During a fight with his former comrade-in-arms Tartaglia, a wanderer is disembodied protecting Nahida, who helps him recover—regain—his lost limbs after escaping.
How it all happened was a blur.
The arrow, the hydro, the pierce.
One second his leg was intact—the next, dropped to the floor, the severed knee glowing faintly, yet not of blood. No trace of the red liquid dripped out from the puppet's body where it'd been lopped off by the arrow.
The puppet looked at their former comrade, who now stared back at him with a grin full of nothing but battle prowess after donning his signature Foul Legacy, The Devouring Deep Transformation, which now included the electro delusion he was given to add to his battle capabilities.
In the wanderer's ascended anemo form, his hat disappeared, replaced with an aura of the elemental power just behind him. The ascension had come just a tad too late—a split millisecond just after his leg was cast away. The small archon in his hands noticed that fact, her usually kind demeanor quickly escalating into one full of worry and sorrow at her companion—her protector's—disregard of his lack of limb, who merely scoffed as he was hit.
A hydro arrow to the knee. It was a clear cut as any.
To his adversary, the anemo allogene ****ed his head downwards to meet the Fatui Harbinger's eyes, provoking the harbinger with a sly grin to return the latter's own. He then ran circles around him, making sure the delusion user's arrows just missed their target as the wanderer laughed mockingly, earning nervousness from the archon in his close embrace. He'd held onto her tightly, knowing that the intended target of Tartaglia's arrows wasn't him, but her.
Having been the former 6th with centuries of battle experience, he was far more agile than the 11th; with the added anemo to soar unfettered, having the 11th try to shoot him down like a bird in the sky was near impossible with a mere bow and arrow, even with the delusion helping to ease accuracy.
But despite his qualifications, the archon being held didn't have much battle experience. Sure, she could scour through the memories of Irminsul just fine, as well as gauge peoples' combat capabilities with her connection to the tree, but prior to being set free, she hadn't had any actual battle encounters, much less with the Fatui. Ironic, seeing as the one who held her so firmly in his grasp used to be of a high rank in the military group himself.
After dodging a few more arrows for the nth time, the archon had made a request to be put down. Zipping around in the sky was fine, but under the distress of being a live target, it wasn't an enjoyable experience. The wanderer had been speeding around in the air for some time evading, and with that sudden request, his reactions blanked for just a second due to a surge of new thoughts: If he put her down, would she be found? How would she hide from his former comrade, who was so much more faster than she? She wouldn't be able to hide forever.
An arrow grazed by his ear, swiftly making contact with his hair and knocking a lock off of his purple hair of head. He fell back to reality at the contact, resuming his zooming as a much more powerful arrow went his way—in just the perfect spot to hit the dendro archon.
The puppet had turned around then, looking at the harbinger head-on in order to get the small archon to the other side of his figure before the arrow landed right through his arm.
Forearm and all flew to to the ground with a thud, and the wanderer himself fell a few meters of distance to the ground before regaining his balance, two limbs down and a worried archon in his good arm.
He complied with her request, but not before charging a large ball of anemo with the leaking energy coming from his severed elbow to scare off his foe. The fatuus braced for impact as a deafening explosion roared, a testament to the massive ball of pure elemental energy that flew his way.
When the dust settled, the harbinger observed that both the wanderer and the archon had flown off, a small trail of dissipating smoke his only lead before he called the operation off, the delusion and his Foul Legacy powers taking their toll on him after maintaining it just to play deer hunting with the vision wielder.
He hadn't let go of her small body as he used what remained inside his shell to flee from the harbinger of death.
Nahida had no clue how far they'd gone by the time he'd descended, letting go of his anemo energy and collapsing, the two of them falling from the sky ungracefully, splashing into a watery abyss below.
She was the one to swim to shore, carrying his drenched shell of a puppet carcass onto the grass.
When asked if he was okay, the wanderer replied in a deadpanned voice that he was fine. That nothing hurt, that nothing even felt remotely off about him despite two of four major limbs having been hundreds of meters away from them now. In fact, his severed puppet strings might've been taken in as "the remains of an unknown object". He figured that The Doctor would put them to good use, and scoffed at the fact that he'd lost them. The archon wasn't hurt, so everything was fine.
At the wanderer's response, her face scrunched up, from both shock and sadness at his words, which implied that he wasn't a person. That he was but a mere puppet who held no tangible feel, no tangible emotions to which he could truly call his own. For no blood ran through his veins, nor did he truly have a "heart" to speak of. The ball-jointed limbs covered by his false skin still creaked inside of him, even if he wished it were not so.
His mind had been a mess when she'd chanced upon him for the first time, but even now, it told her that he really hadn't a clue why he still lived until she came along, reaching the conclusion that it'd be fine if his condition deteriorated, as long as the archon would live. People worshipped her, after all—hell, maybe he did too, in the back of his mind.
But him? Just a puppet—a discarded and broken one, to be played and toyed with.
She hated him for thinking that—he could probably sense that hate, even—but didn't know what else to do for him as she walked to his severed arm and leg respectively. They still oozed out small batches of divine energy befitting of his origins as an archon's creation, so one could theoretically namesake it as his form of "blood"—but as for a heart... could his way of thinking be considered that? Along with his emotions—they were all still a true part of him, even if he still believed himself to be nothing but a mere object with no "true" emotions.
But she believed differently. However, it would take an immense amount of time in order for his way of thought to change.
The god looked at the body of water they'd fallen in. They were both soaked—with one in critical condition—but if he was born out of a god's divine power, she could mimic that, couldn't she? As the god of dendro, an element that reacted positively when hydro was thrown in the mix...
She scooped up a small amount of water, whispering to it lightly before kissing the puddle as a green light soared from it.
A seed willed to life, taking its roots in that humble dwelling. Growing and growing, overflowing from her hand and towards the wanderer's location as if having a mind of its own. It split off into two, one going to his elbow and the other to his knee, caressing his wounds and covering up his leaks. Soon, it grew to resemble two limbs of similar length to the ones he'd lost, and the roots secured themselves firmly in his divine body, as if belonging with him.
"What is this, Buer?" the wanderer had questioned the archon, the small scoop of her hands empty as the seedling limbs manifested themselves to his nerve system. He could feel them synergizing well with him, as if he'd never lost any part of his body at all.
"A gift," she'd responded simply. "My thank you to you for back then."
"I don't need more reasons to be indebted to you," he scoffed back, feeling himself regain the senses in his elbow and leg.
It was as if nothing had happened. No fight, no amputation, nothing.
Of course, the limbs she'd created were green, but...
..for some reason, the wanderer found them quite endearing, somehow, having body parts gifted to him by someone who truly did seem to care for his wellbeing.
It was touching.
