Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There’s a saying among the people of the forest - do not linger where the water runs dry.

It’s obvious advice, to most. Water is essential to survival, after all - but to the people of the forest, who know Avidya intimately like a home of their own, it carries a far deeper meaning than that.

The water of the forest is its lifeblood. Avidya is alive - alive in the way that the rivers flow and the waterfalls dance, the way that the vines shine with morning-dew and the lakes reflect back the starry sky. The Withering does not dry up small puddles of this lifeblood, not when it infests and not immediately, but the plants shrivel up and die anyway.

But even more than that, the saying whispers something more like this: do not linger where you need not be.

It’s dangerous, after all. To be in a place where nature’s blessings can’t reach for a prolonged amount of time is advised against by all, and for good reason. 

And perhaps, as a Forest Watcher, Tighnari too should heed this advice - to always be where he is needed, even if the places where he is unneeded are not necessarily dangerous to him.

But night after night, patrol after patrol, something within him lingers at the bottom of Chinvat Ravine. His feet take him away, but his mind does not leave - and then he thinks through the night, concurrently writing reports and creating medicine, and he wonders.

Because he’s curious. Even after years of growing up, of becoming an adult, a childlike wonder is still present in every part of him whenever he finds something intriguing.

(Isn’t curiosity a wonderful thing?)

“Do you know?” Tighnari asks, one night, to the open air and the quiet artificial lotus pond and the gravestone in front of him.

The moonlight illuminates his surroundings better than the lanterns could. He’s never really been fond of lanterns, after all. It’s hard to remember that the stars are there when the lanterns shine.

Collei - loved trainee, ranger, mentee, friend.

Tighnari’s fingers brush against the dirt below him, the grass that’s the proof of the life that surrounds them and the lifeblood of the forest. “Maybe you do. I was always convinced that you were going to be the best of us, after all. You held a capacity for dreaming and wonder that we could’ve never had.”

Silence greets his words.

(Well, not quite. A dusk bird perched at his windowsill. The trees susurrate with the passing breeze. A distant sumpter beast snorts and turns around in its sleep.)

The Forest Watcher sighs. “Odd. Cyno tells me that it’s been busy for them in the city. And yet… even with the added work of watching the former sages and reintegrating former eleazar patients… it feels normal. So much more normal, like the life we’d shared before wasn’t normal.”

He chuckles. “Odd, isn’t that? I think you would find it amazing. You would’ve been one of those cured patients. Maybe you’d even convince me to let you take a longer patrol route to the ravine you’ve always wanted to see.”

Melancholy lines his words. Because even after months, though his hurt and pain have filled only slightly with time - the memory of Collei, burning herself in the gods’ rage to protect them, the Scribe’s silent machinations at work, is still vivid in his mind. 

It’s a slow process, healing. Just like the forest, which had burned and burned until there was nothing but a plain of ash - and then the miracle from his archon, from Lord Kusanali, life coming back as it should’ve - patchy bits of Withering still linger, and while the corruption does not return, it is still work to contain and eliminate these zones for the last time, one by one.

When all is said, it is simply small increments and tiny steps forward.

“I think you’d give me some answers, whether intentionally or not.” Tighnari tells her, tells the memory of her, and Collei does not laugh sheepishly, does not fumble with her words, but it’s almost like he can delude himself into thinking that she does. “I think you’d tell me to stop thinking about it so hard. You’d tell me to think simpler. From the heart.”

He shakes his head in fondness. “Only you, Collei.”

(There’s an unspoken fact in Gandharva Ville, that everyone knows and everyone thinks but no one voices - 

That Forest Watcher Tighnari does not take apprentices anymore, and perhaps never will again.)

“You could’ve just told me that you were coming, instead of waiting for me to call you out.” Tighnari says, his voice pitched to carry beyond his hut’s door. “I know you’re there. Door’s unlocked.”

Tighnari doesn’t even look up from his cabinet when he hears the door creak open. He doesn’t need too - footsteps sure and steady, quieter than most, the scent of sand and staff varnish in the air - it can only be one person. 

“Sharp as ever,” Cyno admits, almost reluctantly. “I was sure that I had you.” 

“Nearly, but not quite.” Tighnari picks up a vial of Kalpalata seeds, holding them against the window light to inspect their quality. “And only because I was distracted. Hello to you too, General Mahamatra.”

Cyno huffs. “Back to the titles, is it? I accept your greeting, General Watchleader.”

Tighnari chucks his pencil behind his shoulder with all the strength of a marksman who has shot the corruption of the world-tree to death before. The clatter of it against the wall is enough for him to know that Cyno has sidestepped it elegantly. “Of course you’d go back to that. What, are you here just to be an annoyance?”

“No, of course not,” Cyno intones with all the emotion of a stone. “I’d be an annoy lance.”

Silence.

“Because of the weapon I wield. A staff. A lance. Get it? I thought it was quite clever. It was on the fly, too-”

“If I hear one more word from you about your joke, I may actually throw this glass bottle at you, and you’ll be the one fetching more seeds for me,” Tighnari says, quite pleasantly. 

Cyno laughs, unbothered by his words. “I don’t doubt that, Tighnari. But… in all seriousness, I came to check on you.” His friend sobers. “It’s… the past few months have been busy. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to drop by sooner.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Tighnari waves a hand dismissively. “You’re the General Mahamatra, after all. I’m sure Lord Kusanali has been working closely with you?”

“She’s worried,” Cyno admits, and Tighnari pauses in his motions of rearranging his ingredients, just a bit and for a small moment. “We all are. We thought that the hardest part was going to be rescuing our archon, but the rebuilding process is far more difficult to manage than we thought. And… it doesn’t help that some of the Akademiya are still trying to come back for you, Tighnari, and the forest’s resources.”

The Forest Watcher’s ears twitch in contemplation. “I haven’t heard them.”

“The Scribe has been keeping his promise.”

There’s a degree of distaste in Cyno’s words, and even as Tighnari hears the clink of vial against vial and tries to distract himself from those ugly emotions rising within him, he’s inclined to agree. He is bitter. They both are.

Al-Haitham had crossed a line that he never had any right to even gaze at. 

Cyno shuffles behind him. “Point is, though, it’s been hard to keep up with. We’re still dealing with some dissent from the general public, especially with the shutdown of the Akasha.”

“Still clinging onto Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, or something else?”

“Something else. It’s more of discontent from losing a part of their lives, I believe.” His friend sighs. Tighnari finishes his organization, closes his cabinet, turns around, and he’s struck by how tired he looks. 

He’s seen Cyno at arguably what was his worst. He’s tended to his wounds, lent his ears to his worst troubles, known the ins and outs of his character for years. It’s difficult for him to appear as worn down as he does now, even in front of those he trusts with his vulnerability.

Tighnari crosses the room and takes Cyno’s hand, unsurprised to find it littered with small cuts and tears in skin. He finds the balm he always keeps on his person - perhaps solely for this purpose - and starts rubbing it on. “No need to talk about work, then. Perhaps I should’ve been checking in on you. It’s been hard for the city.”

“It’s been hard on you too,” Cyno refutes, almost gently. He tries pulling away, but Tighnari’s grip is firm, and he tuts irritably when he makes the attempt, so Cyno lets him. “You shouldn’t need to worry about me on top of everything else on your plate.”

“Then let’s call it even.” Tighnari settles, offering the compromise. “No work. No worries. Just the two of us, like how it was back in the younger days at the Akademiya. How does that sound?”

Cyno’s lips twitch. It almost looks like a smile.

“I’d like that, actually.”

So the first incident goes a little bit like this: 

Tighnari gets distracted while playing TCG with Cyno. 

“Tighnari?”

The Forest Watcher blinks, startling and taking stock of his surroundings on instinct, ready to move - when he realizes that he’s sitting at the table, a hand of cards in his deck, and six unplayed elemental dice are in his corner. 

The hourglass on the side has run out. 

Cyno frowns in front of him. “Are you alright? It’s not like you to space out like this.”

His headdress is set to the side. His hair is down. 

(Tighnari likes it this way. It makes him look human, less connected to the spirit within him and the gods and the world around them.)

“Apologies, I…” Tighnari clears his throat. “I guess I got distracted. I’m ending my round, I guess.”

Cyno frowns again. 

“It’s in the rules,” Tighnari tries. “Come on, your turn.”

He doesn’t let Cyno see that he’s a little scared by this. How did he space out like this - so thoroughly, so terribly, that he was so disoriented when he came back to his senses? The timer is hardly not not enough time to think. 

Has he really been that tired recently?

Unsurprisingly, only the next round, Cyno trumps him with all the grace of a card game master. Tighnari laughs when he twitches in excitement, and one by one, Tighnari’s own player cards fall. 

“That was not necessary,” Tighnari tells him, when Cyno takes out one of his cards in one go with forty-two damage.

Cyno hides a smile. “I’m unaware of what you mean, General Watchleader.”

Tighnari kicks him under the table. 

The bout is forgotten - at least, for now. 

(Cyno does not let Tighnari see that he is worried. That when Tighnari had been thinking presumably on what card to play, Cyno had watched his eyes and could’ve sworn that something green, something powerful, something… divine shone in them at that moment. 

But he doesn’t say anything about it. 

What can he do about it, anyway?)

It’s not like him.

Cyno was right. Even after another dinner, another night under the stars, Tighnari can’t help but think, hours after he has regrettably but cheerfully waved Cyno off at the northern crossing of Gandharva Ville. 

It’s unlike him, to spend the time he did pondering.

It’s more unlike him to not remember it at all.

Hazy memory, spacing out, he assesses. Maybe he’s just tired.

( Maybe that’s not it, a quieter part of him whispers.)

He shakes his head. He’s doing it again.

The Forest Watcher of Avidya Forest has no time for such trivial, one-off things in the midst of Sumeru’s recovery. It will span years, and Tighnari is only beginning to realize how much work there truly is.

No time for weakness.

(No more waiting for the miracle, when the only miracle he was ever afforded was only given to him after he’d resigned himself to never getting one again.)

Tighnari turns back to his hut. He’d been meaning to go out and pick some more herbs.

But then it doesn’t become so trivial anymore.

Weeks pass. Nothing happens. Nothing is amiss. Truly, everything is so normal that Tighnari hardly remembers that the first incident happened at all. 

So the second incident goes a little bit like this:

Tighnari picks the wrong flowers for his medicine.

Perhaps the scariest part about this is that Tighnari only realizes it when he gets back to Gandharva Ville.

There’s a wicker basket hanging from his arm. Inside it are purple, four-petaled flowers, with a white center and similarly violet stem. Even the leaves are an unnatural shade of purple. 

For all of his talents and his Amurta knowledge, Tighnari has never seen such a flower before. 

Amir lights up upon seeing him as always, the blessed soul. He waves at him. “Tighnari! How was your… trip…” He trails off. 

Amir has always been one of the sharper ones, after all. 

“...those are interesting herbs you have, Tighnari.” Amir says, carefully, cautiously. 

Tighnari clenches his basket tighter. 

He forces a smile. “I guess I got sidetracked. I’ll head down for the Nilotpala Lotuses tomorrow.”

“...Okay.” Amir drops the issue out of courtesy. He isn’t convinced, not one bit - but Tighnari will take what he can get. 

Tighnari takes about fifteen measured steps and waits until Amir’s muttering is safely quiet enough in the background, then bolts into his hut, slamming the door shut behind him. 

(He bites down an apology. Collei isn’t here to get jumpy over loud noises, after all.)

But what the fuck was that?

Why didn’t-

Why didn’t he realize where he was going?

Why didn’t he realize what he was doing?

Tighnari closes his eyes and forces himself to calm down. In, out. In, out.

(That inner voice doesn’t sound like him at all.)

Another day. 

Right, Tighnari thinks. Another day, because today the kids need medicine and he hasn’t made it yet - the rangers need a patrol schedule - he needs to update the mapped withering zones - too much to do, too little time, and he’s the only one that can do it. 

Another day.

But curiosity compels him to seek answers, as the scholar he has always been and perhaps will always be. 

The moment his duties are finished, the night shifts sorted and patrol routes for early morning established - Tighnari locks himself into his hut and runs over to a bookshelf dusty with disuse, flipping through old and new pages alike. 

He’s an Amurta scholar, and he has spent years of his life studying Sumeru’s wildlife, biology and the ecosystem. 

There isn’t a single plant in Avidya that he cannot identify at sight. 

(And yet, and yet.)

Tighnari spends the night studying the flowers in his basket. 

Even as the dawn cracks over the horizon, he still has no answers.

(Because the forest is alive, and it protects its secrets.)

Here is a secret: the Viparyas only blooms in Mahavanaranapna. 

And here’s another secret: only those who have the blessing of Queen Aranyani can wander into its dream.

And then the issue grows into something big - as most things to do with Amurta do. 

So the third incident goes a little like this:

Tighnari nearly delivers lethal medicine to one under his care. 

It’s fortunate that Tighnari catches the mistake in time, because if not, the consequences would have been disastrous. 

It wouldn’t have been Gandharva Ville turning against him. No, not at all. Gandharva Ville is much too kind and forgiving to repay his years of service as Forest Watcher with turned backs - but Tighnari thinks that would’ve just made it worse, and he would’ve left anyway. 

The easiest explanation would be distraction, he thinks dazedly. It's a sweetwater mushroom relaxant. He’s made this hundreds, if not thousands of times before, even before he left the Akademiya and escaped deep into the forest to stop himself from being someone he isn’t. 

The measurements for such a potent medicine are down to the tiniest drop. Tighnari has done it a myriad of times before without fail - but now, he stares down at the failed concoction, after having caught himself adding too much lotus reagent. 

It would’ve been enough to kill. 

That’s when the full scope of his issue, of this half-mindedness, strikes Tighnari - he could have killed someone. 

(Tighnari has taken lives. It is inevitable, when an area as dangerous and infested as Avidya Forest is his home. 

On some days, it keeps him proud. It makes him remember, I fought, and I survived. It keeps his chin up and his gaze defiant as he protects those he swore to protect, balancing and saving what the Akademiya could not, would not.

On other days, it’s the crushing burden on his shoulders, and he feels every bit sinner and no part saint mourning what could have been and what he could have done better.)

Tighnari sets down the vial.

His hands are shaking. 

“Damn it!”

And in a rare moment of hot-headedness, he yells and slams the table in front of him, rattling his ingredients and his supplies. 

His ears ring from his own shout. A bird that had been peacefully perched on his windowsill flutters away in a hurry. The two rangers that had been posted at the rope bridge overseeing the village stop - out of concern, maybe. He doesn’t know. He

He doesn’t know.

Tighnari sets his forehead down on the table, feeling the cool wood and trying to take deep breaths to calm himself. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what’s going on and if he doesn’t figure it out it may actually kill someone, and he’ll have blood on his hands when he’s only trying to help, to protect, to save, archons damn it why-

(But haven’t you already done that? A venomous voice whispers, his own doubts and fears materialized. Didn’t you try to save Collei? Look at where that’s gotten her.)

He can’t. 

He hates not knowing. 

The failed relaxant sits in front of him, undisturbed despite all odds. It’s like it’s mocking him. 

(He remembers Collei’s first medicine assignment. It ended exactly like this.)

“What is wrong with you?” Tighnari whispers, only to himself and to no one else. “What is happening?”

Nothing answers him.

Tighnari tells the forest rangers that he can’t make the medicine, that he’ll call in the many favours he’s owed at the Bimarstan to get the products they need.

It only compounds their worry.

So the culmination goes something like this:

Amir had invited him to the shooting range on the account of measuring up everyone’s skill against each other, including him, most esteemed General Watchleader, you must understand. 

He’d gotten a piercing glare for the title, but Tighnari eventually relented in the face of Amir’s stubbornness and the not-so-subtle whining of the children, wanting to see his skills again after so long.

Truth be told, he could use the distraction. The fears and worries have been consuming his thoughts, and if he wasn’t researching further into psyche disruption or penning letters and reports back to the Akademiya, he was flipping through Amurta textbooks, old and new, searching, wondering.

And he hasn’t really been outside in… a while.

(He doesn’t trust himself on patrols anymore, either. He’d gone back, one more time, to a route crossing through Chinvat Ravine - and then came back to himself hours later, the sun low at the horizon and the rangers nearly frantic with worry.)

Absentmindedly, Tighnari sifts through the training bows they have on field, holding it in his hand and testing the tensile strength. Eventually, he finds one that he’s happy with - a simple sharpshooter, but not too dissimilar to Hunter’s Path.

Rana, despite not being an archer, is assigned to be the manager. She smiles and laughs brightly before waving forward the first group - specifically eyeing Tighnari, who sighs but obliges. 

He steps up beside Kamran. Kamran, in turn, goes rigid and starts fumbling with his arrows. Tighnari resists the urge to roll his eyes - honestly. As if he’s that terrifying with a bow in his hand. 

Wait-

His hand twitches, just briefly, without his volition. A twinge of pain shoots through it - Tighnari hisses through his teeth, but only briefly, because it vanishes and Shirin is giving him a quizzical look. 

He tries for his most reassuring smile. Shirin gives him a once-over before huffing and turning away. 

(Still, he worries. He wonders.)

Tighnari’s fingers find an arrow. He notches it into his bowstring and draws back, seeing the others of the first round do the same. 

Rana raises an arm, grandiose and playful as always. “On your mark, great archers!”

The wind blows softly to his left. Tighnari’s ears perk up at the sound of it breezing by, and he closes one eye, aims-

“Fire!”

-then fires. 

For a moment, it flies through the air. Tighnari holds his breath, maybe half worried, worried that something might happen-

Thunk.

The arrow hits dead center, feathers still quivering. 

Silence, except for the morning birdsong and the rustle of leaves around them. 

“That’s our General Watchleader!” Rana yells, much to the consternation of Tighnari, but he can’t help but smile as the rest of Gandharva Ville follows her lead. 

On the grand scale of feats of dexterity, accuracy and strength he is capable of, this is far from the most impressive. But Tighnari can see it from the way Kamran shakily grins and Shirin’s shoulders finally relax - it dispels their worry. 

Tighnari is thankful. They’re busy enough without needing to worry about him, after all. 

So when Amir gives him a thumbs up from the other side of the range, having had his arrow miss the bullseye by a hair’s breadth, Tighnari shakes his head and chuckles fondly. 

Their archery session lasts the entire morning. 

Tighnari gradually transitions from demonstration to teaching again. It’s expected, on some level - but occasionally, the wheedling of the children (for whom he’s always easier to give in) or the insistence of other rangers gets him to pick up his bow again. 

For all of Tighnari’s faults and failures, he still remains, in their eyes, an excellent teacher. Some of the other rangers, he must admit, are in need of a bit of remedial training - and it’s why he finds himself sighing, taking Iraj’s right arm, and pulling it back, using his other hand to aim the bow a little higher. 

“This position. Remember it.” The Forest Watcher tells him, and Iraj nods, determined, as Tighnari steps back.

(The situation is painfully similar. It’s so similar that Tighnari, for a moment, forgets himself again - remembers only a girl with green hair and bright magenta eyes, whose laughs were often startled out of her by Cyno’s terrible jokes, who practiced archery intensively the moment she picked it up, who held the blessing of the dendro archon the same way he did and he forgets-)

Iraj lets go of the arrow, and it flies - not dead center, not yet, but still so much closer. 

The improvement isn’t enough to lift his spirits, though - Iraj sighs, slumps a little, then gestures at the target again. “...Can you demonstrate again, General Watchleader?”

Another shot of pain through his left palm. 

Tighnari ignores it. “Only if you stop calling me that title.”

“Of course, General Watchleader!” Amir calls to him, almost mockingly across the field. Only the eyes of innocent children stop Tighnari from flipping him off as he takes an arrow and raises his bow again. 

Just like before, he notches-

aims-

stalls.

His limbs lock in place. 

He has taken too long. Amir frowns. “Tighnari?”

The pain that flashes in his left palm is worse, now - bad enough that it snaps Tighnari out of this, makes him drop his bow like he’s been burned. But unlike before, it doesn’t stop. The pain

the pain doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop.

(“You’re often careless, aren’t you? I thought you were the level-headed one.”

“An interesting assessment from you, Al-Ahmar.”

“That’s low hanging fruit, O Great God of Woods.”

“Low hanging fruit has never been said to not be fulfilling.”)

Tighnari tries for a shaky smile, a reassuring word of comfort, but when he opens his mouth, a silent scream comes out instead-

It fucking hurts-

“Tighnari!”

“General Watchleader-?”

“Shirin, we need you!”

“What the- get the children away-”

“Someone get him water, we need-”

He has half a mind, somewhere underneath the blanket of agony, to yell at them and to stop the incredibly loud commotion that erupts - but he only clenches his left hand into a fist and bites back another scream, the pain won’t fucking stop-

“I knew he was working to hard, we might need Lilac Daphne-”

“Get the arrows away, he might hurt himself-”

“-can you hear me, Tighnari? What do you need-”

“- everyone out of the way-”

(“-you overexert yourself, Aranyani. Ay-Khanoum has benefited from your power enough.”

“But if not me, who else?”)

Divinity burning through his veins. 

A power not unlike the feeling of a dendro vision overused, the ache in his body back when he seeked to destroy himself to restore his home. 

(A faint whisper in the back of his mind.)

Just stop, he prays, to whatever being will listen to him - god, archon, child, sage-

just stop, it hurts-

“Holy shit-”

“Someone get the Vasanti Grass! Second cabinet, third shelf-”

“Tighnari, can you hear me?”

“-calm down, calm down, please-”

“He’s not himself right now, get- get away!”

Verdure and dendro energy violently unfurls around him, vines and plants and long-forgotten and extinct flowers blooming in a terrible miracle and he wonders, he wonders, but-

(“These flowers are beautiful, Khloris. What did you name them?”

“They’re yet unnamed. I… confess that I had no ideas when they first bloomed, and I’m still pondering.”

“Hmm… then, why not name it the Padisarah?”

“I suppose it does look quite kingly, doesn’t it?”)

The intoxicating, sweet scent of nectar and herbs. The dizzying shout of panicked friends, of his family- of the people he swore to protect at all costs.

The blinding, bright glow of an emblem of a tree, burned into the center of his left palm. 

Tighnari doesn’t even need Lilac Daphne for his vision to black out. 

“This is the ground.” The newly crowned Goddess of Flowers smiles, bright as the sun as she always is, and Aranyani can’t help but mirror her expression - because she’s always had a kind of gift for that. “I think that we can have room for a civilization. Housing here, the lake as our water source and oasis - even Al-Ahmar will have enough space to do all the tinkering he so loves. What do you think?”

Plenty of people have approached Greater Lord Rukkhadevata for her advice - for her seemingly all-encompassing wisdom and her seemingly Celestia-given gift for answers - but she knows, at this moment, that Khloris asks not for the wisdom of the God of Wisdom - she asks simply for the opinion of a friend. 

It stings a little that she will take away Aranyani’s long-time friend - that Al-Ahmar will leave her side for Khloris’ and share a throne with her that Aranyani will never be unwelcome on, but will never rule from. 

But they’re happy with each other. She sees it in Khloris’ eyes - how they sparkle, and how the flowers bloom at her feet, even in the harsh desert of the Celestia-cursed land. 

“I think it’s lovely.”

“G-General Mahamatra! We’re so sorry for the disturbance, we didn’t know what to do-”

“Enough. I told you all that I was his emergency contact for a reason. What happened?”

“We- we don’t know, sir. He’d just been practicing archery with the rest of us, and then he was screaming and lashing out with dendro and we just don’t know-”

“Calm yourself. Did you give him the herb that he told you calms the mind?”

“We did. We tried so many different medicines that we- we don’t dare try more, for the fear of adverse reactions.”

“The doctors of the Bimarstan should be here soon. Keep a level head. I’m not as well-versed in medical matters - it will fall upon you to give them a report.”

“Yes, sir!”

“You told me that you wandered these plains for seventy-two days.” Al-Ahmar murmurs, in the cold desert air. Aranyani feels like she’s intruding on this conversation, seeing this tender moment shared between them - perhaps lovers, perhaps not - but she stays, despite herself. 

Al-Ahmar always told her that curiosity was her greatest weakness, after all.

“Seventy-two days, as the Jinni followed me and asked me to stay. I did, eventually.” Khloris’ voice, too, is soft and quiet, as if this is a secret for only the two of them - not even the grains of sand surrounding them, or the vulture perched atop a dead branch, or the false moon and stars blanketing the skies.

“Would it be selfish of me to be glad for your journey, as difficult as it was?” Al-Ahmar wonders. It’s proud and curious of him. 

Aranyani turns away, unwilling to bear witness to more of the traits that will inevitably become Al-Ahmar’s downfall.

“No,” Khloris echoes behind her. “I’m grateful too.”

“Hold him still! We need to administer the relaxant-”

“What do you think we’re trying to do? His dendro vision is out of control. I can’t make my own vision not react, and I won’t be strong enough to restrain him without the help of it-”

“Then remove his vision-”

“ Have you gone insane? He’ll lose his mind completely!”

“-As much as I understand your concern, General Mahamatra, this is urgent! It’s either this, or he kills himself with the elemental energy he’s expending-”

“ Fuck, okay, be quick-”

“I know that you’re a fool, Al-Ahmar, but this is quite possibly the most foolish thing you’ll ever do.” Aranyani tells him, and she channels all the power of her divine authority, of wisdom and reason, into her sentence. “This is foolishness. You’ll get yourself killed.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” Al-Ahmar tells her, proudly, and Aranyani curses herself for not doing something sooner, for not spotting it and warning him - “Khloris said the same thing. She agreed to help me, in the end.”

“She- what?”

Aranyani stops. Surely she must have known? Her friend is far smarter than most give her credit for - she’ll die for this, even after having escaped divine wrath once-

“You worry too much, Aranyani.” Al-Ahmar turns away from her, and in this moment she sees none of the friend she used to love and rule alongside - now, she sees him every inch King Deshret and none of Al-Ahmar, the curious son of the sky who only wanted to pursue truth and knowledge. “You’ve always known me to be ambitious. I’ve always known myself to realize those ambitions.”

She could say many things. She could reason with him - maybe even dissuade him. She could use Khloris’ imminent death against him. She could plead with him on account of their centuries-long friendship. 

But what falls out of her mouth is, 

“You’re insane.”

Even as she says it, she already recognizes the hypocrisy of the two words, and from the way Al-Ahmar laughs, he does too. 

“Weren’t you always the one who said that a touch of insanity was required to become one of the greatest gods of Teyvat?”

Aranyani leaves, then, because she is a coward and weak and wishes that things could be simpler, back when Ay-Khanoum was a fledgling civilization and the sands were their home and there was no such rift between the three of them. 

She celebrates the Sabzereuz festival the next day with a strained smile as she watches Khloris dance. 

Padisarahs bloom at her feet - but amongst them she finds, hidden, a mourning flower, petals unfurled in saddening loneliness. 

There is no Goddess of Flowers dancing at her next birthday banquet.

“He’s muttering something. Can you tell what it is?”

“I’ve been listening as much as I can. They’re all words that… I must say I don’t understand, when strung together. He mentions legends of the desert and the Goddess of Flowers… he isn’t himself.”

“He may not be, General Mahamatra, but it could provide a clue as to why he still has yet to awaken.”

“Who are you, and why are you here?”

“Nevida, Senior Mahamata of the Bimarstan. The Acting Grand Sage sent me to check on you.”

“Well, you can tell our great Scribe that I’m doing perfectly well. Pass on my apologies to Lesser Lord Kusanali for my absence.”

“The Lesser Lord understands. She also sent me with her regrets that she could not be here in person to help, and that she will visit, in three days’ time, if the situation is still dire.”

“...pass on my gratitude.”

“As you wish. I hope that the Forest Watcher makes a quick recovery, General.”

“Hm. As do I.”

“You realize that this… this is your only choice. I wish you didn’t.”

“For the better of Teyvat. For my people. I have been foolish, Aranyani. I’ve made mistakes.”

“I know. I warned you.”

“You did.”

For once, there is no hint of pride, of the Scarlet King or King Deshret in Al-Ahmar’s voice. Aranyani can’t help but realize that he sounds more like her old friend now than ever before.

“You’re crying.”

She realizes what the streaks down her face are. “So I am.”

“You always worried too much.”

“So I did.” Angrily, she wipes her tears with her arm. The mystique of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata would undoubtedly be dispelled if her people saw her like this - crying like a child - but she can’t help but not care. In a moment, truly quite childish, she wishes that things could have been how they were centuries before - three friends, sharing a seat of power, a throne, their bond seemingly unbreakable. 

Regret lines Al-Ahmar’s face - but so too does fatigue. 

“I’m tired,” he admits. “Do you think I’m a coward, Aranyani, for choosing the easy way out? For choosing death?”

“Yes.”

Al-Ahmar huffs. “Of course you do.”

Those are the last words they speak to each other. 

Aranyani will regret it, in the future. She will wish she said more.

There’s a girl dancing at the bottom of Chinvat Ravine. 

She is alive - a secret of the forest - a being not-quite human, not quite used to living. 

She does not speak often, but she loves to laugh. 

She dances, and when she does, hydro rises and falls with her, flowers bloom at her feet, and the illusory garden of impossible flowers shines bright under the moonlight. 

She’s fond of Nilotpala lotuses. 

Oh, Tighnari thinks, in the far, far back recesses of his mind.

Tighnari jerks awake, startled and ready to move because something’s not right, it’s not right, there’s something wrong there’s danger and-

“Tighnari?”

That’s his name. 

No, his name is Aranyani, he’s been asleep for too long, the-

No. 

No.

What?

His name is Tighnari. And… and he recognizes that voice. 

“Tighnari? Are you awake?”

His chapped lips form around a syllable half-forgotten half-remembered. “...Cyno?”

“ Thank Lesser Lord Kusanali.” Cyno, his friend, his longtime ally, he remembers- he breathes out in relief, and before long Tighnari pries open his eyes and looks over to see him looking rather disheveled as he quickly grabs a glass of water and hands it over. “Here. Drink slowly. You’ve had quite the rough few days.”

Tighnari accepts the glass gratefully. He only shakes a little as he holds it, bringing it up to his lips and feeling the water soothe his throat. “...How long?”

“Three nights, three days.” Cyno answers, without prompting, taking the glass and setting it at his bedside table. “You were… you weren’t yourself.”

Then, the memory hits him. 

An archery competition-

Memory loss-

The feeling of dendro burning in his veins-

Divinity choking him, godly power climbing in his lungs-

Memories not his own-

Wholly his own, where is Ay-Khanoum he must-

“Tighnari. Tighnari!”

Cyno shakes him, and all of a sudden Tighnari slams back into himself, blinking. “Ah. I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Again?” Cyno demands. “Tighnari, I- I knew that something was wrong, I did, but I didn’t think that it was this bad.” His grip on his shoulders tightens. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It… it wasn’t major.” Tighnari tries, but Cyno glares at him and he knows that his friend isn’t having any of it. 

“ This isn’t major? Tighnari, you-” Cyno cuts himself off, closing his eyes and letting Tighnari go. The Forest Watcher stays silent as the Mahamatra sighs, taking deep breaths before opening his eyes again. “You weren’t yourself. You were lashing out at anyone who tried to come close to you. We had to- we had to take your vision.”

Instinctively, Tighnari’s hands drift to his belt. “But it’s still here.”

“I objected after it didn’t help the first time.”

“Thank you for that, then.” Tighnari laughs, although it comes out bitter and dry. “It seems like there is still no shortage of things I must thank you for.”

“There is no debt,” Cyno repeats, firmly, again, like he’s always done despite the myriad of things Tighnari has yet to repay him for. “I told you. There is no debt, not for this.”

Tighnari punches him in the arm. It’s a little weaker than usual. “So cold, General.”

“Of course,” Cyno replies, amused. 

But still, they do not address the pressing matter at hand - Cyno not quite asking, Tighnari not quite answering. 

(He does ask, later. Cyno asks, and says: “Do you know why?”

Tighnari looks out at the stars outside the windows, and whispers, “No.”

It feels like a lie, even though he doesn’t know why.)

A flash. A memory. 

Deshret’s happiness and wonder at having bent light and rendered walls invisible. 

The Goddess of Flowers’ laughter as they waltzed and danced in the sun with nothing but pale translucent light below them, disappearing as they jumped and reappearing as they landed. 

It’s not Tighnari’s memory, but it feels very real.

Tighnari stays in his hut for further monitoring for the next few days. Cyno stays with him, despite Tighnari’s objections. 

He’s not there when the realization comes, only because Tighnari has annoyed him into taking a break. 

Cyno leaves for the mess hall with the rest of the rangers and the promise of bringing back food for them to share. 

Tighnari sighs, rubs his eyes - and that’s how he sees the glowing symbol on his palm. 

He’s so startled that he almost lets out a yelp. 

“What the-”

Is he hallucinating?

Tighnari blinks. Once, twice, three times. 

It’s still there. Glowing faintly, in the rhythm of his pulse, like it’s mocking him. 

(Another memory filters through. A girl, sitting in an illusory garden, her finger catching an imaginary crystafly. She is smiling. 

She is beautiful when she is smiling. 

He knows this girl. Her name is Nilou. She is the star of Zubayr Theater, a hero of Sumeru, their performer in their ragtag group. 

But she once said she has never danced in the forest.)

“I’m sorry. I tried my best to remain unobtrusive, but it appears that both of us are yet unused to hosting each other.”

This time, he does yelp. “What the fuck-”

“I really did try,” the voice in his head murmurs, sounding regretful. “It wasn’t enough. I’m not accustomed to this yet.”

“That’s it.” Tighnari declares, out loud, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’ve gone insane. Mad. Pack it up, Akademiya, time for me to go to Aaru Village to waste away.”

“You’re not insane.”

“And now the voice is talking back at me. Great.”

“Arborling, do you truly believe that your mind would be able to conjure up a mind like mine?”

Tighnari pauses. Arborling. That’s a… very familiar word.

“I regret that my legacy and my gnosis was used for such nefarious purposes. The Akasha was never meant to erase memories.” The voice sounds mournful. 

Erase… memories? Tighnari thinks, and he’s startled when the voice responds. 

“You didn’t know, then. How would I, if I were a mere figment of your imagination?”

Okay. That’s logical. 

That’s…

“The memories you’ve been recalling are part yours, part mine.” The voice continues, unperturbed, although Tighnari is getting a sinking suspicion that it- she- they- can hear every one of his thoughts. “Again, I’m sorry. The mortal mind is not meant to hold as many memories, and I fear it will be a while before I’m able to erect a proper psychological barrier between our minds. Thankfully, you were protected from the worst of it.”

Okay. Okay, that’s- that’s nice and all, yes- Tighnari thinks, haltingly, pointedly - but who are you?

“I think you know the answer.” The voice says. 

She sounds expectant. 

She. How did Tighnari know that?

A gnosis. 

Divine power.

Dendro, burning in his veins. 

A long-told tale of three god-kings who built a civilization in the desert.

Queen Aranyani.

There’s no way.

“My friends did indeed know me as Queen Aranyani.” She muses. “But you might be more familiar with Greater Lord Rukkhadevata.”

Cyno knocks on his door. “Tighnari? Dinner’s here.”

Archons. Archons, he needs-

He needs to talk with someone. 

He needs-

Cyno opens the door, worried about having no response. 

Tighnari jumps to his feet, almost manic, and stalks over. “I need an audience with Lesser Lord Kusanali.”

“‘Lesser Lord’?” The voice- Rukkhadevata- echoes within him, and Tighnari tries not to think about it too much as he focuses on how Cyno blinks, startled. 

“Tighnari?”

“I need. An Audience. With Lesse- with Lord Kusanali.” Tighnari repeats, emphasizing each syllable perhaps more than strictly necessary. “Please.”

A beat. Has Tighnari pushed too much?

No.

“Okay.” Cyno says, slowly. “Can I ask… why?”

Tighnari hesitates. 

(A memory, not-quite recalled, not quite his - “Knowledge can be dangerous, Al-Ahmar.”)

“Trust me?” He asks, not-quite pleads, and it throws Cyno for a loop, visibly.

Silence, between them. 

(Morning birdsong, the rustling leaves. Whistling wind. A sumpter beast, turning over and snorting in its sleep.)

“I trust you,” Cyno decides - three words, because they’ve never needed so many words between them - and Tighnari tries not to feel too much guilt at the friendship he’s taking advantage of. “We leave in the morning.”

Tighnari nearly cries in relief. What remains of his dignity prevents him from doing so. “Thank you, Cyno. Archons, thank you.”

“There is no debt.” Cyno says, repeats, again and again and Tighnari is unworthy.

He accepts the familiar phrase anyway. 

(He’s always been weak, after all, especially while seeking comfort.)

The doors of the Sanctuary of Surasthana open before Cyno even brings his fist up to knock. 

Lesser Lord Kusanali looks at them, eyes childlike but still yet filled with something powerful, wise, all-knowing and omniscient - and she smiles, gesturing at them, but as Tighnari steps in, Cyno stays at the threshold. 

Tighnari turns around. “You aren’t-”

“Lord Kusanali asked for a private audience when she was made aware.” Cyno inclines his head to his god, his archon, in deference. “I will wait outside.”

The Forest Watcher does not get another word in before the doors shut on his bowed form. 

“Tighnari. Forest Watcher. Valuka Shuna. Amurta graduate.” Lesser Lord Kusanali tilts her head, almost like she’s curious. “I’ve heard much about you.”

Tighnari swallows, dry. “Have you.”

“She’s grown,” Greater Lord Rukkhadevata whispers in his mind, fondly. 

He tries to ignore her. 

Kusanali smiles at him. It feels sincere, genuine, and full of childlike innocence and warmth. Tighnari isn’t sure that that makes it better. “You sought an audience with me. Speak, child of forest and desert. What is it that troubles you?”

Tighnari only hesitates a little before he tells her everything.

“How much do you know of how Sumeru was saved?”

“Not much,” Tighnari admits. “I knew that there was a plan. A convoluted one, one that only the great… Scribe… could ever hope to think of. I wasn’t told the specifics - perhaps for my own safety, as much good as that did me.”

Lightning arcing down his back. And then, only hours later, the home he’d always loved up in flames, burning up before his eyes. 

Even now, there are bandages across his torso. 

Kusanali tilts her head - perhaps detecting his venom, perhaps not - but she doesn’t prod, doesn’t push. Tighnari is grateful. “Then, Forest Watcher, how much did you know about the corruption in Irminsul?”

“Not much.”

Kusanali hums, closing her eyes and tapping her lips in thought. “There was once an exiled scholar. He goes now by the name of the doctor. He approached me, months after everything happened, to reclaim something - a gnosis. Two gnoses. They were negotiations, on some level - I had been asleep because of the attack on my psyche, but I’d had the foresight to lock down my divine host’s functions before I ventured so deep into Irminsul.”

Rukkhadevata stirs within Tighnari - in surprise, mirroring Tighnari’s own, their emotions overlapping so much that he nearly forgets who he is in that moment, in front of his god. “He… what?”

“He’d gone mad. Insane. A touch of insanity is indeed required to be one of the greatest beings in this world - but he’d always strived to achieve the most blasphemous results possible, and Irminsul had been his main target.” She sighs, and for a moment she sounds old. World-weary. “It was difficult on my mind, as closely linked to Irminsul as I am. As the host of my predecessor, it must have been hard on you, too.”

Burning trees. Dying screams of life. Waters drying up. 

Ash in his lungs. 

“I’m sorry,” Rukkhadevata whispers again, she too learning of his anguish and pain as she too experiences those memories.

“It was,” Tighnari murmurs, an answer.

Kusanali shakes her head - at what, Tighnari doesn’t know - but she continues. “But perhaps unwittingly, he also accomplished the goal that I had originally sought - removing an existence from Irminsul, the source of its contamination.” She pauses. “It may surprise you to know that this existence was none other than Greater Lord Rukkhadevata herself. 

Tighnari blinks, startled. 

“She’s correct.” The god in him says, unwittingly showing him memories - knowledge burning his mind, crazed whispers digging into his soul, the feeling of corruption festering just under the skin-

“But that doesn’t explain why she’s here, now, in my body.” Tighnari can’t help but ask. It’s brash, it’s rude - but he’s tired, he needs a distraction from the memories unfit for mortals invading his mind, has been searching for months, for nearly a year, and he needs answers. 

He needs them.

Lesser Lord Kusanali stops in her musing, her pondering. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” She concedes, looking thoughtful. “Then, I will tell you a story.”

Tighnari trusts God with his deepest fears and all his uncertainty.

So in return, God tells him a story. 

In the beginning of time, the world was ruled by seven dragons. 

In time, an outlander arrived, and defeated these seven dragons. They became the One, and split off Four other beings, each a shade of themselves. 

And in time, Gods and Monsters were born. In time, seven seats opened up in the far starry sky - and gods waged war against each other, for millennia, until finally Seven were the rulers of their nations, possessors of the Gnoses. 

And in time, those gods created civilizations - leveled mountains and blew away entire blizzards to give humanity a chance to flourish. And in time, humanity sought to revere their kind, divine protectors. 

And in time, a forest grew from an impossible seedling in the middle of the desert. And in time, the humans sought to seek wisdom the same way their God did, in their reverence and curiosity, and there were Six of humanity’s wisest sages and each of them, in turn, had their own disciples. 

And in time, the desert grew more and more uninhabitable - torn to shreds by the pride of the Scarlet King, and God decided that life should not suffer for his mistakes. And in time, there was a group of desert foxes, whose fur darkened to the deepest of forest greens, who pledged allegiance to God in exchange for her mercy. 

Once upon a time, the Scarlet King sought knowledge that did not belong to this world. 

Once upon a time, God decided to help her old, centuries-long friend, and they both exhausted themselves to death for the betterment of their people. 

Once upon a time, the God of Wisdom made a gamble - snapping off two leaves off the world-tree of memories and knowledge. 

Body. Mind. Soul. 

An existence is made of three. 

The soul cannot be partitioned - but the rules of the world-tree and the heavens governing even God herself make allowances for both body and mind. 

Lesser Lord Kusanali. The replica of who God was, in body, with none of her existing knowledge - and the Valuka Shuna, hosts who passed down the seed of consciousness, of mind, generation after generation. 

The Valuka Shuna, whose inordinate close tie with the very forest God created awakened the seed - the Valuka Shuna, the Forest Watcher, who now shares his soul and body with another mind. 

“There were limits to what she could do.” Kusanali sits on her swing, flowers growing on their vine-ropes as Tighnari paces, still reeling from all the information stirring in his- their- mind. “My predecessor was right. Her existence had been polluted by forbidden knowledge, in some form - but not quite.”

“The soul.”

“The soul,” Rukkhadevata echoes, agrees. 

“Yes.” God’s eyes shine. She’d asked him to call her Nahida - Tighnari had declined. But in this moment, she looks more like Nahida the body and less like Kusanali, the soul’s reincarnation in the next samsara. “Body and mind were still yet pure - it’s the only reason my existence hadn’t been tainted the same way.” She hums, hopping off her swing. A bell chimes as she hits the floor - Tighnari wonders if it’s intentional. “If body and mind were combined once again, they would once again be a soul - and the world would not permit that to exist. Eleazar would return.”

“But because she split it apart…”

“No wise farmer puts all his eggs in one basket.” Kusanali’s fingers find magical dendro-threads, and she fiddles with them as they speak. “You were the backup plan. The last resort. Possession is tricky, and it would have been difficult to maneuver you into Irminsul safely - to accomplish her goal of removing her original soul from it.”

Tighnari’s finger traces the brand on his palm. 

“You weren’t ever supposed to know that I was here,” Rukkhadevata admits, within him. “The crisis was averted. I’m not sure why we, the divine passed, are awakening now.”

We? Tighnari thinks. You, and…

“There are others. I don’t know where. But… Al-Ahmar and Khloris could never leave each other behind for too long.”

There was a girl who once danced at the bottom of Chinvat Ravine. 

She had no name, and didn’t know who she was. She was not used to moving - not used to living. She didn’t know how to speak, until she laughed, smiled, realized how to use the voice within herself through a medium that wasn’t the forest around them. 

She loved to dance.

“Yes,” Rukkhadevata confirms. 

“I’m sorry,” Kusanali says, and Tighnari hears it for the way it echoes, God’s voice in the forests, trees, rivers and in her predecessor, even unknowingly. 

Tighnari brings a hand to his pounding head. “Just… one more question.”

“Speak.”

“Why do we still remember her?”

“Do you mean why you still remember her, when all records of her should have ceased to exist?” Kusanali hums. “You’re a quick one. No wonder she picked you.”

“Irminsul holds all the memory and knowledge of this world.” Tighnari sighs. “It doesn’t- it doesn’t make sense.”

“Indeed it doesn’t.” Kusanali concedes, to his surprise. “It’s why my predecessor bent the rules.”

Tighnari blinks. 

“The world-tree is not sentient. It reacts much like it’s alive, but ultimately, it does not chase down every bit it deems to be forbidden for the world’s memories. As long as Rukkhadevata, the original soul, was eliminated, it would no longer pursue the matter. But Rukkhadevata the mind, encompassing her legacy, her memories, her records - that could be preserved.” The dendro energy entangled in her hands takes the form of a bird in a cage. The bird flutters away. Tighnari’s eyes follow it, even as God continues. “Say someone made a copy of every book in the House of Daena, and replaced every book with them. They are perfect copies, and thus no one realizes anything has been amiss - when, in reality, the old books that they used to read are no longer there.”

“The net change is zero, then. That still doesn’t…” Tighnari trails off. 

“Spoken like a true Amurta scholar,” Rukkhadevata tells him, amused. 

Kusanali, in front of him, laughs - sweet, soft, chiming. “Perhaps not in the context of science and results. But haven’t we long agreed that wisdom is never blind belief in rigorous rules and reasoning?”

“The end result is the same.”

“Life isn’t a result,” both gods say, in unison, and it startles Tighnari so much that he has to stop to reorient himself. 

Rukkhadevata the mind notices this, and falls silent. 

Kusanali the body doesn’t, and continues. “Life starts from nothing and ends with nothing. Ultimately, life has no result. Wouldn’t it be unfair to measure its duration with results, too?”

Tighnari turns away. He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want his life ripped out under him, new expectations and possibilities weighing on his shoulders, the implications heavy. 

“I truly am sorry,” Rukkhadevata murmurs again in his mind. Maybe, in another circumstance, Tighnari would find the situation far more interesting - God, apologizing ceaselessly to a mere mortal, who only exists because of her mercy. 

He turns on his heel, because he is a coward. 

Kusanali says nothing, even with the dearth of customary bows, of respect. He will be ashamed of this later, slightly - but he is tired, and he needs to feel the forest alive around him again, a feeling he’s missed for more than a decade, even if he wasn’t aware of it - and he needs to be away from this Sanctuary, this abode of the gods, where three minds are present and he is the only one mortal.

Kusanali watches him, and he feels her gaze on his back. 

“Wait.” The Archon of Wisdom, God of Dreams, child, calls out to him. 

Tighnari freezes in place. 

“For what it’s worth, Forest Watcher, I’m sorry.” A pause, as if she’s looking for the right words to say. “I know that your trainee had sacrificed herself to get rid of the Doctor’s clone. It wasn’t useless, it wasn’t without result, but… part of my bargain with him was to have him delete all his other segments in exchange for the electro gnosis, and I…”

God searches for words. 

Tighnari feels a sting in his eyes, anger and disappointment welling in him despite himself - but still, he restrains himself, breathes in, keeps his head up. 

He fought, and he survived.

“Don’t apologize.” Forest Watcher Tighnari tells her. “Didn’t you say that we shouldn’t measure life’s duration in results?”

Because how could he accept an apology from the one who’d only wanted Sumeru to be safe, who loves life as he does, who gave him back his home and gave him the only miracle he’s ever been afforded?

(And yet, ugly emotions still twist within him - but he refuses to let the poison seep into his words, refuses to be so ungrateful. 

Tighnari keeps his head up, but he still doesn’t dare look back at Lesser Lord Kusanali. 

He’s only human, after all.)

Cyno is waiting when he exits the Sanctuary of Surasthana. 

Tighnari half-stumbles out. 

Cyno immediately stands up and walks over from where he’d been leaning on a pillar. “Tighnari? Are you alright?”

The Forest Watcher stops, thinks. 

I want to tell him.

“The knowledge would be dangerous.”

He’s the General Mahamatra. He can-

“There’s so much more than you think there is to this, arborling. The Hexenzirkel. Celestia. The Heavenly Principles. Hasn’t he kept secrets from you, too, to keep you safe?”

Tighnari hates that he agrees. That he understands where Rukkhadevata comes from - because she’s right. 

This isn’t something that Cyno can fix with a cold stare and the swing of his staff. 

Tighnari shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

Cyno eyes him critically. “If it’s something that has lost your composure like this and made you seek an audience so urgently with our archon, it’s clearly not nothing.”

Tighnari’s tail swishes in irritation. “I’m fine, Cyno. Please just… drop it.”

Something in his tone must give away his frustration and fatigue, then, because Cyno drops the issue. 

The General Mahamatra sighs. “Let’s get you home, then.”

Guilt rises in him. He really has been terrible, hasn’t he? Absentminded, drowned in his grief, taking advantage of their close friendship like this. 

“If it helps, it wasn’t your fault.”

I know. Tighnari thinks, surprising himself. It doesn’t make it better.

The water of Avidya Forest is its lifeblood. 

Avidya is alive, Tighnari once said, to Cyno, in a moment under the stars and a night shared between friends simply in each other’s company for the sake of being in each other’s company - no strings attached, no debts to be repaid. 

Tighnari understands now, as forgotten-memories trickle back into his mind and he recalls a childhood in Chinvat Ravine, why he’d always been convinced of the pulse of the forest, even if he can only now hear it again. 

Morning birdsong. The susurration of trees. A whistling breeze, a Rishboland tiger prowling the perimeter, looking for prey. 

Avidya breathes and lives around him. 

“I called you arborling before I was even fully aware of myself,” Rukkhadevata tells him. 

The siren in the forest. That was you?

“I was Queen Aranyani before I was Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, after all.”

Tighnari huffs and tries to quiet his thoughts. It’s difficult, living while knowing that every one of his ideas, passing through his consciousness, and every action can be observed by God - by the divine being whose mercy allowed him to exist, allowed the forest to exist, allowed his home to be alive and still be breathing in tandem with its pulse. 

The signet on his palm is beautiful. It pulses with the forest’s breaths, too. 

“In time, I will find a way to create a barrier between us. Two minds, one soul and one body - some measure of privacy.” His god promises him. 

That would be much appreciated.

“I would imagine.”

You don’t need to. You’re literally in my head and reading my thoughts and emotions.

A soft, chiming laugh sounds in the back of his head - Tighnari thinks that it even sounds like Nahida’s bells chiming as she hops, sweet music filling the air in childlike wonder. “You’re a witty one.”

Thanks. I pride myself on it.

“Don’t you have work to do?”

Rukkhadevata’s comment stops Tighnari in his tracks - he looks back to the medicine table, to the reports, to Hunter’s Path lying by the door, its white branches glimmering with power - perhaps more power than ever before, now, now that the avatar of the world-tree resides within him. 

A months-long fear grips him for a moment - absentmindedness, hazy memory, carelessness - but something within him quiets, now, because of a divinity finally unleashed, a mind finally freed from a centuries-long slumber. 

It’s like the memories slotting back into place. 

(A flash. An image. The Goddess of Flowers, creating rivers and streams wherever she stepped - oases in an everlasting desert, the hope and seedling of new life. She smiles and laughs as she does so - she’s always been so fond of laughter and joy.

The water of Avidya Forest is its lifeblood, and Tighnari wonders if this was intentional.)

There is indeed work to do, Tighnari muses, in his head, pointedly - Do you have any ideas how we might set on bringing Eleazar patients back into Sumeru’s busier society, or do you think it isn’t necessary?

He swears that something akin to perking up filters through his mind - distinctly not his, not quite, but familiar enough. 

Now this. Talking about Sumeru’s problems, finding solutions. This is common ground.

“I would be most honoured to offer my advice, Forest Watcher.”

Tighnari smiles, and even though Rukkhadevata cannot see it, he gets the impression that she understands the sentiment. 

There are patients to check on, reports to pen. Advice to give to the Bimarstan. Letters - in both personal and professional capacity - to send. And, if she is right - two god-kings to find. 

Tighnari will be busy. 

Is it irrational, to not be so worried about this business, now, simply because there is another spirit and mind living within him?

“Yes,” Rukkhadevata tells him, amused. 

I have always been quite the irrational one, after all. Tighnari agrees.