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With Columbina’s help, for the very first time, Glory ascends the Statue of the Anemo Archon.
She trusts that the winds will hold her, just as she holds the Dandelion seeds in her hands. Columbina, arms encircling her waist, is the Thousand Winds’ enveloping embrace. May these seeds find their way to Godwin and give him courage to overcome his demons.
Columbina says, ‘It smells sweet up here.’
Shocked, Glory laughs. From one blind woman to another, she knows that Columbina feels, hears, smells the same world she does.
It’s nice to be known, isn’t it? To be completely understood.
‘Can you hand me that box, please?’
‘At once.’
Ineffa picks up the crate of Dandelion Wine like it’s nothing. Noelle receives it with a similar lack of trouble, but hesitates– looks Ineffa up and down, then at her own scar-hewn self.
‘Is there a problem?’ asks Ineffa, sharp as always.
‘… No,’ Noelle answers carefully. ‘I was just thinking… What can I do to be a better maid?’
When she raises her eyes, she finds Ineffa tilting her head.
‘You are not a maid, Noelle. You are a knight-in-training. Are my definitions incorrect?’
Noelle blushes, tongue-tied.
‘You’re– Yes. That’s right.’
Nefer samples the Dandelion Wine with a practised elegance. Across the table, Diluc fixes his gloves. The details of his next target sit before him on paper so dangerous the Curatorium Master had to deliver it herself. It won’t exit this room; once they’re done, it’s bound for the fireplace.
‘Exquisite as always,’ she sighs, placing her wine glass back on the table. ‘So. Do you think you’re up for the task?’
‘Why ask at all if you’ve come all this way?’ Diluc regards her from under his bangs.
Chuckling, Nefer snaps her fingers in delight.
‘Well said, Darknight Hero.’
Now, the salt of the shore, where it meets the freshwater Cider Lake.
Now, the salt of the earth, gathering in bars and laughing the day’s toils away.
Now, the salt in the wound, for a blade he could not carry and a father he could not give a home.
Razor can articulate none of these things. So, instead: he howls.
Every night he howls. And though she is but a prey animal before a predator, Lauma sits with him, fawn legs folded beneath her.
Razor cries out and Lauma hums after, soothing the forest he stirs to bitter waking.
Swinging his legs on the stool, Mika broods over the question, staring into his mug of fermented juice.
‘Uhh. You don’t have to answer that,’ Paimon says. She puts her index fingers together and presses on her joints. ‘Paimon was just curious!’
‘No, it’s a good question.’ Mika shakes his head. ‘How does it feel seeing everyone come back? Especially since I came back first?’
How does it feel? It makes him turn his head to Eula, to the Grandmaster, waiting for the next call to arms. Expedition courses through his blood.
‘Happy, I guess. It’s a good thing.’
In Lohen, Skirk sees echoes of what her student has become. His eyes do not pass over her, glazed, as so many others do; he pinpoints her in the crowd, as if murder sticks to her skin like bioluminescent paint.
‘Hey. You,’ he says, uncreatively. ‘Wanna spar?’
Skirk turns her head and keeps drifting. Unperturbed, Lohen follows along.
‘You look like you’re strong. What’s someone like you doing in Mondstadt?’
She diverts down an alleyway, and he keeps coming. If she slit his throat now, she could walk away; eventually, someone would find the body.
But he would enjoy that. Disgusting.
Emilie puts her hand on Flins’ lantern. With his nod, she clasps it fully and hefts it in her hand. It is so much unlike her own, and even that of Lisa’s: it feels ghastly… almost alive.
It carries the scent of death and expectation, the sour exhaustion of someone stirred from the grave.
‘May I?’ she asks; at his second nod, she removes a stem of Marcotte from a bouquet and wraps it around the handle of the lantern. It doesn’t overpower the odd smell, but it helps.
Flins smiles. ‘My thanks, dear lady.’
‘The pleasure is all mine.’
Blue eyes bewitched by the Mora in Kaeya’s hand, he gallantly presents Zibai with the coin.
‘One,’ she counts, voice tinged with faint drowsiness. ‘Do you have more?’
Kaeya frowns. ‘Of course. Are you, perhaps, in need of coin?’
‘Oh no. I only wondered how much you might have.’
Apropos of nothing, Kaeya spreads the contents of his purse out onto the table. Zibai delights in pulling each Mora to her one at a time, celebrating each prime number as she goes.
This is not the cavalier spirit he expected to find, given the Traveller’s description.
But it is entertaining.
Jean stamps her seal into the very last contract, placing it aside. Varka makes no secret of his relief; he whoops and punches his fist into the air.
The world outside is fast turning from the blue of late night to the gold and pink of dawn. Standing before the window, Varka stretches his shoulder.
‘If I might ask,’ Jean broaches, ‘Why did you ever choose to be Grandmaster?’
Varka grins, exhausted. ‘No one else felt ready. So I did what I had to do.’
Jean knows it well, that feeling. Even so–
‘’Except the paperwork?’
‘Cut me some slack!’
The one he loves most is his very skin. Venti carries them like a suit of armour grafted to his heart.
Nicole resembles Koitar in all the ways she won’t say. There’s love there, too. But to speak it would be like Orpheus turning to regard Eurydice.
(This is the underworld and they are trapped.)
Venti strums, and in his head, Nicole sings. She personifies beautiful Spring, kissing the winter out of every Cecilia and Windwheel Aster. The spectre of summer floats over their heads.
Time, like a sword, drags across their shoulderblades.
(This is Elysium, and they are home.)