Chapter Text
It all begins on a nice afternoon in Vanarana, Wanderer sits on a wooden swing, hanging down from a tree by some thick vines, lost in thought...
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Humans, so fragile and bold. So much like... him, or at least who he used to be. He was a puppet in the human world, maybe he was more like humans than he would like to admit. but he was never flesh and blood. He never had a beating heart, where its status was the deciding factor between life and death. He was only ever a toy. Toys don’t have hearts, they're just... toys. But toys are still loved, right? Loved... right up until the moment they're thrown out and forgotten. That's how he's always seen it. That's why he "can't" be loved, and "never" will. He's just-
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He snapped out of it, getting sick of where that train of thought was going. He tried to get up, but he immediately tripped. "Huh..?" ..Was it a rock? Tree branch, or exposed tree roots? His own fault, and not even something else?
He got up and tried to walk, but immediately tripped again. "What the-" He looked over at his ankle, confused and slightly pissed, to see vines wrapped around it. But not normal vines, these vines were glowing green, and seemed to have some white outline to them. And there was that weird symbol coming off of them, that symbol he's seen whenever Nahida used her dendro power. Did Nahida do this? But she wasn't even nearby, she's all the way back at Sumeru City, in the Sanctuary of Surasthana. "Get off of me..!" He struggled a bit, but managed to rip off the vines.
But why would Nahida even do this in the first place, if it was her? She's not rude, she wouldn't bound him to the ground unless it was something important. But nothing has come up as of late, and therefore she doesn't really have any need to disturb him. But no one else had powers like these besides the dendro archon. He decided to go to Nahida, maybe something happened and he just didn't notice anything?
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On his journey through Sumeru City, because the journey to Sumeru City wasn't very eventful, something happened. He bumped into that Akademiya scribe, and the annoyingly bright architect. Arguing. Just his luck... to make matters worse, they had a crowd forming around them. There wasn't a way around, not left, right, or even up. He barely managed to shove through the crowd, and there they were, just standing there in the way, bickering as usual. Kaveh was the louder one, obviously. “COME ON! Just fund this project already! Me and Luka worked so hard on it!” Alhaitham rolled his eyes, he knew better than that. ”You’re aware this “project” is just an excuse for that scholar to see us up close, right? He’s been sneaking around and watching us from afar.” Kaveh is obviously offended that the scholar who asked for his assistance is being accused of stalking the two. “Ugh, n-not true! He put his heart into this project!”
This argument was starting to get on Wanderer’s nerves. A flash of green went across Wanderer’s eyes, and suddenly, those same vines sprouted up from the ground (of course, breaking the floor that was there) and grabbed Alhaitham and Kaveh, taking them out of the way and almost throwing the two away if it wasn’t for Alhaitham’s fast thinking to pull out his swords and breaking out of the vines, quickly making way to free Kaveh as well. To be completely honest, Alhaitham and Kaveh almost didn’t react, being too stunned from the vines that looked like the ones their god used. But she wouldn’t use them maliciously. Wanderer quickly ran past, sneaking around the crowd to not draw attention. Those vines may or may not have had something to do with him, seeing they were the same as before, and they did what Wanderer wanted… kind of. He made it up to the Sanctuary of Surasthana and went inside.
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She was busy in the Sanctuary of Surasthana, doing things he could care less to know about. After all, it wasn't his thing to be nosey. It wasn’t his thing to disturb Nahida either, but he had to. The question was important to some degree. He sighed “What do you need now..?” She looked at Wanderer, confused. She didn’t alert him to anything, why did he show up? “What do you mean? Nothing has happened as of late, and I didn’t try to get your attention… Did something happen?” He was… confused, to say the least. “So then why did you grab my ankle? And almost throw those two men out of the way?” She was completely clueless to what Wanderer is talking about. “That… wasn’t me.” He was… shocked? It didn’t show, but he clearly had no idea what was going on. It had to be someone. Someone that he wouldn’t suspect. Maybe… Himself? No, no… that just doesn’t make sense. He has an Anemo vision. He’s never used Dendro before. Ever. But no one else used Dendro like that, and it wasn’t Nahida. What if he was being influenced? He is a puppet, it’s… still far fetched. But it’s the only idea left. “Kusanali… Check. Am I afflicted with dendro?” She looked, and yes. Wanderer was affected by Dendro. “Yep… that’s dendro on you… but why?” This was going to be hard to try to explain. “I think the vines I mentioned… were from me. As in, I summoned them or whatever.” How confusingly annoying and pesky.