Chapter Text
Diluc sits in his cell, staring at a wall. The runes upon it flicker, as if staring back at him. Mocking him. He huffs.
He sits, his back to the wall. He’d been stripped of his Vision (not that he could do much with it past the shackles on his wrists) and most of his outer clothing had been removed to get rid of any possible weapons. Even his boots…and he’d liked the knife he kept the left one.
There’s not much else to do when the Abyss has him imprisoned for who knows how long.
The Abyss….Kaeya. Alive. He saw Kaeya standing before him, alive and….mostly whole (scars wrapping up his fingers, hidden by clothing, only to emerge again marring the side of his face-) when he’d thought he’d never see the man again….
Jean had….when Diluc returned to Mond, she remained professional, but her expression was dark, steely, pain lacing her words when she delivered the news. That Kaeya died that night….the night Father-
The night Diluc had apparently killed both his family members.
“It was an accident,” he protested, still unable to believe what he was hearing. He looked around, waiting for Kaeya to pop out and scare him, some sick prank the two cooked up to pay him back for leaving with no notice. “He wouldn’t- no, Kaeya he….he was fine I thought-”
Jean just looked away, her bangs obscuring her eyes. Diluc’s chest felt like it might split open. Tears threatened to fall for the first time in four years. He swallowed, and stood abruptly.
He wanted to blame the knights. To blame Jean. Someone….they should have found him sooner, how could they let this happen? Two deaths in one night? How could he- he couldn’t remember- why couldn’t he remember ???
How could he raise his sword against his own brother? After having to end his father’s life with the same weapon-
How could he be so stupid?
Jean refused to look at him. Diluc bowed formally, saying something about being….available if the knights needed anything.
Too little too late. Too little too late.
Diluc takes a shuddering breath, dragging his hands over his face to dislodge the memory, pointedly ignoring the clinking of the shackles on his wrists. Something eased in his chest seeing Kaeya earlier….some days ago? He glances at the tallies he’d used his belt buckle to scratch into the wall beside him. Six days ago….roughly. It’s hard to tell time in a domain. Time would warp anyway, and he could see no sunlight or moonlight in the room he was being kept in.
No doors. No windows.
But the stone around him would change color periodically. Or maybe it was moss on the wall surfaces. Hard to tell, but it was interesting to look up and notice the dreary gray hues around him had melded into a sort of deep purple. Sometimes blue, sometimes green or blue. Every time it felt long enough, he’d scratch in another tally.
It might not mean anything here. Whatever he could pass the time with.
Six days. He’d not seen Kaeya since. He clings to the memory of him breathing, scarred or no. He hadn’t killed two members of his family that night. Only one.
Other than color changing stone, there were the odd runes etched into the walls. He’d given up trying to understand Abyssal script. Even so, tracing along the characters he found some….tingling warmth from them. Magic perhaps.
He’d tried pushing on them, and sometimes he would get a response. A wall would open to a small closet-like area. And….a basin. Or something. It was something of a washroom, most likely. There were no glyphs inside, so it was unlikely to find an escape route through the washroom.
Pressing other glyphs would cause individual stones to shift, but nothing as extreme. Without his doing, sometimes a hole would open up, and a plate of…what he assumes is meant to be food slides in. He can’t afford to be picky here, even if the food tastes like an odd mix of moss and salt. The platter is also always gone when he wakes.
It’s when he’s tilting the plate in hand, wondering if it can be a weapon, when a wall suddenly disappears. Diluc flinches, clambering to his feet.
A hydro abyss mage floats into his cell. The wall reappears behind it before he can react. Still, it’s good to know there’s an outside still.
“Greetings, Master Diluc. It is a pleasure to speak with you.” the….thing warbles in broken Mondish. Its accent is thick but not terrible. Unsettlingly similar to how his staff talks, mixed with how Kaeya sounded when he first came to live with them.
Diluc narrows his eyes at the creature, holding still. He holds the plate behind himself, blocking any view of it with his body.
“We hope you are comfortable. We would like to ask our guest some questions.” the mage says, its voice sounding close to laughter. That causes Diluc’s lip to curl.
“Your guest, my foot.” he snarls. The mage only chortles.
“Apologies if it’s not to your high standards. What do you humans like in a room? Blankets? Hmmmm yessss we can get some….blankets.” the creature muses, tapping the chin area of its mask. Diluc rolls his eyes. As if some blankets will make him more willing to talk and remain a prisoner here. The thing seems to eye him now.
“Speaking of guests! We would very much like to pay your city a….visit,” the mage hums, swaying in the air. Diluc clenches his jaw. There it was. The creature before him giggles. “What is the best route to visit inside the walls, hmm? You must know.”
The uncrowned King of Mondstadt scowls, lowering his posture. “How should I know? I live at the Winery, and I’ve been gone for four years,” Diluc says, eyes narrowing. “Things change. But not enough to want guests of your ilk.”
The abyss mage laughs shrilly in his face. “You would do well to cooperate, Master Diluc. We have a very tight schedule we’d like to-”
Before the mage could finish its “threatening” speech, Diluc lunges forward to smash the plate over its head, making it shriek and drift dizzily in the air. He moves further, as fast as he can, reaching for the wall that had been open earlier and-
Yes! It wasn’t solid at the moment, possibly to allow for the mage to exit again. So he dives through, coming out into a long, dimly lit hall. He looks left, right, up, down- the right. He thinks he came from the right, almost a week ago. So he bolts for it-
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!” a shrill voice cries out, somewhere above him. A flash of blue. He keeps running, bare feet slapping the floor. Go, go, he can take some mages even without his Vision but he needed to see-
His sight distorts suddenly, his world going wobbly and blue tinted. He gasps, and-water pours down his throat. No. No no no not this-
A hydro mage caught him in a water bubble. If he swims fast enough, maybe he could-
The shackles on his wrists suddenly feel heavier, essentially immobilizing his arms in the water. He kicks harder, but can’t seem to get anywhere. There’s nothing but water all around, seeming to move with him.
A distorted couple of mages appear in front of his new prison. He can hear dim laughter, some scolding maybe-
He needs to breathe. He can’t breathe. Not here- he-
He wasn’t prepared for this at all, and involuntarily tries to drag in a breath. More water down his throat, flooding his lungs. He chokes, only making it worse. Dizzying bubbles float by his line of sight, black spots seeming to spread in front of his very eyes, the abyss mages fading behind it-
Dammit.
The water seems to roar in his ears as darkness claims him.
—----------
Consciousness slams back into him, and the first thought he has is air-
He coughs. Hard.
Water pours out of his mouth, down his face, out of his system, as he wheezes and gasps for air-
There’s shouting of all different tones over his head. Someone sounds angry. All he can do is cough, curling into a ball on his side. A small, warm hand slaps his back. A squeaky voice nearby….a feminine sounding one essentially snarling back-
Diluc groans, awareness slipping from him like the water draining from his lungs…..
He doesn’t know how long it is before he gathers his bearings. He’s still on the ground, but it’s….a little warmer. He lifts his head weakly, looking around. No one was here anymore and….he was back in his prison. He sighs, throat stinging. He looks down.
They did indeed get those blankets to him, it looks like.
How gracious.
—-----------
Time seems to crawl onward from there. Every color change on the walls, he scrapes in another tally mark. It’s been a few weeks now…
Over that time, he’d been interrogated with increasing frequency….and force. There were no more hydro mages, thank Barbatos, but the shocks from electro mages weren’t all that much better.
Sometimes, the traveler’s sister (Lumine….?) would come in with the creatures to question him. Something about the Key to the Compass, and where they might find it. He had nothing to give them, not really, even if he were willing. There was an old folk tale passed down through the Ragnvindr clan that….might have some relevance, but….he couldn’t risk the safety of his home.
So electricity coursed through his body in lieu of his silence, and would leave him drained and weak.
He had nothing to tell them. There was no point in keeping him here.
There’s one time when he’s laying still, and the wall in front of him fizzles. Light steps break the silence, and a paper plate (they’d stopped with the porcelain dishware after his escape attempt) gets set gently on the floor.
The hand is clad in a fingerless glove, the exposed fingers gnarled with scars.
“Kaeya…?” he croaks, going to sit up. He was tired of how heavy these shackles were getting-
When he gets into a sitting position, he’s once again alone. All the walls are solid. He grits his teeth.
“Kaeya….please…..I’m…..I-I want to-” What? What could he want from the man he’d scorned? The man he’d nearly killed? He sucks in a breath. “Please….” What could he even do?
Diluc wants to throw the food across the room. Kick the walls. Scream. Something. To light his heart on fire and burn this whole place down.
With himself inside.
Instead he picks up the plate of food in trembling hands. His stomach turns, but he has to keep up his strength. He has to.
So Diluc watches the wall, and he eats.
—-----------
Thirty-two tallies on the wall. They’re starting to blur a bit to his eyes. He’s tired….
He’s always so tired lately.
He’d tried to maintain a workout regimen to keep from atrophying. But with the lack of proper nutrients and environment, it was inevitable.
“The Key. Where do you keep it?” A voice hisses, and metal tipped fingers yank his hair back, jerking his head up to meet the pinpricks of light in the Abyss lector’s helmet. Diluc bares his teeth.
“In hell. Where you belong.” he rasps. The helmet tilts….
And electricity sets every one of his nerve endings on fire.
—---------------
“I’m not sure how much longer……….this…..”
“Now that he…….we can’t……”
“I know. It’s just……..he’s…..”
“He burned you.”
Diluc’s fingers twitch, and he gasps shallowly. He’s too tired to open his eyes. The familiarity of one of the voices is….comforting. It softens the painful edges grating on his senses.
A soft hand presses against his chest. He feels another, larger hand come to rest on his temple.
“He’s still my……….”
“....I know.”
Wind rustles against him, cooling and soothing his aches and pains. Chilling energy then numbs the hurt, easing it all away.
He sinks again into darkness, comforted by soft hands and even softer voices around him.
—--------------
Fourty-four tallies. Surely someone would find him in here….right?
His strength really was starting to fail him. Nowadays, when food gets brought in, Lumine….Aether’s sister. She helps him eat. He tries not to think about how much her worried expression resembles Aether’s.
It’s humiliating. But he needs to stay alive….
And the shackles seem a little heavier every day. Sapping his strength, sapping any extra energy he might have. Cold, biting….
And yet he can never get out of these walls. Not like that one day…..the Abyss became too careful after that.
Today, it seems a Pyro Abyss Lector had come to “speak” with him. Diluc forces himself to sit up to greet it. Might as well maintain some sort of dignity.
“Greetings, fallen king.” the Lector hisses, and Diluc snarls back. It waves a clawed hand, some sort of furnace….totem thing spawning into existence nearby. The warmth is threatening and yet so familiar, Diluc can’t help watching it closely. “Would you care to reveal the secrets of your throne?”
Diluc refuses to look the creature in the eye, keeping his full attention on the furnace. He hears the telltale flicks of fire being summoned over the Lector’s claws. “We have great need for that Key. Only you could know of its location ....”
The flames swirl within the furnace, creating almost mesmerizing patterns. Any information he had would pale in comparison to what the Gunnhildr clan would know. But they would never have Jean. Not that he….had power to keep her safe from the Abyss. But even so….as he drew breath, they would never have her.
Diluc glares at the Abyss Lector, and he spits at its feet. It laughs.
“I see defiance still burns bright in your heart.” It chuckles. The flames around its hands brighten. It’s getting a little harder to breathe with this much open flame in an enclosed space. “Perhaps we can burn that defiance to leave ashes of truth in its wake.”
The flames roar, bathing the room in blinding light. Diluc screams.
“The power of flame compels you!” The lector cries, almost in chorus with Diluc’s pain. Fire is all he can see, all he can feel, eating him alive, consuming him whole, it hurts it hurts it hurts-
There’s a sickening squelch . Another scream joins his, drowning him out. Diluc slumps sideways to the floor, both wanting to pull away from and revel in the coolness of the too familiar stone floor. He’s barely able to bite back a strangled whine.
Even with the haze of pain blanketing his mind, the irony of the situation is not lost on him. How fitting, to die from fire he’d so mercilessly rained upon his loved ones….
“-Luc. Hey, Diluc, stay with me……..” A voice, familiar and ragged, tugging him out of his stupor. He clings to it weakly, even though he so badly wants to just slip away.
“Stars above…..stupid. Why couldn’t we have the chill Pyro Lector today….” the familiar voice mutters. Diluc only groans in response….he otherwise has no good answer.
A hand cups his cheek, a thumb brushing under his eye. It’s blessedly cool, quieting the fire working to consume his skin. He leans into the touch, and some sort of….frost creeps over him. It stings, but even that serves as a welcome relief compared to what came before….
“You don’t even know anything, do…….stubborn bastard,” he says (he….? Yes….Diluc knew this man very well….) Another hand brushing his bangs back. “All for some stupid……..Compass entrance….” Some quiet, muttered swears. Wow, and he chewed him out for that kind of language….
Something creaks. A heavy weight suddenly dissolves from around his wrists. He wants to sob in relief when he feels elemental energy sing through his blood again….he doesn’t have the strength. Still, he can feel the thrum of his Vision nearby….it rights so many wrongs in his world so quickly.
“Good enough….hang in there…..let me take care…………okay….?” The voice says. It’s hard to follow….sound is fading in and out. Arms wrap around him, tugging, adjusting-
The world seems to lurch, and Diluc loses his tenuous grip on consciousness.
—-----------------
“.....this time, and now…….cover gets blown. Thanks alot…..”
Kaeya. He’s….here. His voice rumbles against his ear, and Diluc can’t help using his greatly depleted strength to try and curl closer to the thrumming heartbeat of his not dead brother. Everything hurts, but this…..is grounding….he raises his hand, no longer burdened by those damn shackles, wrapping his fingers into the fabric by his face.
“Oh don’t you start. …….so much trouble……what a mess.” he hears Kaeya snap at him. Diluc manages a weak hum in response.
His….brother says more things. It’s hard to process it all. Hard to stay awake. He has no idea where they’re going. Just that Kaeya’s….walking. Carrying him somewhere. He’d be more indignant, but he’s just so tired….
“You’re leaving.”
Kaeya stops, and Diluc looks up blearily. A young woman, standing in the hall, blocking their path. Her light gold hair shimmers like starlight in the dark corridor. It’s nearly blinding. He buries his face in Kaeya’s shirt again.
“I am.” Kaeya says, voice calm and cold. Diluc loses track of their conversation for a bit….They argue for what seems like hours, and yet only seconds.
There’s some movement, Diluc getting jostled as he takes a fighting stance. Black spots dance across his eyesight. It hurts -
“Enough. Just….go.” Lumine says.
Never had anyone sounded so lonely.
—---------
“Please…..give this to him. When….you see him again.”
“....I will.”
“Take care.”
“.....you too. Lumine.”
—-----------------
Diluc wakes to fresh air brushing against his face for the first time in….he’s not exactly sure how long anymore. The world bumps and lurches periodically, filled with the dull rolling sounds of….a cart….?
Prying his eyes open, he looks up….up….at the sky. Stars twinkling, seeming to smile down at him.
Shakily, he reaches up to them….he’d….missed the sky……
A hand, cool and gentle, catches his wrist as he loses strength. He looks over to….an achingly familiar face. Dark skin, dark hair draping over deeply scarred flesh, an eyepatch-
“I’m…sorry.” Diluc croaks, reaching for the scars. It feels so inadequate, pitiful in the literal face of all the pain he’d caused. Kaeya stares at him, expression unreadable. The star in his eye seems to bore into his soul.
Then he tugs Diluc’s hand to his unscarred cheek, pressing it close. An arm wraps around him, pulling him against his chest.
“I know Luc…..” his little brother mutters, once lost, now found. He takes a shuddering breath, wrapping Diluc more securely in the blankets. Diluc’s eyes drift shut on their own accord. He feels a gentle kiss pressed to his temple.
“Let’s go home.”