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Scaramouche never liked to sleep. Sleeping was nought but a waste of time, time spent being haunted by visions of long purple hair and broken hearts. Alas, even his mechanical body needed to rest and recuperate every once in a while. As such he occasionally was subjected to memories and experiences that his infallible memory would never allow him to forget.
However, tonight’s dream - however much a dream can be called as such when the dreamer has been unresponsive to the world for days now - is different from his usual dreams, but no less terrifying.
The colossal form of Shouki no Kami fell to the ground, body slumped over from the blows of the Traveler’s sword and Kusanali’s Neo Akasha Terminal. Scaramouche took breaths through gritted teeth, seething with rage.
“Humans… filthy humans!” He gritted out, trying to get the body of his new form to respond to him, to no avail.
Lesser Lord Kusanali floated up to the face of the now defeated mechanical god, looking towards Scaramouche with an expression that radiated… pity? The thought filled the puppet with more rage than he even thought possible. “How DARE she pity me!” He thought to himself, forcing his head to look up and meet her gaze, determined to show his defiance of the diminutive God for as long as he could.
Scaramouche met the gaze of Kusanali, his eyes contorted in confusion as the eyes of the Dendro Archon began to glow a bright green. However, his confusion was soon replaced by another feeling, one that made his heart drop and his stomach seize, a dread he was sure that he would remember for the rest of his existence.
The Gnosis began to leave his body, Scaramouche gasping at the realisation of what was happening, and the rage he once felt quickly replaced by an all-encompassing feeling of fear, a feeling he was sure he had forgotten altogether.
“No, please! Anything but the Gnosis!!” He shouted before he could even think to shout, the idea of losing his birthright just moments after finally becoming what he was supposed to be was too much. Scaramouche lunged forward, stretching the cables and motor controls connected to the back of his body to a near breaking point, a frantic and desperate attempt to recover the gnosis.
“That’s mine! Don’t even TRY!” Scaramouche yelled, further stretching the cables that kept him suspended within the mechanical god with frantic lunges and grasping motions. “I’ll never… I’ll NEVER GO BACK” Of all the fates he could ever imagine for himself, a life where he forever is missing a piece of himself that he was born to have was the one he refused to return to. He COULDN’T live like that again.
Try as he might, the gnosis finally landed within the hands of the Dendro Archon, and Scaramouche’s body went limp. Somehow, having the gnosis taken from him a second time hurt much more than the first. Knowing how close he was to his goal and how much he had done to accomplish his goal for it to be snatched from right underneath him, it destroyed the puppet.
The cables holding the puppet’s body within the mech finally gave out, and Scaramouche closed his eyes as his body fell to the floor, accepting his fate and his failure.
The first thing he registered was the pain. He was no stranger to pain, experiments from… him never involved any anaesthetic after all. He first twitched his hands, slowly feeling the motor skills in his hands return to him. Scaramouche couldn’t remember the last time he found himself in this much pain, to the point where even moving was an uphill battle. Recovering from his experiments after a journey in the abyss perhaps?
His mechanical eyes finally opened, his surroundings slowly coming into focus as his vision cleared. He was resting on a bed, that much was clear. There wasn’t much else within the room, aside from a lamp and a chair in the corner. If he had to guess, he had been imprisoned somewhere within the Akademiya.
Scaramouche tried to sit himself up, however his mechanical joints and muscles screamed out at him, begging him to stop. With a huff, he flopped down on the bed. He didn’t have the energy to fight a losing battle against his own body. He supposed this was his punishment for all that he had done, becoming a prisoner not just in the hands of the Dendro Archon, but within his own body too.
Suddenly, the door creaked open a little, natural light from the outside flooding in through the small crack in the door. Scaramouche looked forward, expecting his jailor to walk through the door any minute now. Perhaps the General Mahamatra was looking to get his hits in now that the big bad puppet was incapable of fighting back.
He kept his head facing forward, however, the door had shut and he couldn’t see anyone enter the room. He shifted his vision downwards and finally set eyes upon his visitor. The Dendro Archon ‘Buer’, or Lesser Lord Kusanali as she is known by the people approaches the bedridden puppet.
“I see you’re finally awake.” She says, her eyes looking over him with an emotion he couldn’t quite grasp. He never could understand human emotions much anyway, the emotions of a God were no different. The Dendro Archon took the chair from the corner of the room and pushed it close to the bed that Scaramouche was resting on. He didn’t understand why the young Archon chose to embarrass herself by pushing a chair that was barely bigger than her, such things should be what humans make themselves useful for. Then again, he supposed, she wasn’t the one who failed to become a God.
“How wise, Goddess of Wisdom.” Scaramouche snarked, refusing to show his jailor any pleasantries when the wounds from his failed ascension were still raw and open, his body telling the story that his mind could not.
Despite his unpleasant tone, Kusanali refused to show any fear or indignation. She merely sat on the chair and looked at him, her verdure-coloured eyes not giving away her thoughts and intentions. She clasped her hands together, before letting out a sigh and opening her mouth to speak. “The General Mahamatra and Acting Grand Sage believe that you should be imprisoned for your crimes. The Traveler does too.”
The puppet looked at the young Goddess with all of the energy he could muster. Surely she didn’t take time out of her recently won freedom to come and gloat. What a pointless waste of time. “Alas, I don’t agree with them this time.”
Now Scaramouche was confused, if the Lesser Lord didn’t agree with him being imprisoned, then why WAS he imprisoned? Surely an Archon was not bending to the will of a few humans? She spent 500 years being imprisoned by humans as far as he knew, what made her want to continue doing their bidding?
“As the God of Wisdom, I believe that taking the counsel of those around you is much more wise than assuming that you always have the best solution. But, what makes you think that you are being imprisoned?” Lesser Lord Kusanali asked.
Damn. ‘I guess I said what I was thinking out loud’ Scaramouche thought to himself. He might as well bite the bullet now. “Why wouldn’t I be imprisoned? I’m trapped in a room after trying to kill and overthrow you.”
Scaramouche didn’t disagree with being punished for his actions, what annoyed him was the Lesser Lord’s mind games and insistence that he wasn’t being punished.
“The door isn’t locked, you can leave at any time,” Kusanali said matter-of-factly, smiling at the puppet who was still trying to wrap his head around what the diminutive Goddess was trying to tell him. Scaramouche wasn’t stupid, he knew that he couldn’t escape even if he tried thanks to his current condition - the Dendro Archon knew this too.
“I’ve come to offer a deal, between you and me.” Buer told him, and Scaramouche blinked in surprise. Surely she knew of his disdain for the Archons, so much so that he willingly tried to depose one to become a God himself. ‘ Is Buer stupid, or suicidal?’ Scaramouche thought to himself. Those must be the only two reasons that somebody would want to make a deal with him, even if his personal slights to the Dendro Archon were not taken into effect.
“I made a deal with The Doctor, two gnosis in exchange for information and the destruction of the rest of his segments.” Ah, so she was both . Making a deal with The Doctor only ever has one outcome, and yet Sumeru and its Archon still stand tall. The puppet couldn’t help but be impressed. “Sumeru has lots of problems that, as an Archon, I am primarily responsible for helping to resolve. As well as the tangible problems facing Sumeru, as the keeper of Irminsul I also bear the responsibility of caring for and solving any problems that arise within Irminsul.”
The tiny God’s face was mired with exhaustion that Scaramouche understood well. He imagined if he could see his reflection at this moment, he would look similarly exhausted. The exhaustion on Buer’s face vanished not a moment later, replaced with an expression more akin to that of a child pretending nothing was wrong. ‘ That’s what she is’ Scaramouche supposed. “Despite not being a God anymore, your ascension to Godhood, no matter how brief, left you with the ability to investigate Irminsul. As such, I would like your assistance in helping me investigate Irminsul to find information and solve some other problems left in the wake of the Sages’ machinations.”
Scaramouche couldn’t stop the incredulous look from miring his face, nor did he care to, deciding that the Lesser Lord should see his surprise at what seemed like a foolish decision. Despite his hatred for both archons, the tiny part of his mind reserved for logical and rational thought urged him to consider this deal. After all, not everybody manages to make a deal with The Doctor and come out of it better than they started, or alive for that matter.
He should feel angry at the Lesser Lord. Angry that even after putting a stop to his dream and taking away the one thing that made him whole, she had the audacity to ask him to cooperate with her - but he didn’t. What truly made him angry was how quickly his feelings of anger and hatred were pushed to the side in favour of something… different . Something he had only felt when asked to help at the forge as the Kabukimono, or when he swore an oath of fealty to the Cryo Archon.
The Dendro Archon, taking the puppet’s silence as uncertainty regarding the offer put forth, sought to clarify her offer. “In return for providing me your assistance, I will allow you to live freely within Sumeru, providing that you follow the laws this time.” She explained, giving Scaramouche a smile that was meant to be comforting, but also reprimanding.
Despite Scaramouche’s lack of a desire to return to the Fatui - they were a means to an end after all - the emotional and pessimistic part of his mind took a turn to act before the puppet could control it. “What makes you think I’ll stay? I could escape and run right back to the Fatui.”
“Would you ever want to return to the Fatui?” Buer asked. Scaramouche knew she had called his bluff. Returning to the Fatui was the last thing he wanted to do. Now that the project to ascend him to godhood had failed, he really had no more use for the Fatui. The Fatui likely had no more use for him either, with Dottore having performed every experiment his twisted, poisonous mind could possibly conceive on Scaramouche.
“I could just run away to somewhere else, or wander Teyvat again.” ‘ Just accept her deal, you coward!’ his mind shouted at him. Every part of Scaramouche’s being was fighting against him, centuries of betrayals and desperation to find somewhere to fit in and call home had frayed the puppet’s ability to understand what he truly wanted. What did he want? Does he even know? Would he even know where to begin finding out what he wants?
“You could, but I don’t believe that’s what you want either,” Kusanali told him, remaining calm despite the very real possibility of the greatest asset she could ask for making both of their lives more difficult. “We would both help each other. You would help me ensure that Sumeru remains stable now that the Sages have been expelled and the Akasha System has been terminated. In return, you can finally have a place to call home. A place for you to decide the direction of your life.”
Scaramouche’s eyes widened as he listened to the Archon’s words. Because that’s what he was always truly looking for, wasn’t it? Tatarasuna, the hut with the little boy, the Fatui. All places where a boy simply wanted a place to call home - a place where a puppet had someone to hold the strings.
He finally broke, the walls that he had erected so long ago to protect himself from the pain that the human world would always inflict upon him crumbled before an even older desire to be useful, to be wanted, to belong.
“Fine, I accept your offer, Buer,” Scaramouche said with a resigned sigh, yet with this sigh he felt a weight lift from his chest that he was unaware was even there. “When do we begin?”.
That was the first time he had seen the Dendro Archon truly smile.