Chapter Text
"The will of the Heavenly Principles has a new order to pass on. All the archons must go to Khaenri'ah and await further instructions. Except for you, Rukkhadevata. Celestia has a special command for you. Go to Irminsul, and protect it from threat."
Rukkhadevata stood in Irminsul's realm, before the great tree. She had feared the worst, and unfortunately, it seemed she had underestimated it.
It must have been something Khaenri'ah had done. She wished she could look up the details, but that very part of Irminsul was corrupt. There was no other way this plague could have spread so far, so quickly, so thoroughly within Irminsul. Something Khaenri'ah had done must have accelerated it.
There were many terms for this data contamination. Her Aranara called it Marana. But she had long called it the name by which she'd first heard it referred to, whispered in the darkness of Bayt al-Sukr, by someone with green eyes full of both affection and obsession.
Forbidden Knowledge.
The dark ooze that was rotting Irminsul's roots. The plague that her one remaining friend Amun had sacrificed himself to contain as it had felled the people of the desert. The thing in the box that Nabu had brought to this world through the use of arcane arts that Rukkhadevata had had no idea she was still capable of, and placed deep in a labyrinth of the mind, and then had never returned from.
Her hands shook with rage.
In some form or other, this corruption had taken two of her loved ones away from her. It had killed Amun, and it had killed Nabu too. And now it was spreading so thoroughly into Irminsul that it just might mean her own death as well.
Back then, in the Bayt al-Sukr, she should have argued with Nabu longer. She should have tried to dissuade her harder, talk her down from her fixation on ripping Celestia down from its throne in the heavens. She had hoped, then, that refusing to join the endeavor Nabu and Amun had set themselves upon would be enough to dissuade them. Instead they had kept on their path, even without her. And from there, Forbidden Knowledge had entered the world.
But back then she hadn't wanted to hear more. It had hurt her so much to see her Nabu, so full of love and joy, see that happiness take a back seat to her desire to destroy the heavens. To avenge herself on those who had shattered her kin in body and spirit, and who continued to punish her by cursing her to eternal loneliness, unable to speak to the mindless husks left behind.
To be clear, Rukkhadevata had not argued that Nabu was in the wrong for wanting these things. She sympathized with her beloved. How could she not? No, the problem was that in doing so, Nabu would surely turn the wrath of the heavens directly onto her. Nabu had never been certain, or at least never shared, why she believed she had been the only one spared from the end of the Seelie. Was it chance? Was it some unknowable fate that not even Celestia could change? Or had it been the will of the Heavenly Principles that she, and only she, be punished by being cast down to Teyvat and forced to live with the knowledge that she would never be able to make the Heavenly Principles face justice?
Rukkhadevata did not know these things either. And they hadn't mattered to her. The only thing that mattered was distracting Nabu, trying to dissuade her from this path she and Amun had decided on following, because down that way lay only certain destruction. She had begged Nabu to continue to keep her head down, to forget her thirst for revenge, and return to being the god of joy and happiness that she was... return to being her beloved Nabu Malikata, Goddess of Flowers.
But nothing she had said had any effect, and in the end, Rukkhadevata had enough. She was tired of arguing, tired of Nabu's obsession. And so she had left. She had hoped that that would prove to the other two that she was serious about having no part in this endeavor. Not because of any love for the Heavenly Principles, but for the love of the two of them. They would surely face Celestia's wrath if they did not see reason and abandon their destructive fixation.
If Rukkhadevata had known that this end of her own that she was now staring at lay at the end of that path as well... then maybe back then she might have stayed, actually. At least they would have all faced it down together.
Instead it had picked them off one by one. The Lord of Flowers. The Lord of Sand. And now it would take her, too, the Lord of Verdure.
Rukkhadevata inspected Irminsul in the short amount of time she had left. The infection had spread quickly. There wasn't much of the tree left that had no Forbidden Knowledge contaminating its veins.
Before she'd left, she'd had some inkling of what was going on. Even before Khaenri'ah's ruin machines burst out from the earth, screaming their rage at the skies, she had felt something deep and wrong stirring within Irminsul. Within her. She had been forced to implement an emergency protocol she had hoped would never become necessary: the Akasha. It was a network of devices she had quickly created and distributed en masse to the people of Sumeru City, with more delivered to Port Ormos, Caravan Ribat, anywhere with large concentrations of people. The jnana energy released by the people of Sumeru to create dreams was a potent power source, and she had directed it away from dreams and redirected it into herself to boost her divine power.
When she had first activated the network, she had felt the awesome power of the people of Sumeru wash over her and buoy her into a new strength. Now she beheld the depths of corruption in front of her, inside Irminsul, and could only hope it would be enough.
Her hands shook with rage again now, thinking of how this had taken the lives of at least two gods she loved.
She would not let it take her, too.
She stilled herself, calmed her mind. When she regarded her situation with reason, she was not so much angry as she was scared. Her rage was born of a surprisingly mortal fear. She knew that gods could not truly die but they could certainly be left so weak and their essence so scattered that their lingering rage became curses upon the land they had perished upon, so she had taken care to leave her body someplace far away from humans and where the energy released by her potential destruction could be contained.
She had chosen Vanarana, the realm where her Aranara lived. Over the centuries she had taught them songs of the forest, of nature, of dreams, so they could protect the people and the land of Sumeru. She had bestowed her powers onto them, pressed those memories into them and their bodies. At the time she had been thinking of how they could protect the people's dreams. Now they might have to support her in her final moments, and prevent her from harming everything else in Sumeru.
She would not fail her people at the very end. In fact, she would not fail. She just needed one more contingency plan. And she found the perfect candidate for it.
Looking up, she saw a white branch high up in the boughs. Calling the tree down, it bent its branches so she could reach and take it.
The purest, brightest branch of Irminsul. If worst came to worst, and her energy was not enough... it would all fall to this precious twig to take up the battle. She hoped it would not come to that.
But she knew what she was capable of. She had lost an enormous amount of old growth several centuries ago in suppressing the Eleazar plague in the desert, at the same time that Deshret had sacrificed himself and his massive power reserves to halt its advance and eliminate it once and for all.
If, between them, they had not managed to eliminate it once and for all... she feared the worst. When he'd died, she had received the Dendro Gnosis from Celestia, and its power could possibly make up for Amun by her side.
But this was a battle she could not back down from. It was victory or death. She had to cleanse Irminsul, no matter the cost. This was a duty she had not merely to the people of Sumeru but to all sentient life in Teyvat.
So she plucked that small white branch and placed it on her arm, tucking it into her golden bracelet so she would have it at hand if something.... so she would have it at hand. Just in case.
It was just to be responsible and have a contingency plan. She would not fail.
For a moment she wished that Simorgh was here. But instead, following her birth mother's directive, she had traveled to Vourukasha, Nabu's old territory. She had known, had always known, that the invasion would come through the Gate of Zulqarnain there. Before she had even received the call from Celestia to protect Irminsul, Simorgh had stirred, kissed her tree mother goodbye, and gone to fulfill her flower mother's prophecy.
Rukkhadevata had held her as tightly as she could, knowing that she would not ever come back. That was what Nabu had said, that their daughter's fate would be sacrifice. Honestly, it stirred such intense emotions in Rukkhadevata that for her own mind's sake she had put them in a mental box and set aside. She would deal with them when she had time and mental space for it. Right now she had to focus on the defense of Irminsul.
Outside of her mental realm, her body signaled her Aranara to begin. Only about half of them were even there. The Aranara with powerful Ararakalari songs had been sent to the front lines around Sumeru where the hordes of Ruin Machines had burst out from the surface, to fight. The only ones left were weaker Aranara with less combative songs. But they would have to make do.
They began to play their instruments. Their voices rose up and began to form a harmony, and their power began to flow into Rukkhadevata's body, reaching her in her mental realm with Irminsul. She sighed, letting her mind absorb their energy.
The Akasha terminal at her ear began to shine. The jnana energy of the people that she had asked them to extend to her, now reinforced her own divine power.
It was now or never. She took a breath and looked at the corruption, the black-purple plague that was climbing up Irminsul's trunk, and reached out, her palm facing outwards at it.
In Mahavanaranapna, her own vessel began to sing, adding her ararakalari to the chorus. She gasped as she felt more power flowing through her in this moment than she had ever felt before.
"Nabu, Amun, this is for you," she murmured, before directing her power at Irminsul in earnest.
She began to wash the Irminsul in her energy. She could see the corruption beginning to take a hit, but it was going too slowly. What if she ran out before the plague was eliminated? No, she couldn't think that way. She had to win. She would win.
She winced as she felt the corruption fading from Irminsul. The plague burned on its way out, and that hurt her too. She was Irminsul. That tree was her. And it felt like she was reaching within herself and finding the deep rot and setting it ablaze. It was necessary, but it was also exhausting.
But she needed to do this. For Amun and Nabu. For Teyvat.
Perhaps she should have considered that the Forbidden Knowledge would not simply accept its elimination without a fight.
A black-purple tendril snaked along the ground and then lashed out at her before she could notice it. She stayed firm, but gasped with pain as the vine slashed at her face. It would probably leave a scar, if she was lucky enough to live through this. But she could not spare any energy for herself to call up a shield. Every last drop needed to go to cleanse Irminsul.
It hurt so much, but she was terrified that if she stopped then the Forbidden Knowledge would gather up its own defenses and fight back. And if it did, she wasn't sure she had enough power to eliminate it.
As the songs of the forest washed over her, she could see glimpses of the memories of the Aranara contained in those songs. The Varuna contraption's glow as the Apam Woods flooded with rain. Little Aranara hands tending to the soil and the flowers. The feeling of warm sun as they bounced on mushrooms along with the children they were playing with.
Another purple tendril began sneaking towards her, and to her surprise, some of the jnana energy shot out at it, forcing it to keep its distance. When that energy returned to her, she felt the protective dreams of the people of Sumeru. Guards fending off bandits from the caravans they were protecting, mothers picking up weapons to fend off wild animals to protect their children.
Countless faces emerged and faded in her mind as the jnana energy coursed through her. Husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, best friends, lovers, children. The echoed names of the people of Sumeru reminded her what was at stake.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment. She added Nabu's and Amun's name to the chorus. She added her own dream of being in an orchard with them under a kind sun and with a river running nearby to water the flowers on its banks.
The paradise she dreamed of. With every drop of corruption cleansed from Irminsul, that paradise inched closer than ever. She was so close.
The little white branch seemed to shine with its own light green. Rukkhadevata saw it, and had to smile on the inside, even if she couldn't spare the energy to do it with her body. The burning sensation was inside her too, and it hurt so much. It felt like an industrial blaze was inside her chest, but she had to keep up the cleansing energy.
In the distance she could hear the Aranara singing with her. But it sounded like they were further and further away. She took some labored breaths, eased her posture so she could brace herself. She took a breath, realized that it might come down to her sacrificing a lot of her own growth again. Just like when she had suppressed the Eleazar in the desert with Amun and his seven great priests.
She coughed up liquid. She didn't bleed red the way humans did, but that was still not a good sign. She felt sweat coming down the side of her face. The names of the people of Sumeru echoed in the back of her mind. But the corruption was so entrenched, she couldn't.... no.
No, she would not fail.
She grit her teeth and poured more of herself into the beam of energy. She began to feel herself getting smaller, incrementally, but noticeably. But she could always grow back. That was the nature of trees. Trees had to be pruned, sometimes cut back, in order to keep growing healthy.
But she knew that a tree with this much rot would have... not very good chances....
She shook her head. She couldn't think about defeat. She had to succeed here. She had to--
She froze when a black-purple tendril of energy rose up in front of her. Sharp and pointed. Hissing in the ray of power she was blasting at it, still dissolving, but still leaning back ready to strike. She took a shaky breath. It was--
A snap of green light shot out from the pure white branch on her bracelet, and cut it in two. The energy dissipated into the air.
She took a breath, thanked the little branch, and kept going. She was shorter now than she had been in centuries.... And now, as short as she had been after the Eleazar was contained... not much left to cut off safely....
And just as her reserves of energy dwindled to nothing, she felt something give way.
She stumbled forward, gasping for breath. She looked at Irminsul.
Clear. White. Clean again.
She felt... so weak. There was nothing left inside her to give up. Just a few moments longer, and it would have been....
But it was not the end. She had.... finished.
One quick last scan. No file corruption or forbidden knowledge detected.
It was gone. It was gone.
It was done.
She closed her eyes, and returned to the material world. The Aranara were clustered around her, still singing with determination. She could cry. She wasn't sure she even had the energy for it.
She took the little white branch from her bracelet and put it in the soil. "This was.... a very good little branch," she said, and her voice came out in a trembling whisper. "Take care of it...."
"Queen Aranyani," they murmured, and their energy still flowed into her but compared to what she had lost just now, it felt like only a trickle.
"Sumeru is safe," she said, and passed out.
The Aranara discussed what to do with their now extremely tiny Queen Aranyani. It was best to bring her to the nara, they decided. So they placed her in a protective green sphere and transported her out of Vanarana. They would have taken her all the way to the path to the city if they had not heard someone, a nara, coming towards them.
"Look! It's Lord Rukkhadevata!"
"But... she's so small?"
"It must be her! That is our Dendro Archon!"
As the nara approached, the green sphere faded. Rukkhadevata stirred, just for a short moment, as a pair of arms picked her up. She had enough energy to crack open one eye.
"Sage Malak," she murmured.
"Lord Rukkhadevata," the Sage of Amurta replied, smiling down at her. "I'm so glad to see you're alive."
Malak's teenage son Ifrahim was with her. He was there to protect his mother as she searched for the Lord of Verdure.
"Forgive me. I have... lost a great deal of my energy," Rukkhadevata muttered. She was so small. Malak could easily carry her tiny body.
The sage shook her head. "Please do not worry. Everything will be fine now."
-----
Over the next decade, Teyvat slowly recovered from the events of what they now called the Cataclysm.
It had taken a full year for Rukkhadevata to recover enough to even get out of bed and stand on her own two feet, and another year to be able to walk around regularly, although she would still have to return to the wheelchair the Kshahrewar darshan had built for her whenever she got too tired.
Her Aranara supported her in every way they could. They helped her teleport around when she had to travel around the vast rainforest. It took a lot out of her just to get around her forested domain. Travel in the desert was even more daunting now, especially since the battle against the ruin golem in the southwestern desert had cost her the last functional war chariots Deshret had left her. After he had died, she had found his divine clearance tablets and discovered that he had made her a top level administrator, equal to him, for all his machines. But at the present she was not strong enough to travel to where his machines were stored and use the clearance tablets on them.
Still, she had to make the effort to reach Vourukasha. There had been a huge incursion of Abyssal energy there, according to the reports from the few Eremites she could spare to send to the area. However, it seemed it was being contained. Rukkhadevata did not know how or why, or by whom, it was being contained. She had to find out, weakened though she was.
The Akasha, which siphoned off the dream energy of the people of Sumeru, had never been intended as more than an emergency measure. It was a matter of shame for Rukkhadevata that it now became her life support. She had had to cut so far and so deep into her energy reserves and into her self that her health was now in more danger than it had ever been in her many thousands of years on the continent of Teyvat.
And she did not want to leave Sumeru now. Half the archons had perished. Makoto, who had shared the position of Shogun with her sister, had died, leaving her sister alone to protect Inazuma. Egeria had seemingly disappeared, presumed dead. Her oceanids were searching high and low for her, but it had been five years now and if she had survived, she would have made that obvious. Natlan had lost yet another Pyro Archon in battle. And then of course, in Snezhnaya, the new Tsaritsa had shut herself up in Zapolyarny Palace, unwilling to face her country's new reality. Rukkhadevata could not blame her.
As for the living... Barbatos had not died, but he had bid farewell to his people and disappeared as well, claiming that he needed a long rest. Perhaps he was in a similar situation as she was in right now. And Morax continued to lead his country, taking an active hand in leading it as always, but large parts of Liyue were left as smoking ruins now.
So she stayed on the life support the Akasha gave her. She had to grow and become strong again. If something new emerged from the depths... Rukkhadevata shuddered. Teyvat had been left weak and fragile. Any kind of new challenge could tip the delicate state of things.
With how much of its countryside had been destroyed by ruin machines, Sumeru had to resume crop production as soon as possible. Rukkhadevata produced as much Anahitian Blessing as she safely could and handed it out to everyone who wished to grow food, not just people who were farmers by trade. Orders for the fertilizer came from overseas territories as well, most acutely from Natlan and Liyue. She was glad to start being able to contribute immediately to restarting Teyvat's economy. Nabu would have been proud of her.
Well, until she saw how Rukkhadevata was taking the power of dreams all for herself. That had once been Nabu's domain. She had always talked about how they stirred the creativity of people. Rukkhadevata couldn't quite understand, as a sleepless data tree. Her consciousness was not an organic thing. When Nabu had died, and her domain of dreams passed to Rukkhadevata, she had entrusted the protection of dreams to the Aranara, because she understood that aspect of dreams only on principle and not from personal experience.
But jnana energy was no abstract thing. It could be quantified, measured, harvested. And it turned out that although Rukkhadevata did not understand dreams, the power they held was like fertilizer for her own growth. In a decade's time, she grew enough that she was finally able to leave the wheelchair. (She still held onto it, though, knowing that her owning it was a great honor for the Kshahrewar darshan.) She was now the size of a child, which was a start. All large trees were once saplings.
What she would have given for Deshret to still be around to tease her about her height, though.
With an escort of matra and Eremite fighters with visions, she made the effort of going into the desert and heading to Vourukasha. All of old Vourukasha was gone, and it was still bubbling up with Abyssal energy. However, it turned out that it had not merely been left to fester. For the past ten years it had been suppressed by creatures known as the Pari. In them, Rukkhadevata could sense a curious mix of energy. They bore the floral essence of her adopted daughter Simorgh. But they also contained holy water of some kind.
They led her to an underground pool and a longstanding mystery was solved. Egeria had died, not in Fontaine but in Vourukasha, holding off the Abyssal defilement alongside Simorgh. As Nabu had predicted all those years ago, Egeria lost her form here, and Simorgh had also burst into a thousand shards of light, and that energy had mixed with Egeria's essence to become the Pari. The Pari themselves vaguely reminded her of her own children, the Aranara. They regarded her as one of their three mothers, and Egeria as their goddess, which Rukkhadevata was a little puzzled by, but she would not press them on their faith.
She had grown enough now that she could spare the energy to plant a special seed in the center of the oasis. It was a seed she had soaked in the Amrita Pool long enough to infuse it with Egeria's power. With time, and with the Pari's nurturing, it would grow into a tree whose size would only be limited by however much remained of Egeria's consciousness. In a past time she might have taken care of it all herself, but in this diminished state, planting a tree was all she could do. The Pari promised they would tend to the tree's growth, and that would just have to be enough.
When she left, she looked back once more at the Temir Mountains at Nabu's old territory and wished that she could be here to see what had become of her land and people.
Returning to Sumeru City, she resumed her duties as the head of the Akademiya. It was not difficult work. It stimulated her mind and helped her feel productive. The Akasha continued directing jnana energy towards her growth, and as decades passed she began to feel more comfortable in her own vessel again.
Teyvat also began to recover over that same time span. Natlan's burned-over fields were now fertile and productive once more, and trade in Liyue had finally hit the halfway mark to its volume before the Cataclysm. The first wine vintages from Mondstadt grapes grown after the cataclysm hit maturity, and Fontaine began to construct its first Pneumousia relay stations. In Inazuma, population statistics compiled by the Yashiro Commission's census bureau indicated that the population would soon fully recover from what they had lost during the upheaval.
And far away in Snezhnaya, the Tsaritsa emerged from her self-imposed seclusion with vengeance in her heart and a plan in her mind to tear down the Heavenly Principles.
------
One hundred years after the cataclysm, seasons of sandstorms in the desert uncovered a number of ruins. It didn't take long for rumors to spread as whispers among the Eremite tribes of the southern Hadramaveth.
These were extremely damaged ruins compared to others. The tribes scoured for what they could, trying to find any ritual items and leaving the rest. Treasure Hoarders moved in next, looking for anything even slightly valuable that they could sell to make the trip worthwhile.
With each passing raid, there was less and less left for the next group to dig up. After another sandstorm passed through, it began to reveal what seemed like the edges of a blast crater.
It caught the eye of a certain Treasure Hoarder.
In a past life, Hamid Al-Musawi had been a dedicated, diligent Vahumana student at the Akademiya. At least, until his father's debts had forced him to quit in order to find money to pay his creditors. His father Taha was just barely hanging on to his apartment in Port Ormos. He could not just stand by while his father became homeless. He had to do something.
He picked some potsherds that others had ignored, some stonework.... And an odd gnarled mass of dried vegetation. Huh. He picked it up, hefted it in his hand. There was something... something about it. He shrugged and tossed it into his sack. Maybe he could just keep it as a curiosity if he couldn't get any money for it.
How strange, to find something organic like this in the center of a blast crater. Hamid felt like he had definitely seen potsherds designed this way a few times. Among artifacts of Ay-Khanoum. Perhaps this dated to the same time period? Of course other Hoarders had ignored them, though. There weren't many glittery items to be found here. But historical artifacts could be resold to the Akademiya through the right channels. Even this ancient weed might find a market in an ambitious Amurta researcher studying ancient plants.
He put the things away in his sack and set off to look for other treasures.
Five years passed. Hamid managed to pay his father Taha's debts, only for him to accumulate more by overleveraging himself in a business deal with Snezhnayan merchants who he was now in debt to for having failed to sell their cargo and losing shipments. Taha planned to take out a loan to pay them and get them off his back. But no bank in Sumeru would loan to him, knowing his track record.
The only bank that would extend him some credit was a new financial institution, just founded twenty years ago in Snezhnaya and seeking to expand overseas. They had an office in Port Ormos they had set up just a month before he approached them for a loan. They were called the Northland Bank.
A drinking buddy told him that the Northland Bank was known for generous loans and decent willingness to negotiate payment deadlines, although they also had tough penalties for insolvent accountholders. Taha figured that it wouldn't be a problem, then. If they wanted their money back then they'd have to find him all the way out in the desert while he held them off with letters asking to negotiate for repayment terms.
Eventually they'd just write him off, he figured. So when they started demanding their money back more and more insistently two years later, he returned to his isolated desert property where he always hid out to lay low from his creditors. His son Hamid also used it as storage for anything for which he couldn't immediately find a buyer. Hardly anyone outside of them even knew this place existed.
He'd be safe here, he thought.
He was proven wrong just a week later when he was picked up out of bed by his collar and thrown at the wall. In shock and confusion and pain, he desperately caught his breath as men in masks entered his bedroom. One of them, dressed in a black and red coat, fired his rifle at the wall to Taha's right side, smashing the mud brick to pieces. He fired it at Taha's left side too, leaving dust hanging in the air, and then pointed it right at his face.
"Can't run from debt," one of the men snarled from behind his mask.
"N-no! Please don't hurt me! I'll pay you back, I swear!" Taha clasped his hands together. From that man's accent he could already tell. These were Snezhnayans. This was Northland Bank recouping its losses.
"Stand down, Serhiy," one of the other men said. "Lord Columbina has not given us permission to kill. Only to secure collateral. We are lucky to even be escorting her. Do not dishonor her command."
The man with the gun immediately put it down. "Yes, sir."
"Everyone else. Inspect the premises. Let's see if there is something, or someone, that Taha Al-Musawi actually values, since he does not value the good name and mora of the Northland Bank."
Taha knelt, trembling in fear as the men fanned out into the rest of his mud brick house. The man with the rifle continued to stand over him, seeming to glare down at him through the mask.
Taha was ready to start begging for his life if needed when someone barked in surprise. Then there was a small commotion. Then, strangely enough, he felt a chill move through the air. It had nothing to do with the breeze.
Then, from the storage room, a woman emerged. She had dark hair and a white cloth over her eyes, but it didn't actually seem to impede her eyesight at all since she walked without even a hint of stumbling. She wore a long, plain white robe over her clothes. And she seemed to have several ribbons coming out from behind her hair. Wait. Were those.... bird wings?
As she approached him, he felt the cold intensify. He was wearing sleep clothes suitable for the desert, but this woman felt like she was radiating cold all by herself. He grabbed his own arms and tried to warm up.
When she spoke, Taha shook.
"How did you come to acquire this?" she asked, in a very light, feminine voice. But somehow, it seemed to be... vibrating, somehow, and whispering and shouting all at the same time. But it was just one voice. How... what was... who was this?
"A-a-acquire what?" He realized with shock that he could see his breath.
"This seed."
She reached into a sack she had in her hand. Taha recognized it as one of his son's. It would have come from Hamid's journeys. It was what looked like... dried weeds? She said it was a seed, but...
"I-I don't know," he said. "My s-s-son must have found it while traveling. I've n-never even s-s-seen that bag."
The woman held it up in her hands. "Really?"
"I-it's just a weed," he stammered, rubbing his cold arms. "I-I have many other items I-I can use as collateral, I can pay you back, I promise!"
"Hm. But this is the only thing I'm interested in." She put down the seed in her palm. She turned and looked at the men behind her. "Serhiy. Dmitri."
"Yes, Lord Columbina."
"The debt is collected in full. We can leave now."
They exchanged a look of confusion but nodded. "Y... yes, Lord Columbina."
As her men filed out of the house, Taha looked up at them in utter bafflement. Did the strange woman really think... "But.... all that mora? A weed can't possibly be that valuable."
The woman named Columbina turned her head slightly to look at him. "By using the word 'weed', do you mean to call this seed worthless?"
Somehow it felt like the temperature in the room dropped another twenty degrees in an instant. Taha shuddered.
"B-b-b-but i-it's j-j-just a d-d-d-dead p-plant-t-t."
She turned her gaze towards him fully.
"And here I was thinking I would spare you. A shame." She shook her head. "Since your life is coming to an abrupt end, I will at least tell you what this precious seed actually is. But first, look here. Right into my eyes."
He looked at her face, shaking in cold and fear.
She showed him her e̶̬͇̾̂͐̕y̵̨̱̯̦̲̖̣̬̆̐͗͗͊̀̚ͅȩ̵̤̭̥̗̪̼̳̿͆̌̄͑̉̈́̎́̀͠͠ͅs̵̢̨̖͎̪̮̹̞̳̼͓̬͚͉͓͇̺̄̍̉.
The Northland Bank Loss Prevention team outside of the dwelling heard a single, strangled shout. Then, silence. They looked back over their shoulders, with Dmitri audibly quaking in his boots.
"If Lord Columbina ever asks for an escort to accompany her again, I am going to make sure I am very far away," Serhiy said, and they all nodded vigorously.
"Any other Harbinger," one of the men whispered as the black-haired woman emerged with a cheerful smile.
"I believe we are done here," she said. She had a freezing cold cube in her hands, with a mix of colors encased within it. The men tried very hard not to look at it. "Shall we return to Port Ormos?"
"Y-yes, Lord Columbina."
(When Hamid came by a week later looking for his father, what he saw shook him enough to leave Sumeru for good.)
-----
In Zapolyarny Palace two weeks later, a tall blonde woman walked through the halls. She had some papers under her arm and wore the clothing of a Mondstadter, although she also wore a red jacket with fur trim around the collar, in the current style of fashionable women of Snezhnaya. And she also wore a red and black eyepatch over her left eye, under her hair.
She entered a room and blinked her one visible eye in surprise. "Ah, Columbina. A pleasure to see you again. I wasn't expecting you today."
"Rosalyne." Columbina looked up. She was sitting on a beautiful divan, looking at a pot on a table in front of her.
"Did you acquire a plant on your trip to Fontaine?" Rosalyne asked, sitting next to her and brushing her skirt under her knees.
"Not in Fontaine. But as I passed through Sumeru, I heard distant... singing. I found the source." Columbina nodded towards the pot. "It is a weak little seed, but I'm hoping to return it to life."
"Singing?" Rosalyne's voice was a little skeptical, but she leaned her ear towards the pot. "Hm. Well, I think you may simply have a different sense than I do in that regard." She looked at Columbina. "Speaking of which, would you like to resume our singing lessons?"
"Indeed." Columbina nodded.
For the next hour, they practiced together. Rosalyne, raised in the choral traditions of Mondstadt, was an excellent music teacher. Columbina could not truly call her a friend, for the same reason she could not call any being on this continent a friend. But Rosalyne came close.
She, too, had lost much. She had lost the only person she had ever truly loved, for whom her heart beat and for whom her burning soul now yearned. She had lost her place in her country when she lost her faith in the god who had stood by while her intended died cold and alone.
And now her heart burned for revenge on Celestia, just as Columbina herself wanted. And just as the Tsaritsa sought.
Perhaps only one other being on this land could truly share Columbina's sense of loss, though.
She looked at the pot again once they were done with singing practice.
Rosalyne followed her gaze. "You really care about that plant, don't you?"
Columbina hummed.
"Is it truly that fragile?"
"I... think so."
Rosalyne nodded. "Well, I think I may be able to help you, if you care about it that much."
Columbina looked up at her.
"Most plants need five basic things to grow well. They need nutrient-rich soil. They need good, clean water. They need whichever temperature is best suited for them. They need exposure to light, although the specific amount of light does vary depending on the species. And they need good airflow."
Rosalyne crossed her arms. "I may have left just short of graduation, but I still attended the Akademiya, and I may have been in Spantamad but I certainly know the basics of how to take care of a plant."
"Where could I find the best quality versions of those things?" Columbina asked.
"Hmm.... Well, nutrient-rich soil is easy. That would certainly come from Natlan. Their volcanic soils are the most fertile in Teyvat for a reason." The blonde brushed her hair over her shoulder. "Clean water is easy to source as well. The snows here are very clear. Melted snow here in Snezhnaya will do nicely. Light, air, and temperature represent a problem here, however."
"How so?" Columbina asked.
"It's very cold here. You said you found the seed in Sumeru? It's probably better suited to warmer climes. I think you may have a hard time growing it here."
"Hm. It's... not a Sumeru plant, though." She found it in Sumeru, sure. But she knew where that seed was originally from.
"Regardless, the temperature here is too cold for most non-native plants to really thrive. I should know. I..." Rosalyne paused. "My suggestion is that you take it to the Zapolyarny Palace's greenhouse. They import soil from Natlan and use it there. That's where I keep the cecilias I brought with me from Mondstadt. The ones that... Rostam used to give me."
"Okay." Columbina would have liked to keep a closer eye on the plant, but she wanted it to survive and if it needed to be out of her sight for a little while to do that... then that was fine.
"I can go with you. I often visit the greenhouse. It harbors a great many foreign species on behalf of the Harbingers, as you will see."
Fifteen minutes later, Columbina saw that it was true. There were the cecilias that Rosalyne immediately went to check on. There were also red flowers with spidery stamens that she didn't recognize. And there was a man with white hair in a large black coat kneeling in front of a small area covered in white flowers with a single blue petal.
"Lord Pierro," Columbina said, and the two women curtsied.
He stood and greeted them with a bow, his face expressionless. "Greetings. Do not mind me. Here, I am just an old man tending to my simple flowers."
Columbina remembered these flowers. She had seen them in Khaenri'ah, although she didn't remember their name. But she knew very well that just as Pierro was no simple old man, these were not simple pretty flowers.
"Lord Pierro, I am sorry to bother you during your personal time. But do you happen to know where I can find the greenhouse manager? I seek a small plot of land where Columbina can replant a seed."
Pierro looked at the pot in Columbina's hands.
"I.... How odd. It's faint, but I believe I hear it singing." He looked at her. "This is..."
Columbina nodded. "It is."
The somber man met her gaze. "I see. Yes, I think the greenhouse will have room for it."
-----
The time scales of certain beings on Teyvat did not align very well with those of humans. One hundred years later, the old greenhouse manager was dead and had been replaced several times with other humans who had also died and been replaced.
But Columbina still came to check on the flower.
Whenever she was not on assignment, which was most of the time, she came to the greenhouse. She would sit by the garden path, and she would sing to the flower. Often Rosalyne would sit with her and sing. After a while they decided they would simply make that the location of their singing class.
For those one hundred years, she sang to the flower almost every day.
It was now flanked on one side by padisarahs and on the other by Sumeru Roses, which Rosalyne and Columbina both found terribly funny. Both because of the padisarahs' connection to the seed, and the other because both the padisarahs and the Sumeru Roses were tended to on behalf of Dottore, who always swore up and down that he had no interest in these flowers from his homeland except for the role they both played in medicine and extractions for his experiments.
But she knew from what Rosalyne told her that he had no interest in being rejected by his home country a third time, which is why he did not go to Sumeru himself to gather these. So he needed some here, in Snezhnaya.
The seed had slowly taken root. Germination had itself taken about twenty years. And in the last five years it had become clear that a small bulb was growing.
It would be a strange life cycle, if this plant was a proper plant like the rest. But it was not.
Columbina watched, and waited. She was good at that.
She was there when the bulb began to open up. And then she was there when it opened wider, and wider....
She peered in.
"Are you awake?" she whispered.
There was no reply.
"I made sure to bring you many cubes of nutritious minerals over the years. I hope they've paid off."
No reply.
"Still too tired? That's okay. I will come back tomorrow, and the day after that."
Still nothing.
".... After all, it's just us two left now."
True to her word, she continued to come every day, and sing. Until one day....
She heard it. A weak tune, far from the firm, strong voice it had once used. But it was there.
Columbina knelt into the dirt and peered closely into the bulb. She saw a glowing little sphere-like being, lying inside the bulb. Its light was a very, very faint pink. She smiled at it.
"You're awake. You can sing. I'm very happy to hear it."
She heard a quiet little chirp and smiled even more.
"Don't strain yourself. You can be quiet. I would like to keep you somewhere close by me so I can take care of you and lend you strength. Would you be okay with that?"
Another quiet chirp. She nodded and got up.
"I'll be back later, then. Here, I'll give you some water first."
She went to see Sandrone. The woman was in her workshop, naturally. Columbina asked her for what she had in mind.
"Hmm. Sure. If it's a tiny piece of glass, that should not be a problem. I was just using the kiln earlier, in fact, so firing it back up won't be an issue."
Before too much time had passed, a small transparent glass sphere was cooling off on a table in front of Columbina. Sandrone was looking for a suitable small metal hook, and found it. She attached it to a thin metal string and wound it around the end of the glass sphere.
"Here, your new earring," she said, handing it to the shorter woman. Columbina put it in her ear to make sure it worked, and thanked her.
"And in return, the next time I encounter a ruin machine of any kind, I will not simply disintegrate it. I will bring you the pieces as intact as I can."
Sandrone smiled. "I look forward to you upholding your end of our deal, my dear."
In the meantime, though, Columbina brought the sphere to the flower.
"Hop in," she said. "You will be quite safe with me, and you can accompany me to new sources of power I wish to share with you."
The little glowing ball struggled into the glass sphere, but made it. Columbina placed the new earring in her left earlobe.
"I'm happy," she said, "because now I can take care of you, little sister."
-----
Decades passed. Every day, Columbina wore her earring. Slowly, the being inside grew in strength. It started glowing more brightly over time, revealing that it was not just pink but also green, swirling around. After some decades passed, it began to hover inside the glass sphere on its own, no longer lying weak and tired on its floor.
They met many Harbingers together. Columbina wore her earring when she first shook hands with Il Capitano, and she wore her earring when Il Capitano fell in battle for the Tsaritsa. She was still wearing it when a new Capitano was appointed. She wore it when meeting with the new directors of the Northland Bank, one after the other. She wore it when an angry puppet boy from Inazuma arrived in the castle and she wore it when Pierro asked her to go out and fight some ruin machines that were causing trouble in the isolated towns of northern Snezhnaya, to demonstrate and to reassure the people that the Tsaritsa cared about everyone in her country, no matter their social status.
And every time she was asked to handle some dirty business related to a ley line disorder, she would find the time to take off her earring and allow the little seelie within to absorb some of its energy.
"I'm sure you would have understood these even better than I do, back when you were in Sumeru," Columbina said. "I only know enough to tell that absorbing the power of these memories is good for your growth."
It still took centuries. Building a being with the power level of a god was very difficult. Restoring the equivalent of a god's power that had been scattered for so long... even more difficult.
But Columbina could wait. She had nothing but time, now.
Eventually Sandrone had to make her a larger sphere. Then she made her a necklace. And eventually, the fist-sized seelie with its swirling pink and green hues could simply hover by Columbina's shoulder on its own.
Columbina could not have been more pleased with the outcome.
"You know, it's thanks to you that I'm not alone anymore," she said to it as she touched her forehead against it. "I'm grateful."
She paused.
"I don't think I need to tell you how painful it has been to be alone for so long here on Teyvat." She took a breath. "I want to restore you to the form you once held here. To show my gratitude. And in exchange, please never leave me."
The seelie made contented humming sounds and nuzzled her hair.
More time passed. The seelie's light only grew stronger. And yet, when Columbina and Rosalyne would sing to the cecilias, now it seemed that the seelie wished to return to the dirt patch it had blossomed from.
Rosalyne stroked her chin as the seelie hopped into a bucket of water and then into the dirt, seemingly trying to encase itself in mud. "Interesting."
"I don't know what's going on with my little sister," Columbina sighed with some frustration.
"You know, I've wondered about this for a while. Is she actually your little sister?"
"No. But we are the last remnants of the seelie race, and I thought I would call her that way from affection, as the last remaining members of a once large family." Columbina crossed her arms. "And yet, I find myself unable to understand her song, no matter how I try."
Rosalyne observed the seelie a while longer. "She's done this several days now. I wonder...." She looked at the red moths flitting about the greenhouse. Normally they flitted around her, but in the greenhouse they always became busy pollinators. "Is she undergoing metamorphosis? Or trying to? Do seelies do that?"
Columbina paused. ".... Maybe." She had observed many of the husks of her people around Teyvat. They did go to their little gardens, after all. Perhaps this was similar.
Then again, this little sister was special.
"Moths, beetles, butterflies and so on, all of them shed their previous form as they grow." Rosalyne said. "Perhaps just let your little sister cover herself in mud if she wishes. If she gets dirty, she gets dirty, but perhaps she will come out as something new."
"Hm. Okay." Columbina shrugged. A little bit of mud couldn't hurt if this ended up not going anywhere.
A week later, the mud casing around the seelie was hardened and tough. It simply lay there in the dirt, among the cecilias. Columbina sang to it, as always.
It stayed that way for a good year. Then, she saw cracks in it. But it did not burst. Instead, it seemed to be growing in its mud shell.
Columbina was out on assignment when it finally opened up, four years later. She returned from Liyue with new recruits as well as various artifacts, and Rosalyne was the first to greet her.
"Your seelie came back out!" Rosalyne seemed pleased. "Pierro found her and brought her to me. She's a lovely young girl now. Conversational. I have been taking care of her, and the Tsaritsa likes her."
Columbina was a little taken aback but not enough to open her eyes. She gave a start, though. "The Tsaritsa?"
"She's with her right now, actually. Also, she likes singing. Not the Tsaritsa. Your sister." Rosalyne paused. "It's a little confusing to keep using ‘she' when referring to only one of two women. Do you know if she has a name?"
Columbina had only heard it sung a few times. "I'll ask."
She had to go see the Tsaritsa anyway, so she went to the queen's chambers and informed her attendants that she had returned from Liyue. The Tsaritsa did not take long to respond to let her in.
When she entered, she saw the beautiful Tsaritsa next to a child. She had green eyes, long wavy pink hair, and two small sets of horns atop her head. The child was dressed in an embroidered Snezhnayan dress over a white blouse and a black skirt.
"Lord of Frost," Columbina said, bowing as she entered. "I have returned from Liyue after fulfilling your requests."
The Tsaritsa gave her her hand, allowing Columbina to kiss her ring.
"Certainly. I have been informed that you executed them well, so I appreciate that. However, those are not as important as what we have here. Please."
Columbina stood up. The child smiled at her.
"This young lady woke up. You have been taking care of her for some centuries now, yes? I am glad to see the singing seed came to fruition."
"Yes. At some points I was not sure if she would pull through, but she did."
"Of course. She is like me, a goddess." The Tsaritsa smiled. "Of course I could not fail to sense another goddess slowly reconstituting herself in my palace over the course of centuries."
Columbina's eyelashes fluttered beneath the lattice of the ribbons that covered her face.
"I apologize if this came as a surprise. It was not my intention."
"No, no, it did not. The only surprise was that she emerged while you were gone." The Tsaritsa turned a little and waved the child forward. "Please introduce yourself to your guardian, young lady."
The girl dipped her head, anxiety apparent on her face, but trying to be brave, too.
"My name is Nabu Malikata," she said. "It's nice to finally talk to you like this, sister Columbina."
------
Though she had the body of a child, it was clear that she was no ingenue. She read the entire contents of the Zapolyarny Palace's library in three years. The Tsaritsa took her in almost as her ward, allowing her free rein of the palace grounds as she liked.
As Rosalyne reminded Columbina, Nabu had once been a goddess of wisdom, one of three legendary god-kings of Sumeru. She had a great many questions about that, in fact.
"So.... you are the one who released Forbidden Knowledge into the world, hm?"
They had been resting in the music room after their daily singing lesson. Nabu had joined them some months ago. Columbina couldn't help but notice the ambient temperature of the room rise a tick when Rosalyne said that.
Nabu looked a little chagrined. "I brought it into the world at my friend Deshret's request. More like... his incessant begging. But I did not release it. I never intended for it to be unleashed the way it was."
"Hmm. You know, I lived in Sumeru at the time of the Cataclysm and people still discussed your actions back then. You took a great risk with bringing that kind of abyssal energy to Teyvat at all, even if you had not handed it to someone like him." Rosalyne crossed her arms. The temperature did not go back down.
Columbina looked at Nabu to see how she would respond.
"At the time, my ability to see the future showed me that if Rukkhadevata and Deshret were not challenged in this way, if Sumeru was not challenged this way, it would have fallen quickly to the far greater powers released by Khaenri'ah two and a half thousand years later. And it does appear that Sumeru withstood the dark tide, if the books I have read in the library were any indication." She looked up at Rosalyne's imposing stare from beneath her pink bangs.
The blonde sighed and uncrossed her arms. "You're right. Sumeru still stands. You are aware that Deshret died, though? A bit over a thousand years after you did."
"I am." Nabu lowered her gaze. "But Rukkhadevata still lives?"
"Barely. I returned to Mondstadt as soon as I safely could, but I remember how she was brought back to the capital. She was reduced to the size of practically a toddler, weak and helpless. She had given her all to protect the people of Sumeru, even those of us who were foreign students at the Akademiya. In retrospect I have come to admire her. She may not be the Tsaritsa, but she put herself on the line in a way that my own country's useless god was incapable of."
Rosalyne sat down on a couch and sighed, then looked out the window to watch the snowstorms outside. Nabu looked at Columbina. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No, Rosalyne is just thinking about things. Let's give her some space." The black-haired woman looked at her. "We will be returning to our rooms now, if you don't mind."
"Yes. Of course." She looked at Nabu with her good eye. "Little Nabu, do yourself a favor."
"Hm?"
"Don't talk to the Doctor more than you absolutely have to. He shares none of the Lord of Frost's benevolence or Sumeru's wisdom."
"O-okay." The girl nodded.
And so, time passed. Columbina watched as the young girl by her side grew into the size of a human teenager, and then a woman. She bowed her head to the Tsaritsa along with Columbina and she was there when the new Arlecchino took the place of the previous seat-holder, Crucabena, and she was there when the new Pantalone arrived.
She was there when the omen of two meteors crossed the sky, and Nabu could not sleep, but pretended to in their shared room. And she was there when the Tsaritsa summoned the young woman to her side the next day. They spent an entire day conversing in her private rooms. Columbina noticed Pierro busier than ever, commanding Scaramouche to go in one direction, sending Dottore in the other.
"What did the Lord of Frost want, sister?" Columbina asked her when she returned.
Nabu ran her hand through her pink hair. "She had many questions about my ability to see the future." She sighed. "I do not think she necessarily liked my answers."
"What do you mean?" Columbina sat down with her on the sofa in their room.
"My ability to see the future is... much diminished, compared to what I have read about myself in the books. Certainly compared to how Signora and Dottore have recounted my own legends to me."
"Can you not see the future at all?"
Nabu sighed a deep sigh and shook her head. "When I became conscious of who I was, I had hoped that... it would return to me in time, but.... it has not. My only insights on the future come from my knowledge of history and the way people behave, rather than my old gift. It is also not the only thing from my ancient past that I have lost." She rubbed her forehead.
"Mmm." Columbina put an arm around her shoulder. "It's okay. To be my companion, I do not ask that you see the future."
Nabu nodded. "Thank you, sister. I think that soon, the Tsaritsa will commence the second phase of her plan. I would like to be there to support her, and you, during its implementation."
"Yes. It is the entire reason I have hung on this long."
"The same for me."
They both looked up through the window. It faced the night sky, and above the cold lands of Snezhnaya's barren wastes, somewhere in the distance.... was Celestia.
The next day, Pierro announced that the first phase of the Tsaritsa's long-term plan of arranging 'teams on the board', as he put it, had concluded. He also announced that he would be counting on the Harbingers, both past and present, to fulfill her tasks as assigned. This was the reason for their being there, this was the reason the Tsaritsa had gathered them all to her.
A direct challenge to the Heavenly Principles. Acquire the gnoses of every archon of Teyvat, was the goal.
In this war they suffered many losses. Childe perished in Natlan, and Pulcinella was on the lookout for appropriate replacements for his seat and title. Pantalone retired, and so did the Pantalone after him, but the third one was.... ambitious. And the new Capitano was a truly impressive man. The new Childe that Pulcinella recruited was interesting enough. It intrigued Columbina and Nabu both that so many of the Harbringers were mortals. Then again, people like them were very much out of the ordinary.
And even long life was no guarantee against death.
Columbina saw Rosalyne's moth struggle through the cold winds as it returned to Snezhnaya, and knew immediately what it meant. When the funeral was held, she was there, honoring Rosalyne's memory in a way she hoped she would appreciate: singing.
Nabu, meanwhile, provided the flowers that filled Rosalyne's coffin. She cried for the woman who had been there for so long, for both herself and Columbina.
After the funeral, the Tsaritsa approached her, her eyes rimmed with red, although she did not shed a tear in front of her, or in front of Columbina, who was standing with her.
"Lord of Flowers, I have something I wish to discuss with you," she said in a quiet voice. "This concerns you as well, Columbina. Please come with me."
The two women followed the Tsaritsa to her library and planning room. There was a map of Teyvat upon the table, and several more detailed maps of regions and countries hung on the walls. Pierro was there, waiting at the table.
"As you both know, Scaramouche has gone missing, and our current active harbinger for Sumeru, Dottore, can be... fickle." Pierro took the lead as the Tsaritsa sat on a nearby divan. He glanced at her, then turned to the two women.
"It is my understanding that you once had a close relationship with the Dendro Archon, Rukkhadevata," he said.
"I did. She was my... beloved," Nabu replied. Columbina observed her closely, as well as the Tsaritsa.
"The Tsaritsa does not wish to lose more Harbingers the way we have lost Signora in Inazuma. Rosalyne's fine diplomatic touch served her well in Liyue. It was not her fault that the Raiden Shogun is.... that she has such a feudal mindset." He shook his head. "Be that as it may, we both believe that Rukkhadevata can be reasoned with."
"Absolutely," Nabu replied. "I know her very well. She was always a smart, clever woman who will respond to diplomatic overtures and fair exchanges of knowledge. That is what she has always sought. Knowledge. She is Irminsul itself, after all. She also always has the best interests of her people in mind. Like Morax, she is a wise, ancient god. She learned much during our time together and she has surely kept learning since... kept learning for a very long time. She understands that the acquisition of wisdom and knowledge is a continuous process, and does not turn away proposals made in good faith."
The Tsaritsa and Pierro exchanged a glance. The Tsaritsa gave him a very, very slight nod.
"Lord of Flowers," he said. "Would you be willing to acquire the Dendro Gnosis for the Tsaritsa?"
