Chapter Text
On the Kalends of May in the second year of the reign of Acting Grandmaster Jean Gunnhildr, Charles tells you there's a stranger at the tavern. There’s no pattern to it—he comes and goes on the most random of days, and he’s always dressed the same. Sometimes, he comes in when it’s morning; sometimes, he enters in the middle of the tavern’s busiest hour. He sits lonesome by the table in the corner near the stairs, nursing a cup of Misty Garden, as strong as the bartender on shift would dare to make; one tea drinker among the perpetually drunk customers of Angel’s Share. All of the bartenders you personally hired have seen him come in at least once during their shifts, corroborated by time-stamped reports.
It’s not that hard to track him either, According to seven of your employees, he’s tall enough to be spotted from a crowd of Mondstadters, with a fondness for the sepia-cool tones of Liyue—brilliant gold, and russet brown. He wears a Geo vision on his back, they say. Well-learned and well-mannered with the impeccable grace of a scholar. Every bit the ideal Liyuean.
They also agree that there is one thing all his appearances have in common: he never shows up when you're around.
“Same order and same table three days ago, Master Diluc,” Charles dutifully reports as you spray diluted lye on the table top, and wipe the surface clean with a rag. It's the last table to clean before the Angel's Share officially closes for the night—though it would be more accurate to say it's a few hours into the day after, since same night closings are rare. “I asked him if he needed anything else, ‘cause that’s just standard customer service fare, but he just waved me off. Said he was waiting for someone.”
You give a noncommittal hum. You think of ashen hair stained with gold at the ends, tied back to reveal a countenance as fair as the man in that dream, the marbled god in the open.
You almost scoff. What a joke.
“What was that, Master Diluc?”
“Nothing.” You shake your head, and clear your throat. “And what of last week’s accounts when I left for Fontaine?”
Blessedly, Charles remains silent as he sets down a small folder on the table. As you sling the rag cloth over your shoulder, you thumb through its contents. The previous week's chart of accounts is detailed, thorough and complete—as far as you can see. You nod your approval, turning away from him. “Excellent work, as always.”
You can feel it—Charles’ curious stare linger at the back of your head as you pick up the folder, tuck it into the courier bag you hike up your shoulder. It remains there as you make your final sweeps of both floors, waiting diligently for you to finish. It is when you make for the door, hand on the knob, that Charles clears his throat.
You turn to look at him. He gestures to the rag on your shoulder. But when you hand it over, he hesitates.
“Master Diluc,” he says. “Aren't you gonna ask for his name?
It's precarious territory for those in your line of work. In business—names mean everything. You could be nobody, or you could be King, just on the strength of association. But in war—names mean death. The more untouchable a name had seemed to the public eye, the more it would be trusted with less. After all, a prominent name presents risks, with ever-present targets constant on the back, after all. This is how your father died: because of the sin of bearing the name that threatened the Fatui. In return, you chased the ghost of vengeance to rectify the weight of that name, to prove to your brothers that you were worthy of carrying the same cause. Diluc Ragnvindr—you have fought and struggled and clawed your way to victory. You had lived through the things your father and countless brothers of your cause could not. You had lived through the night you thought you wouldn't as the cliffs of Western Liyue loomed over you like a silent grave, the bitter taste of defeat ever-present in the back of your throat until it wasn't.
He'd told you that you would live, didn't he? Reeking of conviction without sufficient logic nor reason. And you did. Despite everything, you had lived anyway.
So you shrug one shoulder, and twist the knob. Sunlight streams into the empty, empty space of the tavern. If he promised you something so personal—a name, then he'd give it to you himself. You know this. You know this.
The sun has barely risen, the sleeping silhouettes of Mondstadt's buildings still lining the streets. You tell Charles: “I have no need for it.”
There's a man in your bed. You're lying down on eiderdown, and the man has you held in his embrace. If it weren't for the rhythmic rise and fall of the chest pressing against your back, you'd have thought that you were held by a statue with how tightly he holds you to himself.
You're not imagining it. You blink, and you blink, and you blink. There are still arms around your waist, and the almost silent crooning of sleep right next to your ear. Cautiously, you settle your hands above his—charcoaled and lined with symmetric angular veins of gold, the only light source there is in the room.
You have no idea how you got here.
It doesn't feel real. Everything is too vivid — the air hot enough to shimmer and distort your line of sight; the fabric of the covers draping in several places over the two of you, hyper-aware of the press of skin to skin, bodies in close proximity. At the same time, it feels oddly realistic for a dream. Your eyelids feel particularly heavy, limbs similarly numb, like you have just awoken from a long nap, with the desire to return to sleep once more. Your neck is sore from the position you have found yourself in, and there is a chunk of hair stuck in your mouth.
You slowly blink, though this is no conscious action of yours. It's eerie—the way this body not of yours feels like it could have been yours. But not-you tries to say something through the mass of hair in your not-mouth, and inevitably gives up when your efforts to rouse your companion makes the man move closer, almost draping half of himself over not-you.
You huff inwardly as your eyes adjust to the darkness. Though the room you find yourself is sparsely furnished, you find it is not without life: you first spot the dull shine of a celadon vase lined by spider-webbed gold on his shelves. As your eyes follow the continuous line of proud displays, you can tell that even the relics and oddities on the shelves are curated. An ornate time-piece frozen in time, an emerald brooch in the process of eroding, a crystalfly preserved in amber, a carved jade plate.
“And what do you think of my newest spoil?” comes a deep rumble, still heavy with sleep, next to your ear.
If you freeze in place as you recognize the voice, your body doesn't respond. Instead, your body moves with a mind of its own, turning around to press your palms against the man's—scaled?—shoulders in a half-hearted attempt to shove him away from you. Words spill from your mouth in a voice that is not yours. Not-you mumbles, something gibberish and nonsensical due to the clump of hair in your mouth.
Still, the head beside you slightly moves away, and ephemeral amber slowly blinks at you. At least, you have the sense he's looking at you.
He purses his full lips, “oh dear,” before the warmth recedes to pull away, and not-you blindly chases after it in the dark. Not-you solidly collides with his solid torso just as he reaches out to light the sole candle on the nightstand. There's no doubting the presence of adeptal magic when the flame that comes into being is strangely golden, bathing the space in the hard, angled light unlike that of usual candlelight.
“—Noctua,” he's saying, as not-you squints at him. Not-you pries the clump of hair away from your mouth, but not even that nor his distinctly draconic features could distract from the loveliness of his smile, eyes glowing like fireflies in a cave.
Not-you turns from him.
“Won't you answer me?” He says, almost sullen, though the impact of it is stripped away by how he finds your hand under the covers, threading his fingers through yours as though it is easy as anything. They feel strangely leathery and cold in your hand, though it is not unwelcome.
“Too dark,” not-you says. “Too early. Come back to sleep.”
“I thought you rose with the sun.”
“The sun,” not-you thinly says, “is clearly not up yet.”
“Ah,” and the bed dips behind you. “Indulge me, then.”
“You want to know what I think? Fine.” Not-you turns around, and meets his eye like a hunter would his prey, though it does not diminish the sharp-toothed smile you find upon the other's lips. “I think you are getting too capricious and too pedantic in your old age. Furthermore, you need to find better hobbies. You cannot keep on conning your people for your own amusement. Will you let me go back to sleep now?”
When Rex Lapis laughs, the earth follows him. The walls softly sway, in proportion to the measure of his breaths and the breadth of his delight, and he draws you close. This is where the boundaries of you and not-you falter: here, in the cage of his arms, which shake with his warm, warm laughter, you feel invincible. Nothing could touch you here. When he looks at you like that, you feel like you're capable of anything and everything. “Quick-witted as always.”
“Someone has to do it for you, lest you develop such an enormous ego that Liyue shan't ever recover from,” you reply in kind. Rex Lapis: Warrior God, Groundbreaker, Lord of Geo, and the Prime of Adepti—imperious, indomitable Rex Lapis in incognito. Yes, you've heard of his escapades from the previous week. Just because he thinks them charming does not change the unbecomingness of his actions.
“I understand that you disagree with my actions, but why so?” He asks, tilting his head. “I believe mortals will not retain any memory of this particular deed. I have not performed miracles nor have I appeared as an endless pile of gold. Why do you think so?”
“Let me think: a prince in onyx robes and amber eyes who has made a fool out of an antique collector by telling them tales from millenia ago: I wonder who matches such a description,” you shake your head at him. “Make no mistake, Rex: this will be your most prominent tale yet.”
“If you say so,” he says easily. “Though I disagree, as I do not perceive my own actions as anything conspicuous.”
Of course, he wouldn't. “Fine. Now, will you let me sleep?”
“Of course, my dearest.” Here, he changes his grip on your hand—reverent and gentle as he takes it by the knuckles, claws clicking at the action. It lends a strange, roguish charm to the way he leans in close and made more intimate by the way his dark, silken hair falls around him as he does, framing his face, like a curtain drawing close to the world. In this moment, a thought comes unbidden: he's the most beautiful man you have ever met and he's in your bed. He's the most beautiful man you have ever met and you could stare at him for forever. His gilded eyes never leave you, and in between your own measured breaths, you blink—
once, as your breath catches at the way his lips brush against the bow of your lips like a benediction, and you blink, heart stuttering—and you blink one last time—
You wake up.
The bed is empty.
There is this gaping hole in your chest, and there is this desperate, desperate longing about the hole that asks to be scabbed over. It feels enormous, incomparable to anything else you have ever felt. You feel torn, inexplicably so. Whichever boundary had governed that which was you and that which was not-you is blurred; he who is not you mourns for his heart, mourns for the empty space in your bed. Your hands twist in the covers as the shadow of whoever that was not-you attempts to—reach out—for, for something like the ghost of a kiss across scarred knuckles and the phantom sensation of that affection and the ringing of warm laughter in your ear, something—
But there is nothing. Diluc Ragnvindr: outliver of your forefathers; you, who carries the sin of your name—how do you miss a body that was never there at all?
You jerk upright, against all instinct. The way up is vague—you don't remember navigating the hallways, pulling on the collapsible ladder, nor the climb. But when you come to yourself—you are on the floor, coughing as you've kicked up dust on your way up. You look up at the statue, dust particles suspended in the lone ray of moonshine. The statue sits there just as it had on that spring morning from so long ago: reverent, gentle and ethereal, a brand behind your eyelids.
Your eyes burn. Vaguely, you can feel the salt upon your cheeks and taste it on your lip as you stare, stare, and stare, knees bruised.
It's almost as mocking as the statue of the seven. Leave me alone. I don't know you. Your fingers itch furiously against your sides, fingernails biting into the flesh of your palm. I don't.
Kaeya surveys the current hideout of the Abyss Order, located in Mondstadt's catacombs, through a solitary opening in the floor of Stormterror's Lair.
Or rather, what's left of it. Though it wasn't anything particularly violent, it had not been as smooth nor as clean as your usual kills.
Sloppy, Kaeya would usually say. Except he had looked at you, and whatever he had held on his tongue remained unsaid as he looked over the catacombs instead. You don't know why he bothers—it's close to dawn, and neither sun nor moon had been in any condition to light the rooms below.
“Are you done?” You ask, wiping gore from the edge of your blade with a piece of cloth you had in your pocket. There is an abandoned roll of bandages tucked in a small drawstring sack beside you that Kaeya had tossed your way twenty minutes prior, though the concern is not needed. The afterburn of electro on your thigh and the gash on your cheek is not fatal by any means and quite frankly, the resource would be better used for people who needed it more than you.
“Don't be stupid, Diluc,” Kaeya doesn't quite snap at you as he fully turns to face you, but it's close enough. Whatever he had looked at must not be interesting enough. “Don't you know it's in my best interest to keep you alive? If you so much as catch an infection, Mondstadt's economy would surely crumble on the spot.”
You let out a snort as he tentatively sits close on a stable pile of rubble. It's close enough that Kaeya could probably stop him from falling on his face if the wind blows him over, but far enough that it's not too obtrusive. Like skirting around a skittish animal, you think, and you're entirely sure if you're offended by the implications of that.
Maybe you're a bit more concussed than you thought.
“I'm serious. As a responsible citizen, I cannot simply stand by and let Mondstadt's principal earner die from his own stupidity.” He nudges the roll of bandages closer, along with a bottle of high-grade Snezhnayan vodka for good measure.
“You know I don't drink.” You pick up the bandages in a grudging truce. You don't bother with the alcohol: you'll clean the wounds yourself later. The most pressing issue is the time: with every minute you linger in this gods-awful place, the sun slowly rises, and the fewer shadows there are to hide you from sight. “Why do you have that, anyway?”
“I asked for it nicely,” Kaeya shrugs as if to say suit yourself, and picks it up for himself. Honestly, you don't need to know which poor Fatui schmuck got his provisions stolen. “Why are you here?”
Straightforward. “Eyewitnesses reported an increase in Abyss Order activity north of Wolvendom,” you simply say. Here in Old Mondstadt, there is nothing but the night sky and the northern winds to witness this conversation. There is nothing to hide, but you gauge the minute expressions on his face anyway. “So I checked.”
Kaeya takes a while to respond. He pries the cork from the bottle soundlessly, just as they have done many times in their etiquette classes in the old Ragnvindr estate. He makes no move to offer you a sip or to drink it himself, content to just swirl the contents of the bottle around as he regards you, solitary eye searching and searching.
Without warning, he forcefully flicks the contents of the full bottle at your face.
“Kaeya!” It doesn't sting as much—you have suffered worse fates and lived, but you hiss anyway as Kaeya repeats the action: alcohol soaking the gash and the front of your clothes—luckily, the cloak had been thick enough to prevent the alcohol from reaching the burn on your thigh. Still, you irritatedly summon your claymore: heavy and ironclad in your grasp as you stab it into the ground in front of you.
Stop being dramatic is what he would've told you, except the heavy weight of his starry eye settles on you and the almost-imperceptible shake of your grip on the hilt of your claymore, as sure as a bullet through the eye, and he abruptly says, instead: “I planted those reports.”
The anger escapes you in one breath. The claymore disappears and the hand that struggled to form a damned proper grip drops to your side as something akin to shame lodges in your throat.
“Nobody has seen you in weeks,” he hisses, and there— there it is, the subtle, maddened scorn. “None of your men know where you are, and the last time they ever saw you was when you walked out of Angel's Share in late spring. They weren't the only ones suspicious of receiving orders from a man who never told them he was away.”
You don't make a single sound.
“Adeline has been asking for you,” he continues. “And what am I meant to tell her, Diluc?” He gestures at you. “Shall I tell her about how horrible you look? A pasty complexion, dark circles under the eyes, and bruised knuckles? Or should I tell her about how sloppy you've been?”
“I get it, Kaeya,” you snap—you've seen Kaeya develop the skill in real time, provoking fools into answering, and you've never been fond of being on the receiving end of it. Before you've thought it through clearly, you say, “You don't need to do that. I was planning on heading back soon before—”
Kaeya's eyebrow raises, damning. Admitting it was a mistake—this he knows, and so do you. “When?”
“—What?”
“When are you coming back?”
You can't quite stomp down the urge to bristle, an instinctual response grown from those airy childhood memories behind Mondstadtian flowers carved into wooden beams and overgrown cream walls. You count down one, two, three, except your hand still shakes, knuckles stinging. In the gloves you’ve pulled over in a hurry, they had scraped against the rough leather with every movement. In that fight, they bled as the itching, yellow-brownish skin split open. Your body feels like one giant bruise, aching and aching. Your head not only spins from the hit you've taken to the back of your neck but also from the weight of many sleepless nights. You're lucky the hit hadn't broken your neck.
Yes, you’ve been sloppy. At least, in the cover of the night and the cut of your cloak, the severity of your wounds remains unseen.
Kaeya throws a chunk of ice your way, conjured by his vision. By instinct, you manage to catch it with your other hand. “I ought to freeze you to this damned place,” he says as he stands up, brushing dirt from his pants. “But I'm sure Adelinde would rather you get back and sleep.”
He brushes past you to leave, and for a long time, you sit on that ledge, ice still in hand, as the sun slowly climbs over the horizon. You really should head home—the sooner you set off for Dawn Winery, the less you are likely to be seen by stray merchants and drunk Springvale villagers getting lost on their way home.
But something keeps you in place. You carefully peel off your gloves, bruised knuckles temporarily relieved by the cold kiss of Mondstadt's northern winds, as you wrap the ice in cloth, and place it above your knuckles. You watch, watch, and watch as the speck of blue disappears in the distance, and listen to the sound of this abandoned city from the days of yore, older than your dreams, slowly waking up.
The day goes on.
Venti almost seems like he's avoiding you since you've been welcomed back from your impromptu trip, with a jar of sleeping pills for preventing nightmares waiting for you on your bedside table. As far as you and your men know, the bard hasn't been seen performing in any of Mondstadt's squares. It's been a while since he was last spotted badgering your bartenders at Angel's Share for free drinks, which you had thought of at the time as an unusually heroic display of self-restraint.
But as the days bleed into weeks, his disappearance now is just suspicious, which is why you find yourself in the open space stretching underneath the cover of Vennessa's tree. You huff as you make your way to the Statue of the Seven near its trunk, a crate of the finest Dawn Winery wine that had been aging for one hundred sixty-two years wedged underneath your arm. It's serene here—a place of quiet in day, and made even more so in the night.
No stray hilichurl nor slime blocks your path on the way. If the roots of the great tree on a bad day were troublesome to navigate, they are barely noticeable now—roots ungnarled, the ground not muddied. Though the evening air is cold, it is not frigid nor unwelcoming. It's a good night, tonight.
So when you stand upon the crumbling stone circle around the statue of Barbatos poised holy, an image severely disconnected from the face you knew that had frequented the city and your bar, you raise the crate above your head, intending to smash it upon the holy ground when—he appears in front of you, tips of his hair glowing like small lamp grass as he hovers mid-air, in the carefree way those with Anemo visions had tended to do. He catches the crate at the last moment with surprising strength, preventing the wine inside from tipping over.
"Master Diluc!" He nervously laughs, though he does not look you in the eyes. He tries for an easy smile, but it still doesn't quite reach his eyes. "There's no need to drag a perfectly good crate of wine into this!"
You raise an eyebrow, tucking the crate under your arm once again. "How much did you hear?”
Venti grimaces, a quick thing that you wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't been watching his face. “I didn't mean to,” he admits. “I heard about the Abyss Order, but I left after." At your lack of belief, he hurriedly adds: "Bard's honor.”
“I didn't mean just that,” you say. “How long have been watching over me?”
At that, Venti's good humor melts away. For a long, eerie time, all he does is stare at you as he opts to remain silent. It's unnerving, the way the evergreen leaves of Vennessa's tree stop rustling as the winds still.
“A while,” he tentatively replies, after a while. Then, on a more light-hearted note: “You weren't meant to know, y'know?”
“No,” you say, half-suspecting, half-insisting. “You know something. I couldn't have made it to the catacombs or the manor on my own, and I know the wind led me there on both occasions. You knew I wasn't sleeping well, and you know exactly why.”
It's damning and accusatory and half-baked, but Venti's expression grows somber anyway. He doesn't take as long to answer as the last time, but this time he settles on a maybe. He says he can't disclose anything, but he could confirm or deny your suspicions.
You take your time on this one as Venti remains silent, waiting and waiting, eyes too bright, too unreal.
You take a gamble. “Rex Lapis,” you venture.
The air is too humid, too still. He tilts his head at you, as though nothing is wrong. “What about him?”
“Does it have something to do with him?”
Venti looks at you, unblinking. Carefully, he says: "Rex Lapis is dead.”
And that's that.
Dangerously, you think: it's not a no.
Lionheart, was what they'd call you from the moment you picked up your claymore. From knighthood to the point you'd left your post—they had called you a knight with a lionhearted sleeve. It was what Eroch had called you behind your back when you had left Mondstadt on your crusade for justice. Lionhearted Ragnvindr, he said to someone during the funeral. He had smiled then and put his hand upon your shoulder as though he hadn't taken your father's bravery for himself. Brave, but foolish.
Look who is dead, years after. Look who isn't.
But you remember those words on the first night you manage to fall asleep, hoping for something dreamless and peaceful, when you open your eyes to a polearm flung at you. You don't even register the moment it hits. All you see is the unremarkable face of the soldier who threw it: twisted in hatred, grinning in victory.
You choke on air—you can't help but think it's not real—but it is as the blade pierces muscle and bone and cuts into your nerves, ripping a scream from your parched throat. Hot blood seeps from your front, and you can feel the cruel, serrated edge of the metal scrape against the inside of your heart and your lungs, this is all just a dream, but you can't breathe right because it hurts to breathe. It's not the only injury you've suffered: as soon as the adrenaline in your system fades, you feel more of that sharp and throbbing pain all over you. There's an arrow sticking out of your heel and several lacerations on your arms and you've lost fingers. You're dead and you're alive and it is an agony to live and in the middle of battle, no one pays you any mind.
You're as good as dead, and not-you knows this. Not-you forcefully inhales and exhales, one, two, three in shuddering, shallow breaths as you slump into earth and blood.
Not-you thinks: this is the end.
The world has slowed to a crawl. There is nothing but your stuttering heartbeat in your ears. You're just a body among thousands. This—you won't survive.
You think: I am sorry.
There's a roar that barely registers, grief-stricken and angry. The stones echo the action, the earth quaking underneath the inhuman sound. People scream as boulders grind bone and metal alike against the ground they all came from. The land changes, turning jagged and ugly, so unlike the blessed land of the god you’ve loved and seen and dedicated your whole life to. The stones repeat his death threat, though all his wrath brings is the grind of gravel against the tortured flesh of your back. When your body doesn't so much as twitch, it's a sign you're too far gone. But still, you endure. Your breaths come slower and weaker now, but still, you endure.
Someone calls for you.
You say, through the blood in your mouth: you're early.
The dragon, horns, and claws fully bared, sinks beside you. He is larger than life, more draconic than you have ever seen him, but still so, so lovely. His sure hands shake as he gathers you in his arms, and in them, you feel invincible, just as you always have. He runs his clawed finger across the curl of your lip, tender and kind. He says: I missed you.
He holds you like that until the very end, as tears of gold spill over the hollow of your throat. You do not know what battle it is you had fought for, which cause you had died for, but if there is anything you know, you know this: you are finally at peace. There is no bitter taste of defeat, only a kind of tranquility you know you have not been afforded before. This—you are content to die for.
Despite everything, you find yourself on your feet again in the middle of the restless night. You haul your claymore behind you, gore drying on the steel, as you trudge towards Mondstadt’s sleeping city. Your feet are sore, your hands shake, and you walk like you are on your death march.
You stare up at Mondstadt’s walls—the great tall walls of ivory and creeping ivy of your boyhood—and feel like a stranger in a strange land. Hand over hand, you make your way over the walls and drop into its streets with a painful jolt that makes its way up your spine. Still, you blend into the shadows of its streets like a phantom; a specter guided by moonlight through Mondstadt’s winding alleys and corners.
You’re close enough. You could be one. You feel like one, made unwhole by the ache in your chest. It is more delicate than the inescapable, gaping maw of longing behind your ribs; more tangible, like a death wound scabbed over. You find your fingers going over the area of where not-you—Noctua—would have been pierced through, as senseless as the effort may have been. Your fingers prod at the thick cloth of your coat, semi-surprised to find that you aren’t bleeding out, the white of bone peeking out of the meat of your punctured flesh; surprised that you are alive and breathing. You feel like you should be dead.
You push through Angel Share’s backdoor, letting yourself in. It’s dark and cold, and as your eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, you find it… trashed, with the purple string banners half-up and half-limp on the floor, the furniture askew, and the floors smelling strongly like spilled alcohol.
Right. A party from Inazuma had rented the use of the tavern for eight hours. You vaguely remember signing off it back in May, before you tried to keep the dreams at bay with endless nights of patrolling around Mondstadt’s perimeter, fielding reprimands from Jean for burning too much land wherever you went, and scouring over countless historical texts for some way to put the sodden bastard that keeps invading your dreams to rest.
If they had been in here for as long as eight hours, then it would’ve been late enough that the staff would have simply chosen to just leave the tavern as it is and return the next morning to clean it, as standard procedure dictates.
Still, you sigh as you hang up your overcoat on the wall hook, and begin cleaning.
The hours swiftly go by without much issue as muscle memory takes over. You tuck stools underneath their designated tables, straighten the wall decor, refill the lamps with kerosene, and look up at the sparse windows every now and then to get an idea of how much time has passed. You sweep and mop the floors silently.
You relax as you go through motions of the routine your father had taught you all those years ago. For the first night in a while, you feel at peace. The routine makes you feel at home.
It’s when you check the liquor supply, making mental notes of what brands you need to restock, that the door swings open, a sobering reminder of the world outside of your quiet bubble. You take a quick glance at one of the windows, sunlight slanting into the tavern, bathing your surroundings in a soft, golden glow. Well, this one’s on you: you always forget that there’s always the oddball customer who comes in during the morning.
You straighten on instinct, squaring your shoulders and adapting that politely neutral expression on your face as you turn around—and come face to face with a handsome man, already sitting patiently at the bar.
You didn’t even hear his footsteps.
Under his burning gaze, you think of how you probably look mad in your state of dress: rumpled clothes, hair tied haphazardly, dark circles under your eyes, an unshaved jaw. You look nothing like the esteemed Diluc Ragnvindr, bearer of the Ragnvindr name, outliver of your forefathers, uncrowned king.
Against his unmoving gaze, the enormity of his being, it doesn’t seem to matter. He looks at you just as he always had in that dream in the old Ragnvindr estate, on the day he told you you would live, and in the dreams that have plagued and haunted you for the past two months: with the same amber eyes that had wept gold in a distant lifetime, the same amber eyes that had laughed and had the world partake in his delight.
Do I know you? It is dissonant—the nature of deja vu. The burn of anger; that empty, gaping maw in your chest; that feeling of peace. You want to shove him away; you want to pull him close and never let go; you want to be held once more in his arms, staying within them for an eternity. I missed you.
“You’re early,” you manage to say. “What can I get you, mister…?”
“Zhongli,” the consultant wryly provides. The sun falls against his fair hair lovingly, glowing like the gold in your memories, and you think about how unfair the world can be. “I am sorry for the inconvenience, Master Diluc. It seems I have missed you.”