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Centuries woven by the string of destiny have eventually brought the Wanderer to the humid rainforests and bustling cities of Sumeru, which, against all odds, became a haven for he who had endured untold tragedies throughout a limitless existence. He could almost dare to call it home, a concept that felt frankly stranger than what lied skyward, beyond the iridescent veil of clouds and lies.
So strangely comfortable did the scenery and friendliness of people made the Wanderer feel that drastic change began to stir inside, a change of not only how he perceived the surrounding world, but his own person altogether: he allowed himself, for the first time in aeons of agony, to indulge unbridledly, without the plaguing fear of consequence awaiting like karmic punishment.
The Wanderer, although he denied it with almost laughable adamance, was fairly similar to humans when placed in the grandiose face of choice. After all, calling Sumeru cuisine simply vast was an insulting understatement, as each dish looked more intricate and tantalising than the last, each aroma more appetising. Akin to a siren’s call, never before had a meal seemed to hold such overwhelming control, its mere presence akin to hypnosis. Once the flavour melted on the tongue one would instantly be thrown into heaven of tastes and, as every paradise’s byproduct, of ruthless addiction. That’s how irresistible the food proved itself to be in the eyes of he who had denied himself happiness, or any human sensation for that matter, for so long that he thought he had grown benumbed by such earthly, measly pleasures.
Even for him, such diverse opportunities and choices proved to be much difficult, but the Wanderer had no less than an infinity left to roam that universe and uncover all of the unknown, thus he reckoned he was bound to try all dishes, eventually. It was just a matter of patience.
But it was precisely patience that he lacked.
And so, a frenzy of culinary relishing befell the unsuspecting Wanderer. From Aaru Mixed Rice, Biryani and butter chicken, to curry shrimp, Fatteh and fish with cream sauce, then followed Gilded Tajne, Lambad fish roll, Masala cheese balls and minty bean soup. But there was still mushroom hodgepodge to try, alongside panipuri, pita pocket and potato boat, thus he took advantage of his superhuman capacity to store all of it in his synthetic stomach. But he wasn’t done until he ate the sabz meat stew too, the samosa, the scented meat balls and the selva salad, while the shawarma wrap, tahchin, tandoori roast chicken and tulumba served as side dishes. Miraculously, though he despised sweets all the same, he still found himself craving and helpless before popular Sumeru desserts such as baklava, candied ajilenakh nuts, charcoal-baked ajilenakh cake, padisarah pudding and rose custard, which he too ate but did not end up enjoying, unlike the rest.
Not before long, no Sumeru traditional dish lay untouched by the Wanderer, driven by peculiar curiosity bordering on gluttony and a twisted sense of catharsis. It felt as if the world had— somehow — finally heeded his will.
He had almost been so foolish as to forget that everything does indeed possess of a consequence.
His body, he realised, had suffered a multitude of changes during the process of consuming to his ashen heart’s content. It seemed that, despite his nonhuman origins, his body, just like any other’s, was prone to gaining weight, an astonishing amount even, so much so that his own Anemo powers seemed to have been rendered useless, to some extent. Most notably, his ability to break free from the shackles of the earth by flying, a task that once had felt so natural to him he spent more time in the air than on the ground, now became quite the hassle. All because his… increased weight was dragging him down like anvils of voluminous fat and skin.
“Tch… how irritating,” he scoffed, trying again and again, although futilely, to raise from the ground, but surface still lay flat and hard underneath his feet as an infallible reminder of his constant embarrassing failures and newly acquired form. He was glad nobody else was around to witness his struggles, otherwise for sure his colleagues from the Akademiya would have been insufferable in their blithely kindhearted attempts to help him. Help, which he neither desired nor needed. It had been his actions, therefore it was his outcome to experience and deal with alone, he thought.
Still, it didn’t make it any less frustrating as his most important ability had been taken away from him at the chubby hands of his sheer gluttony. What a gluttonous beast he was, and yet he was utterly bereft of as little as a trace of regret. After all, there was nothing in the world worth regretting.
“Float, damn it!!” His rounded face contorted in excessive effort, his eyes closed in focus as his now much plumper form shook with waves of elemental energy. Frankly, he had never once allowed as much Anemo power to bubble up inside him, so he could have saved it in case of an unexpected brawl against The Doctor, but there he was, his hair bristling and his puppet carvings glistening cyan with blinding intensity. Bursting was imminent now, any moment…
He surged into the air above with a speed so thunderously high that the winds, which were supposed to adhere to his will, threatened to backfire and pierce his jelly layers of immaculate skin. The clouds dashed by him on either side, and an endless azure swallowed him whole as he rocketed towards the gilded horizon. Eventually, he managed to regulate the pressure of the gales like he knew best and once more felt his own being become one with the breeze, as if merging with the air itself in the euphoric sensation of ceasing to exist. He had learned, back when his will and choice had earned him his Vision, that flying was possibly the most liberating feeling in the world. How could he had ever considered trading it for something as trivial as food (although it had been insanely palatable and he was already salivating at the mere thought of it)?
In the gentle sun’s glow and with the rainforest below stretching like a reassurance of verdant, the Wanderer soared free, like an overgrown, overweight bird.