no home, no kin, no destination

The lightning reflecting in Tartaglia’s wide, dull eyes almost makes them look alive, his pupils drawing to narrow pinpricks in the face of imminent death. Adrenaline courses through him, driving him to dodge out of the way as fast as he can, but even that isn’t quite quick enough.

A stray spark grazes his cheek like a red hot shard of glass, sending a familiar scent spraying into the air. His heart jackrabbits like it’s trying to escape his chest, lifting the malaise on his mind as the innate need for survival kicks in.

And the Eleventh howls with laughter.

“Now that’s the spirit!” he crows, his lips peeling back into an animalistic grin. This is what he was made for- not for wringing his hands or shedding tears, but for shedding blood. It doesn’t matter whose, anyone’s will do to feed that pit of malcontent festering under his ribs. He dives headfirst into it and pushes past the cooling balm of his Vision to draw up the power of pure malice.

“My turn.” His Electro polearm isn’t even fully formed before he swings it outwards, pure, unchained energy flinging out like a whip and scoring a blackened gouge in the floors. He doesn’t stop to check what collateral is around him. Those wild eyes are fixed solely on the Balladeer as he throws himself at him with wild abandon, lashing out at him again and again and again.

It sounds more like a thunderstorm than a battle when their elemental energy collides, crackling and booming with enough force that the window shatters and the door rattles fearfully on its hinges. If anyone foolhardy enough were to look in, they might not even be able to see the combatants amidst the pure blinding light, moving faster than sound itself.

The glass from the domed ceiling above cascades onto them like sheets of sharp, needle-like rain. Bigger pieces reflect short glimpses of the two Harbingers in the split seconds that they clash. 

Scaramouche is no fool. He knows better than anyone what Tartaglia’s taunts look like. It’s not sloppiness that keeps the vanguard from completing the formation of his signature weapon. He knows better than anyone how honed Tartaglia’s craft is with elemental energy.

After all, he’s the one who trained him in the first place.

That Electro whip is just a reminder of what started this all those years ago. In his mind’s eye he sees a hand lying alone in a pool of its own blood. Oh, how often the Balladeer has called that memory to mind. Yet, when it comes now, it’s nothing more than a sign that he should have forsaken his orders and turned young Aias into a pile of ashes the day that they met. Scaramouche feels his artificial teeth crack underneath the pressure of his own clenched jaw. 

Fury is too weak a word for what he feels. The white hot rage has reached such a peak that it no longer broils beneath his skin, but rather, it washes over him in a cold, cold wave. 

Oh, well. No better time than now to school this country bumpkin properly.

Scaramouche catches the whip with his bare hand, letting the electricity race up and down his arm without even a flinch. Battle is a game to Tartaglia. A thrill to indulge in. That is precisely why the Balladeer refuses to even utter a word of banter to his opponent. Instead, he twines that whip around his arm further, ignoring how his clothes singe.

He draws the energy from Tartaglia’s weapon itself, allowing his body to absorb it. It’s taken worse. Tartaglia might have trained himself for this, but Scaramouche’s body was made for it. He draws the energy in further, eyes closing in concentration as he condenses as much of it as he can gather.

In the split second of realization that dawns on Tartaglia’s dull blue hues, Scaramouche sees the reflection of himself in them, his own eyes aglow with the bright purple energy that promises an electrifying end.

only time im gonna say smth abt this bc ive had personal experiences that have rly pushed me away from this rp community lol

Pearl

you are a bit of an open wound. ⍜ the pain won’t kill you like you think it will, let yourself bear it and you’ll find you can ⍜ you might even find that the world is a lot more than your oyster. ⍜ reticent (unwillingly so), passive, introverted ⍜ resilient, generative, adaptable ⍜ you hold the ability to create and recreate the world around yourself

Tartaglia isn’t foolish enough to think that he would be lucky enough to just run into the Balladeer now that he actually feels ready to see him. That would be too convenient. So he does the smart thing and asks around to see who has had eyes on him last. Interestingly enough, he gets similar answers from every person he does.

Apparently Scaramouche has been in a bad mood lately. Good. That makes two of them then.

He chases down his last lead with dogged determination, the loose shape of a plan forming in his mind. It’s an idea that he’d been rolling around but never quite committed to- yet now that resolution is so close, all the costs and benefits analyses fall to the wayside. He just wants this to be over. He’s going to finish this.

At the end of the hall, trickling down from an ornate staircase, the shriek of a string instrument being strangled to death catches his attention immediately. It’s an ugly sound, cacophonous and angry. Seems the rumors are true.

“Oh, so it is you making that unholy racket,” Tartaglia comments snidely as he ascends the steps, an uncharacteristically cool expression resting on his face. No smirking, no chuckling, just that flat dead stare boring straight into the Sixth. “Am I interrupting?”

There’s a song and dance to this game of theirs, usually. Tartaglia laughs and teases while Scaramouche does everything in his power to wipe that smile off his face. He’s never really won in this way before- not until recently. Victory should have been sweet. It should have been something to savor. Wrung out ‘til the last drop.

And then Tartaglia had the gall to run with his tail between his legs before Scaramouche could fully reap the spoils.

The mounting frustration has long since boiled over. Scaramouche sees red staining the corners of his vision. But he wants more of it- he wants Tartaglia’s blood on his hands, caked in his nails long after it’s dried and stained into his artificial skin.

A beat of silence- if that, even. The game has been forgotten, and with it, any semblance of Scaramouche’s hesitation.

‘That’s what I was saying!’ is what Aether wants to shout in vindication- but even before he says it, he already knows that dragging up old dirty laundry isn’t going to clean up the mess he already made. So he swallows it down and shakes his head.

“Hah. Maybe. But I’m the one who said it this time, so just let me do this, alright?” There. That was suitably non-confrontational. The Traveler shoves his hands in his pockets and nods his head towards a darker section of the docks. “Come on, there’s less people over there.”

It’s a short walk that feels much longer than it ought to, the tense silence stretching between them awkwardly. Aether keeps his eyes trained straight ahead, his ears piqued to the sound of Minori’s distinctive tread following behind him.

“…I did want to invite you out, you know. Nahida didn’t put me up to it or anything,” is the first thing he says once he feels like they’ve gotten far enough out of the way. He folds his arms over the railing, peering up at the lanterns filling the night sky. “I thought it’d be… I don’t know, fun. But I guess things don’t always turn out the way you plan.”

As much as he’d like to blame that all on Minori, it does technically take two. Maybe their personalities are just too incompatible. He forces out a strained sigh before finally just ripping off the band-aid.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have gone that far just because I was irritated- it was uncalled for.”

In the time it takes to find a quiet, secluded area, it becomes easier to see how stupid this all is.

The mounting tension seems to finally burst and dissipate once the traveler finishes speaking.

It’s hard to figure out where he stands when it feels like he’s lived every chapter of his life more than once. With Aether, at least, it’s easier to keep his head on straight. Remember the world as it was between the two of them before he irrevocably changed it.

This doesn’t mean anything between them, though. They’re just connected in a way that even fate can no longer explain.

Minori lets the words sit in the silence that stretches between them. Just because he can, really. Then he starts to laugh. Not necessarily a mean or nasty rude little laugh like Aether might be used to. “You’re so dramatic.” He says with a shake of his head, the ornaments of his hat accenting his laughter like windchimes that accompany a breeze.

Of course he knows he’s being hypocritical, but he likes that look on the blonde’s face- that frustrated embarrassment. It’s Minori’s favorite, really, but he won’t admit to that. Mainly because saying so would implicate that he’s ranked several of the traveler’s expressions enough to denominate them.

The puppet leans forward, propping his arms against the red-painted railing. “No one’s apologized to me in a long time.” He means to say it like a fact, but it comes out a little softer than originally intended. In this version of the world, he’s spent more times apologizing to others. And in the previous life, maybe not at all. 

He should be angry, maybe. Really rub the salt into the wound. Make Aether grovel a bit more. But these days it feels like he has such little tolerance for holding onto stupid grudges that all that effort really seems like more of a waste than it would be to just... move on.

“I suppose I’ll have to accept your apology. Since you went through all that effort in the first place.” He says with an air of nonchalance, keeping his eyes cast out to the harbor where the ocean seems less like water and more like a sea of lanterns reflected on its surface like a thousand fireflies floating away into the darkness. “And since you apologized, I’ll... admit that I knew what I was getting into, pressing your sensitive little buttons like that.”

Ugh… Aether really took for granted how ‘mischievous little brat’ mode Minori was the lesser of two evils. He can already tell this is going to be like pulling teeth, but he didn’t chase him down for nothing.

And he does still feel kind of bad.

“Uh. Hey.” He runs a hand over his hair to smooth down the flyaways from his frantic chase to catch up. A windglider may have been used to circumvent the crowd at the stairs. “Listen. I just wanted to talk about what happened before it turns into a big thing. You got a minute?”

He’s not sure what annoys him more. That Aether’s asking permission for his time- as if Minori has any obligations to attend to right now- or that the blonde very clearly looks and probably feels like he’s kicked a puppy.

“…that actually pissed him off?” Aether should feel pleased he finally got one over him but… this doesn’t actually feel all that great? He wrings out his hand, frowning to himself. The silent judgement from the peanut gallery (Paimon) certainly isn’t helping either.

“Oi! Don’t look at me like that! He’s said way worse before- he shouldn’t dish it out if he can’t take it!” Except. Well. He supposes Minori hasn’t really said anything extremely offensive lately. Just extremely annoying.

“…Do I really have to apologize?” he mutters to himself, dread settling in like a heavy, oversized coat. “He’s never going to accept that. It’d be a total waste of time. He’s just going to hold a grudge forever and rub it in my face, and then the next time we get in a fight it’s going to be like ‘Remember that one time you said-”

The fact that he can’t repeat it probably means it was a fucked up thing to say in the first place. He scruffles his own hair, a frustrated yell building up in his throat. “Agghhh… this is the worst!”

For all their ups and downs, this is hardly the worst thing that’s ever happened between them. And it’s not as if Minori was really expecting anything out of tagging along with Aether to this stupid Lantern Rite festival. After all, he’d only agreed to go because Nahida wouldn’t cease her constant pestering and prodding to get him to, ugh, s o c i a l i z e.

Somehow in the course of their time together here in Liyue, Minori had forgotten that.

He and Aether are not friends, even if they’re no longer enemies. Everything between them is transactional. Nothing more, nothing less.

It’s just complicated when his once sworn enemy happens to be one of three people that remembers he exists. That’s all.

This really shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t. It only means something because it’s Aether- no. No, that’s not it. Not it at all. The frown on his delicate features grows only deeper, more akin to a scowl at the thought. Aether isn’t special to him.

As he tries to lose the thought amongst the sea of reds and golds that Liyue has dressed itself in, he’s swiftly reminded that wearing all blue makes him an easy target to spot out of a crowd in these conditions. He hears rapid footsteps approaching, and rather than continue walking, he simply stops in place and sighs with a drop of his shoulders.

Satisfied, Aether finally shakes his hand. Hard.

“I’m so glad we agree that even being brain dead, I’m still smarter than a no brain puppet who only causes problems when he knows he can’t win a simple game. It’s important to be aware of your limitations.”

Even the Traveler’s strongest grip can’t make a dent in these mechanical limbs of his. But he does feel the pressure, and if Minori were human, he’s sure that bones as brittle as that would break.

But as Aether has just so kindly reminded him, he isn’t human. He grips back just as hard- if not harder- and pulls the blonde close with a harsh tug.

“You want to talk about causing problems?” He hisses, eyes alight with violent energy.

In the past, he would have made threats and laughed in delight as he did. That old venom beings to well up inside, ready to rear its ugly head and bare its fangs. Minori’s grip tightens even tighter around Aether’s hand, just enough to feel the bones creak like they want to give-

And he lets go.

Roughly, practically throwing Aether’s hand aside like a hot coal against feeling flesh. “Next time, you better learn to keep your ego in check before you invite me to anything.”

Archons know that Minori has been doing that ever since the events in Sumeru. Their versions of events, that is.

He turns on his heel sharply. It’s not as if the animosity isn’t familiar between them. Not as if Minori hasn’t been called worse before. He doesn’t understand why he should let it bother him at all.

The bitchiest smile in the universe has just become Teyvat’s newest Descender and taken residence on the local Traveler’s face. Truly, no one has seen this much concentrated passive aggressive energy before.

“Oh, that’s fine by me! Since I already collected more coins than you. I guess that makes me the better sailor even with your meddling, hm? Just admit that I’m better than you and I’ll accept your little truce.”

“Oh, of course you’re better than me, Aether. You’re so much better at menial, braindead tasks. In fact, you’re leagues ahead of me when it comes to sucking at Waverider minigames.”