#somanders

CHAPTER ONE - Taking a Wrong Turn

He stood on the deck of that ship until the last shred of light left along the horizon. The lanterns on the beach were his only indicator that Watatsumi was there at all, disappearing below the waves as if no more than flotsam on the tide. Soma watched until his eyes ached from the salt air and the whipping wind casting strength into the sails of the Crux. This massive ship was bound for Liyue’s main port, a place so far away it seemed unfathomable. Yet as he drifted further from the only home he’d ever known, he felt the tether in his chest tighten with sharp agony.

Kiyo was on those shores.

He hadn’t been able to speak to her just before he left. The aunts and uncles forbade any final farewell; vindictive to the very last, it would seem. They did not know that he had already sat with Kiyo in secret and told her the whole of his plans the night before;

“Can’t we go together, Nii-sama?” She had implored, and for the life of him he could not remember the reason why as he gazed down at her forlorn tears.

“Would if I could.” He replied softly, committing her face to memory on that moonless night. “There are many things I must prepare beforehand. I cannot let you come from nothing. Be brave for me, sister.”

For a girl of nine, Kiyo peered through her gold eyes with far too much intelligence alongside the compassion she held - a burden she carried for her brother and his ambition. It took only moments for Soma’s little sister to quiet her sadness, and with great hesitance that he felt in her small fingers, let his hand go with a bow of her head.

“I will.” She nodded then, “I’ll-…miss you.”

There is a crack in Soma’s heart at this goodbye, and it widens at the resignation in Kiyo’s face for letting him go. It bid him to lean down and gently cup her little face in his hands.

“I’ll be quick as lightning,” He smiled, “-I’ll write often. We’ll be together again soon, Kiyo. I promise.”

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Soma kept his promises to his sister, no matter how impossible they seemed. He would return for her. This he vowed upon the vision glowing at his neck, the only light in the dark and storming sea beyond Inazuma’s isolated shores.

‘Be brave, and wait for me.’

Six long years. It felt like all would be achieved in those first few weeks of Soma’s arrival at the city of Freedom. He had found a way to ingratiate himself almost immediately with the Favonius Knights. Swordsmanship was a skill he had cultivated nearly from his infancy, but his scribe work seemed more interesting to the likes of Varka and the Acting Grand Master Jean.

It had at least provided ample time to write letters back to Inazuma, one after the other for every new venture. Soma took it upon himself to learn everything he could about the native culture of the land he wandered into after a lengthy stay at Liyue harbor and an arduous trek through Dihua Marsh. He became intimately acquainted with the language, the food, and ultimately the local companionship. Something to pass the time while he worked his way from a lowly clerk to something more akin to a secretarial position of authority. This had paid off handsomely, in the end, with a recommendation to the hallowed halls of the Akademiya - a full-throated Favonian referral to become one of their students with a former valedictorian’s blessing.

Lisa had been instrumental in his progression professionally and personally. He could have sworn he found in her a like-minded electro user who saw the benefits of scholarship along with its pitfalls. Someone like him could be blinded by ambition if he wasn’t careful, since there were more than enough temptations put in his way. She helped to smooth the track forward without leading him astray, and for that Soma was immensely grateful. Lisa was not his only companion, though.

The red-haired Master Diluc had bid him a terse farewell as he packed his bags once again for Sumeru City. It wasn’t a tearful goodbye so much as a silent understanding they’d gone the extent of what their relationship could allow. There were no promises made, and Soma had preferred it that way. Much like with Lisa, Soma did not allow his sentiments to hamper the blade-like focus on the horizon. Set roots. Rise. Then, and only then would he have the foundations he needed to fetch his other half at last. She would rise, too.

All this could finally begin in Sumeru City.

How curious though, that I am now two days overdue my estimated arrival…

Had I made a wrong turn?

It was a rain-soaked night when he finally made it to the misty docks of Fontaine. The city was sprawling, half underwater and made of unforgiving stone. A desolate place teeming with people that were practically stacked atop one another - an existence he could hardly contemplate for how sprawling Watatsumi Island had been. From the slums to the dockside to the upper class neighborhoods of austere and stately homes, there was nothing that escaped the heavy feeling of damp and oppressive modernity.

Gone were the gay and bright windmills of Mondstadt, whose sun-kissed stones were a brighter gray like the foundations of a smile. This was a wholly different kind of city, which lacked any freedoms. Shackles came to his mind as he stood watching a stooped group of beggars by the side street, huddled around a can that acted as their hearth. They roasted pieces of scrap meat over it, as if it could do something to lift the plague stench from the vittles they’d found in the garbage nearby.

A vagrant woman met his eyes as he walked past her swaying form. Soma caught the stench of a whole surgeon’s facility full of rubbing alcohol, but not the clean kind. The fetid kind, that sharply reproached the senses with a vile stab up the nostrils. He tried his best to master his expression as she smiled at him, toothless, and began to babble about pearls and rings. A merry diddy she sang as she swirled down the alley with what he could only assume was formaldehyde in her system.

I have surely made a wrong turn, or two.

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