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Wanderer gave a loud huff as he hovered over the edge of cliff. It just had to be today that the child Archon of Sumeru would suddenly have an interest in foreign plants. The Traveler had returned from wherever he had run off to and had returned before he had began to talk about how he had a newfound appreciation for Liyue’s flora and fauna. Though, there had been a smile there that made Wanderer wonder if he even wanted to know what in the world Aether was thinking about.
During the Traveler's visit, she had asked for a peculiar flower all the way in Liyue, their neighboring nation. A flower called violet grass. It was a flower that grew in cliffs and was supposedly best picked after it rained and was known for its medicinal properties. However, Wanderer wasn't just going to sit around and wait for it to rain, regardless of the Traveler's insistence. The Archon had never told him that it needed to be fresh or the best of the best. She had simply given him instructions to bring some back. So, a random violet grass off of the cliffs should be easy enough. Aether and his little flying pest had run off somewhere on their own, likely to look for their own batch of violet grass. That left Wanderer to look alone, just as he liked it.
That was when he saw it.
Wanderer felt something akin to his heart dropping into his stomach as he watched a little girl dressed in purples and blues hanging off of the side of a cliff, reaching for something. The strong winds from this high up threatened to knock the girl clear off of the cliff but she was holding strong. Whatever she was reaching for, it was clear she wasn't going anywhere until she got her hands on it.
Stupid girl, he found himself thinking. She's going to get herself killed.
Usually, the folly of humans was something he would point and laugh at. Humans were a bunch of imbeciles who just kept getting themselves into situations when they could just as easily say no and not do something stupid and dangerous.
But this little girl reminded him a little too much of a certain boy. Small, weak, and reckless. What was she even doing up here? What was she trying to get?
Before he even knew what he was doing, Wanderer found himself flying over.
“Hey!”
The little girl looked up, but her eyes were far away, like she wasn't truly seeing him. She clearly wasn't actually paying attention to him. His point was proven when her gaze barely lingered on him for a moment before turning back to whatever she was trying to get.
Whatever it was, she wanted it bad.
“What are you doing, idiot? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
The girl looked back up at him and seemed confused. Was she slow or something? Or did she simply not grasp the gravity of her situation?
“Qiqi. . .,” the girl started before pausing for a moment, “. . .is already dead.”
What?
Had he heard that right? How could she be dead if she was right in front of him and clearly alive and moving?
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“My name is Qiqi. . .and I am a zombie,” the girl said, introducing herself. Then she tilted her head, a confused look coming to her face. “I. . .forgot what comes next.”
Wanderer was baffled. Zombies were just creatures of fiction that were supposed to be disgusting rotting corpses brought back from the dead by whatever dubious reason humans could think of. Zombies weren't supposed to be small and cute. It completely destroyed the image in his mind.
He liked the hideous rotten corpses better.
But that was beside the point, he thinks, shaking his head.
“What are you doing up here? It's dangerous.”
The girl paused for a moment before pulling out what appeared to be a notebook or diary of some kind. She flipped through the pages until she finally came across what she seemed to be looking for.
“Today is one of Mr. Baizhu’s bad days,” the girl read. Baizhu, Bad days, Wanderer thought. But who was this Baizhu and what did that have to do with this little girl being up here in the mountains? “There aren't any more violet grass. . .in the pharmacy to make the medicine that. . .helps keep Mr. Baizhu's symptoms at bay. Qiqi. . .has to find more. . .before Mr. Baizhu gets even worse.”
She spoke slowly and haltingly, as if words sometimes had a hard time coming out of her mouth. But there was a word she said that caught the puppet’s attention. Violet grass. So, she was looking for it too? And it sounded like she needed it for the medicinal purposes that it's said to to have. Someone she knew was sick and it sounded like it was really bad. Part of Wanderer told himself he didn't care but this seemed to hit a little too close to home. A loved one who was sick and possibly dying.
Just like. . .
Shaking his head, he dispelled the thought. This was no time to thinking about that. He had to focus on getting this girl down. But how was he supposed to do that? Hovering closer, he tried to get a better look at what she was reaching for. Low and behold, there was a small cluster of violet grass. Supposedly, violet grass grew spaced far apart. Finding a cluster close together was unusual. Maybe this was his lucky day, after all.
“Hey,” he called. He waited for the girl to look back up at him before he continued. “If you let me help, I can get you closer. But my compromise is that you let me keep one violet grass flower.”
The girl seemed to think it over for a moment before she nodded her head sluggishly. Moving until she was upright, she reached her hands up and made a grabbing motion. Wanderer had seen plenty a child do this to their parents.
Was she. . .asking him to pick her up???
He was tempted to tell her off but there was no telling how the Traveler or - Celestia forbid - Nahida found out. With a heavy sigh, he hovered closer before carefully taking her into his arms. He tried doing what he had seen Aether do when Paimon had been so tired that she couldn’t even fly; he placed one hand under her knees and the other on the middle of her back as he settled her on his hip.
He could only imagine how he looked now. The previously newly anointed god and puppet made by the Raiden Shogun herself, reduced to holding a little girl like he was her babysitter. It was appalling. Even so, he found himself holding her closer. It would do no good to have her falling.
Readjusting them until they were at the correct height, Wanderer hovered just a little closer so that the violet grass would be within the little zombie girl's reach. The girl reached over and plucked the flowers carefully, likely trying not to damage them. Once they were safely in her possession, she settled back into his arms and leaned herself into his upper body, resting her head against his shoulder.
That was much too intimate, in Wanderer's opinion.
Mentally shrugging the thought off, Wanderer almost made to fly back towards Liyue, where Aether and Paimon were likely to be, when the zombie brat tugged on his shirt. When he looked down at her, she only silently pointed towards another rock monument. Puzzled and a little frustrated, he flew over to where she was pointed and gave a curious noise when he found more violet grass in small clusters. This little girl either knows special places where this stuff grows in higher abundance than elsewhere or she was incredibly lucky.
A few extra minutes wouldn't be so bad, right?
Right.
The next half hour was spent with Wanderer zipping through the sky from one cliff to another as he went from one cluster to another. With ever stop they made, the more Qiqi filled her little basket with more and more herbs. The only reason they even ended up stopping is because they had reached the max amount they could carry without worrying about them blowing away every time they moved.
And so, with a basket full of violet grass, they made their way back toward Liyue Harbor.
For the most part, Wanderer stuck to flying above the city. It would be too much of a hassle to run into anyone who knew the little girl he was carrying before he got her back to Bubu Pharmacy. Since he didn't know the way, he had to have her guide him with sometimes very confusing directions. Eventually, they came across the very place they were looking for after Qiqi had somehow led him to the docks on the other side of the city. They had completely passed it earlier since Wanderer didn't know what it looked like and Qiqi must have gotten herself confused.
By the time they reached the pharmacy, Wanderer was feeling both tired and slightly irritated. One would think that being a puppet meant that a Vision wouldn't tire him out like it could a human, but all the flying around and having to deal with a semi-amnesic child had pushed him to limits. To say he was tired now would be an insult to how utterly exhausted he felt. He's tempted to shove the violet grass he was bringing back to Nahida down her throat when he got back. But the logical side of his brain that sounded a little too much like a certain pipsqueak dragon lightly scolded him for even having the thought (even if he knew he never intended to carry out the threat).
He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard the sound of yelling. Looking down from where he was hovering, he caught sight of a black-haired man and familiar looking blond Traveler trying to hold back a messy green-haired man. The man looked frantic and was fighting to get loose. Whatever was going on, the man looked hysterical. He was clearly out of his mind and was attempting to scream, but was constantly cut off by a wet sounding cough, forcing him to cover his mouth. When he pulled his hand back. . .
. . .blood.
Wanderer felt like the hair at the back of his hair had stood up, even though he shouldn't even be capable of feeling bumps on his mechanical body. Before he could lower himself to the ground, the little girl in his arms suddenly began squirming. Before he could stabilize his grip on her, she had successfully managed to escape his arms, falling to the ground.
His heart lept into his throat.
Just as he was about to zoom down and catch her, she maneuvered herself until she was upright, summoning her sword, and landed with a loud enough thud, the ground cracking beneath her.
All he could do was stare as she straightened herself up and practically bolted towards the three men.
Was she really just a little zombie?
The sound of her tiny feet tapping against the ground was just loud enough that the group was able to hear it over the bespectacled man’s tantrum and had them looking up. The Traveler and the black-haired man’s face immediately lit up upon seeing her. And the ruffled green-haired man broke. As soon as Qiqi was within an arm’s distance, he surged forward to meet her, engulfing her in his thin, quaking arms and clutching her to his torso. A hold that clearly spoke of him never wanting to let her go again.
“Thanks, Wanderer.”
The sound of that familiar voice snapped the puppet out of his daze. Looking over, he saw the Traveler looking at him with something that looked dangerously close to affection. It would have made a shiver of disgust go up his spine if he had one. When had he even gotten over here without Wanderer noticing him here. With a huff, he went to levitate again (when had he even landed?) and turned away.
“Whatever.”
Just as he was about to fly and get as far away from this sappy scene as possible, he noticed that the black-haired man had began to pick up the violet grass that had fallen on the ground. No one has noticed that Qiqi had dropped the basket and that the herbs had scattered because they all had been more focused on Qiqi herself.
It would take time to gather and clean those herbs before they could use it for the green-haired man’s medicine. Hesitantly, he looked at the violet grass in his hand. He had ended up grabbing more than enough for his task.
Nahida had said that she only needed one.
That man looked like he would keel over at any moment.
With a dramatic sigh (yes, he knew was being overdramatic), and ignoring the amused gaze from Aether, he slowly flew over until he was hovering over the duo who were clutching each other tightly. The third man looked slightly alarmed but did nothing to stop him from coming closer, though he did stop gathering the fallen herbs and moved closer to the green-haired man's back, standing close. Not hostile, but hesitant.
Huff, Wanderer found himself saying mentally. As if he could do anything to me.
The breeze from when he stopped in front of them caused the green-haired man to look up. Now that he could see his eyes up close, he has slit pupils and bright golden eyes that still shone even through his crooked glasses. Wanderer could feel the unbalanced energies in his body. He was clearly dying. The question was just how long he would last.
With another mental huff, he held out the majority of the violet grass he has gathered.
“Idiot,” he degraded, though his tone held no real heat. He still saw the man behind the sick man look offended, though. “Don't go dying after we spent so much time gathering this garbage.”