Chapter Text
Black as the night sky yet shimmering the sun's rays are the wings resembling a crow, belonging to a Tengu. Their masks -- somen -- red, just like the rivers of days old, when none but monsters lurked on the lands when miasma was rampant and nothing but slaughter could purge the beasts. It has grown into a trademark, an inheritance and a mark of acceptance amongst the clan and inspiration for theatre folk who wish to act the part. In the forests of Inazuma, they lurk where light is most scant, blending in the shadows of the paltry light.
That is a Tengu. A race of semi-avian human individuals.
To be able to fly in the skies higher than anyone, that is a Tengu. Their wings span wider than the length of their arms, stretching and touching the skies to gaze at their treescape, to protect the forests they inhabit, the mountains they live in. They must travel across their forests and mountains that touch the clouds to perform their duty.
For a land dweller in the years-long gone, if they were to lift their head up to the sky they could see the figures of wings, not of a bird but a Tengu. Those were days when the lands of Inazuma were divided and the dirt of sins was etched deep into the soil of Teyvat.
Protecting their homes-- highlands and forests-- were second nature to them. Intruders, like abyssal monsters, are sure to find a blade resting within them. Bypassers, on the other hand, were faced with their bountiful pranks and games. The landscape only provides an upper edge to protect them and along with their sharp reflexes, keen eyes and sensitive ears-- akin to a bird-- any newcomer is sure to find trouble in their hands unless they are witty enough.
Their wings, even here, prove to be useful.
For a Tengu, their wings are their pride. Their defining feature. Their everything.
But for a Tengu with no wings, has their pride been stripped or is it something else? People have various answers to that question. Scholars have debated for ages on end with seemingly no good answer.
For Kujou Sara, however, her pride lies in various things far more than just the wings that sprout from her back.
After the sun falls and darkness spreads in the sky, Kujou Sara retires to her room for the night. There is no one but her, and the sounds of the clan's children and footsteps have died; all that remains are the sounds of the night. There is just one candle lit lamp placed across her, spreading enough light to encompass just a bit more than Sara's size.
She is clad in only a sarashi, bandages and pants, sitting in seiza in front of a mirror. She is not one who cares much about her appearances; as long as she looks presentable it is enough. She is not like the other woman of the clan, or any other for that matter, to spend hours before the mirror wearing makeup and accessories to look pretty.
No, she's a soldier whose only accessory is the armour that wraps her body and her makeup, the blood of her enemies.
However, this is a certain duty she must do regularly.
She inhales deeply. With a flutter, she can feel aching bones move into its natural place, her wings in her sight for all the world to see. She unfurls them further, reaching the full span of her pinions. It's awkward to feel the weight that is usually concentrated in a singular area spread apart, even if this is a task she has done plenty of times.
She doesn't keep her wings for all to see. Not anymore.
Beneath her clothes, her armour and all she uses to protect herself, lay hidden her wings for the most part. One may assume that hiding wings like her own would be uncomfortable, which it is, but for a Tengu that will never fly one more-
This is fine. Little inconveniences, so a better goal can be reached, is fine.
She wills her wings to move just the slightest, but she knows and has come to accept that these wings on her back will never move anymore. Hope is a silly thing sometimes, she thinks as the frown on her face deepens. She'd never be able to fly into the sky, touch the clouds and-
She gets caught in an old memory when life was simpler, one where her wings worked as they used to, and she brings her hand to her cheek to snap her out of it.
Enough. It has been years and yet you hold the silliest of wishes.
The voice in her head is almost as if the Shogun herself has materialized before her, reprimanding her for her selfishness.
The woman in the mirror glares at her further, her eyebrows scrunched tightly. From the corner of her eye, the purple vision glows brighter and Sara finally moves her hands to her wings.
She's wasted enough time already as it is.
Carefully she allows her fingers to preen through her feathers. Even if they remain unused she must take care of them. Hygiene is important regardless of what you are.
It is only in moments like these where her wings leave their concealment for more than just a few moments. It's in these moments where she showcases the barest form of hers, the truest form of hers and what is the most sacred part of her. Preening of a Tengu is something not all have the privilege to see, nor the right.
Only those who are truly near the heart of a Tengu are allowed to watch, to drag their fingers across the lining of feathers and remove those who disturb their prideful wings.
She may have family, she may consider them near and dear but…
Never once has she allowed them to touch her wings, or at the very least for preening.
Or perhaps they never wanted to. She isn’t really sure.
No one has asked, neither has she. In all of her life, there has only been a singular incident when another being touched her wings, with her permission that is(sometimes humans are awfully curious, doing things they really shouldn’t).
The children of her clan had asked her about her wings one day, jumping up and down brimming with curiosity. She may be a battle-worn soldier, her song may be that of a twang of her bow than the koto that was played by her relative, but she drops all harshness when it comes to children and their innocence. She splayed her wings for all to show, allowing her little nieces and nephews to draw their small fingers across her wings.
There's laughter and joy and Sara's own laugh resounds in the hall. Questions are fired here and there and Sara answers each one calmly, not a detail missed in her explanation. The children nod and listen, taking in whatever little they can understand; half of her words drown in the excited squeals of the kids and a little more in their unfamiliarity with her words.
It doesn't matter to Sara. She sees the smile of her own kin and she smiles.
She can understand why Tengus are fiercely protective of their lands.
However, her little dreamland is broken when she hears the sound of her brother's voice. Her brother’s tone, clearly unhappy. And when she looked up...
She wishes her heart were stone. She wishes it was as cool as ice and not a burning flame. All a raging fire leaves are ashes and the smell of smoke, after all.
Since then she’s never shown her wings in front of her family. Neither have the kids asked her to show, even if they shower her with the same love they did before.
She wishes her brother could see her as his kin, just like his children. But there’s more than just an inability to accept an orphaned child as a sibling at play here. She knows that; it's always been ringing in her ears whether she wants to remind herself or not.
The whispers on the street, the gossip between her men, the old women who have reached an age with nothing to do but share what they find scandalous, reach her ears. Their words, like a snake, easing its way through the burrow of her ear.
(She wishes people were a bit more careful with their words and its ability to cut through a person even easier than her sharpest knife.)
The moment she had stepped into the walls of the Kujou household the talk of her heritage, her wings , have always been a topic of conversation. Even if she may have been greeted with open arms, even if this is all she knows-
The wings of a crow have always been a talk of bad luck.
But she knows better now.
She may have lost her flight but she has the eyes of the greatest being on the lands of Inazuma on her in return. Even for those fleeting moments in the throne room as the great Archon addresses her, she feels pride flow through her body, loyalty slipping through her tongue and her wings unneeded to fly in the sky to shoot whoever the enemy may be (her arrows never miss her target, after all.).
To have the divine gaze on her, to have eternity accept her in its grand schemes, how can one call that bad luck? If the crow’s wings are the bestowers of ill fortune, then why be granted this honour of being one of the closest confidants of the Shogun(other than for her prowess of course)?
Feathers fall onto the floor, like the steady pace of pitter-patter that has begun its wrath outside her window. Inazuma’s flood control system has always been up to the mark; they have complex and efficient drainage systems, flood measures always ready to be laid in case of a situation wherein the drains are overwhelmed and finally, evacuation measures on standby if things tend to get out of hand.
(But it shouldn’t. The Shogun usually has it all under control.)
However, unlike the rain that flows into the drain, or any other water saving mechanism, her feathers lay still on the floor. A slight gust through her window and they dance in the air before falling once more. She’ll need to dispose of it herself, as soon as she finishes her task.
Perhaps shut the window as well. The winds don't seem like they shall quell, nor does the rain seem to reduce its vigour.
The feathers fall and her mind travels to events that transpired(since when did she get so sentimental?). Not ones when she was but a young child, but memories of more recent times, more vivid in her memory.
She's taken pride in having divinity grace her soul with its gaze, to be able to talk to her personally, to know her personally. It's not something she rubs into others faces, she has no wish for it either. In those moments never once had she felt her loyalty fall short. However, in those moments of the aftermath, she wonders.
Did she really know the Shogun?
She remembers the blow she received on her stomach and she winces in the memory. How did she fall so easily? She’s a seasoned warrior she shouldn’t-
‘But you did. You failed to reveal the crimes your family committed. You failed to notice that they conspired against the Shogun. You failed to win a war being waged. You failed your duty as a close confidant of the Shogun, as a general. For everything that was bestowed to you by Her Grace, you have given nothing but disgrace.’
What is the point of failure in the one thing you were supposed to do? What is the point of failure in the one thing you were taught to do?
Why did her family betray her? Why did her family betray the Shogun?
Weren’t they the ones who taught her to swear everything in the name of the Narukami Ogosho?
Sara knows how it feels to fall. She knows how it feels when her wings don't move the way she wants to. She knows how it feels to flail helplessly against the strong hard winds. She's seen death, its face unshielded by its garb. She's seen it flash before her eyes as she fell from the cliffs of the mountains. She has seen it flash before her eyes as she walks upon the land covered in bodies and dendrobiums. Each pull of her bow brings death with her, and she’s never hesitated.
Or she never did till now.
All voices of the men and women she’s killed on the battlefield, all those who are now deemed innocent, now ring in her ears. Their dying cries, their burning eyes losing glow and bodies crumpling onto the ground are images she can’t erase from her mind. Will these horrors stick with her for the rest of her life? Perhaps. Will this turn into a reminder for her to not put unquestioned faith, even if they are your god and the saviour of the lands?
She inhales sharply, closing her eyes. Her fingers come to a stop, dropping by her side. The fallen fingers inch across her abdomen reaching the bandages that should have been changed a long time ago. Her fingers graze upon the tattered cloth and-
It hurts. It hurts so much.
Frustration, pain and so much more build within her, tugging the remnants of her heart that glow brightly despite her cold exterior.
Sometimes she wishes never to hold a flame in her heart. Yet she does every single time, only to have it crushed like dying embers of a fire.
She trusted her.
She really did.
That day had been a manifestation of Sara's undreamt nightmare and so much more.
She had woken up to the smell of burning tatami mats and ozone. Her body shivered as the cold breeze grazed her skin, making the small hairs on her skin rise straight. It was cold, so inexplicably cold yet simultaneously it felt as if she walked through fire. This coldness is not from Inazuma during the winter, nor is it the heat of summer at its peak.
Looking back at it Sara wonders if it is the rumoured coldness of the mountain that lies between Liyue and Mondstadt and this heat from the volcanoes of Natlan.
What had transpired in her unconscious moments?
Her head throbbed, and the world seemed to dance before her almost mockingly as she brought herself onto her feet. It was barely a fair fight between the Harbinger and her. If she were honest, it was as if the harbinger barely even acknowledged her as an opponent; just a rodent in the way of her vehement schemes.
Her head throbbed and she leaned forward, nearly falling. The smell of ozone wasn’t helping her at all. The air felt like it was choking her alive, slow and steady.
If not in a fight she felt like she was going to die of the evident lack of air.
She’s not felt like this, she’s not passed out like this before, or at the very least not in recent years. Perhaps when she was receiving training after being adopted by the Kujou clan but she doesn’t remember clearly.
Her body protested against her movements yet she limps in a pathetic manner to grasp the closest thing-- the pillar. She's become a silly excuse for a general-- weak and defeated-- and her throbbing head was of no help. Each breath wracked her body in a violent shudder, pain blooming from her chest with every pull of oxygen. Her ribs were definitely busted(and they were according to the Guuji who personally attended to her wounds later on).
She took a sharp breath through her teeth and raised her gaze. The surrounding was a mess like none she had ever seen.
The battle had been fought here, without her . A tough one, she can guess it by the state of the room with its countless burns, cracking walls with dripping ice and-
A pile of ash.
The marks on the floor.
The smell.
This is…
Musou no Hitotachi. The amalgamation of the Shogun’s true power.
The very same she had used on a fool of a man who thought it was a brilliant idea to challenge the Ogosho before the throne. There is no being that can live through it(it would only be until months later that the Traveller would prove the statement wrong). It was certain death, in its most graceful form. The man was grinning, even in his defeat in Sara’s hands and even more so when the divine blade was pulled from the crevice of the Shogun’s chest.
“Perhaps you may want to close your eyes.” the Shogun had whispered to her as she rose from her dais. Back then she wondered why the Shogun was offering her a moment of kindness, one that was unneeded.
“I’ve seen death before. To see it be delivered by you would be the greatest honour to a mortal such as me,” she had responded, quietly.
“If that is what you wish.”
The throne room had been quarantined for days after that. The Musou no Hitotachi had been unleashed.
Back then she had watched the splendour, the quantification of raw power. She had been in awe then. Her devotion had only grown stronger. She was humbled and brought to her knees.
But when she had grasped against a pillar for dear life, looking at the aftermath of a battle she should have fought, the memory stirred a wave of emotions. Her stomach lurched at the thought.
Someone died here.
It wasn’t her.
Didn’t she lose ?
Is it not by the rules of the Shogunate to die by the Musou no Hitotachi when a battle before the throne is lost(even if she had simply barged in)?
Her breathing grew more strained as thoughts began to clog her head, confusion growing immensely. It didn’t make sense, none of it(even now as she preens herself, she’s yet to grasp the reality of the situation). Her vision blurred at some point, and her grip on the pillar grew tighter.
She didn't know what happened next. Everything hurt so much, simply too much to care. She's received far more life-threatening wounds on the battlefield before, however, as she fell into the grasp of warmth, she felt like breaking down into a million pieces.
A voice startled her, "Are you alright, dear?"
She looked up to see what had embraced her. The warmth, the one who supported the entirety of her weight as she left the pillar and cling onto them, it all belonged to-
Her stomach lurched even more so than when she received the final blow of her pitiful fight.
Dear ? Alright ?
What was going on?
"Talk to me, are your injuries too grievous?" The Archon asked her . The Narukami Ogosho had asked her, Kujou Sara .
Those purple eyes, Sara had noted then, these eyes that were always mysteriously empty were filled with a bit too much life. Almost as if a new person took over the person she knew.
She heaves, "Your Excellency I- I-"
And the Shogun places a finger in her lips, silencing her. Such an action would make anyone lose their mind but her stomach drops in dread instead.
The warmth is suffocating and so is the smell of Amakumo fruit.
Who is this person?
"You're injured, clearly. Stay with me for a while, I have called for medical support."
"The Ten-"
"I know." The voice says with finality. It's familiar, like the commanding tone of the Archon she's grown to be accustomed to. She wanted to explain more, how the Tenryou commission floundered, how the Fatui stuck their roots into Inazuman politics and are now controlling them like puppets. Her explanations were hushed, and she’s forced to inhale the smell of Amakumo from the nape of the Ogosho.
Sara fell, her wings as always useless(they had no need to be used anyway), into the smell of Amakumo. A fruit, uncommon in the plains of Narukami. It's not from here , it's at the brink of extinction yet it's so strong it overwhelms her.
What had changed in those moments she had fallen? How can a person change so quickly within a blink of an eye?
Is that not an enemy of eternity itself , she questioned.
She had too many questions, and barely any answers.
She had no idea what the Archon(or this new person impersonating her) said as she held her limp body but Sara didn't care. In the sickening warmth of the usually cold lightning in a storm, Sara fell.
And that is all.
Her vision glows in the dim light and Sara digs her nails on barren skin. She's in her room, not in the throne room. She's in front of her mirror, not in front of a deity. She has wings but can't fly, and she finds herself being buried into the earth at the weight of her feelings.
Even if she's alone she can feel a presence. She turns around in the direction but there's no one. Just a simple shelf and her lacquerware dolls of the Shogun.
Her stomach sinks further.
She wants to head to sleep but she's yet to finish her task. Disgruntled, she continues her remaining work of plucking feathers.
She needs to be up early. That never was a problem for her. What makes her feet go cold however is standing in front of the Shogun.
If she stood for judgement any other day before the incident she would not be ashamed to receive any punishment. But now…
She falters.
This woman who claims to be the Raiden Shogun isn't her. This woman who calls herself Baal isn't her.
Then who is she?
What is Sara to her?
She wishes to know yet doesn't. She fears the words that may fall from the Archon's mouth and into her ears. She refuses to accept that she was simply a pawn in the grand scheme of things
Her head wants to split itself in half. She's been thinking and thinking. The moment she had stepped foot from Tenshukaku, after healing to a certain extent, she did nothing but think.
She hates how her family members have fled instead of facing divine punishment with dignity. Perhaps she'll be able to carry the weight of their wrongdoings. She is the only one who is going to stand in the court in front of the Shogun after all. She has no fear but one.
She looks at her wings one last time for the night and possibly forever.
The rain pours and thunder rumbles throughout the night, and she remains awake, watching the candlelight flicker till finally, the wind hushes it into a withering trail of smoke.