Little Flower |Scaramouche| ✓

◤XVI |The Beans Hath Been Spilt|

By the time either (Y/n) or Scaramouche could see any signs of Natlan before them, the hatless harbinger could already tell that it was past noon and half of the day had gone by already. Twenty four days. It kept ringing and repeating in his head like a broken record that would never stop unless you smashed it to bits and pieces to get it to shut up. Besides him, (Y/n) rocked back and forth in her seat, anxious to arrive in yet another new nation, only this time she knew nothing about Natlan except for small details from some of the heirs' memories.

"What do you think Natlan's going to be like? The only time any of the heirs went there was when it was Odessa's twelfth birthday and she invited all of them to her party except for Raijin who was still too young to be going anywhere without her little bodyguard who'd gotten sick that week," she suddenly began speaking. Scaramouche turned to see that the heir was still rocking back and forth whilst staring up at the sky watching clouds fly. He didn't answer her. Not immediately anyway. His intuition had told him that she would continue talking regardless of whether or not he answered and it turned out that he had been right. (Y/n) told him the story of Odessa's twelfth birthday and how Siggy, not surprisingly, managed to get herself stuck on top of a mountain. She'd almost been taken by the Celestian Gods themselves had Guozhi not gotten there in time to drag her ass down from the mountain and given her a whole lecture on learning not to wander off from the group and let curiosity get the better of her.

Needless to say, Scaramouche found that he actually quite enjoyed that story even though he really didn't care that much about what the heirs had gone through, besides Raijin of course. Who knew that the heirs had interesting characters to them for being all stuck in the same body at the moment.

"Ooooh look up ahead! Those must be the soldiers Cyno was talking about who guard the borders! They look pretty scary and buff looking, but they're no match for us, right? Right?" (Y/n) looked over at the hatless harbinger whose eyes were focused on the said soldiers she mentioned.

"They're pointing right at us," he said in a dead manner, his facial expression morphing into that of a deadpan. "And now they're gathering more of their comrades."

"Archons, is it just me or has the temperature risen to like, a thousand degrees? I feel like I'm going to melt in this sweltering heat," she ignored Scaramouche's comment on the Natlan guards who were clearly aiming to stop their wagon and instead, began fanning herself with her shirt. Sumeru had been quite humid, but Natlan weather...it felt like being inside a volcano with how the heat seemed to burn right onto her entire body. The boy next to her seemed so nonchalant about the weather that she questioned whether or not he was actually human because he wasn't even breaking a sweat!

"Dumbass, stop worrying about the heat and worry about the fucking soldiers that are literally pointing their weapons at us," he kicked her shin and aggressively pointed to the guards who were carefully eyeing their approaching wagon. The raven perched on the seat next to Scaramouche cawed, ruffling its feathers from the suffocating heat.

"I can't help it that my very realistic human body is reacting to the sudden change of weather here in Natlan," she countered. "Besides, they're probably just gonna be like the Eremite and treat us like travelers. Hide yourself and let me do the talking and everything will be—"

"You fucking—"

"HALT. By order of Queen Murata you will state your business and answer any questions asked." The guard, speaking in a deep voice, held his hand out to the horse that had stopped in its tracks. Wearing a helmet and what looked to be the uniform of the Natlan guards, this man from the looks of it was their general, judging by how his uniform looked different than that of his comrades. (Y/n) recalled that Siggy had run into one of the guards before during Odessa's twelfth birthday and that memory caused her to stifle a laugh.