Little Flower |Scaramouche| ✓

◤XXXVII |Farewell|

"You're going to be a great king once you pass the training phase of being a prince," (Y/n) grinned cheerfully at her cousin who was in awe of the enhanced strength he now had after receiving the cryo gnosis. "It won't be all that different from leading the Cerise Praelia and plus, you'll still have them by your side! They can help you just like the Fatui did with Tsaritsa except they'll be way better!"

"I appreciate your enthusiasm towards this, but that's not what I need right now," Kuragari sighed. "I need to process all of this and make sure I say the right things in front of the entire nation. Archons... how will I explain this whole thing?"

"Well, why do you think Zhongli is personally going to train you? Here's there to guide you just like my father did. I recall you saying that you wanted to follow in my dad's exact footsteps when it came to leading the Cerise Praelia. Use that as a tool to find your own way of doing this with the help of Zhongli who's been ruling over Liyue for thousands of years," she patted his shoulder.

"(Y/n) does bring up a good point," a deep voice came up from behind them. The two cousins turned around to see the lord of geo himself. "We can discuss the details of all this later, Kuragari." The man gathered the attention of the crowd who had been chatting amongst themselves as the coronation of Kuragari had ended, giving them the freedom to do as they wished. Silence washed over everyone as Zhongli cleared his throat.

"Father, are you really going to—" Guozhi rushed to the king's side with wide eyes.

"I would like to invite everyone here to Liyue," Zhongli interrupted his son. "Guozhi's coronation was delayed for ten years and so, in a few days he will be officially crowned the new king. It is only part of tradition that the rulers of each nation along with their heirs attend the ceremony and welcome the start of a new era."

"There he goes again talking about old traditions," Murata shook her head with a smile on her face. "You can count 'Dess and I in for the ceremony, old man. Just uh... send one of those fancy invitations of yours would ya?" Next to the goddess of pyro and war, her daughter Odessa let out a sigh at her mother. "'Dess and I will be off now if you don't mind. Like Varuna said, it's quite cold here and I'd like to get my troops back."

Closing his eyes, the current king of geo waved his hand dismissively as he said, "Everyone is free to leave as there is nothing more for us to do here. The problem has been resolved and we must make haste to return back to normalcy so that peace and order can be kept." With that, the other archons excluding the Raiden Shogun all promptly left with their heirs in an orderly fashion. The present members of the Cerise Praelia stayed behind, waiting for their chief, now crowned prince, to give them orders.

Once Guozhi and his father had finally left after briefly conversing with Ei, (Y/n) waited until the two were completely out of earshot and sight before leaning over to her cousin and whispering to him, "Fun fact: Guozhi has a girlfriend and he planned on proposing to her on his eighteenth birthday before a certain somebody had to go around kidnapping the heirs. He was quite the grumpy and bitter man when his soul was you know, inside me. Don't tell anyone, but he's missed his girlfriend so much that you could see how antsy he was to get back home."

Kuragari leaned away from her and furrowed his brows at what he'd just heard.

"What...? I know the heirs used to be inside you but um... how the hell did you find that out?"

"I simply just looked through their memories," she shrugged. "There are some pretty terrifying memories I recall, especially from Siggy. But back to the topic of Guozhi and his girlfriend... she's a pretty big deal in Liyue, did you know that? She's the current director of the Yun Han Opera Troupe and—"

"(Y/n)," Kuragari deadpanned at his cousin. He was getting the feeling that he'd have to learn how to deal with her strange antics. "You sound like a stalker right now."

"You're no fun, Kura," (Y/n) pouted and crossed her arms across her chest. "Who am I supposed to tell funny stories about the other heirs to? What am I supposed to say during dinner when I eventually come visit you at your new palace?"

"What about Scaramouche? He was your traveling buddy during your journey, wasn't he? I'm sure he's gotten used to listening to your blabbering by now," he shook his head. "I'm sure that he'd be more than happy to keep putting up with your peculiar stories about each heir." This made the girl look around in search for the said indigo haired boy Kuragari was referring to. She swore she'd seen him right before the ceremony as they'd been arguing over some important matters.

"Speaking of Scara... where is he?" Her (e/c) irises scanned the vicinity again, but the boy was nowhere to be found. As she looked a few more times to make quadruple sure that she didn't just miss him, she realised that the ghost god had disappeared as well. Maybe Maram had returned back to the Dark Sea unannounced, though if that was the case then it was saddening that he didn't bid them farewell before leaving.

If Maram truly did go back to the Dark Sea, then where the hell was Scaramouche? (Y/n) had some unfinished business to discuss with him and it was then that a pit of dread washed over her at the thought of something happening to him.

"Kuragari," she tugged on the sleeve of her cousin. "Get Bryn, Taisiya, and Yuhua please. Help me look for Scaramouche." Raising a brow at her request, he could sense the desperation coming for her and so, he whistled for his right hands and gave them a quick word before they split off to search around the proximity of Zapolyarny Palace.

He couldn't die on her. No... no that would never happen. Be it a puppet or some other creature, he would not die. He couldn't. It wasn't allowed.

Thoughts of their last interaction flowed through (Y/n's) head as she led the search party. It didn't take long for the girl and her cousin's brigade to spot a familiar ex-harbinger and ghost god in one of the back gardens of the palace.

"(Y/n)," Kuragari began, but he was ignored as she sprinted at full speed towards the two figures in the distance. As she quickly approached them, Maram placed a hand on Scaramouche's chest causing a glowing light to appear that pulsed like a heart would. The ghost boy muttered a few words in some foreign language before Scaramouche began to levitate.

The girl stopped in her tracks with wide eyes. She was frozen from shock and could only watch as the puppet was slowly engulfed in the glowing light Maram had produced. Before his entire body was consumed, she caught one last glimpse of his face which seemed to be at peace. His eyes were closed and he didn't wear that usual frown of his, but he wasn't smiling either. Instead, his expression remained neutral.

Footsteps came to a stop behind (Y/n) and she assumed Kuragari and his right hands had caught up to witness this spectacle.

It seemed that Maram hadn't noticed them yet as he had not looked in their direction. His gaze was fixated on the engulfed body of Scaramouche, a grim look of concentration on his ghostly features. As Scaramouche levitated higher, it snapped (Y/n) from her daze.

He was ascending... wasn't he?

Did...

Did he...

Was he... dead?

Why else would Maram be doing this? Could he even do something like this since he's been dead for thousands of years? Was a dead god supposed to be doing this at all?

No... Maram was simply... healing him. Fixing him. Making him feel better. Yeah, that was it. Once Maram was done, Scaramouche would be fine.

But...

But what if he wasn't going to be fine? What if he was already dead?

"(Y/n)...? What are you doing here— Oh..." Maram finally noticed the girl and the others behind her. Averting his gaze from her, Maram focused back on Scaramouche and said, "Please get back. I can't have you interfering."

"What..." she somehow managed to get a single word out. "What do you... mean?"

"I don't want to repeat myself. Just... just get back and don't try to interrupt me." Her eyes stared at the glowing light that was Scaramouche. He really was, wasn't he? He was gone.

He broke his pinky promise, didn't he?