ONE OF TWO. - razor

Chapter Twenty

When Saturday rolled around, the ability to pretend Razor wouldn't be leaving Gandharva Ville the very next day was waning, the mood amongst their group sporadically turning sombre when silence would stretch mid-conversation.

It was, for this reason, a blessing that at least for that day and late into that night there would be Collei's uncles visiting. With the both of them around Razor was certain there would be enough chatter to keep everyone's mind off of more depressing matters. Tighnari had enlisted the help of his partner in the kitchen – Cyno doing what he could despite being out of his depth when it came to cooking – and Collei spent time adjusting her story for their short table-top game adventure that evening, chewing on her lip as she reviewed the details of it.

Razor, meanwhile, elected to spend some time in solitude.

He passed hours in the forest despite the occasional drizzles, wordlessly helping out any Forest Ranger who asked him to carry materials or fetch sacks and the like. He enjoyed being of service to others but, in truth, he had been going about in search of what to take back to Mondstadt with him. Tighnari had given him a bag in which he could pack his things in preparation for his trip, but upon receiving it the boy sat and stared at its empty, creasing frame with thought, for he had no idea what to actually fill it with.

What would be enough to give him a sense of his home here while he was away?

The city couple had arrived before he could reach a conclusion, all happy greetings and boisterous chatter as Collei was gifted the leather bag Razor had witnessed Cyno and Kaveh selecting together at the Grand Bazaar, and subsequently quickly fell into conversation with her said uncle. Hot food was shared over a constant flow of voices and laughter, disturbed only by playful squabbling and the rare seconds of quiet during which they concentrated on eating.

With the moon high in the sky and their lamps burning warmly, the table was cleared and a map of sorts was splayed out where dishes once were – dice, cards, notepads and pencils scattered around it. Collei proceeded to eagerly announce the start of their game and her role as the Master of it, to which all clapped and clinked glasses of fruit juice and wine.

Having taken his seat beside the girl, Razor did his best to follow along as she animatedly began her story and the adults introduced their characters with words he was unfamiliar with; Alhaitham claimed to be a human wizard, Cyno a warlock tiefling, Kaveh an elf bard and Tighnari a human druid. Razor was a bit baffled as to why they all got to pretend to be different people except for Collei, but she explained that it was her job to tell the story and for the characters to bring it to life.

He watched in riveted silence as the game progressed well into the heart of the night, with Kaveh theatrically yelling in despair at each unlucky die roll before sinking into strategic debates with the others.

He watched and listened and nodded along, until he took a moment to look at the faces of everyone around him – to listen to their words and to see how they interacted with one another so freely, and a realisation dawned upon him.

Despite him not actively participating, despite him being new to such situations, he did not feel to be an outsider looking in. No, he realised he had become one of the people he'd see that would be sitting at a table surrounded by dear ones, just as he had craved for years. He was no longer the shivering boy tiptoeing to gaze longingly through a hazy glass window of a house in Springvale, at a family merrily chatting inside their kitchen over a plentiful meal, illuminated by a soft light whilst he glistened under cold moonshine that struck his rain-drenched form. He realised that the seat at a table in a homely kitchen, with parents and a sibling and friends, the seat his heart had wept for throughout his childhood years, was now his own. No matter how different he was, it was his own.