It didn’t matter what they did. It didn’t matter if they rebuilt everything and made the city look like it would have if never ever happened. It wasn’t going to bring the dead back.

Even in ruins, Rosalyne found that the streets looked far too familiar to her. She would walk down the same streets they walked, stand silently in the same square where she used to sing.

“The west wind bears wine's fragrance away, The mountain wind brings glad tidings new. The breeze from afar tugs at my heart, It sings of my longing for you.”

That was one of the many songs she sung, and likely the one most precious to her. She sang it on the day she believed was the first time she saw Rostam smile.

 “A Wolfhook berry? Really? It wouldn’t by any chance be your title that led you to such an incredibly erroneous answer, now would it?” Rosalyne teased him as they sat at their usual table on the corner of the square, a light meal of Fisherman’s Toast half-eaten before them.

“It’s a true symbol of freedom,” Rostam replied back matter-of-factly with half a smile, almost imperceptible. “The way I see it, Wolvendom is the perfect mirror to Mondstadt: wild and unrestrained, and yet at the same time, the wolves are a picture of nobility I think every Mondstadtian could learn from.”

“Hmm, all good points, but it’s not a flower.”

“Who says the Windblume has to be a flower?”

“Well, we do have many a flower to choose from, so the I way I see it, probability is on its side.”

“So, you have a flower in mind?”

“Yes, the Cecilia, of course. It’s beautiful and elegant. Simple as that.”

Rostam shook his head solemnly. “You expect me to believe your answer is ‘simple as that’?”

Rosalyne quirked a smile, taking his doubt as a compliment. An expected one. “Cecilias grow where the wind is strongest,” she explained. “They’re resilient. Just like a Mondstadtian. However, the best part is that they grow nowhere else. You can’t grow them anywhere other than Starsnatch Cliff, because they choose the place with the most resistance. They wouldn’t have it any other way. So, to your point, I think many people in this city can learn a thing or two from them, as well.”

 Rosalyne stared at the corner where that table used to be, now nowhere to be seen, with only a cracked stone floor in its place. She always enjoyed those moments, the two of them talking about anything at all for as much time as they had the luxury to spare. She remembered in those moments watching his brow finally unknit time and time again, seeing him relax into that one small smile reserved only for her. It always felt like a victory, to make him happy. He was so serious most of the time, burdened by the weight of his duties to the knights and to Mondstadt itself. He was Arundolyn’s shadow, that silent figure in the background, the one who worked long and hard for the knights by day and did what needed to be done on his own at night, the one subjected to continual teasing by his old friend for how somber he always was, this one who had inherited Kreuzlied’s society and operated it faithfully behind the Grand Master’s back. In these things, Rosalyne always felt she understood him to some degree, despite not belonging to the same world as he. Actions meant more than words, meant more than the praise of others. Arundolyn was praised for the way he kept the peace in Mondstadt, without anyone knowing a thing of the work Rostam did behind the scenes. Rostam didn’t resent him for this, though, and neither did Rosalyne, although she never believed she could see eye to eye with the Lionfang Knight for this reason. She never wanted to receive praise for another’s toil, nor did she feel comfortable working to appease the public eye at all. The only people whose opinion mattered were those she was close to.

She didn’t have anyone whose opinion she cared about, anymore. The few close to her had left her, one by one. Rostam was the last.

Rosalyne went alone to her temporary home at night, one room in a common house hastily thrown back together by the citizens of the city. She didn’t have a home beforehand, anyways—she lived in a rented room that she left for good when she left for Sumeru to do her studies, living as a student until the day the disaster happened. She left for home as soon as she could. Turns out, she became the first to tell the Mondstadtians that yes, the disaster hit Sumeru, as well. Not Durin, but something else. All of Teyvat was hit by something, it would seem.

So she went to this home and she would pore over her notes, her books, everything she dared to bring with her at risk of being slowed down in her flight to Mondstadt. Her world was that of a scholar—as a scientist and an alchemist. She too had her sights on changing the world from the shadows. She despised all those empty drawn-out conversations with the pretentious that she had to go through while acting in the world of academia, but she found pleasure in long nights of work on a problem only very few eyes would get to see the process for. She wanted nothing more than to do her work to excellence, and then use it as she willed.

There was a something in particular she was working on, something she had dabbled in ever since she was an apprentice. Her results were minimal; her theory on success remaining only as words and diagrams on a paper, because if she was correct, the cost would be high. Now, she studied those diagrams, over and over again. She studied as she thought of what happened here in Mondstadt, as she despised herself for not being here to see the end. Not being here to fight by Rostam’s side until that black fire consumed them both. She wasn’t a fighter, but she could be. She fought on the side, as a necessity, as part of some experiment that required a practicing of skills. But she could go further. She could go so much further.

Humans were despicably fragile things. What happened to them all on that day proved that this was a world they never really belonged in—it was a world of gods and monsters that they were always at the mercy of, unless some other god came to save them. Some other god that, when it mattered most, never truly cared. Barbatos was no guardian of Mondstadt. Never was Dvalin. And she wasn’t asking them to be. She wasn’t going to beg—never would she beg.

She disappeared from the city one early morning with just a few notes in hand. She was glad she chose a remote place to do the experiment—she couldn’t do much to stop the screams of pain that burst from her lips when she did it. She struggled to complete the procedure, but she did. She didn’t back away when she felt the flames burn away her flesh, burn into her very soul. This was how it had to be done—to piece by piece, replace her mortal flesh with liquid fire in human shape.

She didn’t need a Vision to wield an element. On that day, she finally proved it for good.

She walked away with a cold stare in her eyes, the timepiece he gave her at her side—once Hydro, now liquid flame. She need not answer to anyone. She need not work for anyone’s praise. She would destroy the monsters of this world, even if it meant her humanity must be sacrificed.

A little sacrifice when no one was around for her to keep her humanity for.

 She stood before a field awash in fire, a hoard of monsters reduced to ashes.

 She walked through the city again, but the people cowered away in fear, closed their windows and tried to drive her off. They hardly recognized her, it would seem. No longer was she the young maiden singing in the square, her innocent melody drawing the pleased attention of all who walked past. But that didn’t matter to her, not anymore.

 “I-I’ll talk! Anything!” The abyss mage squeaked in terror while in the fiery grasp of the Crimson Witch of Flames herself, stumbling through its words to tell her of their plans.

“Okay then. This is for wasting my time.”

She burnt it as it screamed. Only ashes remained.

 “The dandelions carry in the summer wind.”

Her new song began with light words but a somber tone, as she walked through the field of scorched earth.

“Autumn brings the fragrance of rain.”

They called her a witch, so she donned a scorching hat to match the title, as much as she despised it. The monsters feared her, far and wide, and she would keep it that way.

“But no wind in any season on earth…”

She selfishly wished he could have been one of the few who made it. He should have. He cared about Mondstadt. More than she ever truly did.

“…shall have you gaze upon me again.”

No one was there, this time, to hear her song. No one was there to laugh with her or to cry, to be affected at all. Her audience was a field of corpses.