Chapter Text
The sound of clanking metal against a solid surface brings Kaeya back to reality. Slowly, his eyes begin to flutter open, and his consciousness stirs.
He cringes as the throbbing at the back of his head remains, relentless. Instinctively, he attempts to raise a hand to touch it, but finds his hands have been bound behind his back. Metal handcuffs clasp his wrists, a chain tethering him to a hook on the silver wall.
In fact, as his mind clears, he observes his entire prison is encapsulated in shimmering cold steel. The sterility is oppressive — four walls, a table in front of him, and the cabinets behind it are immaculate and spotless. Above it all, a sharp odor hangs in the air; it reminds Kaeya of alcohol, but not the sort he’d ever want to drink.
From where he’s sat on the floor, he notices a familiar figure on his right-hand side. Tossing his head to clear away the hair hanging over his face, Kaeya blinks, whispering hoarsely, ”Cantus?”
The dog is a pitiful sight; a steely cuff clasps its hind leg, which it attempts desperately to wrench itself free of. However, with each yank and pull, Kaeya observes, with sinking horror, that the poor creature risks injuring its limb. It paws weakly at a leather muzzle tightly secured around its snout — a cruel punishment for its attempts to protect its master.
It’s clear Cantus has been struggling for a while, thus attributing to the rattling noise that had stirred Kaeya from his unconscious stupor.
The dog pauses from its writhing to peer pitifully at Kaeya’s eye. I’m sorry, Master. It’s all my fault. A breathy whine emerges from the muzzle’s depths.
”We’ll be alright, Cantus,” Kaeya murmurs, attenpting to sit up straight despite the cuffs digging into his skin. ”We’ll get out of this..somehow.”
A door beyond Kaeya’s peripheral sight creaks open, slams shut. And then a familiar, sinister figure approaches them, boots clicking against the leaden floor. Each step echoes violently off the walls, and Cantus immediately jerks at the end of its own tether to bark madly at the vulture that’s ensnared them here.
The Doctor grins, clearly amused by the animal’s fierce reaction. He turns to face Kaeya, his own mask identical to the bladed finish of the cell.
”Oh? You said something about getting out of here, Kaeya,” The vulture croons, each word as sharp as the table that he leans against with an arrogant swagger. ”Do tell — I’d love to hear how you and your..creature will ever escape my domain.”
Kaeya’s heart thrums uneasily in his chest, as if the vulture’s mere appearance has spurred an involuntary fear response. Still, he swallows back the terror that tries to sink into his bones to glare right back at the eyeless mask.
”Where are we?” He snaps, raising his voice over the frenetic growling and snarling of Cantus’s uncontrollable rage.
”My laboratory. One of many, in fact — I have dozens scattered all over.” The vulture leans closer, beaming through serrated teeth, ”This one, in particular, is beneath Sumeru.”
Sumeru?
Some inkling of recognition, surprisingly, hits him. As if the nation of its rainforests and everlasting warmth means something more to him. There’s something about the nation he remembers..though his mind is still muddled, and the association eludes him.
The Doctor cants his head, amused by his prisoner’s reaction. ”Sound familiar? It should.” He pauses, his next words so potent Kaeya could practically feel them. ”After all, Khaenri’ah lays somewhere beneath our feet.”
Kaeya’s attempt at a heated yet emotionless stare falters at the mention of his home nation. A searing chill washes over him, icy and prickling — in tandem with the utterly helpless seeping of dread into his face.
The Doctor knows his true origins, and that is terrifying. What else does he know, but chooses not to reveal? It’s the ultimate form of torture, especially for someone so accustomed to gleaning the deepest of secrets from others. No, instead he is left to wonder — and wonder morphs into wrath.
His next instinct is to summon a horde of frost from his Vision, the one that always sits on his hip, effervescently glowing with its pale blue lustre. However, nothing happens, and suddenly Kaeya feels the lack of weight from his belt.
”Looking for this?”
The Doctor fishes out a faintly glowing orb from his coat pocket, dangling it mockingly. The Cryo Vision tilts rhythmically back and forth like a pendulum, and Kaeya immediately recognizes it as his.
He lunges, crying out in frustration as the tether pulls on his cuffs, nearly tearing into his skin. He’s left to breathe heavily from his violent efforts, gritting his teeth together as cracks of anger snap like rifts in glacial ice.
”Fascinating, is it not? How you struggle so valiantly for a gift that you never should’ve obtained in the first place?” The Doctor goads in his words, knowing each of them slice far deeper than any knife could. ”It even has two wings, not three like the traditional Mondstadt vision. They couldn’t even grant you that.”
He continues to toss the Vision up and down in one hand as he adds with a smirk, ”Then again, the gods have a penchant for taking pity on others. Even traitors from nations they themselves destroyed.”
”What is your point?” Kaeya growls, his tone beginning to match the frenzied snarling of Cantus’s uncontrollable rage.
”My point—” The Doctor bends down, tapping Kaeya’s eyepatch, ”—is that I’m just fascinated by you, Kaeya. And all the secrets you harbor behind your very eye.”
He proceeds to pull the eyepatch off entirely, much to Kaeya’s horror and rage — the Captain hasn’t taken it off in ages, much less born witness to his patch-less reflection. Clearly, this Doctor wishes to confirm what he may already know.
The sickening grin on his face is painfully telling.
”Just what I expected to see. Care to take a look yourself?”
Kaeya is unable to tear his gaze away as the masked vulture picks up a small mirror off the table, holding it in front of him.
”Look. I said look damnit! Your true reflection!”
Kaeya balks, refuses. He already knows what he will see, but he mentally digs his heels into the earth, grappling with his own identity. Because each time he’s mustered the courage to remove the patch in isolation, he’s met with the cruel reality of his own existence. That he is not normal. That he is not one of Mond’s children.
And yet, he is being forced to reckon with his burdens.
He glances upwards hesitantly, meeting the two-eyed gaze of a man who’s been broken so many times he’s wondered if he’s ever truly healed from any of it.
The uncovered eye reveals a nebulous sclera, the four-pointed star of a pupil shrinking in response to the harsh lighting of the cell. An entire galaxy of flecked gold upon a swath of indigo greets him, like a wound that’s been left to fester under a flimsy bandage. Above it all, the scar from that night twists across his browline like a mauve serpent.
”There it lies. Your very being, tainted with a curse that sent your people to a lifetime of misery,” The Doctor chuckles, mirthful yet venemous. ”If they weren’t transformed into beasts, they were forced to contend with immortality. Thus lending the question — you are neither beast, nor life everlasting. So what are you, Sir Kaeya of Mondstadt?”
Kaeya freezes, as if his limbs have been encapsulated in ice of his own wielding. He can’t tear his gaze away from the mirror, even if all he wishes to do is fracture it into pieces.
Because this is who he is, truly, bitterly.
A man with an entire nation of secrets beneath the surface, wrapped up in an unassuming eyepatch and a warm smile. Hidden behind his lackadaisical mannerisms and confident prose. Buried beneath lies he’s interwoven amongs shreds of truth, shreds like the sky above his home nation torn to oblivion.
Hot tears begin to well up in his eyes and finally he tears his gaze away, blinking furiously.
Meanwhile, the Doctor frowns, setting the mirror aside to approach Cantus’s wrathful lunging form.
”Shut up, you stupid beast,” the vulture hisses, this time with genuine irritation laced in his tone. Somehow, this urges Cantus to shrivel, to huddle inward and cease its noise.
Satisfied, the Doctor turns back to Kaeya, revelling in the damage he has already done to the Captain’s once steadfast mask.
”I really do despise dogs. Filthy, flearidden things — no better than experimental fodder, in my opinion. Alas, your mutt is..different.”
Cantus flicks its gaze towards Kaeya, seemingly just as defeated.
”What do you plan to do with us? With it?” Kaeya inquires, tone more hushed yet still gritty with seething anger.
The Doctor’s grin expands twofold over his lips, shark-like teeth a dangerous testament to his sinister power.
”The possibilities are endless — but I do need information from you, mainly.”
”What kind of information?”
”About Khaenri’ah, of course!” The grey-cloaked vulture rubs his hands together as if the prospect is tantalizing. ”All secrets make themselves known in time. Yours will just have to come out sooner than you realize.”
Kaeya tenses his jaw. ”And if I refuse?”
The Doctor summons, from thin air, a massive claymore — enrobed in a thin layer of frost, handle wrapped in ice-laden chains. He points the silver blade dangerously close to Cantus’s throat, and the dog yelps, shrinking backwards as the sword brandishes its lethal sheen.
”Simple. I kill the dog. I don’t need it alive for my research, anyways.”
Horror washes over him, some fragment of desperation clinging on despite his helplessness. He’s bound in chains, without a Vision or sword to wield — there’s nothing in his corner to give him some ounce of strength to fight back.
His secrets threaten to be upended by the very enemy he’s hoped to avoid, someone who will no doubt use his own origins against him. Break him, shatter his fragile soul like shards of glass.
He glances around as if something can be within his grasp — a weapon, a fragment, anything — but he’s greeted with a sterile void and a grinning vulture hovering just beyond his reach.
For the last hope of Khaenri’ah, there is no second option. Kaeya sighs, heavily, as if the fuse he’s lit within him has flickered out. Not of his will, but the will of the madman that stands over him — a vulture on its silver-plated perch.
His two eyes briefly flicker up to him, up to the scalpel-sharp mask.
”Fine. I’ll tell you,” He murmurs, still attempting to be obstinate despite his terms. ”But I don’t recall much. It was years ago.”
The claymore dissipates, leaving behind the sparkling essence of frost.
The Doctor circles the table, reaching into one of his cabinets. From their depths he pulls out a rather large syringe and a mysterious golden vial.
”No worries,” The vulture says, menacing as he attaches an equally long needle on the syringe’s tip. ”I’ve engineered an elixir just for that purpose — you will remember, Kaeya. Whether you believe me or not doesn’t concern me — you will speak, and I will deem if it is truth. Everything will come to fruition. You cannot hide behind a well-spun lie.”
What the hell is he doing? Kaeya’s eyes widen and his heart begins to lurch into a thrumming fervor in his chest, his breathing becoming more ragged as he attempts to once again wrench himself free of his confines. Gods no..he’s going to drug me. I can’t let him. I can’t.
I can’t.
I can’t live through those memories again.
I can’t
I can’t
I ca—
Cantus whines, high-pitched and scratchy from its previous spat of barking as the Doctor fills the syringe with a swirling, golden substance. It might as well be poison, the way it glitters in its dangerous ichor. No, it’s exactly that — poison that will leech into his veins, polluting his tissue, warping his brain.
”There’s a method to my madness, believe it or not,” The masked vulture says calmly, flicking the syringe. Beads of the elixir pool at the needle’s edge. ”This is a potent concentration of Fungal residue I’ve collected and tweaked to perfection. Let’s just say it..opens gateways to places you’ve thought to be dead and buried.”
His jagged fangs peek through pallid lips.
”Places you’ve thought to be destroyed. I want to know it all. You see, I’m in a bit of an arms race with my superior — he happens to share a common ancestry with you, too.”
Kaeya pushes back on his heels, scrambling backwards as the Doctor inches uncomfortably close to his arm. The needle glints in the harsh lighting of the cell. He twists and pulls against the pressure of a gloved hand against his shoulder, all attempts to resist that the vulture ignores as he skilfully jobs the needle into his shoulder.
Immediately, a fiery, prickling sensation floods his flesh, and he chokes back a scream as white-hot heat begins to spread from the jab site. His heart feels as if it’s ready to rip forth from his ribcage, his pulse frenetic as a hummingbird’s wings.
The Doctor casually continues his monologue, all the while Kaeya struggles against the drug’s torturous wrath upon every fiber of his being, crouching inward despite the tearing ache of his bound wrists.
“Anyways, since he won’t tell me anything about his origins, you’re the next best thing. The only difference is that you chose to run away from it, pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead, you emblazoned yourself as Mondstadt’s finest Captain, even though the nation would dispose of you just as soon as they found out.”
”No, they wouldn’t!” Kaeya spits, feeling the drug slowly reach upwards to flush his face. A feverish ache surrounds him, like a sickly aura. ”You lying piece of shit! They’d still stand by me!”
A resounding, roaring chuckle erupts from the vulture’s mouth as he peers down through the eyeless mask. ”Are you quite sure about that, considering how your brother reacted?”
The mere mention of his sibling leaves Kaeya unable to speak. The drug’s affects take hold, ensnaring him like a snake — he can practically see one coiling around his arm as his surroundings become increasingly more chromatic in various oil-slicked hues. No, that snake is now a raging phoenix, fanning its feathery flames across his skin.
He cries out, his mind pulling him back into a distant memory like a violent whirlpool.
He feels the earth beneath his scraped palms, scrabbling backwards across muddied terrain. The Winery is in view, its silouhette shrouded by curtains of pouring rain.
Diluc stands over him, claymore in hand, still dressed in a bloodied Knights’ uniform as he lashes out, blade swiping at his neck. Flames rise around Kaeya’s form, licking at the bottom of his feet and threatening to consume him in their vermillion rage.
Everything’s in slow motion, yet utterly vivid; the sky blurs and focuses at random intervals, the clouds randomly flashing in neon palettes. Another blade swipe, slow and deliberate. Kaeya begs for forgiveness but the words feel as if they are forced from his lips — a script of a memory already played out an infinite amount of times.
A billowing voice rumbles across the sky like thunder through Diluc’s tempestuous yelling.
”Do you see it now, Kaeya? The way he reacted is how anyone else would. You are not one of them. You never were.”
The memory begins to fragment, fracture. It pauses, skips, then blurs into a hollow hole of bright light.
Jean’s voice sharply rings out through the alabaster void.
”How could you, Kaeya? I should’ve never let a Khaenri’ahn join our ranks — after all this time..we’ve taken care of you like one of our own..”
Her disgust is palpable. Tears blur Kaeya’s eyes because it all sounds incredibly real, as if everyone he knows is hovering over him, each one speaking their piece.
”M-Master Kaeya? You’re..them? I should have known!”
”Celestia should have never granted you a Vision..you’re a mistake.”
”TRAITOR!”
”USURPER!”
”—should’ve never let him in—”
”Just a lowly spy—”
”STOP!” Kaeya tucks his chin into his chest, squeezing his eyes shut — but the blurry montage continues, colors of unexplainable hues swirling and surrounding him in an overwhelming smatter.
This is worse than any nightmare he’s ever experienced — at least he could wake up from those. But he’s awake now, alarmingly so; when the colors and blended amalgamations of warped voices just dissipate enough for Kaeya to barely recognize the shifting and blurring cell, he peels his eyes open.
The Doctor hovers, bending down as if to check his vision. A hand waves in front of his face, but the Captain is unable to react. His hair whisps across his face, no doubt tangled and snarled from his thrashing.
”Now, it’s time to go back even further, Kaeya. You can remember. I know you can.”
The vulture leaves his chromatic, whirling sight, his footsteps echoing more dramatically than ever. It’s as if Kaeya’s hearing has sharpened, but focuses on the most minute sounds. Cantus’s faltering whines. Clicking heels. The thumping of his heart.
”You were a child then, weren’t you? When you were abandoned by your father?”
Tell me more.
In an instant, lightening splits across the ceiling — no, now it’s a stormy sky, charcoal clouds sprawling across the heavens. He’s outside.
He’s a young boy, no older than six; he’s dressed in a linen shirt and trousers, and soaking wet as the rain pours relentlessly.
He’s shrouded by the looming oak trees of the valley he finds himself in, but their rich emerald leaves provide little cover for the entrenching downpour.
In front of him, a familiar figure — Cantus! No, suddenly the dog flickers out of sight, revealing a crouching man with a sharply carved jawline and familiar cerulean hair tousled in sweeping locks over his broad shoulders. An eyepatch adorns his left eye, identical to the boy’s own.
That man, covered in a tan cloak, enrobes little Kaeya in an identical but smaller one, placing his large hands upon his little shoulders.
”Kaeya,” He whispers, ”You are our last hope. Bring us back, however you must.”
He nods, as if he’s rehearsed it all before.
”Your mission is vital to the survival of the Alberich Clan, for Khaenri’ah’s glory. Stay with them, learn the secrets they harbor with the gods. I will find you one day, I promise.”
Little Kaeya pauses, realizing all too soon what is happening.
”Wait there, by those groves,” The man points towards some neatly line rows of grapevines in the near distance. ”Someone will come find you. If anyone asks..do not mention your home. You are lost. That is all.”
The man stands up, and little Kaeya tries to grab his hand, to beg him to stay. Tears prick at his eyes, a whimper escapes his lips — he barely knows the common tongue of this world, how can he be expected to remain here?
The man brushes his hand aside.
”You are our last hope,” He repeats, as lightening cracks across the sky — as if the gods themselves have struck a whip across their clouded domain. ”Do not let us down.”
He’s left alone in the rumbling downpour, left to shiver in its chilling drifts. His father stands up, turns, and walks into the treeline. Before he disappears entirely, a halo forms around him — a vivid violet aura, doused in bright flame before it is extinguished entirely.
Purple fire? What could it be?
Cantus takes his place suddenly, its one eye bright like a beacon through the torrents of rain. It blinks, then it, too, disappears in a fragmented flash.
”The Alberich Clan,” the Doctor murmurs, his silouhette barely visible through the various patterns and colors alighting Kaeya’s line of sight. ”There is something unique about them, no?”
Kaeya’s breaths gasp out in shudders, hitched and raw. The drug steeps him in a mire of odd shapes, shadows lurking upon the silver-coated walls. Hands grasp out to him, clawed and sinister — he can feel their nails scraping against his arms.
I’m losing it, he manages to think, despite the uncontrollable streams of conversations echoing against his skull. I’m fucking losing it.
That grey-cloaked vulture slowly approaches him, to where he’s hunched over. Kaeya buries his head between his knees, unable to bear the floods of violent hallucinations that crowd his consciousness.
”Enlighten me about your roots, dear Kaeya,” the Doctor hums, looming over him. ”Back to where it all began.”
It’s not his memory — but he lives it nonetheless. The fight against the mystery drug now burning through Kaeya’s veins is waning, its potency unmatched to any alcohol that’s ever touched his lips.
He shudders, braces himself as his mind is consumed by an unearthly swell of flames.
Shouts and cries of the masses shake the broken foundations of once-magnificent buildings, reduced to stoney rubble. The heat from the inferno surrounds him, threatens to burn him alive in its rufescent fervor.
Kaeya gasps, unable to take in a proper breath. Smoke tendrils rise from the destruction, attempting to crawl upwards into the sliver of light that barely reaches the conflagration, the ruins.
He’s in the Cataclysm. Overwhelmed by its fiery infestation, he’s helpless to watch as countless people are swallowed up by jagged shards of rock and ash.
Tears pool down his cheeks in rivets, because he can’t tear his eyes away. He’s living every moment, every bit of the horror his ancestors felt — until they, too, died violently. Their lives, ironically, extinguished by the hungry embers wrought upon them by Celestia’s wrath.
And when the flames finally fan away, die down, Kaeya witnesses a strange sight amongst the smoke-gnarled remains — a massive violet crystal, hanging downwards and bathed in a cone of light.
It’s surrounded by chains, a haunting picture through Khaenri’ah’s graveyard. Hovering, motionless, yet encapsulated in an oddly familiar purple flame that never seems to burn out.
Without the fire to trap him, Kaeya picks his way through the piles of crumbled rock and metal towards the amethyst monolith, finding a man standing within its massive shadow.
As he draws closer, the man is wearing a pale robe — much like the man he’s seen in his nightmares. He possesses dark hair, and his arms are outstretched towards the crystal, as if in reverence or prayer.
And, much like the man in his nightmares, he is entirely untouched by the ruins around him.
He’s murmuring something he cannot hear. Hesitantly, Kaeya steps a little closer just to garner what the man is saying.
”The crystal..it heals..it reverses the curse of all curses..”
The man suddenly notices Kaeya standing nearby, pausing from his endless ramble to acknowledge him directly.
”This crystal will breathe new life into our fallen nation, Kaeya,” The man says, though his identical starry eyes glint with a buried madness. ”It has healed my son, a feat that the Seven could not even fathom performing. Its power, its might..it speaks to me.”
The man shifts away from the crystal’s humming glow, facing Kaeya directly this time.
”Does it not speak to you? It does, doesn’t it? It holds indescribable abilities..abilities the gods could only imagine.”
Kaeya feels an uneasiness churning in his chest — the man’s expression is almost power-hungry, desperate. He worships this object, this hovering tower of crystal that whispers phrases of great power.
The man grins, gesturing with one shaking hand towards the monolith. ”This is how the Alberich Clan will restore Khaenri’ah to its former glory..with the power of the Abyss.”
The Abyss Order. The uneasiness turns to a terrifying realization — the dark hair, the eyes, even the robe..this is the man of his nightmares. The one desperate for him to restore life to his home nation.
Not his father.
”Clothar..” Kaeya whispers, though the words feel pulled from his lips. He’s never been told who this man was, or his connection to himself. But somehow, he knows he is his descendent.
Clothar nods. ”Indeed, that is I. I will fight back against those who’ve wronged us. Celestia, the Seven..everyone. They will pay for their insolence, their ignorance against the true divinity of mankind’s ingenuity.”
”No. Not like that.”
It is not Kaeya who speaks, but another voice entirely — he and Clothar glance behind them to see the black dog, purple smoke wisping from its starry eye.
Cantus gracefully approaches, unmarred by the rubble and surrounded by a similar haze of violet flame.
It blinks, its heterochromatic gaze glaring daggers upon Clothar in particular.
”This is not the way we shall return,” The dog growls, lips peeling upwards to reveal its fangs. ”This is not the way the Alberich Clan should return Khaenri’ah to its rightful glory.”
Kaeya is puzzled — why is Cantus here? He’s just a dog. A strange dog..but just a mere animal at that.
There’s no way the real Cantus would know all this information. Yet..it does.
Clothar steps back, his expression twisting into a wrathful scowl.
”How dare you speak against this beacon of hope,” The man spits, ”When you, yourself, are tainted with the Abyss’s curse?”
”I had my reasons,” Cantus replies. ”Reasons far more benevolent than your twisted rationale.”
Clothar scoffs, dismissive. ”We’ll see who is the more reasonable one, all in due time.”
The man stalks off, leaving Kaeya and Cantus alone in the cavernous domain of leveled buildings and scattered remains.
Kaeya tries to process the conversation that’s occurred, but he finds himself unable to. He looks down at the dog instead, sitting calmly and cocking its head upwards to its master.
”You will understand in time, Kaeya,” The dog speaks one last time, as the alabaster void flickers and morphs their surroundings yet again.
”You will understand what and who I am.”
Through the muddled pools of chromatic spectrums, Kaeya finds himself face to face with the vulture’s eyeless mask yet again. He fails to find the strength to scrabble backwards, instead turning his head away to avoid seeing his smug expression.
”How..loyal of your hound, man’s best friend. To defend the honor of their own kin against another.” He steeples his hands together as he steps back, revelling in his newfound intelligence — regardless of how drug-fueled it is. ”Clothar Alberich is your ancestor, the founder of the Abyss Order. How utterly fascinating. And how wonderful it is that you remember it all, without expriencing it firsthand.”
The vulture’s smile curves into a smirk as he approaches Cantus, still chained to the corner. Unlike the Cantus in Kaeya’s dream state, the dog cowers in the Doctor’s shadow, eyes pleading and wide.
”I believe the mutt has much to do with you experiencing these memories. But how, I wonder? More research has to be conducted.” He chuckles ominously. ”Luckily, I have all the time in the world.”
A plethora of fading and flowing splotches invade Kaeya’s vision, distorted voices whispering into both of his ears. Every one of his senses is altered, warped and twisted. Every thought that echoes against his skull is questionable.
Everything is an illusion. Everyone is a lie.
His head hangs low, tangled whisps of cerulean hair overshadowing his eyes. He curls inward the best he can despite his restraints. Anything to stop the flashing, the endless garbled speech murmuring and hissing around him.
Kaeya’s drawn out silence doesn’t sit well woth the Doctor. He frowns, exhaling with a sense of vexation. Greedy for information, hungry for knowledge — it makes for the most formidable combination as the masked vulture surrounds his hunched form, leaning in to join the masses of hushed mutterings to say, ”But you know where Khaenri’ah is, don’t you, Kaeya?”
Kaeya stays quiet. He’s unsure who’s voice is real, and what is fabricated amongst the drug-woven psychedelic he’s been forced to contend with.
The Doctor grins, serrated teeth like ivory blades gnashing together. ”You tried to visit it once, as a child. Even fled from your adoptive home to seek it out. Tell me, dear Kaeya, where is home to you?”
Home.
The Winery isn’t the image that comes to mind when he hears the words among the masses — instead, a regal gate shrouded in filtered light and pitch dark greets him.
The gate itself is a monumentous door of unfathomable size, towering in its stone-marbled might. Carvings of introcate patterns adorn its smooth surface, offering the visitor a taste of the once-glorious kingdom that lay beyond it.
Kaeya feels the need to go there. A familiar feeling, a homely tug. Let’s go. Back there.
And so, his mind opens yet again — this time to a memory years back, when he was but a young child. Still new to life in the Ragnvindr home, he was still unsure of how to fit in with the rest of the family. After all, he was so..different. His looks garnered curiosity, or suspicion. He let noone touch his eyepatch, not even his father.
Clear blue skies, unmarred with clouds and a rich scenery of emerald vines and grasses greet Kaeya, when all he wants is to go home. Slipping away from the manor’s front door, the young boy runs to the nearest port, listening intently for one going to Sumeru.
Why Sumeru, a nation he’s otherwise unfamiliar with?
Because, like a deeply-rooted instinct, it leads to home. All roads do.
Finally locating a ship headed for the nation he seeks, the boy sneaks into the ship, nestling amongst large boxes of cargo and sacks of grain. He lets his mind wander as the waves lap against the sides of the ship’s hull, wondering just how long it’ll take for him to get there.
Not too long, he thinks in his naive rationale. I just have to get off the boat and walk there. It’s..in the desert. Yeah.
I just have to get to the desert.
As the day (or perhaps two) passes and the seas grow turbulent, then subside — the ship finally groans to a rocking halt. Voices outside of various tongues tell little Kaeya that he’s made it to his destination.
Finding a window of opportunity, little Kaeya hops off the ship, jogging down the long dock towards the port’s open plaza.
It is there, in his determined path, that the dog stands.
Cantus.
Little Kaeya is annoyed — he’s trying to get to his home, his real home — and this dog is trying to stop him! Cantus blinks, calmly stepping from one side to another no matter where the boy attempts to go.
”Let me go, Cantus!” Kaeya fumes, stomping one foot on the ground in exasperated defiance. ”I’m trying to get back home, can’t you see that?”
”This home is not one you are meant to seek,” Cantus replies calmly, settling back onto his slender haunches. ”Not this way. Not right now.”
”If not now, then when?”
Cantus points its muzzle towards someone approaching behind them, and little Kaeya turns around to see Crepus running towards him, stooping down to scoop the boy into a hug.
”By the gods, Kaeya, what in the world were you thinking?” His father says, his tone imbued with nothing but a genuine fatherly concern. ”Don’t ever leave us like that again. Please.”
Kaeya allows himself to be embraced, his one eye peeking from his father’s arm to catch a glimpse of Cantus — but the dog is gone, seemingly disappeared into thin air.
How strange, little Kaeya wonders. And I didn’t even get close to the desert.
A gloved hand snaps its fingers in Kaeya’s face, breaking the nostalgic spell. The Captain barely blinks, much less flinches at the sound.
”It’s in the desert, then,” The Doctor thinks aloud, ”But where, exactly?”
”I dunno,” Kaeya murmurs hoarsely, the words from his lips as thick as molasses. ”I barely remember.”
A hand suddenly grips Kaeya’s ponytail, wrenching his head back. Through the kaleidoscopic visions he’s experiencing, he still sees the beaked mask boring right through him.
”That’s bullshit and you know it,” the vulture hisses. ”You’ll tell me exactly where to find it, Kaeya, or your meddling mutt dies. The nasty thing has done more than enough to impede your destiny.”
Kaeya smirks — despite the cacuphony of aggravating and dizzying illusions, he knows the feeling of being self-satisfied when it’s warranted.
”Try me,” He slurs, daring to glance up at the mask. ”But I’m done revealing myself to you.”
”Perhaps your inhibition is not sufficiently suppressed,” The Doctor muses — though his tone has clearly shifted into one of indignation. Perhaps even desperation, from the frown that now replaces the macabre grin.
The drug continues pulling Kaeya into an endless chokehold, twisting and pulling the last semblances of his waking consciousness into different directions. The waking world and dreams are so deeply muddled, he struggles to question if anything he’s spoken just now is truth.
Words simply rolled off his lips, slurred and intoxicated; all the while the shifts and blurs of his living dimensions are relentless, intensifying.
He hears the Doctor rustle through his cabinets for another dose, but he barely has the strength to pull himself backward like before. Huddled in the corner of the cell, Kaeya feels only the weight of his past and his present pull him down.
Deeper, further, into some sort of hell that could only be concocted by the cruelest of monsters.
For the entirety of the drug-fueled experience, Kaeya has been fed one common thought; he is not one of Mond.
They’re right, you know. You’re a traitor, A hushed voice sneers. Spilling your secrets like a flood of water..how pathetic.
Where does your loyalty lie? Another whisper snakes its way into his sliver of consciousness. Your home nation, or the nation you’ve assimilated into? Where you’ve built yourself a house of lies?
You’ve played plenty of games, Kaeya. Grasping for a victory, a chance to belong..it’s not in the cards. You know that. You’ve always known that.
Just give up.
Give up.
His eyelids grow heavy, and he’s exhausted. Exhausted from the mental battle he’s fought against the drug, only for it to gain the upper hand. Exhausted from bearing the weight of his sins. Exhausted, most of all, from experiencing the visions he just can’t grasp in this moment.
He can’t even ask why. He just relents, dives deeper into a tepid pool of marred whispers and distorted palettes of color.
A sudden clatter of metal shocks him briefly — his gaze shifts upwards, hesitant, as if expecting to have the Doctor looming over him again.
No, instead he is greeted with a most magnificent sight.
Cantus, freed of its chains and muzzle, has appeared in front of him, blocking him from the Doctor. Its hair stands in a rift upon its hackles, head lowered. A deep, resounding growl emanates from its throat, lips peeled back into a threatening snarl.
Most surprising is the violet flame — it not only consumes the dog’s shadowy frame, it surrounds Kaeya as well.
Still convinced it’s the drug playing tricks on him, his mind reels and grasps for some shred of truth in the moment as he glances about him, watching the deep purple inferno encapsulate them both.
It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t harm him — in fact, he feels safer than ever before. And suddenly, the nightmare he’d experienced not too long ago echoes in his jumbled mind.
You are safe. You are safe with me.
It’s Cantus’s words, not anyone else’s, that plays in his head on a rumbling loop.
The Doctor swears, attempts to summon his icey claymore, but the dog snaps back, enraged as the violet flames spread. They lick the walls, enshroud the ceiling. A grand and glorious sight, how brightly it glows. Abyssal curse or not, the dog is transforming — and it does everything in its power to grant its master safety.
”This isn’t supposed to happen!” The Doctor shouts, deftly swiping his claymore towards Cantus. ”Not like this!”
Cantus remains ever standing, ever unblemished by any blade swipe — not even a bead of blood rolling off its pelt. It gently turns its head to face Kaeya with its one starry eye; the very eye that set forth a wave of events that would lead to this very moment.
It was written amongst the shredded fabric of the stars, amongst the deeply ingrained nebula of Kaeya’s own uncovered sclera.
This was meant to happen. It always would.
Through the vivid violet conflagration, a massive transformation occurs; the flames swell until the entire room is lit in its effervescent glow. Cantus, itself, morphs; its body twists and buckles, warping and shifting.
A Rifthound suddenly hovers in its place, letting loose a shrieking roar that releases another torrent of fanning flame.
He turned..into a Rifthound..? Kaeya barely has a moment to process the sight — his vision blurs and begins to blacken. His hearing grows fuzzier, muffled. Shouts ring in the air, the monstrous form of Cantus rages onward with its amethyst blaze.
Another blade clashes with the claymore, a speck of vermillion clashes with the purple embers. There’s too much to process, and with the exhaustion of his ordeal reaching its peak, Kaeya collapses.
Cantus’s rumbling tone reverberates in the last grasps of his fading consciousness, a fading spark of hope in the darkness.
You are safe with me.
