smorgasbord.

SCARAMOUCHE Coming into contact with a puppet similar to him. well, similar in creation. other than that the two of you have absolutely nothing in common. the balladeer ends up meeting you when he comes to the seething realization that he'll need to camp in inazuma for the night before he confronts the traveller. While travelling there, scaramouche ended up bumping into you. he sensed something was off about you, although you showed the normal emotions of a person, he sensed something strange, something synthetic. You tell him the truth, that your a puppet creation of the pyro archon but the archon didn't want to keep you locked away so they granted you freedom to do as you pleased. He scoffs and misunderstands, to which you had to explain that your mother didn't "abandon you." but rather refused to hold you, and that you were very much close to the God of pyro.

Just hearing you call the pyro archon 'mother' causes his stomach to flip, Anger churning inside his belly tightly, a singe of jealousy in his veins. Why couldn't Ei do the same..?

SCARAMOUCHE who takes notice of how, excitable and rambunctious you are. of course your like this, you come from the pyro archon, a snarky symbol of hot-headedness, Confidence, arrogance and everything else someone with a relation to fire would symbolize. he sees it in you, your just like how your mother has been described by others. But he also sees a glimpse of .... Naivety. Of course, he wouldn't be him if he didn't use and exploit this little trait of yours. So he puts on his nice guy facade and offers to take you with him to sumeru after he's finished with some business here in inazuma. You foolishly agree, thinking you'd found a friend. He laughs, thinking you'd fallen into his trap, unaware he'd fallen into yours. When he returns for you he doesn't tell you he nearly killed traveller and took the electro archon's gnosis from the shrine maiden, yae miko. Instead, telling you it was some boring meeting you didn't wanna hear about. Without anything more to it, you begin your adventure with your new 'friend'.

SCARAMOUCHE―Poor dearest balladeer who was positive that he hated you, positive that you meant nothing! Just another annoying pest who he'd suck the information out of and then throw away once he was satisfied .. but along the way he'd made a small attachment to you. How you'd always tell stories of the adventures you've had across all of teyvat! The friends you made, the enemies, and how you'd often receive letters from your scorching divine mother, the pyro archon.

Those stories always bothered him. How happy you'd be whenever you harmlessly bragged about how amazing the pyro archon was. how she gave you everything you ever wanted, how she'd spend time with you, but also the more aggressive stories. Like how she wasn't easy on you whenever she trained you to fight, giving you 60% of the old bruises and burns you had on your skin but you dismissed it! and told scaramouche that in the end no matter how painful it was, the pyro archon― your mother, reminded you that it all for the best, that she wanted to protect you but also wanted you to protect yourself!

Scaramouche could barely hide the pure unliking and distaste of your stories. a bitter taste of jealousy corroding his chest as he forced himself to listen to how loved you were. How you weren't thrown away by your creator, your parent, your mother. how your mother loved you so much, she sends you letters! Ei completely abandoned him and didn't even bother to send him a apology note, she wanted nothing to do with her son and like a glass cup it filled him with utter hatred for the electro archon.

SCARAMOUCHE quickly noticed that Despite how hot-headed you are, you also have a sense of kindness and care, and protectiveness. it shows when you completely obliterated any moving―living creature that dared to even scrunch up it's face in the balladeer's direction. Without a vision you charged onto the battlefield, burning your enemies with such a scorching fire, nothing was left but charred bones. in all honesty, when scaramouche first saw you take out a threat, he was surprised! How fast and strong you were, how agile and quickly you'd take out your enemies.

You carried your mother's flame, that burned and destroyed anything in it's path as long as it meant keeping to your goal and ambitions and while in the pyro archon's case it was keeping natlan safe, in your case it meant keeping scaramouche safe which wasn't helping his case when he remembered his plan once he reached sumeru.

SCARAMOUCHE then checks you into the finest hotel sumeru has to offer. He stops in his tracks and wonders when did he get so .... Gentle. Over the next 3 days he does these things, buys your food, pays for your hotel room and when you suggest exploring the city of wisdom, he finds himself hesitant on denying your request. But in the blink of an eye, he's wandered off, you say it's fine and wait for him to return. But he doesn't.

1 day, he's been gone for a day, and that's fine! he'll be back tomorrow! ..... Poor you, he doesn't even appear to check on you. you spend the 2nd day alone, that's alright! ... The 3rd time is the charm, you tell yourself.

Before you known it 5 days have passed, and you've had enough!

defeat.

the tiny childlike build of the dendro archon rose from the ground, floating towards the chest cavity of the large electro―mechanical monster in front of her, she stretched out her tiny palm and then sparks begun to fly. a loud shatter echoed the room, glass falling to the floor which revealed a purple light, hidden inside that light revealed a purple chest piece. a gnosis, raiden ei's gnosis.

scaramouche watched, horrified. "NO!" The balladeer cried fearfully as he watched his only source of divinity be torn away from him by Nahida― the dendro archon. He reached for the gnosis, the large tubes filled with purple ooze that connected to him begun to stretch and break, they weren't durable. The electro puppet was filled with so many awful emotions, anger, fear, jealousy, but it all came back down to fear.

Fear. "Wait a minute, that's my gnosis."

Fear. "Please ... It's mine!"

Fear. "No, i can't go back!"

He tugs at the tubes, more, more, more. So deeply hypnotized by the rapid and fearful beat of his heart that he doesn't realize he's leaning too far for the tubes to stretch. he watches as his mother's gnosis is caught between the palms of Nahida and before he can do anything, the tubes finally snap and he falls out of the control panel of the robot he controlled. he expects himself to hit the ground at any moment.

his land will definitely damage him horribly from how high he's falling and with little to no effort on even attempting to catch himself. When the tubes detached from scaramouche, it left him weak, tired and vulnerable. His eyelids closing weakly as he fell, he felt his conscious fade as he prepared himself for the harsh impact of the floors below him once he hit the ground. But that feeling never came.

instead he felt warm― ..hot hands caress his body, grabbing onto him and holding him so tightly he was almost convinced that if they'd let him go, something would take him away. his eyes fluttered open weakly and he saw you. you...? You.

You kneeled on both knees, holding his thin and frail body close, he looked awful. not in terms of physique, he was definitely gorgeous. But he looked sickly as if he'd witness something soul―crushing, awful, and completely traumatizing. "Scaramouche..." you whispered sympathetically, frowning when he was deemed too wan to even respond to your call.

all he could do was pathetically lean into your body's heat. the only thing that could comfort him in this moment of pure defeat. He tried hard, strived with all his might and got so far, but it went to waste in seconds.

You cared for scaramouche deeply. Seeing him in this state, it hurt you. No, it angered you! You stood onto your feet, holding kunikuzushi's unconcious and dazed anatomy in your arms. You turned to the traveller who held there weapon in there hand, ready to strike you at any moment. The way you held the balladeer in your arms, practically cradling him showed clear signs of intimacy, which meant you must've been a enemy, right? They stand in a defensive battle pose, waiting for you to pounce.

They we're ready to defend Nahida and paimon. But you don't even move a finger. Instead you open your mouth and insult them heavily. Pure, deadly, venom pouring out your lips as you curse the 3 of them to celestia and back for hurting someone you loved. The words you speak are so cruel, so dehumanizing it leaves the traveller in a state of angry shock! You call them every awful name you could come up with. "a trio of nasty flesh―eating filthy fucking rats! " Your angry. "Rats who should've died while being given birth too but your sick rodent mothers were too pathetic and spineless to do what we all would've wanted!" Your scorching anger heats up the room. Paimon is terrified of you. "if you ever come near us again, I'll splatter your hearts through your chest and roast them on an open pit!" You sneered, oblivious to the way Nahida studied you.

It only took a few seconds to realize who you were, what you were and it was then she deemed it unnecessary to have traveller fight you.

Without another word, a large flame started, causing the 3 to jump back, defensively. the flame spreading in a sort of horizontal line. it was a wall of fire that made sure the traveller couldn't follow you. you turned, with the balladeer limp in your arms― and ran.

The traveller took a step to go after you but was stopped by the dendro archon. "No, wait!" the small childlike archon called before explaining who you were. "That is the Child of the pyro archon, the lady of fire!" Lesser―lord Kusunali started off, glancing down at The electro archon's gnosis. "Sumeru has already bared the great loss of Greater lord rukkhadevata, recently. they haven't healed fully from such a terrible occurrence. If a war broke out between sumeru and natlan, i doubt the sumerians would be able to bear it." Nahida explained, turning to the traveller and paimon. "Besides ... We have what made the balladeer so strong, no need to rush after them." Nahida looked up at the traveller, showing them the gnosis.

"This is it. The final memories of greater―lord rukkhadevata." the dendro archon, lesser―lord kusunali announced as the space around them begun to fade into a bright white light.