What Do I Put Here

Speaking of the library, though… he was pretty sure it was open to the public, but he usually didn’t pay attention to those sorts of details. “It should be! And if anyone gets suspicious, tell them a bard named Venti said you can be there. I’ve won the title of ‘Most Popular Bard in Mondstadt’ three times, so my say carries a lot of authority!” Naturally. “The librarian’s name is Lisa - if you’re looking for a specific set of records, she’ll definitely be glad to help you out.”

She might find the Melusine quite intriguing, he thought with a smile. 

“As for my own works,” he continued, “some of them are indeed recorded in the library! But they might not be where you might expect.”

A book of hymns, perhaps! He hadn’t written down any of them himself, but he knew some Church of Favonius members had transcribed various songs and prayers for safekeeping.

A pause, as she processes the latter half of the statement. “Oh! You are the most popular bard in all of Mondstadt? Congratulations!” 

She nods, appraising the bard in front of her, “It is a position you deserve, yes. You are very good at entertaining, even while we are just talking! But if you are so popular, then shouldn’t it be pretty easy to find your works…?”

Then, a moment of realization. “Ah. You must use a pen name, yes. Then I will take up your challenge!”

When she chose the piece she wanted, it was almost a surprise, and his brows raised a fraction.

It had such character. Just as she did.

His expression remained flat when he turned at her question, although the lines of it softened. Although it made sense to ask after other desires, and if Kevin thought about it, yes he would need much more to furnish an apartment, he continued to come up blank, his gaze drifting vacantly and without purpose over the rows and rows of offerings at the event.

Not merely because none of it was engineered for someone like him, but because it had never been a concern. If he were honest with himself, it still wasn't - only a thought in his mind at all for how lost in the anchoring humanity he felt.

Deliverance had no need for a couch, for a chaise longue, for a compartment ottoman.

But the man Kevin, perhaps, did.

“A counter! Bar stools are popular with those, yes,” She glances around the area, searching for other sections of furniture, “If it is well-lit, it can be a nice place to work, as well!” 

There are, of course, small stools, yes, but they are too small to the point that even Sedene does not suggest he try them out, only asking if the color was to his liking, or the shape, or the fact that it could rise up and down with a push of a lever.

Technology was truly a convenient thing, even if it didn’t benefit the man that was searching right now. Sedene makes a note to herself to see if there were any seats with the same functionality that were more comfortable.

SCENE: The Xianzhou Luofu - Fyxestroll Garden DIR.: Mr. Reca FEAT.: @sedena as SEDENE

Tough audience, hm? He side-eyes THE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR for her input; it appeared this adorable critter didn't know the first thing about art! THE DIRECTOR would just have to teach her. His smile beams from ear to ear.

"Of course you're an actor--this is my set! There's no need to be shy; it's a professional director's job to guide new talents, should they encounter any difficulty."

He steps aside, as if inviting her to take the stage. He does not mention anything about a permit.

"You may not have your usual role in this film, but your investigative experience will nonetheless come in handy when playing a similar character. A film crew should be hiring specialists if they're hoping for any shred of realism in the script in the first place..."

He puts a hand to his chin, scrutinizing his actor as much as his creative process. It was hard to read the images at the forefront of her memory; her perception wasn't anything he was familiar with from most sentient life in the cosmos. What better way to learn than by seeing her in action?

THE DIRECTOR gestures once again to the vandalized monument, giving SEDENE a wide berth.

"Please, don't let my presence stop you. I'd love to see how you perform, Miss...?"

How much will she be paid for this role? What are her rights? She didn’t sign any waivers- did that mean this man will be responsible for anything that happened to her during her time as an actor?

She blinks back up at him, mirroring his movement with her own- hand under her chin, head tilted. 

“My name is Sedene, yes.” She ends up saying, not moving from her position of studying- not the crime scene but the man who claims to be her new employer. “How much will I be paid for my services for your film? Or is this considered volunteer work?”

He pointedly did not mention his newest hymn about wine.

“The bard’s dedication to his nation and his fellow people, and his determination in the face of adversity - his songs are full of those feelings.” Venti glanced up at the statue of Barbatos, peeking out from between buildings. “As a follower of freedom… I wish to embody those feelings as well.”

“Ah, but if you were curious,” he added, “Mondstadt does also keep written records! The Knights of Favonius’ library has quite the history collection. Old records, adventurer’s logs, transcribed songs: that sort of thing. But personally, I haven’t visited the library in a while. There are far more entertaining things to do - like this!”

It doesn't seem to be quite the same here, no, but it must follow at least some of the same logic! But either way, she follows his gaze towards the large statue in the center of the city. They looked very similar, yes, except one was made of stone. She wonders if he put his hair in braids like the statue because of tradition as well.

It didn’t seem really free, she thinks, if he has to.

He opens the papers prepared for the day and starts going through them one by one, just as he has done for the last five centuries. The talons of exhaustion and the fangs of time both seem forever unable to reach him, even as he, on his own, completes work that would normally require an entire cabinet of dedicated officials - and faster than they would, too.

Approve local festival funding, reject a form due to lack of signature, handle the forms trying to rent out Opera Epiclese for plays and spectacles for the rest of the year, sort case records for the trial in three days - one after another, documents pass through his hands, and it only takes him a few minutes to decide each one's fate. Review revitalization project draft, approve this, reject that, send the project proposal back for further review, wait for the corresponding papers for the next case - ah, there they are. As though right on cue, there is a knock on the door before Sedene walks in, the required papers in hand.

In the couple seconds she needs to approach him, Neuvillette takes a moment to process a detail his mind got stuck on. Not related to any of the matters he had been processing or intends to, no...

Though his mind naturally accepted her arrival in her office, given it was both natural and expected given the circumstances and schedule, he realizes that he nearly failed to recognize her knocking. To humans, such a detail may sound silly, for who would bother with such things? Of course people can knock differently depending on the day...

But Neuvillette's ears and instincts alike tell every Melusine's way of being apart, and a single detail would be enough for him to pinpoint her identity on the spot.

This is... out of the ordinary. It is wrong, and if something involving a Melusine feels wrong, he is always quickly to react.

"Thank you," he nods slowly; his hand accepts the papers given to him, but his eyes ignore them entirely, fixed on Sedene instead.

She blinks at his expression, and stores it away to think about later. It was another complicated idea, she figures, and she isn't really in the right headspace to puzzle it out. “I just returned from vacation, yes, but the entire thing was a mess…”

She huffs, the equivalent of a sigh, as she places her hands on her hips and shakes her head. “I wasn’t really aware of what was going on for most of it, but there was a big mess on the place I visited, which involved somebody eventually having to send a distress signal for him and a large group of other people trapped there.”

“The entire thing is a little fuzzy to me…” Horns droop alongside her, but she straightens very quickly, realizing that she was still at work. “I feel very tired, yes. Not to worry, though! I’m sure it'll just take a few days before I get back into the swing of work!”

There was something tantalizing about the way the skies graced her – her brief flight with Venti had been nothing short of scary, but exhilarating. She wanted to learn how to fly herself. It was why she stood in Fontaine today – they had been administering Wing Glider Exams, and Seele would get her license by all means necessary.

She had the balance and the dexterity, (though none the patience, and not even Seele herself would try to tell you otherwise), so she believed that maybe this would go well for her. 

Ready for her exam, she glanced around, looking for the one who would be in charge today. It took a moment, until she looked down, eyes met with a little kid in uniform. Seele’s eyes lit up, as she recognized the little one before her – “ Oh my gosh! I remember you, you gave me a red envelope at the Lantern Rite! ” 

Scanning over the little one’s outfit, Seele began to take mental note of how professional she appeared. Is it her? But she’s a kid…Then again, I’ve seen stranger things happen…Clara practically helps run a settlement. Still, ‘prolly safe to ask.  “ Are you the one administering the exam today? Is there anything I need to do before we begin? ” 

Of course, normally she does not administer the exam itself, but this particular year, one of the examiners had come down with a nasty illness of some sort, and had asked for a replacement. After a short set of training instructions, Sedene is ready to administer the exam. Probably.

“Mhm! I am Sedene of the Marechaussee Phantom, and I’ll be the administrator for your flight exam today.” Sedene pulls out a clipboard, complete with a child-sized pen, “Are you renewing your license, or is this your first time taking the exam? If it’s the second, yes, I’ll need you to fill out this form so that we may properly grant you your license when you succeed. If it’s the first, please tell me your license ID so I can note you down!”

Sedene nods, taking in the person standing before her. She didn’t look like she owned a Wind Glider license, no, mostly because those who were renewing their license would have already taken it out by now, and there was no license held up in front of her eyes.

Or no, it wasn't living memory any longer, was it? Just memory, and only his, for all that lent credibility. 

Kalpas laughed at that, out of nowhere and incongruous with the statement that the kid – Sedene, she just told him her name, without any preamble or hesitation – had said to follow, to guide him to their partnership. 

"Sorry," he said, realizing that she hadn't said anything funny, that the humor was only in his head – and he almost laughed again, but shook his head instead, snorting a little puff of steam into the chill of the mountain air. 

"Hadn't planned to make anything. But...we can if you want...?" His hands had not necessarily been made for creation, and he knew it, and he looked at them now as though unaware that it was something that they could do. A frown pinched at his brows, though Sedene couldn't see it. 

Undeterred by his admission, however, she reaches up to take his hand and finds it a mote too high, so she instead gestures for him to follow. “I’ll lead you to our ice block. Seems like a shame not to try at least once, no? You’re already all the way at Dragonspine, after all. Not a place many people visit!”

Speaking of, the mountain itself was coated in blood, mixing with the snow to cause a beautiful pink hue, one that she knows that humans couldn’t see. If they knew, maybe they’d be less keen on playing with the icy powder. The ice for the competition must have been grabbed from elsewhere, though, as it was beautifully clear! 

Each step of her fiery partner melts a little of the snowy exterior of their path, and their approach to the contest was greeted with both relief from those who struggled to chip away at the ice and annoyance from those who found carefully carved surfaces begin to melt.

If he doesn’t mind, Sedene doesn’t either, continuing onward.

“This one’s ours!” A gesture toward a yet untouched block, nodding to herself. A few tools lay at its base, human sized, of course, and she picks one up experimentally, using both hands to stab it into the ice. It leaves a small dent and bounces off, and she frowns. “Well, maybe we can do something simple…”

“Yes, he wrote quite a few, and some even survive to this day; he quite enjoyed singing about the beauty and freedom of nature - I’m told,” he hastily tacked on. “But in leading the war effort, the bard’s life was tragically cut short - as Mond’s people finally triumphed over their tyrant, he succumbed to his wounds.” 

Yes, he still remembered it - the boy wrapped in Amos’s arms as he took his last breath, then the sudden surge of power as Venti himself was granted the title of Archon. The strange sensation of a tangible body, the boy’s imperfect twin, and the feeling of tears as he wept over his corpse.

She hesitates, searching for the correct word, hoping she didn’t misattribute it to the definitions in her head, before settling on a safe, neutral option.

“Emotion!” 

Luckily for her, a select few actually knew how to relax. Like Sedene! Even if Sedene had her own paycheck, Sigewinne was still happy to cover the costs. Anything to get her out and about!

"Okay, so." She held a small notebook in her hands of places to stop. "Cafe can be for lunch. So, we could go to the beauty shop." Sigewinne gasped in excitement. "Or the boutique! When was the last time you got a new outfit?"

Pink eyes looked at the other Melusine with expectancy. It was a day full of shopping for the duo, and she would make it the best one of this generation.

Nodding along to the other Melusine's suggestions, Sedene blinks as she is addressed with a question.

“Hm… last year?” Sedene puts her hand to her chin as she thinks. Assuming she doesn’t mean new uniforms, then that would be the last time Sedene remembers buying a new outfit. “I usually wear my uniform, so I don’t need a lot of other clothes, no.”

Human ego peers back, the colors of her iris dancing like gentle waves with mirth. Such questions are the very axis of her existence, all that she has lived by from the moment of her birth to each of her deaths. Hope is just a word put to an idea that spans hundreds, that is boundless. It knows no shape, hope, limited only to that which its beholder can see it in.

"Ah, but the sunrise isn't hope itself." Elysia wags a teasing finger, giggling to herself. "You see, when the sun sets there is darkness. Throughout it, in the absence of light, there is hope. Hope is the knowledge that no matter how long the night, the sun will return again and there will be light once more. The sunrise is the evidence of that hope."

The girl seems a methodical one, a logical one. "Hope has a routine, too, just a strange one. A long one, a sometimes unpredictable one, but it is always the same. Where there is tragedy, there is hope, and where there is hope there will be good once more."

With careful fingers, Elysia plucks a leaf from before them. 

Maybe that was why humans would use so many analogies to try and describe things. Right now, Sedene blinks up at this woman as much of an eager student as a conversationalist, absorbing any information given to her.

“Hm… I’m not sure I understand, but I trust you!” Is her final verdict. She is pretty sure the sunrise has nothing to do with hope, except for whatever someone attributes to it, but maybe that wasn’t true. She is also fairly certain that there was a connection to be made between this conversation and the prophecy from a while back, yes.

“If hope is a form of knowledge, then it shouldn’t change the taste of your tea unless it’s psychological, no? I can’t tell if a leaf was plucked with hope or anything else.”

Throughout the her time in the morning, she speaks to visitors and halts intruders- at most dealing with a lighter workload to ease her back into the flow of things. When there is no one around, she continues to work diligently, sorting case documents from a small backlog- seemingly pleased that her absence didn’t cause too much of an issue!

To her sisters, it didn’t seem like she had gone on vacation at all. Her trip was apparently not particularly restful, but Sedene is diligent, and returns to completes her work on task on time. She murmurs something about changing the date of her yearly vacation when alone, but that is all that is odd. At most, she is tired, yes, and nothing else.

In a moment of quiet, Sedene finds a few documents that needed the Chief Justice’s review before any further approval- not one to waste time, she gathers them up, and knocks on his office door. All as usual… if only a little subdued.

“Monsieur Neuvillette, I have something for you.”

So Wriothesley opts for a good-natured laugh.

”That certainly looks to be true for Mr. Welt.”

He glances toward the board as the older man begins taking down his throws, among which had been a near-bullseye. The other team had been steadily gaining on them, and now with this recent collection of points, had finally surpassed them.

”Looks like we’re going to need to step it up a notch.”

Maybe it’s his concentration, or the fact that he and Zhongli don’t have quite as tight of a hold on the lead as he’d thought, but when Wriothesley takes the darts from Jaochim and throws them just as he had the last few times - one after the other - they make a messy, scattered array on the board.

Roll 1: 2 Sector: 12, regular, 12 pts Roll 2: 8 Sector: 20, regular, 20 pts Roll 3: 2 Sector: 5, regular, 5 pts

With a sheepish chuckle, Wriothesley takes them down and passes them off to Sedene.

”Or maybe this has all been a ploy from the start to teach me to respect my elders.”

Team Welt/Sedene: 249 pts Welt Misses: 1 Sedene Misses: 0 Team Wriothesley/Zhongli: 236 pts Wriothesley Misses: 0 Zhongli Misses: 0

She takes the darts with a cheery thanks, hopping down to take her place in front of the board. A cheeky, “That’s not a bad lesson to learn!” 

Is tossed over her shoulder before she prepares to throw.

Roll 1: 4 Sector: 16, outer ring (x2), 32 points Roll 2: 4 Sector: 11, normal points Roll 3: 2 Sector: 17, normal points

With Welt’s last showing, their team was now in the lead- but not by much. Sedene’s own throws are scattered across the board, still struggling to hit the upper half. At least the point values were high (though even she can admit that was more luck than any skill).

It did make taking the darts out of the board much easier, though, and she deposits them in front of the next of the three gentlemen. (Older gentlemen, their words seem to indicate.)

Team Welt/Sedene: 189 pts Welt Misses: 1 Sedene Misses: 0 Team Wriothesley/Zhongli: 236 pts Wriothesley Misses: 0 Zhongli Misses: 0

This, he sweeps over the rest of their little gathering. Zhongli has returned to his chair and his drink already, and Sedene waits by hers for her upcoming turn. Were they all quite significantly his seniors? he wonders. Sedene, of course, surpasses that of half of the cozy bar’s customers combined, but the other two— His glance lingers for a split second longer on his own partner, who seems ageless. He hadn't considered that he might perhaps be more like Furina than he'd first though. The thought doesn't last long, and he soon turns back to the board.

A subtle smile plays across his lips as he holds up the first dart at eye level and tests his aim.

”Getting older isn’t looking too good. I’ll have to give up the dream of ever winning another game of darts.”

As before, Wriothesley’s throws are quick and decisive. One after the other, the darts hit the board. The first lands just off from the bullseye, the second goes a little farther off course, but the third corrects itself and hits the spot right alongside the first in the same kind of pattern Wriothesley had started the game with.

Roll 1: 9, 25 pts Roll 2: 4 Sector: 2, regular, 2 pts Roll 3: 9, 25 pts

Collecting the darts, he notes his score and hands them off to the melusine.

“To you, Miss Sedene.”

Team Welt/Sedene: 374 pts Welt Misses: 1 Sedene Misses: 0 Team Wriothesley/Zhongli: 297 pts Wriothesley Misses: 0 Zhongli Misses: 0

Sedene is not normally competitive, no. She knows that winning a game makes humans ‘happy’ most of the time, and that generally it makes them ‘disappointed’ if any of their competitors went easy on them, regardless of the result.

However. However, she is a member of the Marechaussee Phantom, and it felt like a poor showing would reflect badly upon her training. 

“Make sure to warm up properly, then,” She chirps as she steps up to the plate. “I’ll pull our weight until then, but you’d better make it up to me!”

Roll 1: 4 Sector: 11, normal points

The first hit is nothing special, only notable to her in its shift from the bottom of the board to the side, yes, which means she’s getting closer on target. But, focus! Getting distracted means that she’ll miss.

Roll 2: 10, 50 points

And… there! Straight in the center. Sedene doesn’t waste any time, no, on celebrating or point it out, simply picking up her last dart and sending it flying.

Roll 3: 4 Sector: 8, normal points

Off again, in a similar area. Maybe she was overcompensating for her last round…

“And it’s back to you, sir!”

Team Welt/Sedene: 305 pts Welt Misses: 1 Sedene Misses: 0 Team Wriothesley/Zhongli: 297 pts Wriothesley Misses: 0 Zhongli Misses: 0