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Scaramouche doesn’t think about his mother.
Mother. The title doesn’t fit. The word mother implied that she raised him on some level. All that Beelzebul did was create him, dress him up like a doll and leave him propped up against a maple tree in Shakkei Pavilion, the scarlet red of fallen leaves pooled around him like the false blood of a crime scene. Their time together was shorter than half a ring on the tree against his back. Shorter than the blink of an eye, the antithesis of eternity.
It was Katsuragi who took him in, his wife who taught him how to dress himself, Niwa who taught him you could forge anything from a hunk of metal except the one thing he wanted most, the young child who taught him that promises are made to be broken, and all of them, all of them, who taught him loss. Though, when he thinks about it, she was the first.
Maybe she did raise him after all.
Tartaglia is always complaining about something. This time it’s the lack of advance notice for an invitation to spend the holidays at home. “It’s going to be almost impossible to book off work,” he says, dragging a hand through his already messy hair. “But I’ll have to try. I do miss my mother’s borscht—it’s the best, really. Warms you right up in the winter. Ah, but then there’s presents to worry about. I already got Teucer a new set of Mr. Cyclops, but I don’t know what to get everybody else. Like, my little sister Tonia, she’s fifteen now—fifteen! I don’t know what girls that age are supposed to like. When I was fifteen the only thing I wanted was to be a Harbinger.”
Tartaglia has to know that Scaramouche isn’t listening, and that nothing he says holds any meaning for him, but he keeps talking anyway.
“What about you? Do you have a family?”
Scaramouche stops walking long enough to scoff, then picks up his pace once again. Tartaglia follows, steps working in tandem next to his, like a shadow he can’t get rid of.
“No,” says Scaramouche. “I don’t.”
See, the thing is, he has a sister, too.
He saw her only once, flanked by the guards of the Tenryou Commission, heading to a meeting with the Fatui regarding the Vision Hunt Decree led, of course, by La Signora. Scaramouche himself had no interest in standing face to face with the Raiden Shogun. He chose instead to stand at a distance, arms crossed, resting against a palace column and gazing past the brim of his hat. Her posture was stiff, her eyes blank and soulless. She seemed to have mastered what took him more than a century to learn: human emotion was useless, and should be discarded.
Well, he thinks to himself, that’s why you’re Mother’s favourite.
He doesn’t imagine a conversation with her. He doesn’t have to, to know what it’d be like.
Look at us, he would say to her. Just two puppets, you and I.
She would look at him, eyes blank and soulless.
We’re more alike than you’d think, he would muse aloud. But also more different. You don’t have any autonomy, do you? He would taunt her. He would walk in circles around her while she stared, not programmed to participate in this exchange. The perfect prototype was one of obedience, not independence. You don’t even know when you’re doing something wrong. You have no idea that your pursuit of eternity actually blasphemies everything that Beelzebul stood for. How pathetic.
And then she would speak to him at long last, eyes narrowed as she gazes upon him. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Of course you don’t, he’d say. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But here’s a secret for you. He’d lean closer, conspiratorially. Between the two of us, only one will become a God.
She’d raise her polearm, once it becomes clear to her what he’s doing. You’re a threat. You’re a threat to eternity. I’ll eliminate you.
But she’s wrong. Of the Fatui Harbingers, it’s not him who’s the threat. He couldn’t care less about the Tsaritsa’s grand plans to burn the old world. He would go along with them so long as they aligned with his own desires, so long as they put a gnosis in his hand, the gnosis he deserved, deserved more than she did, for he was the first creation.
Scratch that. He’d burn the old world so long as she and her creator went down with it. So maybe he was a threat.
But even so, even with her spear held at the ready, arm pulling back to strike at him—he wouldn’t fight back. What was the point, raising a hand against something without a will of its own? If he wanted to kill an insect, there were smaller fish to fry. If he wanted to be killed, now, that was another story. He couldn’t think of anyone more fitting to erase his existence than the one born after him, his little sister.
A common misconception: puppets don’t feel pain.
Scaramouche doesn’t fault them for thinking that. It’s a myth he too tries to perpetuate, if he can help it. But the truth is that every wire that pokes and prods at him, every one of the Doctor’s countless devices that he cycles through, has imprinted on him like his own personal Irminsul, a private record of all the pain he went through to make the end seem that much sweeter.
A common misconception: the people of Sumeru don’t dream.
They do. Scaramouche hears them, fed straight into his mind like a neverending feed of information, fast enough that a human’s brain would implode on itself in a split second. They dream of sunshine, of better days, a bountiful harvest, a night spent stargazing with loved ones. They dream of fears and anxieties personified, of burning alive, of shadowy hands emerging from the Abyss to tug at their ankles and drag down into deep waters.
He dreams, too. He used to dream of Tatarasuna, smiles and warmth and food, a mirage never meant to last. He used to dream of slaying a trail of blood through every one of the five Raiden Gokaden to make them pay for what had been done to him. These days, he dreams of the completion of the Arcane God of Wisdom, of holding the Gnosis in his hand, or better yet letting it sit in the empty space in his chest.
And then that dream, much like the dreams of the people of Sumeru, is taken from him, pummeled half to death by one hundred and sixty eight samsaras of the Traveller, the goddamn outsider who’s made it his mission to intervene in fate and always, always succeeds.
This is mine, he had thought to himself, as he finally held the Gnosis in the palm of his hand. This is what I was created for. Still, it was without relief, without much gratification, and certainly devoid of happiness. Does one feel happy when destiny fulfills itself?
This is mine, he thought in anger, sheer fury burning through every fiber of his being as Buer and the Traveller wrenched the Gnosis out of his grasp, and as he reached out in desperation for it, the wires that kept him attached to his artificial godhood snapped clean off his body. This is what I was created for. This is all I was created for. Without this, I have—
Nothing. That’s what he feels as he falls headfirst into a pool of darkness.
(A common misconception: puppets don’t feel.)
He dreams of his mother.
Of a conversation that would go a little different than the one with his sister. He would grab her by the collar, say to her face everything he’d never said, even to himself.
Why didn’t you kill me, he would ask of her, demand of her. Did you know that all this time, I wished I’d never been born?
She would look at him, solemn and accepting, as if she expected to bear the brunt of his hatred, and it would piss him off even more.
She would say, You cried when you were born.
He would blink at her. Like that had anything to do with it.
I knew then that I’d failed, she would say, eyes soft at the edges with a sad smile. How could someone like you, who’d cry upon being born into a world they had never encountered, be capable of ruling with an iron fist? You were too much like me.
You should have killed me then.
I’m sorry, she would say, with a shake of her head. I was too weak.
Too weak, he would echo. He would clutch at his chest, at the void within it that sometimes felt full to bursting. If you knew you were weak, if you knew we were weak, then why did you give me the ability to cry? The capacity to feel, after all that it did to you? When everyone you loved died, you knew where you could hide yourself away. What about me? Where was I supposed to hide?
I’m sorry, she would say. I'm sorry, over and over, a neverending samsara of fruitless guilt. It wouldn’t make him feel any better.
When he wakes up he sees a pair of green eyes gazing curiously into his own. When Buer sees his eyes are open, she smiles.
He thinks he is being mocked, at first. But Buer cuts him a deal. She’ll let him live—as if he even wants that—if he helps her out with something. Who would have thought that a failed experiment, a puppet half-god, could still be useful for his connection to Irminsul? She was an Archon herself. She could do it herself.
“Why?” he asks as she walks away, footsteps light and stature small, carefree yet careful. “First Beelzebul, now Buer. Why do you all try to keep me alive?”
Hands clasped behind her back, she looks over her shoulder at him and smiles. “Call me Nahida,” is all that she says in response.
He still thinks he is being mocked. But he can’t afford the luxury to care, anymore.
Everything changes inside of Irminsul.
Scaramouche changes. He shifts his understanding of the people he once dared to live alongside, dared to love and be betrayed by. The three betrayals impaled like blades in his own chest that only he could see, now down to two. No—it’s still three, a number nice and round, only the victim of his unending fury is no longer Niwa, but Dottore.
The world changes, too. Shifts its understanding of him until he disappears altogether.
Unexpectedly, Wanderer runs into the puppet sitting atop a cliff overlooking Nazuchi Beach. Today he’s playing the role of errand boy for Aether, having agreed to journey alongside him briefly to pay his dues. He needs Lavender Melons, and there are a ripe-looking bunch dangling, vivid purple and skin glowing with dew, from the branches hanging right above the puppet’s head. The puppet is sitting against the tree, looking out at the beach, the nostalgia in her eyes much too reminiscent of her creator.
He thinks of turning tail. But he’s already turned a new leaf. She’s hardly an obstacle. He just needs the melons.
He walks forward, the sound of his footsteps in the grass ringing too loud in his ears in place of a pounding heartbeat. Even if she looks up from her reverie, she won’t remember him.
Still standing at a distance behind her, he reaches above her head to pluck the melons from the branch, and curses her for making him short in height. He summons a small gust of Anemo, propelling himself upwards to make up for it. He plucks the melons one by one and lets his feet land on the ground once again. It’s then that she turns and looks up at him. He doesn’t expect her eyes to widen, to light up in recognition, for her to stand up, stumbling to her feet with neither the mechanical preciseness of a puppet nor the grace of an Archon.
“...Is it really you?”
Is it really you, he wants to ask. How could it be, that Beelzebul would have deigned to leave the Plane of Euthymia to occupy the body of her puppet, only to sit outside and stare at a beach where flowers grew from the blood of corpses. Surely this was beneath her.
“You remember me,” he says blankly.
“Of course I remember you,” she says. “My child.”
Her voice wavers with emotion. The sadness in her eyes is unpalatable. He cradles the melons in his arms, feels the cold droplets of moisture on them seep into his skin. It made sense for Aether, as a Descender, to be immune to the effects of Irminsul erasure. It made sense for Nahida, seeing as she was the type of person to take great and unnecessary care to preserve his memory and ensure his survival. But this? He didn’t want this. He had abandoned his name, his Electro Delusion, and all delusions of claiming his place as the god he was created to be. If ever there was a time to come face to face with Beelzebul, with Ei, it had long since passed.
“Don’t call me that,” he says. Crushed between his arms and chest, the melons begin to bruise.
He sees a finger twitch at her side before faltering, the urge to reach out towards him, only to think better of it.
“It’s been so long,” she says. “I’m glad to see you are well. You must have lived a life far different from mine, a life worth telling tales about. If you have the time,” she gestures to the spot next to her on the grass, “would you tell me about it?”
A bitter laugh erupts from his throat. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he turns, and runs.
The Sanctuary of Surasthana is grand, and spacious, and quiet. A prison cell reclaimed as a dwelling place for the Dendro Archon, interrupted by the loud slamming of the door by one of the only three people who have the privilege to enter.
“Why does she remember me?”
Even as he barges in unannounced, Nahida looks completely unbothered. It pisses him off.
“Are you perhaps talking about Ei?”
“She called me her child.” He clenches his fists. “I erased myself from Irminsul. She’s alive, and from this world. There’s no reason for her to remember something that everybody else has forgotten.”
Nahida touches the tip of her finger to her chin, deep in thought.
“Technically, the puppet Shogun isn’t a living being connected to Irminsul,” says Nahida. “If she had programmed her memories of you into the mind of the puppet, that could explain it.”
It makes sense, at least on the surface. It was the reasoning that he could not understand. “What’s the point? I was a failed experiment. Hardly relevant knowledge for the operation of the real thing.”
“It’s possible that she programmed the next prototype to learn from its predecessor,” Nahida says. “But if that was the case, she would have only recorded you as an experiment, a piece of data, for that would be all that the Shogun needed to know to carry out her duty. There would be no need to remember you as a person, as her child.” She takes a long pause, and then continues. “There is another, simpler explanation.”
Around them, small particles of dust float in the air, lit by the refracted green light of the stained glass walls. Nahida reaches out a finger absentmindedly, so that the two closest to her land on the tip of her index finger, side by side.
“She loved you,” says Nahida, “and she didn’t want any incarnation of herself to forget you. You were created at the start of her experiments. Perhaps even before the Plane of Euthymia. Who’s to say what could have happened? If she had failed, or if she had died, somehow, there would be no one to remember you.”
“… I don’t need anyone to remember me. I don’t need her to remember me.” So long as she did, there was no way he could start over.
“I understand.” Nahida nods. “I think… for all her good intentions, the things she considered a blessing all ended up being things that you considered a curse. The Heavenly Principles have strict rules on how to act as an Archon, but there isn’t a rulebook on how to be a mother, is there?” She looks out at the stained-glass windows, and smiles. “If there was, the world would be more peaceful, then. But… that’s just my theory.”
Nahida turns back to him. She summons a green block of Dendro, with a four-leaf sigil in its center, floating in the palm of her hand. It looks much like the backup of his own memory that she made, but smaller. She holds it out to him.
“This is a memory—your first memory—that I neglected to give back to you,” she explains. “When humans are born, it’s common for them to forget everything that happened in the first two to four years of their lives. This memory is much like that—something hidden by time, something that you yourself don’t recall, though it still lives inside of your consciousness, unable to be accessed. I’ve kept it with me, just in case. Here it is, if you would like to see it.”
He stares down at it blankly. “Why did you keep it? If it’s something even I’ve forgotten, it’s useless.”
“Forgive me for saying this, but… Niwa is long gone, as are Katsuragi and Mikoshi Nagamasa. The only way for you to know the truth was from Irminsul. But Ei is still alive in this world. I hoped that you might have the chance to talk to her one day, and find out for yourself what she thought, what she felt when she created you.”
“Then why give it to me now?”
Nahida looks wistful. “I… don’t know who, or what, gave birth to the me that exists today. But when I think about it,” she says, placing her free hand on her chest, “I feel a sense of warmth. Whoever created me must have done so with care. If I had the chance, I would want to at least try to understand them. But of course, you and I aren’t cut from the same branch. So I think it’s best if I leave it up to you.” She holds out the memory, glowing in her tiny palm, towards him. “Please, take this. You can view it if you’d like. Or you can destroy it if you wish. You can never speak to her again. It’s your life, after all.” Smiling softly, she eyes the Anemo Vision hanging from his chest. “That’s the nice thing about freedom, isn’t it?”
He takes the memory in his hand, feels its energy pulsing against his palm. He thinks about taking the memory and destroying it in front of her eyes just to spite her. But he doesn’t. She is far too sincere for the antic to feel satisfying.
“Oh, and one last thing. I don’t believe anyone could erase something from the puppet Shogun’s database except for Ei herself. So… it may not even be possible, and I may be overstepping my position. But we are both part of the Seven, after all, so if anyone could talk to her and convince her to erase your existence from her mind, it would be me. If that’s what you would like, please, just let me know.”
Relationships are nothing but a ledger that must be balanced. He thought that once, and he still thinks so now. It makes him uncomfortable to owe anyone anything, but somehow, she doesn’t seem to share this discomfort, feeling only an unconditional respect, trust, and compassion for her people, and wielding it not as a weakness but as a strength.
If I could choose a mother, he thinks to himself, I’d wish for her to be like you.
(The very first time he opened his eyes, it was electric violet that stared back at him. A single tear slid down her cheek, and she stroked his face, awed and gentle.
He cried, too, upon seeing her cry. He had just been born, and understood nothing. He knew only that his mother was grieving something beyond his understanding. And that he, himself, was grieving too.
As he lay in her lap, he listened to her talk.
“I’m sorry.” Those were the first words that she spoke. “I failed.” Was she talking to him, or someone else entirely? He didn’t know. “All this time as Makoto’s Kagemusha, and I still can’t bring myself to kill a puppet. But you’re not a puppet, are you? You’re alive. I can tell. That’s why… I can’t keep you.”
She looks down at him again. “It would be foolish of me to name you, wouldn’t it? But when you’re looking at me with those eyes, it’s all I can think of.”
She dresses him carefully, making sure not to let the fabric catch in his puppet joints. Ties the knot of the yukata, nice and pretty. “I hope you live a long and happy life. I hope you don’t make the same mistakes I did, and that you find your own path. I hope you forget me.”
The last thing he sees is her tearful smile as she places him amidst the fallen leaves. With a gentle hand, she closes his eyelids. “I won’t forget you, ████.”)
This time, Wanderer runs into Ei inside of the Serenitea Pot. An artificial resting place, almost uncomfortable in its carefully crafted beauty, Inazuma’s picturesque landscape immortalized at sunset. He wonders if it reminds her of the Plane of Euthymia, only with a garden, a pool to raise fish, strange rooms filled with eccentric interior decor, and a lot more people.
She’s sitting beneath a sakura tree, this time, sipping serenely from a bottle of Dango milk. He sits down next to her wordlessly. The tree boasts luscious pink flowers in full bloom, petals drifting downwards in the wind and pooling around the both of them. A petal floats into her hair and stays there.
“Would you like some?” she says, holding the bottle out to him. “It’s very good. I tend to spend most of my time in my own world, but this is one of the only things I enjoy venturing outside for.” She chuckles, a little self-deprecatingly.
He shakes his head. Puppets don’t need to eat or drink. The fact that she doesn’t know this might be a good sign.
She nods understandingly, placing the bottle back by her side and extending a hand instead. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Ei. And you are?”
He doesn’t take her hand, but he does respond. “You can call me Wanderer,” he says. “As for my real name… it’s ████.”
Ei looks at him for a long moment. Then she smiles, the kind of smile that touches even a nonexistent heart. “That’s a beautiful name.” She looks out at the setting sun, painted waves like silk rolling against the horizon. “I hope we can get along, from here on out.”
He could scowl at her. He could say, I hope I never see you again. Give her a piece of his mind, another repeat performance of the way things had played out in his head. And yet the only way to break free of a samsara is to realize that you are in one.
So he puts on a smile, with all the practiced snark she has not yet had the chance to know him for, and says, “Don’t count on it.”