Chapter Text
‘The Stray’ was what a wandering pixie called her when she fell from the sky onto a Tevat with no Golden Traveler nor a twin gone missing.
There is no angry unknown god. There is no attack and removal of power.
There were no wings to take away in the first place. (There’s more than one way to fly.)
There is no search for a missing half that found a home in the abyss. There is no looking for a way home at all, wherever or whatever that may have once been.
No, she simply fell- strayed too close to orbit and decided to hang around after being pulled down. The waters below was her landing pad, where a pixie pulled a dazed foreign traveler to shore.
‘Stray’ was what the Outrider addressed her as after the pixie introduced her in a strange language.
‘Stray’ was what the Acting Grandmaster addressed her as after attempting to explain her arrival in her own tongue, relying on the pixie for translation.
‘Stray’ was her agreed title after meeting the Cavalry Captain and the Librarian. (She did not earn ‘Honorary Knight’ yet.)
When she had a grasp on the language and stumbled upon the bard, however, coaxing a malice-infected dragon, she gained the moniker ‘Timekeeper’ after Barbatos saw what she was, or rather, was not.
“You’ll learn what most can’t hope to uncover and remember what we all will be forced to forget,” he told her. That was alright. She likes stories.
She smiles, holding a piece of crystalized blood, what remains of the abyssal taint trapped inside, and watches the two fly free.
Besides, even if she didn’t yet understand their native tongue, she understood this was Mondstat, that was Dvalin, and Barbatos liked to be Venti when in public.
After all, the language was the only thing she was unfamiliar with.