Chapter Text
The notorious sixth harbinger remembered the time when he had acquired a new hobby, inscribing new moves to reach checkmate in his book of tactics. Trying out different things and testing out his sudden impulses were a joy during days when work was slow.
The most interesting part of this chess match was the checkmate target. It was not the opponent’s king piece, but a certain astrologist who piqued his interest due to recent events.
He was not someone who could be outmaneuvered easily. How she managed to do the hard feat was a mystery for him to solve. He was even more taken aback knowing that the power she was borrowing, was in fact just a big fat lie. How could someone as wise as him be thwarted by a mere hoax?
Then again, he was looking forward to the day the truth was spilled. He wondered what her reaction would be. Amusing it should be, he was expectant.
The expectation wormed its way into his routine. During the day, he would spend time remembering the woman with skimpy witch getup. The moment sometimes lasted as short as a blink of an eye or long enough to warrant a repeated question from his subordinates. He would get mad, though, because his temper was short (mention his height and electrocuted you would be). Then, his daydream would end with one sentence, or to be exact one question.
What dumb thing was she doing at the moment?
That was his cue to pay her a surprise visit. His brain would conjure up new things to catch the elusive witch off guard. A second difference would cut their meeting short, as she teleported into the water mirage, far away from him.
He had learnt of this fact firsthand when he paid her a visit. No matter how swift his movement was, no matter how silent his footsteps were, no matter how discreet his presence was, she would be gone before he could pin her to the ground. What a meddlesome power, he would always feel. Disappointed? Not at all. On the contrary, his curiosity was fueled by a bucket of gasoline.
He swore to uncover her mysterious power.
He knew, if he closed the distance, she would not be able to teleport uninterrupted. That exactly he did, putting himself between her and some civilians. Her conscience disallowed her to run away leaving the innocent bystanders with a threatening enemy.
Checkmate.
That marked the first encounter where he successfully subdued her, forcing her to cough up the mechanism of her teleportation for future references. What the Balladeer wanted, the Balladeer would seize. His brilliant brain deduced correctly about the time and distance needed for the water portal not to suck allies and foes altogether, which would render the entire ability pointless. Speaking of pointless, there were times when she failed and was instead dropped into a cold lake. All wet and freezing and pitiful. Hilarious.
As he was laughing at her incompetency, she saw the golden chance and swam through the ground. The speed was inhumane. By the time he realized his prey had slipped away, she was far gone. Hydro teleportation and hydro sprint, she had many escape moves at her disposal. Exactly what a puny star teller needed for survival. He was feeling generous, so he was willing to forgive her for this slight.
Though, he swiftly changed his mind when her water mirage emerged to stick her tongue out.
The next time they met, he was not exactly looking for her. He was just passing through the Wolvendom forest area, about to head to the Stormterror Lair. Near the ancient temple of Cecilia Garden, he found her uprooting wild carrots. Seemingly too absorbed in her vegetable plucking activity, she failed to foresee a zap of electro traveling her way. His electro sparks were met with a shriek as she dropped immobilized to the ground.
Checkmate. That was what she got for lowering her guard. She was easy to kill now.
While he could have her breathe her last right there, he decided against it. He was relishing in their game of chase, his new hobby. She was his prey, running away for dear life from the apex predator. The satisfaction of outmaneuvering the woman, who continuously outmaneuvered him, was heavenly. He would continue jotting down his notes on how to checkmate her, toying with her life like a satiated predator. He let her life intact just to corner her again and again. Just for mere entertainment, just to kill time. After all, he had all the time allowed by the world.
Crouching next to her electrocuted body, he pulled her twin tails, altering its function to become a hanger for her head. He was welcomed by a pair of pale green, which grew paler as she registered the perpetrator who attacked her.
“What do you want?” she was at a huge disadvantage, but her words still had their bite.
“You, answering my questions.”
“Yes, yes, no. There, I answered your questions.”
He pulled her higher, which bent her neck in a more uncomfortable angle and putting the burden on her scalp. She gritted her teeth, probably not regretting her rude answer toward him, but definitely putting her obedience in check.
He finally got his answers about her mystical scrying, about the way she used hydro vision to reflect the stars in the sky and peek through the truth written in the constellations. To seek the truth of the world was her ultimate goal.
He laughed at that part because he knew full well that the world was just a playground for the beings in Celestia, especially after the ordeal with the meteorites. Those shams who called themselves gods and assumed reigns over the mortals. He detested them.
“Now, will you let go of my hair? My neck hella hurts,” she demanded.
The navy-blue haired man dropped her head with a loud thump. For sure, he had no intention of making things easy. She might have bitten her tongue on the impact. Good, he might be spared from her noises.
However, why would she reveal her hydromancy that easily?
When he asked that, she answered light-heartedly.
“Not that you have the capacity to replicate a genius’ technique,” she smirked.
The effect of his electro attack had worn off. She was standing next to him now. Dusting off the dirt from her body, she crossed her arms and held her head high. She seemed to have a goldfish’s memory span because she forgot the humiliating scene few minutes ago.
Not to repeat their last encounter, he promptly moved his hands. This time, he gripped her hand. Firmly. He was not going to let her get away this time.
“What? If you still have questions, you better help me harvest all these carrots.”
“Carrots? For what? Your cultist ritual or something?” he asked while eyeing the orange vegetables rooted in the ground. Who would have thought they play an important role for the self-proclaimed astrologist?
She did not answer immediately. Silence was filling the empty gap between them.
Then, she averted her gaze and meekly said, “They’re my breakfast, lunch, and dinner ‘til payday, dumbass.”
That was not an answer he expected to hear.
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Since then, whenever he had free time, he found himself in the land of freedom. He would loiter around looking for his favorite prey. This hobby of his granted his subordinates the chance to earn their pay, by procuring information regarding her daily activity. By the report he had received, he noticed a pattern in her routine.
When the sky was clear, she would leave the city in the middle of the night.
His subordinates were dumb, though. They immediately lost sight of the hydro user right after passing the bridge.
Thus, here he was, after an exhausting day of productivity, preparing an ambush for the water witch. The night sky accompanied his midnight stroll through Windrise. He was observing the vicinity, seeing the gigantic oak tree cradling the statue of the Seven. He scrunched his face, displeased with the worship for the comrade of that person.
He dropped his head slightly and held his hat when a sudden breeze brazenly passed through. When the wind assaulted his face no more, he looked up to find a woman wearing a ridiculous big hat staggering towards him.
Without any words exchanged, she just kept wobbling closer until she flopped onto his chest. She smooshed her face into his chest while holding his shoulders as if her life was hanging onto it.
All throughout the misdemeanor, his hands were holding her steady. He was perplexed by the woman’s sudden behavior that his hands returned the hug on reflex.
His brain was preoccupied with deciphering her hidden agenda. It was incapable of executing his usual response to such disrespect, to shove and stomp her to the ground. He had no problem punishing his subordinates like so, but not right now, not towards this woman who smelled like sweet whooperflower nectar.
“Scaramouche…”
Her calling him had just frozen his brain’s entire activity.
A light snore soon followed.
“The hell you sleeping right now?”
His hands moved to hold her by the neck. In doing so, he brought their faces together. Black, black circles were casting a shadow on her closed eyelids. This darkness was not acquired by lacking sleep for a day. She must have not slept for some days.
What the heck was she thinking? Being this vulnerable outside the safe zone of Mondstadt city, at an open space where hilichurls might attack at any time, at such dark midnight when good people were not around to help a damsel in distress.
Should she be this relaxed when he was the one who found her?
He was her enemy, though.
The next day, she woke up when the sunset glow had left the sky. Stretching her body like a cat, she murmured what a good sleep that was. She was promptly jolted to wide eyes and fully awake when she noticed another presence inside her humble abode.
He was sitting next to her bed, monitoring her every move. Propping his chin on the chair’s top rail, his dark blue eyes were looking at her full judgmental and bored, extremely so.
He had carried her back to her home in Mondstadt, passing through the knights guarding the entrance gate and meeting their suspicious gaze. He wanted to pluck their eyeballs out of the socket, but he had his hands full of the burdensome woman on his back. So, he quietly slipped into the city and put her to bed.
Just looking at the state of her house spoke a volume. The scattered books and papers, the splattered ink, the piling dirty laundry, the nasty stack of dishes, and the bold red circles on the wall calendar. She had just barely made the deadline for some-whatever-bird. She had bad time management skills if she needed to pull an all-nighter for several days to finish her work.
This woman’s capability to channel the hydro power and her knowledge about stars were top-notch, he could not deny. But, on other matters, she was a total wreck. Her house rent was long overdue, her bank account was only three digits, her food was past their expiry dates, and the plants by the windows had wilted. It was contrasted by the numerous shiny astrological equipment and hardcover manuscripts that screamed expensive. She played favoritism to the extremity.
It was hard to digest that this woman could outwit him that day.
“Why are you in my home? What did you do to me? Don’t tell me… Did we…?” her green eyes, looking fresher despite the lingering dark circles, were projecting horror of the what-ifs. She was delusional to think in that direction.
He flicked her forehead with no mercy which earned him a yelp. “It wouldn’t get up for a woman living in this filthy pigpen,” he sneered.
“How rude! This is just the aftermath of a deadline. It is usually pristine clean that you can see your reflection on the sink!”
He huffed sarcastically and crossed his arms.
“What were you even doing sleep-deprived, alone, and outside at midnight?”
She shuffled in her bed and copied his crossed arms, trying to claim some superiority. “There is no way I am missing the once-in-a-century comet passing through!”
He wondered, was she dumb or was she just dumb?
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