#pari

Let him into your mind, he will do no harm!

Illustration for my fic Yogatma of Dwarka and His Professor Bandhu

Some frames under the cut

Noble, graceful, remorseful, powerful, melancholy, otherworldly Lady Maria. The Creator isn’t a pure and untouched soul, she’s a scarred and battle-hardened warrior, ridden with guilt. Trauma has made her cold, yet paradoxically gentle.

Teyvat makes lumenflowers blossom everywhere to herald Maria!Creator’s arrival. Big ones, small ones, towering ones, blooming after sundown alongside the glaze lilies. Even in extreme temperatures, the cold, pale flowers make themselves at home. Slotting peacefully into the local ecosystems without becoming invasive. 

The Pari and the Aranara wake up to find lumenwood groves just outside their respective homes. The Melusines become enamored with these new ‘moon blossoms’ sprouting throughout their village, even the parts that are completely underwater. Amurta students and Fontaine researchers scramble over each other to study this new species. Nilou makes M!C a lumenflower crown, and it replaces her hunter’s cap for the day. Nilou gets the first ever hug from the Creator. Suck it, Azar.

Albedo and Sucrose experiment on these new plants immediately. Xiangling is already using it in some strange new recipe, something Chongyun will actually eat for once. Tighnari, Ganyu, and Shenhe take curious bites out of a lumenflower cutting. The taste isn’t unpleasant, just incomparable to anything else in Teyvat.

Inazuma characters, especially Kazuha, are absolutely fascinated by the Rakuyo (and maybe a little jealous). So graceful is M!C with her strange weapon, so easily she wields it on the battlefield. Every blacksmith in Teyvat hears the words ‘trick weapon’ and takes it as a challenge. Many come close, but none can truly replicate the genuine articles. May they never have a true need for beast-slaying weapons.

Imposter AU? With one of Bloodborne’s toughest bosses? Laughable. RIP anyone stupid enough to try. And if there’s a fake Creator pulling the strings? Not after a quick visceral attack, there isn’t. M!C pulls a blood blade to cut down the imposter’s guards (she notices the stars in her blood that weren’t there before) and the imposter receives the most satisfying visceral ever. 

Up to this point M!C put no stock in the ‘god’ thing. All she sees is mad cult, led by a petty and jealous brat on a power trip. But then she sees the stars in her blood, hears the voice of Teyvat itself, puts two and two together and just… laughs hysterically, because this whole situation is patently ridiculous. Byrgenwerth and the Healing Church failed in their quests for ascension, their heinous crimes being all for naught. Now here she is, thrown headfirst into unwanted ‘godhood’ and getting hunted by her supposed worshipers. Oh, how the tables have turned. 

Once people see the cosmos reflected in M!C’s blood, they fall over each other trying to apologize. Since she’s reached negative patience for everyone’s bullshit, she ignores them and fucks off to the Nightmare. After coming into Teyvat, M!C gained the power to enter and exit the Nightmare at will. The Nightmare doesn’t bend to her will, but it doesn’t treat her as an intruder. The Silverbeasts and Winter Lanterns don’t bat an eye at her presence. She’s a true denizen of both the waking world and the world of dreams, now. 

That night, every soul in Teyvat has the same nightmare - the Celestial gods attempting to forcibly summon the Creator, only to have themselves snatched from Celestia and dragged into a hostile, eldritch world of unfamiliar mish-mashed environments. At every turn, it is full of nightmarish creatures out for their blood. One by one, all but a select portion of Celestials become beast food, with M!C protecting the final ones herself.

Celestia, responsible for planting the fake Creator, falls from the sky the next day, its grand architecture reduced to mere rubble that rains from the heavens. Found amongst these ruins are the mangled, blood-drained and half-eaten bodies of Celestial gods. Spears made of blood impale many of the bodies, spears that seem to have sprouted from inside the flesh. Those that still have intact faces bear identical looks of horror. They find The Sustainer of Heavenly Principles in literal pieces - crushed and torn apart by hands that must have been the size of a grown man.

New stars and constellations appear in the night sky, as the illusion created by Celestia slowly fades. The curse placed on the people of Khaenriah gradually dissipates as well - the hillichurl tribes withdraw from the world, content to leave it alone. Every day, the curse lifts a little more from the people of Khaenriah; one day, Dainslief, Pierro and all the rest will finally be able to die. 

In Celestia’s place rises a second moon - a snow-white harvest moon, always full, large and visible even when clouds blanket the sky.

The Archons try to follow M!C into the Nightmare, but like Celestia, they get their shit wrecked by the denizens of the Frontier. The Archons don’t die for real, they’re just permanently cut off from the Nightmare. It takes Nahida, with dream powers of her own + Traveler and Wanderer in tow, to reach M!C and convince her to give the people of Teyvat a second chance. Nahida succeeds because she has the sense to treat M!C as a person, not some untouchable idol.

Sumeru is warm and welcoming, nothing like Yharnam or Cainhurst. M!C has fond memories from her time as a Byrgenwerth scholar, and the Akademiya feels like home. Sumeru becomes M!C’s preferred nation by default, to the pride of the locals and the despair of everyone else.

M!C has trouble wrapping her head around how mundane Teyvat’s supposed ‘gods’ are. Elemental powers or not, these Archons are too human to be divine; the only divinity M!C knows is eldritch, alien, far beyond mortal comprehension. The Traveler is fractionally closer to true godhood than any Archon. But then, just as the Great Ones were beyond human comprehension, so too are humans beyond the understanding of the Great Ones - perhaps it’s better for humans to have human gods.

Speaking of gods, M!C and Nahida bond over their dream-related powers. If this is before the climax of the Sumeru quest line, the Akademiya gets real quiet, especially when M!C publicly points out how asinine their logic is (she was closely associated with Byrgenwerth and Laurence, she knows their kind all too well). For all of his failures, all the disastrous consequences, Vicar Laurence at least had genuinely good intentions; these fools only care about themselves and preserving their own power. Scaramouche, Azar, the traitorous Sages - selfish, ignorant children all, meddling with forces they only pretend to understand. Crushing them herself is merciful compared to the other outcomes.

Through tactical manipulation of dream worlds, M!C busts Nahida out of baby jail long before Traveler and co. have to, and the Akademiya goes into panic mode because the Creator herself is coming for them. Traveler and co.’s plans turn instead to finding the hidden laboratory under Sumeru City - the combined power of dreams horrifically distorts the battlefield around the Shouki no Kami, even after his defeat. M!C doesn’t kill Azar after the fact, but she doesn’t let him go into exile empty-handed... because she cuts off his hands. Cyno is too unsettled to laugh.

Scaramouche resents her for her part in ruining his apotheosis (and because the Creator didn’t do shit for him in his tragically long life) but as the Wanderer, he and M!C bond over a shared disgust for the Second Fatui Harbinger.

And speaking of the Fatui... Well, they try to recruit her to the cause, and she has this to say:

“I’ll not serve your organization while any part of Dottore yet lives. For too many years, I stood by and did nothing while so-called ‘doctors’ brutalized the innocent and vulnerable for their supposed research, their dreams of godhood and divine revelation. Never again. If your leaders possess a shred of self-preservation between themselves, then perish the thought this instant.”

Fatui agent(s): ...

They don’t give up, of course. The less friendly ‘recruiters’ get sent back to Snezhnaya in pieces. The only Fatuus M!C tolerates is Tartaglia, because aside from being the Traveler’s friend, he’s a decent punching bag/sparring partner. She finds his Foul Legacy transformation cute, like a kitten baring its teeth at a lion.

Related idea: M!C meets Dottore’s remaining segment, and after everything she’s heard (let’s say from Collei and Wanderer, maybe Nahida too) she barely lets him get two words in before cutting his head clean off. Will this affect Dottore in the long run? Probably not. Does it make her feel better? Yes, actually. Collei certainly isn’t upset by the news. Wanderer is, only because he feels M!C was too merciful. She lets him dismember the segment so they can stuff it in a box and send it back to the Doctor as a warning.

1) Snowland fae

Do I have to say anything. They are the fae that’s kind of what they are known to do. Where do you think the cryo archon got Childe? Everytine arlechinno brings the orphans to snezhnaya she has to fight them off.

2) wind spirits

You can’t tell me they don’t get bored and end up taking a random kid, which their mom has to return. They would play around with the kids but every good mondstadt parent knows to keep a good eye on their kids so the wisps don’t get the chance.

3) Seelis

Again that’s why they are known to do in mythology. However all the known we see in genshin lore literally are mindless. So it most likely taht they actively will lead kids astray. But they could and would definitely do it

4) adepti

These people are allergic to not adopting kids and at this rate it has to be some kind of competition. So of course they are going to have to find a way to get said children.

5) aranara

They aren’t actively going out of their way ti kidnap kids however they keep leading them away for prolonged period of time where no one knows where they are soooooo

6) kitsune

I don’t think they would take the kids because they like them. They would steal babies because it would be a great way to torment people. They would keep them around for a bit watching as their parents cried and then give them back

7) Oceanids

I don’t think any of them want anything to do with human children. They just want to spy on humanity for their mom not take it for themselves. However we do know that if they really like a kid they will just give them a blessing so that might lead to a case where they take the kids? But I don’t see it.

8) Dragons

I don’t think they hate babies but I don’t think they are interested enough in them to take them. However I could see Rex lapis asking for someone’s new born in a contract as a joke.

9) Tengu

Sara wouldn’t steal children because that’s against the order of the almighty shogun. However because of their strong wings and their fast speeds of they wanted too they could.

10)Oni

Itto loves kids but in a loving older brother way not in a snatching one off the streets. Itto can’t barely win a big battle against a bunch of kids. Even if he wanted to he could not.

11) Melusines

Neuvillette said that kidnapping is illegal and they will always listen to their dad. They love humanity but they would never steal them. Besides they are kids themselves so I don’t think they would want to steal someone their age.

12) Pari

Too busy with their fated destiny to ever kidnap kids. I also feel they also wouldn’t want to steal Babies too. In fact it’s more likely for the children to take the pari than the pari take the children.