Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The dragon Durin disembarks under the warm glow of an afternoon sun.

The puppet Wanderer sits alone in the House of Daena, hours later, pretending to work on a non-existent matter he’d insisted needed his utmost attention. The vast chambers of the library stand empty, illuminated only by a few weak rays of moonlight, still in a way that they seldom ever are.

Wanderer closes the book in front of him with a snap, and shoves himself away from the table, where a dozen other titles lay scattered about, pulled at random from the shelves around him. He plants his feet and drags the chair across the floor as roughly as possible, darkly pleased at the way the noise shoots through the dead air and ricochets off the smooth, stone walls. 

Restless, he abandons his things and begins to stomp aimlessly about the room, swinging his arms wide to accentuate the flap of his long, loose sleeves. Something rotten is growing within him, he can feel it, and the interminable silence is doing very little to stop the spread. He had hidden himself away in the pursuit of quiet, but it was an impulse that he was regretting more with each passing moment.

His Vision flashes and he rises into the air. Ten feet. Twenty. He loses sight of his workspace in the haze below and dispels the power, dropping himself upon one of the high outcroppings that ring the central lift. A thick layer of dust blankets its face, and he pulls Anemo into his hands to blast it away. Just as quickly, the power dissipates; he feels no urge to clear it. Instead, he shuffles his way along the edge, dragging his feet through the grime. 

The soles of his shoes carve an erratic, serpentine path through what he’s certain is at least a century’s worth of filth. He’s curious if, in the vast span of the Akademiya’s existence, anyone else had ever stood on this spot, at this height. Perhaps no one had. Perhaps this musty outcrop was simply the final resting place for a macabre combination of dust mites and shed skin cells. He wonders how many long-dead scholars he just smashed under his heel. 

He quickly finds that he doesn’t care. 

Properly bored now, he stops short and lowers himself to sit. He curls one leg beneath him and lets the other dangle carelessly over the open air. His eyes glaze over, and he imagines, many years on, another young scholar chancing across the remnants of this scene and puzzling over its meaning.

He shrinks into himself, gaze roving morosely over the expanse of catwalks, tables, and books, his mind still half expecting to find someone else in it. That strange, sour feeling washes over him again. He coughs, not because he needs to, but because he suddenly needs something, anything, to break through this oppressive noiselessness. He claps his hands. He whistles. He bows his head and spits over the side of the ledge. 

It hits the floor with a soft, wet splat. It’s not nearly as satisfying as he imagined it would be.

Durin’s voice.

The little dragon is laughing, hard, his eyes closed, mouth open. He calls out something unintelligible between his giggles, and then shrieks even louder, delighted by the way his glee multiplies and bounces around the big, strange room.

Wanderer starts. It feels real, too real, in the moment his mind conjures it. His body reacts before he can stop himself, cringing away from the volume, certain - at least physically - that his ears have swallowed up sound. He feels himself automatically twisting to face the little creature, his expression stern, his eyes playful. Pipe down, idiot, or we’ll both be in trouble.

But then he’s back.

The unnatural stillness, the silence, slams into him. He inhales sharply, ripping the hat from his head and flinging it backwards, the delicate metal finials tinkling sadly as they skitter across the dirty floor. He buries his face in his hands, palms pressed hard against the unwelcome pressure quickly building behind his eyelids. His mouth makes a desperate, pathetic noise that he’s grateful no living soul can hear. He will not come undone. Not here. Not now. Not after everything.

This cannot be the thing that -

Another sound. A real sound: sudden, violent, like a glacier calving off the coast of Snezhnaya. So abrupt that it takes several seconds for him to realise that it has come from himself.

He scrambles away from the ledge, back slamming against the centre column. Breathing hard, he yanks at his kimono, sure that when he looks down he’ll see a blot of crimson flowering from his chest. He runs his hands along his front, trembling fingers scrabbling desperately to find some evidence of a wound. A tense moment passes, but he finds, feels, nothing.

Odd.

Braced for an attack, he carefully pushes himself from the wall and creeps back to the edge of the outcrop. He squints, hard, through the blue-tinged haze, searching for some hint of movement down below. A Fatui sharpshooter? He thinks, frantically, but the library remains completely, frustratingly empty.

More seconds pass. A minute. Two. His eyes strain against the darkness, certain that if he relaxes for even a moment he’ll fall prey to whatever it is that’s hiding in the gloom. He readies himself for a siege, a shootout, something, but no danger presents itself. He exhales sharply, shoulders drooping.

Feeling a fool, he lets himself slide back down the wall. He lands with a soft thud, fading adrenaline making his limbs feel heavy. He wonders, suddenly, if this is one of Buer’s silly little illusions. Perhaps, he thinks, she is up in the Sanctuary of Surasthana right now, laughing at how gullible the poor Balladeer has become. He curls into himself, annoyed, and hugs his knees, cursing the Lesser Lord Kusanali. 

She doesn’t even know what’s happened, he seethes, but quickly dismisses the thought. Of course she knows. She and Durin had immediately taken to one another - to the point that she would openly pout when Wanderer forgot to bring him along for one of their regular meetings - so if this was a trick, it was meant for Wanderer, and Wanderer alone.

He shifts slightly, and hisses. A shock of pain surges up his left side and his anger instantly evaporates. He holds his arm up to the dim light and his breath catches. Barely noticeable beneath the dark fabric of his sleeve, held together only by the thin leather straps of his bracer, is a thick, dark crack.

His left arm has split in two.

*****

If anyone at the Akademiya noticed that Vahumana’s infamous ‘Hat Guy’ had become even more irritable over the last few weeks, they had - quite sensibly - kept it to themselves. 

In the days immediately following what he has deemed ‘the incident,’ Wanderer fully abandons any pretense of actual research and begins scouring the library for anything and everything related to the study of artificial life. The problem, he quickly realises, is that there is none.

He stalks the corridors between lectures - the ones he bothers to attend, anyway - and curses the Akademiya’s stupid, backwards rules. He curses his classmates for their slack-jawed expressions when he asks after the subject, curses the young librarian’s frown as she reads through his checkout requests, curses the Scribe for being, on the whole, a massive piece of shit. Most of all, however, he curses the Lesser Lord Kusanali, whom he has decided to blame for all of it.

He knows she’s looking for him, or rather, has felt her nudging at the back of his mind for days, but he goes out of his way to ignore her. He moves his workspace to the middle of the Grand Bazaar, the background noise the perfect way to drown out the worst of her prodding. At night he lets his core run low, just to avoid dreaming. 

If he’s forced in front of the Goddess of Wisdom any time soon, he thinks, there is a non-zero chance that he throttles her on the spot, and he’d rather avoid being dragged in by the General Mahamatra, because the man is insufferable.

A full two weeks pass and despite his efforts, he makes little progress. He knows, deep down, that he should speak with Nahida, but asking her for help would be akin to admitting defeat, and he can’t have that. I still have my pride, he thinks, though even he begins to doubt it. 

He binds the two halves of his broken arm with a thick, white bandage, wrapping it as tightly as he can bare. He hides them away beneath a new set of long, flowing kimonos, after one too many of his classmates - namely, Sethos - caught sight of his apparent injury and asked after his health. Anything to put an end to that nonsense.

Four weeks after the Incident, Wanderer is ready to simply lob off the offending arm and be done with it.

Dusk settles over Sumeru City as he sidles into his dormitory, eyes drooping after another day scouring the library for information that he knows he’s not going to find. He can hear the scholar in the room next door crying softly. 

He pushes the door closed with the last of his energy, tossing his bag haphazardly onto the desk, unintentionally upending a tower of papers that had been threatening to topple over for months. Swearing loudly, he sinks to the floor, gathering the scattered pages with as much malice as he can muster.

Despite the late hour, despite his exhaustion, he finds that he can muster quite a lot. 

He heaves the pile onto his lap and half-heartedly attempts to re-form the mess into a single, neat stack. He thumbs through the topmost pages, not really seeing them, already annoyed by the amount of time it’s going to take him to sort them back into any semblance of an order. It’s nearly a semester’s worth of work, and he groans internally as small passages jump out at him, reminding him of the sheer number of notes and assignments he’d tossed onto the pile without a second thought. 

…renowned swordsmith Akame Kanenaga…

…however, Shatir’s conclusion fails to account for…

…found within Simulanka…

He freezes. 

He stares at the page for several seconds, the words glaring up at him. All at once, the air in his dormitory becomes completely, utterly suffocating. He tries to breathe in, like Nahida taught him, but his entire body seems locked in place. His eyesight begins to blur, and a rushing sound in his ears that’s quickly growing in volume. 

He sees a paper dragon falling from the sky. His own voice, echoing: Nobody can define who you are. Scarlet eyes, flecked with gold, peering up at him. Or deny the true feelings of your heart.

The fragments of memory are enough to snap his body into motion. He rips the sheet from the pile and crushes it between his hands, whipping it at the wall with the force of a hurricane. He’s panting, his eyes are wet, and his left arm is throbbing uncomfortably. He resists the urge to scream.

He balls his hands into fists and hears a series of grating, horrifying sounds, not at all like before, but smaller, softer. Wanderer feels his stomach drop.

Shaking, he pulls his hands away from his face, and sees twin streaks stretching across both of his palms.

*****

Everything seems to cascade from there. 

Rapidly losing hope on the research front, having fully exhausted his most promising leads - and a fair amount that he considered purely out of sheer desperation - he individually corners the Sages of all six Darshans and practically begs for information on artificial life. Though they each look at him like he’s gone mad, it’s a testament to his reputation within the Akademiya that not a single one of them reports him to the Matra.

The ‘incidents’ begin to increase in frequency, oftentimes occurring multiple times in a single day, and by the end of the month a vast network of minor fractures sprawl across the length of his body. When it becomes clear that he can no longer reasonably hide the sheer number of bandages wrapped around his limbs, he unearths and dons his school robes for the very first time in his academic career.

Sethos accosts him on a near daily basis, asking if he’s doing alright, if he’s getting enough sleep, if Wanderer minds if he studies with him today? Or offering up an unending assortment of bizarre snacks that he seems to produce out of thin air. And despite Wanderer’s continued insistence that it’s nothing, Sethos starts wearing his own school robes in what he can only assume is some strange form of solidarity. He secretly finds that it does actually make him feel a little better.

Five weeks after The Incident, Wanderer decides that his pride is no longer worth it, and bursts into the Sanctuary of Surasthana to demand an audience with the Lesser Lord Kusanali.

She’s completely alone in there, as she so often is, so there’s no real reason to ‘demand’ an audience, but considering the severity of the situation he believes some theatrics are justified. Fully inured to his antics, however, Nahida doesn’t even bother to feign surprise at his overly dramatic entrance. He lets the doors slam behind him as he stomps inside, glaring over at her.

She sits neatly beside a low, square table, laid out with a delicate tea set painted in soft greens. Wanderer notes with annoyance that it’s already been set for two. 

“Have you finished punishing me, then?” Nahida asks, as he rounds the table and throws himself down onto the cushion across from her.

“Of course not,” he snaps.

She huffs a laugh and silently begins to pour him a cup of tea, the fragrance of the steam light and earthy. He inhales deeply and immediately feels himself deflate. He’s not sure what it is about the Sanctuary of Surasthana, or perhaps Nahida herself, that always manages to temper his mood. 

He flattens himself upon the tabletop, forehead thumping unpleasantly against the hard wooden surface, and attempts to empty his mind. Nahida hums quietly as she continues to fuss with their drinks. He slowly loses himself within the rhythm of her ministrations, barely hearing as she heaps sugar into his glass and swirls it around with a spoon.

The room falls silent and he lifts his head, momentarily disoriented, squinting hard as his eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden shift to brightness. 

Nahida sits primly across from him, her tiny hands gently cradling the base of her cup. She watches him for a moment, brow furrowed, before turning her head and staring off into the distance, a thin tendril of steam reflected in her wide, unfocused eyes. He scoops up his own cup and drinks deeply, ignoring the way the hot liquid burns the inside of his mouth. 

“What do I do?” he asks after a moment, his voice hoarse. The words seem impossibly small within the cavernous room.

The frenzy of the last few weeks seems to hit him all at once. His limbs become heavy, as if acknowledging the web of fractures made them suddenly take on a physical weight as well.

Nahida slowly turns back to look at him, her eyes soft, and smiles sadly. She says nothing. He leans forward, entreating.

“I don’t understand what’s happening to me, Buer.” 

He spreads his hands on top of the table, the wood warm beneath his fingers, and gazes down at his thick, dark gloves. To anyone else his leather bracers must look immaculate, criss-crossed elegantly along his thin wrists, not a scratch or scuff in sight, but the only thing he can see is the intricate spiderweb of tiny cracks that lay hidden just below. He looks back up at her, his eyes wide in his desperation, but she remains composed, her expression carefully blank.

“Yes, you do,” she says, simply.

He reels back from the table, nearly upending his half-finished cup of tea. She blows softly into her own, making little waves ripple along the surface of the liquid. He realises with a jolt that she’s settling into her ‘teaching mode,’ which means she knows the answer but is trying to get him to figure it out for himself. 

He bristles, “can you stop with the mind games and just help m-”

“I can’t help you with this,” she interrupts, her voice stern, but not unkind.

Wanderer groans loudly, dropping his head into his hands. He knows - has known - she can’t, but a part of him was clinging to the desperate hope that for the first time in his life he was completely, utterly wrong. That all of this really was her fault: the cracks, the research dead ends; all a part of some ridiculous exercise by which she hoped to teach him a lesson. 

Blaming her was so much easier than admitting there was no one to blame at all. He wants her to be cruel, to drop the charade and laugh at him, to be the singular obstacle for him to overcome. He wants to shake a solution out of her, to yell, to scream, to fight. He wants to crush her delicate little tea set between his own broken palms.

But more than anything, he wants to see Durin again.

Hot, angry tears flood his eyes. Nahida slowly reaches out her hand and lays it gently on his arm.

“You can’t keep this bottled up forever,” she says, quietly.

“Watch me,” he bites out, wiping angrily at his face.

“Scara-”

“Don’t.”

He glares at her, nostrils flaring.

“Caring for someone doesn’t make you weak,” she whispers.

He starts to cry in earnest, then, unable to stop the barrage of emotion now that he’s allowed himself to feel a drop of it. He knows he must look pathetic, with his runny nose and wobbling lower lip, but he can’t find it in him to care. Nahida has already seen him at his worst.

The little goddess remains perfectly still as he’s wracked with sobs, her tiny hand resting firmly upon his shaking frame. He lets himself spiral beneath her touch, confident that she will yank him back if he slips too far away. 

After what feels like hours, he resurfaces, hiccuping pitifully and wiping clumsily at his wet face. Nahida squeezes his arm once, so lightly that he’s not entirely sure he didn’t imagine it, before slowly pulling her hand back and settling it onto her lap. She turns away from him again, eyes focused pointedly up at the ceiling, quietly giving him some time to compose himself. He’ll never say it to her face, but he’s grateful.

“Love is a strange thing,” she says into the stillness, still not looking at him, “it’s one of the few human emotions I’ve never truly figured out.”

He scoffs, “I don’t love-”

“What I do know,” she interrupts, “is that love comes in a variety of forms: romantic, of course, but also platonic, familial. I imagine that’s why it’s so difficult to define, but also why every single human I’ve met can remember a time when they’ve felt it.”

He glares down into his cup, the gold liquid reflecting a splotchy, petulant face back up at him. He does love Durin. Of course he does. He loves the little dragon the same way he had loved Katsuragi, Niwa, the child. The same way he loves Nahida herself. 

Wanderer sighs, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill over.

“Why didn’t he write to me?” he grumbles, “he told me he would write.”

“I don’t think he knows how,” Nahida says, gently.

“Not Durin,” he snaps, “the Alchemist. He said that he would send me updates, keep me in the loop. I don’t even know if they made it back. Durin could be dead for all I know!”

“‘The Alchemist?’” She echoes, brow furrowing.

“Albedo.” Wanderer hisses, sorrow giving way to rage, “‘Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius.’ He’s all buddy-buddy with the Traveller, and apparently in with the witches, too.”

“Why did you send Durin with an alchemist from the Hexenzirkel?”

“There was some prophecy,” Wanderer sighs, “about the ancient Durin growing stronger and reawakening. The Alchemist said he had worked out a plan to keep it from happening, but that he needed Durin to do it.”

Nahida’s brows knit together.

“He told me Durin would be safe,” Wanderer continues, too lost in his resentment to notice her troubled expression, “but he also told me he would write.”

Nahida seems to shake herself.

“Have you written?” she asks, then.

Wanderer scowls at her, flicking irritably at the base of his teacup.

“I suggest you ask him,” Nahida says, taking a dainty sip from her own teacup, “I think a trip to Mondstadt would do you good, in more ways than one.”

“I can’t go to Mondstadt like this,” he shoots back, gesturing broadly to the whole of his body.

“It’s just a suggestion,” she shrugs, her ponytail swaying almost imperceptibly as she tilts her head to the side, “but surely you’ve realised you’re not going to find anyone here who can help you.”

“Aren’t you a god?” he mumbles, dropping his face back onto the table.

“I’m getting there,” she says, a small smile in her voice, “but I’m no alchemist. And I think it’s obvious to both of us that that’s what you need right now.”

He curls further into himself, feeling the edges of the cracks rubbing uncomfortably against one another. He thinks back to Simulanka, to his first meeting with the Alchemist, to the few times they’d met since. Albedo had always seemed perfectly cordial, but also distant, almost bored. Wanderer never quite understood the reverence that was paid to the man, or the moniker of ‘genius’ that so often got flung around whenever his name happened to come up. The Alchemist never attended the Akademiya, as far as Wanderer knows, so his supposed brilliance was only ever confirmed by idle gossip or offhand remarks, many of which originated from the Traveller, whose opinions on people he often dismissed by virtue of their being friends with Childe. 

Why did he agree to let Durin leave with a man who might as well be a stranger to him? What if the Chief Alchemist was actually no more accomplished than a first year Spantamad student, and had simply weasled his way into the position by smoothtalking one of the higher-ups with that low, breathy voice of his?

“What if he can’t fix this?” Wanderer gasps, springing up from the table in a flurry of green and white fabric.

“What if he can?” Nahida immediately counters, shrugging off his sudden frenzy with an overstated sip of her tea.

“Fuck!” Wanderer bellows, slamming his fists down onto the table. A dull pain radiates up his arms as his tea cup rattles violently in its gold-rimmed saucer. Nahida just hums.

“Go to Mondstadt,” she says, “spend some time with Durin, see what this alchemist has to say for himself; what’s the worst that can happen?”

“I’m not going to Mondstadt!” he hisses, crossing his arms petulantly and jutting out his lower lip. Nahida sighs, looking mere seconds away from rolling her eyes.

“Even if you’re right, and he really can’t fix this, you did also say he’s affiliated with the Hexenzirkel, no?”

Wanderer sinks even lower into his pout, “So?”

Nahida does roll her eyes this time, but there’s no malice behind it. She huffs out a small, tired laugh.

“So, you’ll have options. Go to Mondstadt, Scara. Rest. Let someone take care of you, for once.”

Wanderer glares down at the tabletop, refusing to meet those bright, knowing eyes and what he’s certain is a painfully earnest expression. I’m not going to Mondstadt, he thinks, angrily. I can take care of myself. He can’t give Nahida the satisfaction. Or the Alchemist. If he can’t figure out the solution on his own, then he’s as good as useless. 

He snatches his cup from the tabletop and drains the rest of the tea with a single, audible gulp. He locks eyes with the Lesser Lord Kusanali, who looks resigned, and pointedly drags his sleeve across his mouth. She sighs again as he shoves himself to his feet.

“Any other brilliant advice, oh great Goddess of Wisdom?” he spits, moodily straightening his crumpled robes.

“My initial advice was actually going to be ‘seek out the one who created you,’” she starts, holding up a single finger when he immediately opens his mouth to protest, “but, if my intuition is correct, you shouldn’t settle for an imitation when you’ve got the real thing right in front of you.”

He stares at her, no idea what she means by this, body still reeling at the mere thought of travelling back to Inazuma to ask the Raiden Shogun for help; a suggestion so insane a part of him wonders if Nahida has lost her mind.

She gazes back at him for another moment, a clear challenge in her eyes, before Wanderer sweeps from the room and out into the midday sun.

*****

“You should talk to my brother, Cyno!” chirps Sethos, bounding across the House of Daena with an amount of energy that should, quite frankly, be illegal at eight o’clock in the morning. A library aid appears around the corner and shushes him.

“The General Mahamatra is your brother?” Wanderer asks, horrified, gazing up at Sethos from behind the mountain of alchemy textbooks he’d spent the night pouring over. Dark, purple circles hang beneath his eyes. 

Sethos barks out a laugh, presumably at the expression on his face, before dragging over a chair from the table across from him and plopping himself down on it backwards.

“No, but it gets me out of trouble when I tell people that we are, so...” he shrugs, a mischievous gleam in his bright, green eyes.  

Wanderer snorts, returning to his book, “how could the General possibly be of service to me?”

Sethos drapes his arms over the back of the chair, resting his chin on his elbows. He nods towards the wall of books dividing them.

“He was Spantamad, when he was a student,” he says, “and since you’re clearly going through some sort of alchemy phase…”

Wanderer rolls his eyes, and continues pretending to read. Small, black specs float around the edges of his vision.

“Plus,” Sethos continues, with a nonchalance that’s clearly forced, “barring the Grand Sage, he probably knows more forbidden knowledge than anyone else in Sumeru. I mean, he can’t exactly come after people for researching banned topics if he doesn’t even know what they are, right?”

Wanderer’s insides squirm uncomfortably. “What makes you think I’m after that sort of thing?” he says, desperately hoping it comes off as indifferent and not utterly mortified. His hands tremble slightly where they grip the edge of the book, though he’s unsure if it’s from fear or a severe lack of sleep.

“I mean, it’s not every day a student just announces to the Sages that they’re looking to break the law,” Sethos drawls.

Wanderer’s head snaps up. He finds a preening Sethos grinning back at him.

“So, what, does everyone know?” Wanderer hisses, feeling his face heat.

Sethos laughs again, which earns the man another cold look from the library aid, who is hovering menacingly a few metres away. Wanderer slumps back into his chair, cheeks red.

“No,” Sethos chuckles, before straightening in his seat, his smile vanishing, “but you should be careful. If you were anyone else, you’d have been chased out of the Akademiya. Or dead.”

Wanderer looks away. He gazes down at his hat, discarded on the chair beside him, and runs a frustrated hand through his hair, fingers snagging uncomfortably on a mass of tangled strands. He realises in that moment that he can’t actually remember the last time he combed it.

“What about the Temple of Silence,” he hedges, knowing the answer before he even asks, “do you think they have anything about…?”

He gestures at the titles laid out between them, but Sethos just stares at him, shit-eating grin already firmly back in place, face seemingly incapable of maintaining a serious expression for longer than a few seconds.

Wanderer scowls.

“Maybe,” Sethos says, swinging around on the chair and hopping to his feet in a single, fluid motion, “maybe not, but you’d be in there for a century before you found out for sure.”

He twirls the chair around on its hind legs with an exaggerated flick of his wrist and shoves it back under the table with an ear-splitting noise that draws the eyes of everyone in their immediate vicinity. Wanderer rubs at his temples as the library aid speeds towards them, her face murderous.

Sethos spins on his heel and all but skips out of the room, pausing once to shout over his shoulder:

“Give my regards to the General Mahamatra, my dearest elder brother!”

*****

Wanderer quickly discovers that the only thing harder than avoiding the wrath of the General Mahamatra is trying in earnest to find him.

He’s not entirely sure why Cyno bothers keeping an office, considering none of the other Matra seem able to recall the last time they saw the man in it. 

He asks to be let in anyway, barely holding back a sneeze when the Matra’s over-eager office assistant swings the door open and sends a cloud of stale air swirling out. Beyond the threshold is a small, bare room, populated only by a long, wicker desk and a single, low-backed chair. It’s clear that it’s a space that’s rarely - if ever - used, judging by the thick layer of dust that clings to nearly every surface.

He exits the Matra headquarters with more questions than answers, and a newfound certainty that Sumeru’s law enforcement is as incompetent as he suspected. Cyno is clearly not a man upon whom one can simply ‘drop in.’ The General Mahamatra is a hunter, he thinks, slowly drifting down the sloped path from the Akademiya’s entrance hall, I need a new strategy.

He lurches to a stop. Though Wanderer himself was never a particularly gifted hunter, he certainly knows how to fish. Everyone in Sumeru, Wanderer included, knows that the Puspa cafe regularly plays host to Sumeru’s wayward Genius Invokation enthusiasts.

He inhales sharply. Surely that would be the most likely place for a famously-obsessed General Mahamatra to appear without warning. 

He all but sprints down to Treasures street, skidding to a halt in front of the cafe so violently that he nearly loses his balance. A stray cat streaks out from under one of the worn, wooden tables that sit on either side of the entrance, hissing back at him indignantly. He barges inside without a second thought, nods curtly to Enteka, and then plants himself in direct view of the front doors. He cracks open the first book he manages to extract from his bag and mindlessly orders his usual, his body all but immune to the effects of caffeine, even the ungodly strong coffee that Puspa typically serves.

His knee bounces madly under the table and his head snaps up in excitement every time the door so much as creaks, which earns him several frightened looks from the unsuspecting patrons who happen to walk in. 

He shamelessly eavesdrops on the conversations happening around him and learns that a collection of Akademiya students are, just as he expected, going to be meeting up for a few rounds of Genius Invokation that night. Perfect, he thinks to himself, a wild hope blossoming in his chest for the first time in months. 

Reckless with this newfound confidence, he starts a rumor that he’ll be auctioning off a rare card, hoping that lying about this card game isn’t more egregious to Cyno than actually committing a crime.

Hours pass. Wanderer reads and rereads the same three paragraphs a dozen times, skims through the rules to Genius Invokation, and orders a second pot of coffee. A third. At some point he loses count, and though his head is still relatively clear, he’s fairly certain his body has started vibrating. 

The sun dips below the horizon and people continue to filter in and out of the cafe, but still no sign of the General Mahamatra. A waiter shuffles over and asks, with genuine concern in his voice, if Wanderer is having some sort of breakdown.

Wanderer begrudgingly accepts several offers to play Genius Invokation after that, the veteran players either fully immune to his prickly persona or so desperate for a partner that they’re willing to settle for the guy who’s clearly losing his mind. He pretends that his poor performance is because he’s still half watching the door, and not because there is so much caffeine in his system his core is pulsing erratically.

He lets himself get lost in the rhythm of the game, slapping down cards like they personally offend him. He feels the stress of the last few weeks melting off him, and by the time the kitchen gives the last call he’s practically buzzing, hot off the heels of an extraordinary six-game winning streak. His latest victim, a shockingly drunk Haravatat student, blearily asks him to sign the back of a character card that he insists is of Wanderer himself. When he flips it over he finds an illustration of a petite, violet-clad woman from Liyue. 

Through the vibrant haze of victory he thinks that even if Cyno refuses to show his face tonight, surely the man has some supernatural way to sense when another poor soul has succumbed to the pull of this infernal game. Maybe the General will appear tonight at the foot of his bed, drawn inexorably by the stench of dice upon his hands.

Wanderer’s fingers twitch in time with his stuttering core as he shuffles rapidly through his final hand. The woman across from him looks like she’s enjoying herself, and for once he finds that the feeling is mutual. She selects a card and makes her opening play: the Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius.

He suddenly remembers why he never plays this game.

The owner of the Puspa Cafe shuffles the last of them out just after midnight, and Wanderer realises with horror that he just spent an entire evening out in public for no reason. Worse, he thinks he had fun.

The moon hangs low in the sky as he steps out onto the road, bathing the length of Treasures Street in a soft, blue light. The cool air seeps beneath his bandages as he fumbles with his bag, and he shivers despite the heavy Akademiya robes. 

The patrons begin to disperse around him, calling out a chorus of goodbyes before veering off into the darkness. A few of his competitors clap him on the back as they pass by, and he’s so off-kilter that he momentarily forgets that he doesn’t normally like that sort of thing. He’d threatened to break fingers the last time someone tried to casually touch him, but now his shoulder just feels warm and tingly. 

He straightens his hat and makes his way back towards the dormitories, his spine popping uncomfortably after sitting so long hunched over a table. 

Ahead of him walks a gaggle of other students, all of whom he recognises from the impromptu Genius Invokation tournament, their overlapping chatter carried aloft by the light breeze. One of them, a first-year Amurta student whose name he’s already forgotten, turns back to look at him. She hesitates for a moment, then waves. 

He stops short.

The girl extracts herself from the group and trots over to him, her face pulled tight with determination. When she stops in front of him she’s out of breath, so he allows her a short moment to compose herself before asking her what the hell she thinks she’s doing. Her green hair looks turquoise in the dim haze.

“Maryam said…looking for Cyno?” she wheezes, bent double, hands on her knees. She peers up at him nervously.

Fully taken aback, he nods.

“He’s… the desert,” she huffs, and he feels the last vestiges of his good mood evaporate. Of course he’s in the gods-forsaken desert. He curses under his breath.

The girl snaps to attention, her eyes wide as saucers.

“Ah, but don’t worry, he’s coming back!” she says quickly, flapping her hands frantically, “he’s already made it to Pardis Dhyai!”

“So, he’s on his way right now?” he asks, praying his relief isn’t too obvious.

“Ah. Well, sort of,” the girl stammers, tugging nervously at the ends of her sleeves before continuing on in a rush, “he said he’s actually going to go straight to Gandharva Ville first thing tomorrow morning-” 

“Oh,” he starts.

“Because he said that he and Master Tighnari were in desperate need of some ‘alone time’-”

She cuts herself off then, suddenly looking mortified. Wanderer realises that his mouth has fallen open. He snaps it shut with an audible click.

“Sorry,” she says, hastily, “he’s family, is all.”

And it is in that monumentally uncomfortable moment that Wanderer remembers exactly who this girl is. Of course, he thinks, the young protege of the Forest Rangers. The girl with Eleazar. The child Il Dottore imprisoned and experimented upon. Collei.

A sudden and fierce feeling of protectiveness washes over him. He has the immediate and inexplicable urge to apologise, or to comfort her in some way, but he manages to steel himself back into reality.

He tips his hat in thanks, worried he’ll make a fool of himself if he actually allows himself to speak. His eyes flick over her shoulder and notices that her friends are standing still a few hundred feet away, watching them curiously. 

“Get home safe,” he says, looking back at her.

She smiles weakly at him before jogging over to her companions, the tasseled ends of her yellow scarf floating behind her like small, golden wings. The other students seamlessly fold her back into their ranks, before they all round the corner and disappear out of sight.

Sighing in resignation, he turns on his heel and marches back through the city gates, southward to Pardis Dhyai.

*****

Nestled in the mountains at the very heart of Sumeru, Pardis Dhyai is the pride of the Amurta darshan. As a Vahumana scholar, Wanderer hadn’t really had an opportunity to visit the site in an academic capacity, and admittedly he wasn’t particularly keen to return after everything that had transpired three years prior.  As he draws closer, he tries in vain to ignore the growing pit in his stomach.

He sweeps past the fork in the road and advances up the hill, a thin sheen of sweat clinging stubbornly to the back of his neck, his calf muscles screaming in protest. He realises halfway up the slope that he’s fully panting, but a part of him relishes in the struggle. The last time he’d stepped foot in this place he’d made a right mess of things; the pain felt a bit like penance.

The great, stone archway slowly peaks into view, and Wanderer finds himself unconsciously veering off the path, picking through the thin underbrush toward the shade of the mountain. He stops, lingering in the shadows, trying to tamp down on a sudden wave of nausea that threatens to overwhelm him. 

The Balladeer is dead, he thinks, furiously, no one knows who you really are.

He breathes deeply, letting the soft sounds of the rainforest calm him. He looks up and down the road, triple checking that he wasn’t followed, and then silently levitates himself up the cliffside.

Small, brass Lanterns line the terraced footpaths of the research site, illuminating the pavestones with a soft, green glow. Wanderer drops himself onto a high ledge and crouches low, pausing momentarily to appreciate the full splendor of the gardens spread out beneath him. A large fountain gurgles at the centre, the stars overhead shimmering in the gently rippling water. Thick-trunked palm trees, lush ferns and massive, orange flowers carpet the landscape, their fronds stretching up towards the ink-black sky, undulating slowly in the soft breeze. Standing proudly above it all, however, is the crown jewel of Pardis Dhyai: the grand conservatory, its elegant glass walls glittering beneath the full moon.

The doors to the greenhouse have been thrown wide and a warm, yellow light spills out onto the pavement. Wanderer squints as he counts the handful of figures milling about the grounds, some of whom he recognises as Amurta students, others he’s wholly unfamiliar with, annoyed but not particularly surprised that even at this hour, everyone at the site is still fully awake.

Three forest rangers pace along the outer ring, barely acknowledging one another as they cross paths, and at the back entrance two Eremite mercenaries lounge against the base of a tree, their quiet chatter swallowed up by the faint rustling of leaves. 

Wanderer leans out over the edge of his perch, eyes straining against the dim light, looking for any sign of Cyno’s telltale Jackal headdress. 

One of the mercenaries barks out a laugh, the sharp sound piercing through the gentle hum of the night, and Wanderer almost misses the two low voices that float out from within the greenhouse. Wanderer curses. If Collei was correct and the General is indeed here, then that’s almost certainly where he’s hiding.

So much for dropping in unnoticed.

Doubling back along the length of the ridge, Wanderer toes at the lip of the overhang and brazenly decides that he’s going to climb back down the mountainside. The less people know he’s here, the better, and he doesn’t entirely trust that the flash of his vision won’t draw the eyes of everyone standing around below. 

After several tense minutes fumbling through the dark, he slides onto a low, moss covered ledge, only ten feet from the ground. His feet slide out from under him the moment he touches down, and his arms pinwheel wildly as he fights to regain balance. He exhales sharply as he rights himself, his core pulsing angrily, before carefully lowering himself onto his stomach and dropping his legs over the side of the wall. He nudges his toes against the sheer rock face as he dangles from his fingertips, searching for a foothold.

Suddenly, the rock beneath his hands shifts, sending a thick cloud of dirt and pebbles tumbling directly onto his upturned face. He splutters violently, eyes burning, and loses his grip, his sandals skittering against the wall as he scrabbles for purchase.

He barely manages to hold back a scream as he plummets to the ground, landing with a dull thud next to the base of a tall, thin tree. A flock of dusk birds burst from the uppermost branches, squawking indignantly as they scatter out into the night. 

Wanderer blinks twice before clambering to his feet, disentangling himself from the shrubbery and shuffling away from that cursed stone wall, bent double as pain pulses angrily in his lower back. His vision blurs and he scrunches up his face, crashing through a perfectly manicured flowerbed as he ambles blindly towards the pavement. 

He stumbles over the lip of the planter and his foot slams against something smooth and hard.

“FU-” he gasps, the sudden burst of pain making tiny pinpricks of light dance behind his eyelids.

His chest collides with a thick, metallic object, sitting just off the edge of the path in the shadow of the trees. It’s taller than he is by at least a foot and emitting a soft, mechanical whir. His vision slowly clears as he shoves himself away, and he sees that the object is not actually an ‘object’ at all, but a fully expanded Ruin Defender, its bright red eye trained directly on him.

Pain immediately forgotten, he feels a surge of Anemo rush into his hands. But before he has time to properly react, a voice:

“Oh, it’s you.”

Wanderer reels around, power dissipating as he locks eyes with its source: the Chief Officer of the Forest Rangers.

Fantastic.

The fox is staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, arms resting lazily on his hips, tail swishing languidly behind his back. Wanderer averts his eyes. He isn’t sure why he’s surprised to see Tighnari here - the man practically lives in Pardis Dhyai - but he thought, or rather, hoped, that he’d be able to find and talk to Cyno without having to interact with his other half. 

Though he’d never admit it to anyone, Wanderer had always been somewhat wary of Tighnari. He’s certain it’s impossible, but a part of him still believes that Tighnari knows he’s the one who sent down the lightning three years ago. And he’s seen - or rather, caused - enough lightning scars to know how intensely they can mar the body. Sometimes with pain, even when the mind forgets, the body remembers.

Tighnari seemed like the type of person who would remember.

“Are you alright?” he asks, when it’s clear that Wanderer isn’t going to say anything.

Wanderer nods once, rolling his shoulders, before he suddenly remembers what he’s currently standing next to. He points at it accusingly.

“What the hell is this?”

“That’s Karkata,” Tighnari replies, as if that answers anything.

Wanderer looks back and forth between the fox and the machine and wonders if the fall actually rattled his brain. Tighnari drops his arms and moves toward the Ruin Defender, tail bobbing up and down with each step. He holds out his hand like he’s approaching a family pet, and pats the metal carapace with two short, soft clangs. The machine makes a bright, mechanical sound.

Three eyes turn to gaze over at him.

“Ah,” Wanderer says, suddenly feeling intensely awkward.

Tighnari, the bastard, laughs.

“You probably chose the worst day to try sneaking around here,” the fox says, walking over to a low stone wall and plopping himself down upon it, “the General Mahamatra is just inside.”

Wanderer rolls his eyes and goes to sit next to him, but makes sure to keep a few feet between them.

Tighnari pointedly examines his nails, a wry smile pulling at the edges of his mouth. 

“He’s in a foul mood tonight,” he says, picking idly at one of his cuticles, “apparently, someone was selling a rare card at the Cafe meetup.”

Wanderer cringes, his face heating. A small part of him preens, however, realising that under different circumstances, his inane plan might have actually worked.

“If he found out the seller was lying, would he be more or less likely to stab them?” Wanderer asks, angrily crushing a leaf beneath the toe of his sandal.

Tighnari chuckles again, “you certainly know how to get Cyno’s attention, I’ll grant you that. Offering up a rare card and asking dangerous questions? If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were either trying to get arrested or angling for a date.” 

Wanderer’s head whips around.

“‘Dangerous’…?! Sethos-”

“-can’t keep a secret to save his life,” Tighnari interrupts, laughing in earnest now, “which is a little ironic, all things considered. But don’t worry too much, he’s always had a loose tongue when we’re around; I think he likes knowing things Cyno doesn’t.”

Wanderer groans, wiping a hand down his face, “this is humiliating.”

Tighari hums, green eyes sparkling, “only a little.” 

They lapse into a companionable silence, Wanderer imagining himself feeding Sethos to a pack of slimes, Tighnari gazing over at Karkata with a soft smile on his face, a faraway look in his eyes.

“Why the sudden interest in artificial life?” Tighnari asks after a few moments, shaking Wanderer from his increasingly murderous thoughts.

The fox’s eyes are fixed upon the massive machine, which stands attentively only a few paces away, watching the pair of them with what Wanderer can only describe as understanding. All at once, several things click into place.

“It’s not so much an ‘interest’,” Wanderer says slowly, hands balling into fists where they rest on his lap, the fabric of his gloves pressing uncomfortably against the cracks on his skin. 

He wonders if Tighnari’s ears are sensitive enough to hear the way his body has come undone, the barely-there whir of his own mechanical core, the fact that he very clearly does not have a heartbeat.

When he chances a glance up at him, Tighnari is staring back, brow furrowed, looking like a man who is dangerously close to figuring out everything.

“According to the Matra,” Tighnari starts, his eyes searching Wanderer’s face, “Karkata is just a ‘research assistant.’”

“And…according to you?” Wanderer asks, his voice quiet.

“He’s alive.”

Tighnari shrugs, as if that’s all there is to it. As if he didn’t just admit to lying to the Matra about one of the Akademiya’s cardinal sins. As if he isn’t married to the guy who hunts people down for committing them.

Wanderer nods, begging him to understand.

Tighnari cocks his head to the side, large ears swaying with the movement, and brings a hand up to his chin. He scans Wanderer’s profile, a calculating look in his eyes.

Wanderer barely resists the impulse to cover himself.

“You’ve always talked in such a strange way,” Tighnari murmurs, more to himself than anything, “‘humans’-this and ‘humans’-that, I always assumed you were some sort of illuminated being, like the Youkai or the Adepti.”

Wanderer scowls and gives the barest shake of his head.

Tighnari’s eyebrows raise, and Wanderer lets out a long, slow breath. Karkata makes a soft, mechanical chirp, as if in encouragement.

Throwing caution to the wind, Wanderer pushes himself to his feet. He quickly scans their immediate vicinity and, finding no lurkers, moves towards Tighnari, who seems more intrigued than anything about Wanderer’s sudden, earth-shattering revelation. 

He stops in front of the fox, peels the sleeve from his right arm, and holds it out for Tighnari to see.

Ever the professional, Tighnari makes no sign that what he’s seeing is in any way out of the ordinary. He carefully takes Wanderer by the wrist and examines the cracks along his hands, his forearms, his biceps. He runs his fingers along each fracture, his touch feather light.

“Are they like this everywhere?” Tighnari asks, head bent so close to Wanderer’s arm that his eyes are starting to cross.

“Yes.”

“Hmm,” he gestures towards Wanderer’s collarbone, “may I?”

Wanderer wordlessly pulls the right side of his robes aside, revealing the vast tangle of cracks that snake all along his midsection. He feels exposed, in more ways than one, and shivers at the sudden rush of cool, night air.

The remainder of Tighnari’s examination is quick and efficient, the movements of his hands clinical and precise. He says nothing, but occasionally prompts Wanderer to move or hold still with a series of simple, murmured directions. 

After a few minutes he sits back and purses his lips, his face twisted with concern. Wanderer quietly pulls his robes back over his shoulders.

“No one here can help me, can they?” he asks, quietly.

Tighnari sighs.

“No, and if you stay in Sumeru any longer you’re going to be in danger. Karkata was one thing but you…”

“All of the Akademiya’s worst fears made flesh…”

Tighnari chuckles darkly, “and mine, to be honest. Everything I thought I knew about the natural world, upended by the infamous ‘Hat Guy.’”

Wanderer lowers himself back onto the wall, wrapping his arms around himself to ward off the chill. And maybe because he feels like he’s about to fall apart.

“You’re certain none of the Spantamad scholars will have any ideas?” he asks, “Even your General?”

“I’m certain,” Tighnari says, his voice firm, “but, I understand why Sethos thought Cyno might know where to look. He was in Spantamad, after all, but he’s never been particularly interested in alchemy.”

“But what about…the illegal alchemical texts?” he presses, “Sethos said…if Cyno saw them...” 

Tighnari exhales sharply, eyes darting furtively towards the glass greenhouse sitting just behind them.

“Do not repeat this to anyone,” he says, suddenly leaning in close, “but Sethos is half right about that. There is a store room in the Akademiya full of confiscated research, and Cyno has read a lot of it. But believe me when I say it’s almost impossible to get inside-”

“I don’t have to get inside,” Wanderer says, hands gripping painfully onto his knees, “I just need him to tell me what he already knows.”

Tighnari looks pained, “He’s not going to do that.”

“What if you-” 

“He won’t,” his voice is harder than Wanderer has ever heard it before, and when he looks over at the fox, his long ears are flattened against his dark hair, “I pushed him to the brink with Karkata. I know he ultimately let it slide because it was me, but if I pull something like this again I really think he’d have no choice but to arrest me.”

Wanderer gapes, “he’d arrest his own husband?”

Tighnari leans back and sighs, “Sometimes I think Cyno’s ‘Funny Guy’ campaign was a little too effective, and it’s made a lot of people forget that he actually takes his job very seriously.”

Wanderer scowls. He feels ill.

“We put so much of ourselves into our work,” Tighnari murmurs, his voice soft, tearing his eyes away from Wanderer’s hunched form and toward the hazy mountaintops off in the distance, “I think it’s naïve to assume the work won’t affect us right back.”

A gust of wind whistles through the gardens, rustling the boughs of the tree under which Karkata continues to obediently idle. Wanderer watches the machine for a moment, feeling as his own core pulses gently in the space where his heart ought to be. 

“So, what’s your verdict, then?” he asks, turning to Tighnari with what he hopes is an apathetic expression.

Tighnari flashes a sad smile in return, “If you were simply a machine, I’d tell you to talk to Kaveh, or maybe Faruzan. But I imagine you’ve already thought of that, since you specifically sought out Cyno, not someone from Kshahrewar. So, I’d wager my verdict is the same as yours: you need to seek out an alchemist - and a powerful one at that.”

Wanderer nods.

“Not here, though,” Tighnari adds, “even without the research restrictions, the methodology they teach at the Akademiya is at least a decade behind what’s being done elsewhere.”

“‘Elsewhere?’” Wanderer repeats, already dreading the answer he knows is coming.

Tighnari shrugs again, “The Akademiya has always been scared of innovation. And though we’ve rooted out the worst of the corruption, we’ve still got a lot of catching up to do. If I were looking to study more…advanced alchemy, I’d go to Mondstadt.”

Wanderer suppresses a groan with enormous effort, but Tighnari seems to notice anyway.

“Not a fan?” he teases, his smile wide enough to show the sharpness of his canines, “even with a blessing from Barbatos himself?”

“It’s complicated,” grumbles Wanderer, flicking petulantly at the Anemo Vision dangling on his chest.

Tighnari laughs, stretching his arms over his long ears and arching his back, like a pampered cat suddenly bored by the proceedings. He pushes himself to his feet, and brushes invisible dust from the front of his tunic.

“Where’s your little flying friend?” he asks, suddenly, turning back to look at Wanderer.

He feels his entire body tense.

“Where do you think?” he snaps.

Tighnari watches him for a moment, before turning away once more.

“I see,” he says, “‘it’s complicated’, indeed.”

He begins to make his way back toward the entrance of the conservatory, but falters as a lone figure rounds the corner and stops short at the sight of them.

“Uh,” says Cyno, looking between Tighnari, Wanderer, and Karkata with what Wanderer can only assume is the General Mahamatra’s equivalent of genuine surprise.

Tighnari’s tail flicks, whether in amusement or annoyance, Wanderer isn’t sure.

“I thought I heard voices,” Cyno starts, “who…?”

He cranes his neck to look over his husband’s shoulder, jerking his head towards Wanderer, who has frozen in place.

“That’s the ‘Hat Guy’,” Tighnai sighs, pinching at the bridge of his nose.

“Ah, I didn’t recognise you without the…” 

Cyno mimes a wide brim around his jackal headdress.

“It clashes with the uniform,” Wanderer mutters, irritably.

Tighnari snorts.

“What a coincidence,” the General continues, striding past his husband and rummaging around in the small, canvas pouch hanging from his hip, “I actually have something for you.”

Tighnari watches the pair of them with clear trepidation.

Wanderer has the sudden, ludicrous thought that Cyno either secretly overheard their entire conversation, or that the man really does have a sixth sense for Genius Invokation converts. He wonders in horror if he is about to be wrestled to the ground, or worse, subjected to some sort of bizarre initiation ritual.

The General, however, simply stops in front of him and holds out a small envelope, emblazoned with the seal of the Knights of Favonius. 

Wanderer feels his stomach drop.

“I happened across the courier when I was last in Port Ormos,” Cyno explains, presenting the letter with his signature blank expression, “I picked it up with Collei’s correspondence, I hope you don’t mind.”

Wanderer stares at the Knights’ crest, barely registering what the man in front of him is saying. He sits motionless, mouth slightly ajar, hating how this one, innocuous symbol has sent his mind into a frenzy. It’s probably nothing, he thinks hysterically, it’s probably just some bland official statement or perhaps the Traveller trying to get him mixed up in another one of their ridiculous schemes. 

He snatches the letter from Cyno’s hands and stuffs it unceremoniously into his robes, praying to Buer that the darkness obscures his violently trembling hands. He nods once at the General, avoiding his eyes, and lurches abruptly to his feet. He feigns a yawn, not particularly caring if either one of them buys the act, before mimicking Tighnari and brushing down the front of his robes. He tries desperately to ignore the sharp edges of the envelope snagging against the cracks in his chest.

He chances a glance back at Tighnari, who is gazing over at him with an apologetic look in his eyes. 

Almost imperceptibly, the fox shakes his head.

Completely off-kilter, Wanderer feels himself start to bow, centuries of Inazuman decorum suddenly resurfacing as he lets his body act on instinct. Mentally slapping himself, he turns with an unnecessary flourish and marches away from the pair of them, tossing a single, dismissive wave over his shoulder.

He refuses to turn around and see the fox and jackal gawping back at him. 

The shadow of the stone archway passes over his head, and soon after he is swallowed whole by the darkness. The sanctuary of Pardis Dhyai slowly shrinks behind him as he lets his feet carry him haphazardly down the slope. 

The minute he loses sight of the gate, he stops short, sinking to his knees in the middle of the dirt road. A couple feet away, a pair of birds roost along the edges of an aged, stone shrine, wholly unconcerned with the plight of the strange creature kneeling before them. 

Wanderer drops onto his backside and stares off into the distance, a small part of him hoping that a caravan of sumpter beasts rounds the corner and tramples him into the earth. 

What’s wrong? Durin whimpers, his tiny voice tight with concern. Are you hurt?

Wanderer squeezes his eyes shut.

He yanks the letter from his robes and clumsily tears through the envelope, the jagged edges of the thick stationary biting into his flesh like fangs. A single page falls out, folded neatly three times.

The message inside is offensively short, penned in a delicate, tidy script, and stamped with a small astroid in lieu of a signature:

I am writing to inform you of the successful transmutation of Mini Durin.

He is acclimating quickly to the new form.

✦

Wanderer reads and rereads the words, convinced, somehow, that this is all part of some elaborate joke. He flips the letter over, expecting…he isn’t sure; another message, a claw mark, anything, but finds only a blank expanse of white paper staring back at him, the bottom edge blotted with blue ink where the Alchemist’s stamp bled through the page.

He almost laughs.

Wanderer feels the fracture this time, the sound of his body rending open lost amid the roaring in his ears. The skin on his face splinters in two, leaving behind a deep fissure that runs from the base of his left eye to the bottom of his chin.

He stumbles to his feet, crumpling the letter between his hands, his breath ragged. He’s going to go to Mondstadt.

He’s going to rescue his friend.

And he’s going to make Albedo wish he'd never been born.