"Just a little farther and we'll be there." He offered a hand, which she accepted as she stepped gracefully over a log. She was grateful to have taken the chance to change at the Kamisato Estate out of her opera costume and back into the traveling clothes she'd donned for the voyage.
Sand that had previously been victim to the tides squished beneath her boots, covering the tips of the toes in the yellow-wide clumping powder. She glanced out to the far distance, where shipwrecks dotted the coast along the easternmost part of northern Narukami. It reminded her of the stories Kazuha had told of his voyages, back when the Sakuou Decree and the Vision Hunt Decree were still in effect.
How many had been victims to the Shogun's law, to die such a horrible death among lightning and violet waves?
Yun Jin shuddered at the thought. Death by drowning was considered the worst possible death in Liyue. It carried the weight of Osial, Belial, the flooding of the Guili Plains, the loss of several of their gods, and most recently the tragedy at Wuwang Hill. That the Raiden Shogun condemned her people to such a fate, it left her feeling quite cold on that sunny afternoon.
"It was kind of your friends, to want to see me perform without my troop," Yun Jin said, mostly to break the silence. "I hope it truly did please them."
"They liked it," he assured her as they passed between towering cliffs. "Kamisato Ayaka is a dancer herself. She's always wanted to see the other styles beyond Inazuma."
"That's good." Yun Jin knew that she was better with a troupe, but to get a chance to perform for one of the Tri-Commissioners of Inazuma? Even if she was on a vacation of sorts, she could not pass up the chance. "Thank you, by the way. For wanting to take me."
He nodded, retreating into that place he had yet to let her in. The place in his head that she could not follow. A place in his head that had everything to do, she was learning, with the place they were going now.
They turned toward the inland, and a hill of grass with a barely-worn path leading up. There was something in the air here, the same heavy stillness that permeated the ruined village that Yun Jin had visited with the Traveler and the Divine Damsel of Devastation. It was laden with sorrow, rain yet to fall. And yet there was a sense of peace here, too, one that had not been present at the site of the old village.
His hand wrapped around hers more tightly and he did not say a word. Yun Jin did not dare to speak either in that silence.
Her heart pounded as she and Kazuha approached the makeshift shrine, hand-in-hand. Buried in the ground was a beautifully-crafted sword, much like the one resting on Kazuha's hip. In front of it was a lifeless Vision.
Yun Jin's breath hitched and she looked to Kazuha. He was looking at the shrine, but she could tell that he wasn't really seeing.
She wanted to find some way to break down the walls, to give him some kind of comfort in that distant place. But that was never her way, unrestrained emotion with no respect to the boundaries that had been set.
So she did all that she could—she gently squeezed his hand, a reminder that he wasn't alone anymore, or at least that he didn't have to be. He turned his eyes to her and managed to smile.
They both knelt before the makeshift shrine. Still, Yun Jin did not let go of his hand.
"I wish the two of you could have met." Kazuha bowed his head. "Tomo, this is Yun Jin."
"Hello, Tomo." Yun Jin felt something around her, not the wind for the air was still, but something beyond. "I would have liked to have met you, too. And thank you, for loving my Kazuha."
She felt his eyes on her, for the briefest of moments, like that last wall breaking down before her.
They knelt there for what seemed like a small eternity unto itself.
It was interrupted when Yun Jin felt something butt her elbow. She looked away from the broken blade in surprise to see a ghostly white cat nuzzling against her.
"Well, hello there." She scratched the cat's ear and was surprised to see it flop to the ground and roll over, exposing its belly to her. "What are you doing all the way out here?"
"Tama likes to stay around the shrine." Kazuha smiled and pulled a leaf out of his pocket, dangling it over the cat for her to play with. "I try to bring her food, when I can."
"Tama was Tomo's cat, then?" Yun Jin continued to scratch the cat's ear. "Well, we'll just have to visit you then, make sure that you're alright."
Tama purred her approval. As she did so, Yun Jin had the feeling that Tomo was giving approval of his own from beyond the grave.
