Now that I'm rereading the story as I repost it I noticed how the author's wording is improving... You can see it especially in the newest chapter they released after disappearing out of nowhere for like.... 2 months. Well I guess that's a given. They probably had their secret Saitama training session in those 2 months lol. 

 I should do a saitama secret training session for my grades.... T_T

original author's notes: underlined words are intentionally mispelled :)

_____  start

Wanderer grumbled under his breath as he wrote his paper. Writing with a quill and a bottle of ink was no problem to him since they have a similar thing back in Inazuma, but spelling out words was proving to be a issue.

He muttered a curse as he hit another roadblock– asking Nahida for help was another problem too. He doesn't really have anything in-hand that he can give to her in return for helping him, so he decided to settle on trying his best to spell out the words himself.

"Necessary."

" What? " Wanderer tried to hide the surprise in his face as he realized Nahida was peering over his shoulder, reading his paper. He was about to push her off his back but her kind and curious eyes stared back at him, so he just huffed and returned his attention to his paper.

The archon pointed at a word in the second paragraph of his paper. "That. It's spelled as necessary, not nesesarry."

"Well it sounds like nesesarry, what do you want me to do." He complained as he crossed out the word and wrote a small correction on top of it so he can rewrite it properly later.

Nahida eyed the stack of crumpled papers on his side. Wanderer curiously glanced at her from the corner of his eyes as she inched towards the pile and opened one of the discarded papers.

"You better not be making fun of me in your head, Buer."

"Of course not." Nahida smiled. She leaned on the anemo-bearer's side as she continued to read his crumpled papers. Wanderer protested that she was preventing him from writing properly by leaning on him, but made no moves to push her off.

The air was filled with comforting silence as the duo carried out their prospective tasks.

The archon hummed as she read more of his papers. A couple of sentences were crossed out, while some words were misspelled and overlooked. Overall, the Inazuman's sentence formulation was commendable and it was easy to follow. It was like he intended for his work to be understandable to anyone of any age: children and elderly alike. Once he learns how to spell, he'd arguably be better at writing than most akademiyan scholars.

"I can help you with your paper." Nahida offered.

Wanderer was silent for a moment. "...I thought the Akademiya was all about student integrity? Wouldn't helping me be basically cheating?"

"You can think of me as a firefly leading you to the exit of a dim maze." Nahida started and Wanderer bit down an exhale. "Once you're out of the complicated maze, my purpose will cease, and from then on you must produce your own light to survive the dark nights."

"So... a tutor."

"Yes."

Dissecting Nahida's analogies was slowly becoming second-nature to the Wanderer, but he can't help but roll his eyes or wince at some of them. Today was no exception.

Don't get him wrong. Nahida's advice helped him a lot, especially when he first became her right-hand-man, but does she really always have to say it analogously?

" ...What do you want in exchange?" Wanderer tested.

Nahida pondered for a moment. She knew he'd refuse her help if she'd say I don't want anything in return again, so she smiled and said, "Can you make me your favorite dish?"

" That's it? " Wanderer raised his eyebrow suspiciously. He was used to people asking so much from him, so a small request like this always made him suspicious.

Nahida smiled. "Yes. I recall you cooked some food for the traveler on your birthday. She told me you cooked a non-sumerian dish so I assumed it was something you created by yourself?"

"Yes, I... came up with it." Wanderer winced. He wanted to say It was originally Niwa's recipe, but he decided not to voice it. If Nahida noticed him falter, she didn't point it out.

He looked down on the page he was writing to see ink piling up on one small area; coming from the tip of his quill. He grumbled and crumpled up the paper. Nahida caught the paper and opened it to read.

"Why don't you rewrite this on a new paper? Won't you forget what you wrote?" Nahida was careful to not touch the large splotch of fresh ink of the paper as she read.

"My memory's already reached perfection. How do you think I managed to hold a grudge for centuries?" He joked, albeit serious.

He didn't know when, but Nahida now had crayons on her hand. She was scribbling tiny pink ponies on the free space of his crumpled papers. The art's lines were shaky, like a kindergartener drawing for the very first time.

He mutedly grabbed a couple of blank papers from his pile and handed it to Nahida who uttered a small thank you.

"How did your day go yesterday? Did you and Cyno get along?" Nahida piqued as she continued to doodle.

___________

"Dorian McFish is a name fit for a fish. That is a bird."

"Yeah, and?" Wanderer held the bird protectively in his hand. It was the size of a round, long-tailed sparrow (it probably is one. Who knows.), but its tail pattern resembles that of a betta fish. He cooed as the bird chirped in his soft hold.

"Oh, Lesser Lord Kusanali, please give me the strength to get through this."

Wanderer snickered. He had more names in mind. Cyno better be thankful he didn't name the fish Swim Shady or James Pond.

The duo was currently on their way to the next location for their assignment. Prior to it, they stopped by Aaru Village to drop off the binded (criminal) scholar in the home of a woman named Candace.

It was Wanderer's first time meeting the fellow, so they ended up spending a bit of time in the village to introduce themselves to each other. Candace was fierce, but she treated him nicely. She even offered him a place to stay whenever he was in the desert, which he was grateful for, but he just ended up smiling and nodding politely as a reply.

"Hey, how smart are you?" Wanderer spoke up.

The matra hummed curiously, "where is this coming from?"

"It's coming from my mouth, where else?"

"Haha, so funny." Cyno deadpanned.

Wanderer was silent for a second before he spoke again. His voice sounded distant. "You're a matra, right? Isn't the Akademiya all about nerds? How'd you graduate?"

Normally, Cyno would be offended about these types of questions. The scholars he spoke with in the past always included the fact that he's from the Desert. They would talk about how it was amazing that out of all the desert-dwellers he was "lucky to be chosen" to be with them, forgetting the fact that everyone deserves to receive education.

All the matra could sense from the anemo-bearer was underlying, genuine curiosity, so he answered.

"It wasn't easy," he started hesitantly. "I had to take extracurriculars to fit the Akademiya's criteria. Not only are matras required to have a capable and fit physique, we are also expected to take intellectual-based tests like the rest of the scholars and pass it with flying colors."

"-so I had to study at night as I train during the day. My nose was always so deep in Aetiology books during my free time that I barely had any time to rest. " He added. "Thankfully I had a dear friend who helped me get through hardships."

Someone in particular with a singular green strand as bangs entered Cyno's mind. Wanderer hummed knowingly when he saw the pleasant expression on the matra's face.

"Oh? Have I met this... special someone before by any chance?" Wanderer teased.

"No. He is usually at the Gandharva Village, patrolling the forestry to make sure no oblivious scholar becomes the victim of nature again." Cyno answered. Wanderer rolled his eyes at the serious response.

"Anyways, you said you studied, right? What's the square root of 25?" Cyno's face soured at his question.

"I studied etiology, not math."

"It's literally the easiest square root question."

"Then how do you spell Onomatopoeia?" Cyno smiled smugly.

Wanderer sported an offended look. "That's not a real word. Stop making things up."

Cyno was about to make a sassy retort when his toe lodged on a random rock and made him fall on his face awkwardly. The matra's headpiece separated from his head, falling on the sand zig-zagilly like a paper would in a cartoon. It took a second for the realization to settle in before Wanderer laughed his ass off.

"HAHAHAHA— holy archons–" The inazuman held his stomach as he cackled. Cyno got up angrily and rubbed his reddening nose.

"Hahaha. Laugh all you want." Cyno deadpanned. As if on cue, his companion laughed even more and the matra resisted a sigh.

"O, that was hilarious." Wanderer replied amusingly as his laughs slowly died down. He felt like he was about to take the biggest breathing competition in his life despite not needing to breathe.

Cyno light-heartedly rolled his eyes as he got up and dusted himself off. He was gonna get back at the anemo-bearer one day.

A chirp caught the duo's attention. Wanderer panicked when he saw his shirt move– how did an enemy get so close to him without him noticing? He was about to conjure up an anemo-condensed weapon just to realize that it was Dorian McFish when the bird's head peaked out of his clothes.

"Oh, archons–! Were you sleeping this whole time?" The bird chirped in reply.

___________

"It sounds like you had fun. I'm glad you met a new friend." Nahida mused happily.

Wanderer glanced at the bird sleeping inside his shirt before nodding in agreement, yeah.

She was still drawing the same pink pony on the paper Wanderer gave her, but there was now a mini Nahida next to each of it. In one of them she was feeding the pony rainbow-colored grass, while in one of them Nahida was the pony and the pony was Nahida. Oh, and is that a mini version of him flying with the pony...?

Wanderer averted his gaze from the drawings. He assumed there was some sort of deeper message to the doodles (especially the pink, curly-haired, outgoing looking pony), maybe he just didn't have enough knowledge to dissect it yet, he theorized jokingly.

"Do you have enough information for your thesis?" the archon conversed.

"No. Not yet. The only notable thing we found was a stone slate and that's not enough content to write a thesis. Not for my standards, at least."

"Hm. I hope you find what you need."

Nahida was now done with her drawing. She blew away the excess crayon shavings on the paper and proudly presented it to her friend. "Look." Nahida ushered. The Inazuman looked at the now-finished drawing and smiled softly.

"Good job." He subconsciously patted the archon's head.

Nahida smiled widely in reply, "here." She handed the paper to the anemo-bearer. "this is for you."

Wanderer hesitated. "I don't have anything I can give you in return."

"Your presence itself is already enough." Nahida whispered as she pushed the paper in the inazuman's hand.

The inazuman took the paper. He was silent as he folded it. He placed it securely in his shirt, on the side where his cherished handsewn doll lies. 

____ end 

original author's notes: Nahida could be the smartest and most mature being in existence but that doesn't make her less of a child. Let's not shame people for being childish, please. anyways Scara and Nahida are bestfriends 🙏.

just wanted to include that part of their end notes cuz i thought it was a valid point :3 don't forget to support the original author on ao3!!