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“You’re not Lohen, are you?”
You, Ursa—the brightest that fell, the tainted guide, often are surprised by this one mortal. When you learn about his existence through the vessel you inhabit, Varka is not someone that impressive in your eyes. Maybe, for a human, he classifies as an anomaly, but for you who have seen numerous of happening throughout your life and the tales left by the Ley lines, Varka looks ordinary to you.
That is why, you didn’t expect him to take a notice when you take ahold of Lohen’s body, but he does—even going as far as isolating you with just him, outside the gates of the centre city, away from the crowds’ eyes. The foliage around Windrise has grown verdant, you take a note; bright green and deep virescent adorning the giant oak tree. The obscured sky is an almost perfect backdrop, except for the rain clouds gathering from afar that ruins it.
“You are correct—I am not.” You confess, a perpetrator admitting its crime. “But I mean no harm, Knight of Boreas.”
“I know.” He answers then, clipped does his voice goes but nonetheless, neutral. “I would’ve noticed by now if not.”
“A wise choice.” You compliment. “Fret not. The boy is only unconscious from fatigue. Currently sleeping.”
“As expected from overworking.” Varka says as you watch the clenched fist of his relaxed and flexed. “I hope you’re not bothering him too much.”
“He is a stubborn one, unfortunately. Repeatedly refusing to fall.”
“Good for him.”
This time, the answer comes out from Varka’s mouth with a sigh, a slow one that denotes exasperation. You watch his expression morphs from neutrality to troubled, thinking about how casual his treatment to you and how unguarded the Grand Master is around the object of his love.
“And why do you come out now? I don’t think talking is your favourite past time.”
Oh, yes, you cannot mistaken it—the care this person exhibits is of affection. One that he thinks is unreturned. Others who cannot tell the difference between the way he speaks would think he is all lax but you know the moment you appeared, his nerve is pulled tight like a winded bow. That is the window in which you know that he cares far too much for the boy than it is to eliminate you.
Though, you have to commend his self-preservation; the fact Varka is able to withhold himself from jumping the gun to violence is remarkable in itself. You, after all, have been the source of ruin for multiple occasion in the past—for Mondstadt, the boy, and for Varka, personally.
“An impulse.” You retort, watching the mounds of grey passing in their slowness at the sky above. “I am unsure too.”
“The kid seems to be rubbing on you.”
“Unfortunately. Perhaps, I am growing soft too.”
He’s saying what you think is true too; perhaps, living together in the same body, sharing the same mind, able to see the memories like a passing film affects your psyche in the same way as you are to Lohen. It’s evident, in the way you communicate with Varka, how there is a restraint that bars you from actively trying to attack him.
After all, you know it yourself—Lohen is vicious, conscious or unconscious. As much as you are free to wield his arsenal and physique, he is very much in control still; it’s a matter of time, whether you or him that admits defeat. Thus far, fate is in favour for you to be the fallen once more.
“I resent him.” Again, you confess. “Resent you.”
“Really?” Varka calmly challenges. You follow to where his eyes are staring, the same sky that brings you two together. “Why?”
“You are nothing impressive. Weak. Unable to protect everything you care for. The exact reason why your friend sought me and died for the chaos he had sown.”
There is a beat in your explanation, a stare that comes from the person standing beside you. There is no prickly glare nor is there a hatred. Only a passive one, a neutrality.
“I’m sensing a ‘but’.”
You take a look at Varka—his eyes are the reflection of the sky, a replica of the storm brewing in the distance. The topic is a trigger to him, a landmine you have stepped, but still, he doesn’t do anything other than giving you an impassivity, even with his jest attempt to comfort himself.
“You persevered. You made it out alive throughout the ordeal. Head-strong, you marched towards despair, challenged fate, and won.” You add, a twinge of hidden jealousy falling in tandem with your words, in Lohen’s voice. “You, a normal human being whose power is only a meagre of what I have, had done something that I could not—defying the inevitable.”
“What are you trying to say here then?”
The rain begins to fall, the sky a touch darker than before. The grey casts a gloom, a sombre note, and you stare still to the eyes of the person you both hate and love. All because of the influence of a boy who refuses your guidance.
“If only I had met you earlier, Varka. Mayhaps, you and your words might convince me to not be led astray.” You say the unthinkable. “I may not be seeking power that way and the variables of things would have changed. The tragedies will not befall nor will the boy suffer from this power-hungry affliction.”
“The talk of ‘what-ifs’ are dangerous.” A second of silence, a heartbeat. “We never know what fate has stored for us and those talks of things that never come will just bite you back with regret.”
Varka’s gaze leaves you, staring up to the falling droplets and yours descends to the ground, staring at the stray leaves and dancing grass.
“And me appearing before the real you a thousand years ago wouldn’t really lead to anything different, I reckon.” He answers, chuckling lightly. “I’d die even.”
“Right. An imitation like me would not know what the actual self would … end up being. In the end, I am just an inferior version of that fallen angel, a shard that had been splintered over and over again—proven how the child affected me so much.”
“Having identity crisis now?”
“A funny jest.” You quip, without any threat. “But the truth exists within your words.”
The two of you continue to stand there, under the shade of the oak tree. Some droplets fall to you, landing on your head, sometimes on your clothes. It isn’t long until a shadow climbs into where you stand, your view narrowing slightly as you feel a heavy set of coat on top of your body, covering your head.
“Thank you.”
“I’m doing it for him.”
A twinge of hurt, a human emotion. “Ah. Of course.”
You pull the coat closer, so that the rain water won’t soak through the body you borrowed; Varka is right, you are here on borrowed time, for you are a mere figment of a past glory—all of these belonged to Lohen; his affection, his reaction, his feelings, and what-not, none of it is yours to have.
Funny how the cycle turns—your existence being defined by the person you want to possess. An envy, a jealousy, an ugly desire of primal sin. Only that is what differentiates what is yours and the child.
“I don’t think I can accept your existence just yet.” Varka mutters after awhile. “You brought a lot of disaster, from the past to now, just because you decided to forsake your abdication.”
“Yet, you are civil.” You point out, looking down to the pooling puddle underneath your feet, the wound on your palm throbs. “Because you love him. The child. Lohen.”
“You’re volatile—I don’t know what you’re going to do with him. One wrong step and I’ll probably end up with a dead body.” The emotion that slips is akin to an irate expression. “I really don’t want that.”
“I will not pull that off.” You don’t say that you will promise because you’re unsure too that it won’t happen. “Overwritten, I have been.”
“Overwritten, huh.” Varka emptily echoes then. “I truly hope you’re right.”
You realise from the start to the end, Varka never calls to your name. Not even once. That fact doesn’t suppose to hurt because you are the great Ursa the Drake, the reckoning, the probable world ender, and yet, you are ultimately a figment of a grandeur who have fallen far below what a human should be—you are now a ghost longing for a purpose, a spectre made powerless by a forced yearning.
Ah, this is exactly why I resent the two of you so much—
“You have my word, Varka.”
—for the fault for this inconvenience lies onto both of you.