#then scara goes and cries to nahida and she DOES fix things

[thek1ngtalks]

"I'm sorry."

The Wanderer had imagined this day often. A purple sky crackling with blue thunder. Mother's sword cast away from her, lying at his feet but unneeded, his sword already pressed to her throat. His mother, with a defeated kneel, and words that sounds like begging.

"I'm sorry."

Here, in reality, she hesitates. Her throat is not held to a deadly blade, the skies are not darkened with his rage. His mother, sitting quietly, a rigid, unbendable line in her spine that betrays her puppet's inhumanity. She does not know what to call him, that is why she hesitates.

When she left him in that domain, he had been nameless, without purpose nor the gnosis he'd been made for. Mother has probably heard of the countless aliases that refer to him, but she does not know which to say. He doesn't know if he'd prefer Scaramouche, being what he's most used to. He does not know if he likes the name the most, but he does not like it the least.

He's loath to image her calling him Wanderer, a cop out, or Balladeer, a title and not a name. Even briefly thinking of the name 'Kunikuzushi' falling from her lips makes his vision red. The ambition behind the name, he hasn't quite abandoned yet, but the memories behind it are more sensitive.

In the end, she says none of them. Just as always, resigned to the easiest option: giving up before even trying. Just as she did with Inazuma.

Just as she did with him.

"I'm sorry."

Her voice is soft, which is unlike her. Nothing about Mother is soft or warm. She is the sudden explosion of superheated water, the rising of hair before thunder strikes. The thunder itself, jagged edges and all. Her touch is a taunting, cold and impersonal thing. Even before put her consciousness into a puppet, she had been cold.

He thinks of a distinct difference in his mother, once, when Yae Miko visited. Mother had been kinder, softer. Happier with the conniving fox than her own son.

It's that last one, perhaps, that tips him over the edge. His mind, tightroping over the Chasm of his fragile psyche, was always too weak. Built to break.

Memories have always stirred up something unique in him. The Wanderer is used to nostalgia, being over 500 years old, but this is not that. This is bittersweet, stuck to his teeth like a poison. Rotting his tongue, staining his teeth bloody.

"I'm—"

"Shut up," He says, closer to a howl maybe. It startles both of them. He clears his throat, something viscous clogging it. "Why are you here?"

Here, in the Traveler's odd teapot. A large collection of islands, filled to the brim with structures and the mansion stuffed with decorations and clutter. They had invited him despite everything that should've driven them apart.

Mother hesitates, turning her head, scanning for something. She doesn't find it and her gaze returns to him. Haltingly, she says, "The Traveler... invited me. I was not... They did not inform me you'd be present."

"Why? Wouldn't have come if you'd known?" The Wanderer's teeth are sharp, a change Dottore made. They cut his tongue when he grins. For as vile as his smirk is, a potent Harbinger smile, his mother is the Electro Archon. Even if he cut through her with her own sword, he's more likely to find anger and disgust then fear.

"That's not what I meant," Softly, again. It is disgusting.

"Shut up," He says again, calmer. It is a testament to his growth, he supposes, that he did not immediately try to kill her. "I don't care.

If it were a few weeks away---hell, a few days ago, maybe he could convince himself that was true. However, somewhere between getting the shit kicked out of him and facing the collective of all of Teyvat's knowledge, The Wanderer came to terms that he may always care. A fact that was just as disgusting, if not more, than the sullen look on Mother's face.

She is quiet for a long moment, as if expecting for him to say something to break that silence. There is a painful naivety to that expectation. It has never been more apparent to him just how big of an effect spending hundreds of years isolated in her mind could have.

"I'm sorry," She whispers. Weak, pathetic. Everything like him.

Mother says it like she thinks he hasn't heard. He has. He has been waiting for a day like this for centuries.

Cruelly, his mind says 'So has she.'

The Wanderer is just as cruel as his mind is so he replies, "I don't forgive you."

The cracked look on Mother's face is almost worth his own heartbreak.