could his body withstand years of torture, but not some measly emotions?

It has been coming over him for some days now, arriving each morning before he has quite finished the business of waking, settling across his shoulders like a garment…

“Stay out of my business,” Wanderer snaps. He’s feeling more irritated than usual. He makes to get up, but Kaveh drunkenly grabs onto his arm. “—Did Lesser lord Kusanali put you up to this? I’m fine. She’s overreacting, like she always does. Don’t pay any mind to her.”

And I don’t know why the traveler told me not to sacrifice myself. I wouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have. Wouldn’t I? I would have.

“Hat guy… are you feeling alright?” 

“Just fine,” Wanderer says brusquely, and then leaves the tavern.

Wanderer was fine. He was more than fine. Who were they to say he wasn’t? He was, in point of fact, perfectly well, and had been perfectly well the entire evening, and the suggestion that he was anything other than perfectly well, he did not intend to entertain.

The stars are out in their full Sumeru complement, extravagant and indifferent, and he does not look at them. He had finished his business in the desert with the brisk efficiency he applied to all things he wished to be done with, and then, finding himself with hours remaining and no appetite whatsoever for returning to company, had spent the remainder of the afternoon by the creek, where the calm, cool face of the river asked him for a kiss. 

He’s stomping up the stairs of the sanctuary. He brushes his clothes back, small trinkets and bells emitted soft, irregular music of glass and metal and things picked up and pocketed in passing, over years, on his person, jingling now and there with every movement. 

The Sanctuary of Surasthana receives him in its usual manner: dark, but warmly lit as it always is. And of course, the railings. He moves further into the Sanctuary. His room is farther back, a small nook of the place allotted to him. He stays there a moment before starting to go there.

This was, he supposed, what it meant to have somewhere to come back to, though he would not have described it that way to anyone, and in fact would have rejected the description with some heat if it had been offered to him.

The Lesser Lord is nowhere to be seen. He generally brings back some sort of trinket for her as a habit, like fox beads or the most recent cut of cloth the merchants hawk about, but he had nothing today—although he doubts she would have minded. Though some part of him is relieved the deity isn’t here, the strange weight in his chest grows bigger.

It had been a manageable size for most of the evening, grew incrementally larger in the quiet of the empty Sanctuary, in the absence of noise and company and all the small frictions of being around people that he complained about and that kept him, he was beginning to understand, from having to be alone with himself. Now, though…

He finds himself at the railing.

He is not sure, precisely, why this happened, why his feet brought him here rather than anywhere else, but here he is, and his hands find the painted wood, and he stands and looks out at the dark below. The Sanctuary sat high.

Would it be so bad, to fall?

He had yet to close the door behind him, and the wind felt nice. A rough cold breeze through Sumeru’s hot weather, buffeting his hair and clothes… whipping his vision back and forth. Winter was coming to Sumeru, which was not the same as winter coming anywhere else. He wondered, briefly, if it would snow. Would the lesser lord rope him into menial things again, such as snowmen and snowangels, snowball fights…

He stared at the abyss from his sky-high perch on the Sanctuary’s ramps. A rickety, fragile thing, built only of the spare materials the architects could scrounge up from the destruction upon Sumeru city. Dottore’s segment, causing so much pain… wasn’t that his fault, too? The blood on Dottore’s hands are his, too. There would be no segment if there were no Wanderer.

He apathetically kicked one of his legs, sending a couple rocks tumbling down the tower to the ground. He could’ve counted the seconds until the rocks hit the bottom, but it was too much effort. Everything was too much effort.

What awaited a puppet after death? He truly had no idea. He had been many things across a very long life and not one of them had given him reliable information on the subject… would it be something sweet and peaceful, somewhere kinder and warmer, or a place so hellish that his mind is trying to soothe him however it can—

—he was happy, he was the happiest he had ever been in years. He had even laughed, recently. He had eaten food he liked and been irritated by people in the ordinary way and watched the little Archon do her careful work on the world with something he could only call, if he was being accurate, fondness. So why was he…

Wanderer is staring down the barrel of the fall. Lesser Lord Kusanali’s hard erected railings, each post painstakingly painted and plastered with all sorts of things to “homeify” it more—and before he knew it, he was climbing over the railing,

He was happy. So why had he gotten rid of the only thing between him and a very long way down? 

The railing only came up to his hip—if it were meant to prevent a intentional fall, it would be laughably easy to climb over it, but it was high enough that you could only ever fall if you truly intended to. Is that why Lesser Lord Kusanali had them put up? She needn’t have. Wanderer can fly—if he falls now, he does so because it is precisely what he wants.

Wanderer stands at the edge, waiting for a particularly strong breeze to push him one way or another. Neither comes. Would it matter if he just… slipped in? He leans forward a little.

This is not his first time here. It’s not his fifth time, or even his tenth time. He’s lost track by now, having been here so many times before—perhaps not here, on the railings, but atop the Divine tree, or from high above in the desert…

And just for a moment—he will admit this here, only here—as he watched Dottore burn to death within irminsul, he could only wonder if it was warm.

Here he is left with only his own thoughts for company. His mind either whirls with thoughts, or it’s incredibly empty. He becomes acutely aware of the hollowness that gnaws at his insides, leaving him cold. His mind is dull, but fulfilled. The glitter below the sanctuary is beautiful. It promises pain, but only a temporary one.

He has a paper to submit in the morning. Wanderer would like to rest awhile. Tonight, perhaps, he will do it in his bed.

He exhales long and hard. Blinking, he leans back and one leg over the other, he takes one step, and then another, and he walks away from the edge. His clothes kiss the edge of the railing as he maneuvers his body around, he sees, with a horrible dread, Lesser Lord Kusanali.

She was, of all the beings he had ever encountered in a long and cluttered life, the most expressive. She’s staring at him with widened eyes, arms dangling at her sides like she doesn’t know what to say. 

He took his hands off the railing. and something in his chest that had been very tightly coiled for a very long time began, almost imperceptibly, to shift. He didn’t want her to see him like this.

“Wanderer,” she says, “can we talk?"

“Candace sends her regards,” he blurts. Lesser Lord Kusanali’s face twists in pain. “Aaru Village is rebuilding fine. The Tanit camps are empty and that architect is back to his financial troubles.”

“Wanderer—”

“The creek east of the road is running lower than usual, which could mean a dry winter, or it could just mean it's the creek. I didn't look closely. Everything is fine. Dottore is dead,” Wanderer says desperately, as though if he can fill all the available space with them there will be no room left for anything else. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. You’re overreacting! I don’t—I don’t know why I’m—”

You're well, the city is well, the Traveler is well, everyone is extremely and comprehensively well. I am not well.

His eyes are burning. There’s a horrible rock in his throat and with growing horror, he finds a light wetness on his cheek. The blur of tears makes it hard to make out her expression, which he is both grateful for and horrified about. If he saw it now, he would not forget it.

If he were a mortal, maybe this is where he would resort to prayer: he would pray to her and tell her though everything dreads the fire, he does not. He will detail every instance he has cried over spilt milk and ask for forgiveness for his misery. He could live on an island with all of his last-ditch attempts at happiness.

“Wanderer,” Lesser Lord Kusanali calls, and though he can’t look at her, he can tell she’s crying. “Wanderer, I thought you were going to…”

“I wouldn’t have!” Wanderer rejects, bunching up his shoulders, “I wouldn’t have… I pulled away, didn’t I?”

“You have, before,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says, and her small arms come up to grasp any part of him, as if afraid he may disappear before her. “I was right to be worried—”

The burning in his eyes gets worse and then, without his permission, gets worse again, and there is not anything he can do about it. There is not anything he wants to do about it, which is the most frightening thing, the thing underneath all the other things. Some part of him is tired of holding it and wants, more than it has wanted most things recently, to simply put it down.

Her voice is wet. “Wanderer, why didn’t you come to me?”

Wanderer can’t answer her. There is only the soft press of her hands on his arms, his sleeve,  whatever she can reach. She was so good to him, it made him sick. The first person to be, in a long time. He can’t bear to say it, so he presses his hands on her arms, and with startlingly perception, she allows the mind connection to be made.

What was I supposed to say? There is no reason for any of it. Collei is moving on just fine. By every available measure everything is the way it ought to be.

Her voice, in his head, is just as emotional as it is in real life. Collei is moving on just fine because she did not suffer five hundred years of it. It is all you have ever known. 

He doesn't have an answer for that. He has looked for one and come back empty, the way he came back empty from the desert today, the way he has been coming back empty from most places recently.

I am happy, he insists, I’ve never felt lighter in my life. That part is true.

I believe you, she says. There is no ‘but’. His happiness and his misery sitting side by side in her understanding, and if the God of wisdom finds it perfectly reasonable, who is he to find it strange?

And I pulled away, he says, because he needs to know that she’s aware. At the railing. I want you to know that I pulled away. 

Even if you didn’t, I would have saved you. I would have saved you over and over and over again. I am so, so proud of you. Allow me to be selfish about you. You don’t need to be grateful or recovered or even particularly willing to be saved. I don’t want you to die. And one day, you will get to a point where you don’t want to die, either. Please let me be selfish. You are my home, too.

Wanderer’s shoulders hunch. It truly feels like she’s peeling the skin apart from him. Don’t.

I’ve been worried ever since you told me what you did in Nod-Krai. Did you know Durin told me while you were deactivated, it was the most peaceful he’d ever seen you? Lesser Lord Kusanali’s voice has turned from soft to a wretched thing, cracking on her own words. I want a life for you where you are just as peaceful alive.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. There is so much stubborn hope in your heart. 

“So benevolent,” Wanderer croaks out loud, but the dread has built up in his chest and all he has now is a sense of overheating and the thought to lay down for a while. He looks to the side. "Lesser Lord Kusanali. Can we talk in the morning?”

“Of course,” she says, and her cheeks bunch up into a smile, and pulling back she offers him her hand, open, unhurried, as though this is the most ordinary thing in the world. Her wrist is bare of any bangles, seeing as she was in her pajamas. “And it’s Nahida.”

Wanderer’s eyes flicker to it. “What’s this for?”

“Hold my hand.”

“I’m not going to jump off this platform in front of you. Rest assured, Nahida.”

“I really don't want to fall in,” Nahida says, with great seriousness. “it’s such a small platform. Why do you think I had the railings installed?”

Wanderer sees no possible way for that to happen as the railings are taller than her. However, as he comes to understand it, it wasn’t for a fear of falling, but a sense of comfort. 

He takes her hand anyway. She squeezes his fingers.

He doesn't move right away, and she doesn't prompt him to. There is no hurry in her—there has never been any hurry in her, which used to irritate him and now strikes him as something closer to grace. She simply stands beside him, her hand in his, looking out at the dark with companionable patience.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Wanderer says. He didn’t mean to be cruel. there is kindness inside him, he knows… someplace far away. He notices here that Nahida has closed the front door some time ago, as if to ensure his breakdown wasn’t privy to anyone else. 

Nahida squeezes his hand. “A couple hundred years from now, you can give me an apology. I have some mehndi left over. Will you do it for me?”

A couple hundred years with Nahida… Wanderer’s hand touches his wet cheek as Nahida swings their linked arms—that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?