Archive of Our Own

.then

Arvid was the tree, and the tree was Arvid.

There wasn't much left of his body. Most of it melded with the scorched bark of the Irminsul tree, leaving only a head and the upper part of his torso jutting out from the trunk. Given the ruined, barren state of the Irminsul, Arvid was the only decoration the naked tree had. He looked more like a grotesque wood carving rather than a person who had been once flesh and blood and earth.

It was impossible for Kaeya to not see him everyday, given the tree was the only thing keeping corruption at bay. Despite Arvid and the Irminsul tree being the center of their ruined kingdom, a jolt of shock and detestable revulsion went through Kaeya's body every time he so much as glanced at them. No amount of time, no amount of exposure could ever hope to desensitize Kaeya from the morbid reality the remains of Khaenri'ah were dependent on.

Kaeya had forgotten so many things since the kingdom fell, but he could not forget the funny faces Arvid pulled when Kaeya stared at him through the window during lessons. Could not forget the way Arvid would sneak him mince pies at the end of training. Could not forget the way Arvid would praise him for his form when riding horses.

The Arvid who once trained him was no more. There was only the Arvid who was the tree and the tree that was Arvid.

At least this Arvid kept his empty eyes closed. At least this Arvid finally stopped screaming.

Dain threw another piece of scrap wood—dry and tan and never silver—onto the fire. The flames surged up in furious purple, then black, then purple again before it settled on bloody crimson.

"I'm going to take Arvid's place. As the rightful successor, I should last longer than he did," Dain said. Kaeya's body convulsed as if struck by lightning. He nearly dropped his jerky and did drop his jaw.

"No!" He stared, wide-eyed, at Dain, and could not feel the heat of the fire over the chill in his bones. "You can't! What about your duty to—"

Dain held up his hand. His eyes were cold. His expression was unmoved. His limbs were still. How was it, Kaeya wondered, that Dainsleif had only two years on Kaeya yet felt so much older?

"Our old duties and lineages mean nothing anymore. Our duty now is to ensure our continued survival, no matter the means." He softened. "The dream must change, Kaeya. Don't we all deserve better than what we have?"

"I don't want to see you become like Arvid," Kaeya said, and he could not bear to look at Dain any longer. Years had passed and he never grew desensitized to Arvid's merger with the tree. How was he going to live with Dain twisting himself into such a miserable existence? Arvid was his trainer, but Dain was his milk-brother, his best friend, the only other child in this Gods-forsaken hell—

"Kaeya," said Dainsleif, and Kaeya looked at him again. He was no longer a child but a man fully grown. His arm was a blackened branch of the tree, streaks of silver-blue energy connecting his flesh body to the memories of their tattered world. Kaeya looked at his grown form through the eyes of a child and understood for the first—but not the last—time what it felt like to be left behind.

"Kaeya. One dream passes for another. It is time."

Time had no meaning this close to the Abyss. A day, a decade, a century later, Kaeya and his father descended down the roots of the Irminsul tree and landed in Teyvat.

.

.

now.

The Ley Line Blossoms smell like dreams.

It's not something Kaeya can ever say to anyone else. Not even under the guise of being drunk, because Mondstadt's citizens love gossip second only to wine. Given his choice of drinking establishments, it would take less than an hour before such a statement would find its way to Diluc.

Kaeya had spent the last year and a half crawling along the metaphorical road to reconciliation with Diluc, and he isn't about to ruin it by being loose lipped and sentimental. They're approaching something almost like cordiality; no need to fuck it up by reminding Diluc where Kaeya is from.

"The Ley Line Blossoms have a strange scent," Albedo says, pinching and stroking the thick petals. He eyes them like he's two seconds away from plucking them off. "I can't quite place what it smells like, however."

Kaeya loves hanging around Albedo, really, he does. It's comforting to be around someone who's been touched by Khaenri'ah's all consuming aura of bleak desolation. It makes Kaeya nostalgic in all the wrong ways, but he's long accepted his emotional masochism.

There are times, however, when being around Albedo makes Kaeya want to scream.

"They are flowers, aren't they? Something to do with the Ley Lines?" Kaeya says this as casually as he can, which means expending every bit of willpower and focus he has to keep his emotions from his voice. A memory of Arvid, of Dainsleif entwined with the tree flashes through his thoughts. He rips it apart and turns away from the blossom. "Sucrose is good with botany; we should bring her along next time." He lowers his voice and pitches it on the edge of scandalous, narrowing his eyes to make his expression match. "I'm sure she'll appreciate spending more time with you as well."

He doesn't know why he bothers putting in the effort. Albedo's expression and tone don't change. "If it doesn't interfere with her research, sure. She's been on the verge of a breakthrough for weeks; I wouldn't want to pull her away from something important."

Albedo rips off a petal. Kaeya holds back a wince. It turns to silver ash in his hands and fades away in the light.

"There's a saying, you know," Kaeya says as the blossom dissolves and Albedo sighs. "Something about insanity and doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results?"

"Empirical data is an essential part of research and experimentation." Albedo gives him a bored look. "Thank you for your assistance. Have you wasted enough time for Amber to start the task she was meant to deliver to you?"

"Oh? Amber was going to give me a task? Rather bold of our little Outrider."

Albedo is already looking at the distance, mind occupied with whatever's got his interest next. "Hm," he says flatly. "I'm going to investigate the next Ley Line Outcrop. Goodbye."

He walks away as he summons his sketchbook, flipping through until he's at a blank page. Though the Ley Line Blossom is gone, the scent still lingers in the air.

No, linger is the wrong word. It's transforming into something else.

It smells like nightmares.

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.

???

There is a dream you have that feels like a memory.

In your dream, you are dying. The kingdom burns around you. Your mother and father are gone, and the last memory you have of them is their eyeless bodies laying in a pool of their own blood, mouths open to curse the Gods.

You are dying, and there is someone stroking your hair. Dain holds your hand, and even though there is dried blood caked over his face, he seems to be more concerned about you than himself.

"Please," Dain says to the person stroking your hair. "You aren't bound to the same laws of this world as we are. Please save him."

The hand stills.

"I," the person begins to say, but they stop and take a trembling breath. It sounds like they're crying. You want to see them, but you are dying and one of your eyes is gone. It hurts so much.

"Please," Dain says again. "Gold is using this as an excuse to twist more of us into monsters. That salvation is no salvation at all. You aren't from this world! Please!"

"I can't," the person says, and the pain in their voice cannot compare to the depths of hurt in Dain's scream.

You want to tell Dain it's all right, but it's not. You are dying. Khaenri'ah is falling, literally, into the Abyss. The world around you burns and burns, and fire is spreading out from the castle to the rest of the city.

"I can't stop him from dying," the person says, and they stop stroking your hair, "but I can stop the descent. I can stop the kingdom from sinking too far and getting cut off forever."

"What use will it be if our kingdom is destroyed?" Dain asks.

"So long as even one person lives, there is hope. I'm so sorry," the stranger, the traveller, the Visitor, whispers. "They wouldn't have found you if you hadn't sheltered me."

Dain is silent. You continue to die. Your consciousness is fading, forever, when he finally speaks again.

"Even if you had never appeared, even if Gold had never tried to surpass them, they would have come after us eventually. The Gods despise what they cannot see. Why else do you think they reap our eyes?"

Those are the last words you hear before you die.

When you wake from your dream within a dream, you are alive and enclosed within a bud of the Irminsul tree. The petals pull back. The bud blooms, and you step into the ruins of your country. The true sky hovers below you, and Teyvat is a pale moon hung in the darkness in between.

.

.

.then

Khaenri'ah will never let go of her dead.

That was the true curse of collapse. The true nature of the Abyss. In the land where the Gods' gaze did not fall, there was no true life nor true death. There was only a lingering agony, an undeath formed from flesh that did not rot and souls that could not leave.

The only thing that truly lived was the Irminsul tree. Its boughs pulsed with life drawn from the Ley Lines. Those who were connected to it drew life from it as well.

Arvid had no eyes. The Gods took them as Arvid tried to save the tree. But he still had a face made of flesh and bone.

"You must," Dain said. "Before he gets subsumed entirely. To be able to journey down the roots and across the Ley Lines, you need to consume the Irminsul tree."

In a land where the undying dream of a simulacrum of living, there existed only two ways to escape the nebulous space between life and death.

The first was to be changed and transformed. This was a method Kaeya knew well; he had witnessed Gold spit curses at the Gods, eyes burning with clarity even as madness foamed at their lips. He had witnessed the guards twist and turn into monsters, spears and swords traded for mangled limbs and wicked claws. He had witnessed the army of monsters surge out and away from Khaenri'ah. He knew through Arvid how those citizens had escaped the grim fate the rest of Khaenri'ah endured, although a rapid existence of destruction and reincarnation wasn't a better end.

The second method was to be recreated through the powers of the Ley Lines. To give oneself fully to the thrum of power that lay in the foundations of the world and let the memories of the Ley Lines reconstruct the body, the mind, the soul.

But to do that, one first had to connect to a Ley Line. To connect to a Ley Line, one must first acclimate themselves to their power. To acclimate, one had to ingest some part of the Irminsul tree.

Once, before Khaenri'ah had fallen, the Irminsul tree in the center of the kingdom was flush with glittering silver leaves. In the spring, there were tender, silver shoots with a bitter medicinal aftertaste. Arvid made Kaeya eat one as part of his training, back before Dain had shown his terrifying compatibility with the Irminsul and proved himself worthy of inheriting the title of Bough Keeper.

There were no tender shoots, no glittering leaves on the tree now. There was only scorched, poisoned bark and Arvid's sallow flesh.

Dain had a knife.

"No," Kaeya said. He took a step back, but his meager attempt at escape was blocked by his father.

"You don't have to do this," his father said, but the words were spoken to Dain, not Kaeya. It wasn't fair. "You need not subject yourself to this when you've already done so much. I can make the cuts."

'Stop comforting him,' Kaeya wanted to scream. 'I am your son! Shouldn't you be more worried about me?'

"It's all right," Dain said. He touched the edge of the knife to Arvid's cheek, and Kaeya turned away. "There will be worse things than this once I merge with the Irminsul."

"Forgive us," Kaeya's father said, voice deep with sorrow. Sorrow for Dain, but none for Kaeya. "If I had my eyes, my vision—"

His words were cut off by the sound of Arvid screaming.

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.

now.

There is an explosion of Ley Line Blossoms around Mondstadt. Not literally, thank Archons, but apparently destroying one bud causes another to form almost instantaneously. In between the Traveller seeking out the buds and Albedo's unending curiosity, the scent of dreams and nightmares grows so thick Kaeya is tempted to run all the way to Liyue to escape it.

Of course, duty calls, so he has to not only stick around the pungent scent, but also babysit the Traveller and Albedo as they fight waves of enemies and pluck away what could possibly be parts of Dain's body.

Kaeya bites his tongue and helps them, trying not to choke or vomit the entire day, and when they're finally, finally done, he gives the excuse of needing a drink after a hard day's work and legs it back to the inner walls of the city.

He doesn't go to the bars. Instead, he returns to his room in the upper floors of the barracks and politely throws up into a chamber pot.

It reeks. The scent settles on his skin like a thick layer of mud. He rips off his clothes and shoves them into a bag before going to bathe. No amount of soap or scrubbing can get the scent off his skin, and only the fact he's in the shared baths keeps Kaeya from screaming. He needs to leave the city for at least a day. He needs to clear his nose, his mind, his memories. The bud behind his eyepatch hurts. The urge to pluck it out is back, which is another bit of masochistic nostalgia Kaeya has no need for. The plot, his father's words, Dain's phantom in Mondstadt—they supersede all other thoughts. Kaeya takes too long escaping out the window and running into the quiet Mond night.

Hope and despair and love and hate and duty, duty, duty all struggle to scream over themselves. The scent of dreams and nightmares and the scent of the Irminsul burning mixing with the scent of scorched earth and burnt flesh; he and Arvid and Dain pulling water from dirty wells, their escape forgotten, to put out the fire because if the tree died, if their access to the Ley Lines were destroyed, then they would become a second Sal Vindagnyr and the Gods would win—

He runs into the Darknight Hero.

"Again?" Diluc says as Kaeya struggles to maintain some expression of neutrality. "Isn't there anything else you could be doing rather than stalking me?"

Diluc smells like Irminsul buds and dreams and nightmares. Archons damn him, he is the last thing Kaeya needs. "I assure you," Kaeya says, voice more jagged than he wants, "that our meeting here tonight was a serendipitous accident. I'm merely going on a walk, and if you'd prefer to pretend we never saw each other, I'd be more than happy to oblige. Goodbye."

He pushes past Diluc without another word, knowing his behavior is uncharacteristic but praying to the Archons who hate him that Diluc will leave it be.

Diluc grabs his arms and does not leave it be.

"What are you hiding from me?"

Where does Kaeya even start? "Hiding? Me? Mister Darknight Hero, I know you don't trust or like me, but isn't it a bit arrogant of you to think that my free time revolves around making your life difficult?"

"You've certainly done nothing to make it seem otherwise," Diluc says. His hand is still on Kaeya's arm. The smell is cloying. "Don't play games. What are you doing?"

"Going for a walk," Kaeya says, words terse. It's not a lie, except perhaps by omission. "It's too stuffy in my room. Is it a crime, Master Diluc, to want a breath of fresh air somewhere with no people around?"

Diluc's grip tightens. It burns. The hideous realization this is the first time Diluc has touched him in years feels like a brand on his heart.

"Fine," Kaeya snaps. "You want the truth?" He ignores Diluc's scoff and makes a grimace. "You reek. I don't want to talk to you because you smell."

Diluc's expression is inscrutable beneath the mask, but his grip slacks. Kaeya shakes him off and marches out of the city. He makes it out the back entrance, near the docks, before Diluc drops down from the city walls.

"Now who's stalking whom?" Kaeya mutters.

Diluc straightens and steps into his personal space. Archons above, he really does reek of the Ley Line Blossoms.

"If you're going for a walk," Diluc says without preamble, "stay away from the northern cliffs of Falcon Coast and base of Dragonspine. I doubt any of the knights would be able to deal with the issue with sufficient subtlety."

He jabs the pointed end of something too dull to be dangerous but too sharp to be painless into Kaeya's side before walking through the gate like a normal human being. Kaeya grimaces and catches the Fatui insignia. Great.

"Making a Captain work after hours when you've got no authority to do so," Kaeya says to himself as he shoves the insignia into a pocket. "You're lucky I like you, Darknight Hero."

.

.

???

It's raining, but the rain has never stopped Diluc. You admired it. You still do. You don't know anyone else who has a Pyro Vision, but the other knights do. It was easier to inflict certain forms of damage for Pyro wielders in the rain, but keeping something aflame—ah, that was a challenge.

Diluc has never had an issue with it. Diluc still does not have an issue with it.

You should be watching him, but you're watching the grass instead. It's burning. The raindrops sizzle and vaporize before they can even land on the ground. A part of you is worried, but not for yourself. Diluc's standing in his own fire. He's going to hurt himself.

'Brother, watch out,' you want to say, but you are not enough of an idiot to say it aloud.

"Is this why you gave this back to me?" Diluc asks, and it takes you a second to realize he's talking about his Vision.

His Vision, which had once been the eye of someone you don't know, but they once walked the winding streets of Khaenri'ah as you did. Holding Diluc's vision was a homecoming in the worst sense, and the overlay of walking the streets of Khaenri'ah as you walked from Ordo Favonius Headquarters to Dawn Winery made you dizzy and sick.

This homecoming also makes you dizzy and sick.

(It's another reminder you have no true home.)

You move your gaze from the grass to the Vision. The rain is heavy. The sky is dark. The Vision blazes brighter than anything else around you. Diluc squeezes the eye of your unknown kinsmen with such force it makes him bleed.

(A part of you thinks that it will be all right. The Visions cannot be stained with blood when they were birthed in it.)

"Nothing to say?" Diluc says, and everything is wrong. His voice is wrong. You have never heard him like this, tight and still on the surface with a cold, unrepentant fury surging beneath. His statement is wrong. You have so many things you need to say. More you want to say.

But the words won't come out. You see the Vision in his hand. You feel the rain on your skin. You ache.

Yet a part of you is in Khaenri'ah. Perhaps it has always been in Khaenri'ah.

(You don't remember what Khaenri'ah was like before it fell. You only remember the ruins. The tree. The twisted bodies. Holding Diluc's Vision gave you a better glimpse of Khaenri'ah as it was than your own memories do.)

"All right," Diluc says in that horrible still voice of his when you don't respond. You look up to his face at last and flinch.

There is no word in existence to describe what you see. Fury is inadequate. All the oceans of Teyvat is a puddle compared to the rage within him.

"I may be a knight of Favonius no longer, but I am still a son of Mond. Threats to Mondstadt will be eliminated."

He summons his claymore. You do not move. You cannot move. The only thing you can do is speak.

"Brother," you say.

"I am not a threat to Mondstadt," you do not say. You don't know if it's true, and you promised yourself that you would not lie anymore. Not to Diluc.

"I don't ever want to hurt you," you say instead because that is true. That is the only thing you are certain of.

"Don't you think it's a little too late for that?!" Diluc roars, and the terrible stillness breaks. The torrents of fury break through, and his voice cracks. Breaks.

You hurt. He hasn't even struck you yet.

Your body reacts when he swings at you. Your mind is blank. Later, when the horror fades and you have nothing and no one around to distract you but your memories, you will find you are unable to recall the fight. You only know there was a fight, is a fight, because you remember seeing Diluc lunging at you as if you were an enemy. A foe. A stranger.

And you will also remember when, as your mind begins to thaw itself out from the frozen horror of what is happening, you resign yourself to dying if it will stop the hurt—both his and yours.

It is at that moment you receive your Vision. Ice meets fire. In the rain, there is steam, and Diluc stumbles from the vaporization of his flames.

You stand there, a Cryo Vision in the hand that is not holding your sword, and you laugh.

You laugh because there is no other option but to laugh. Tears could not hope to encompass your emotions right now. You laugh because you were ready to die at the hands of this man—your friend, your brother, your lover—but the Gods in their cruelty gave you a Vision instead. You laugh because of course the Vision clutched in your bloody hands would be the polar opposite to his. You laugh because through the Vision, through your vision, through the merciless workings of the Gods, you see what the eye once saw.

You see yourself, beaming through a window, giving a wave when you were supposed to be studying. You see yourself, eyes—both of them—wide in joy as you are handed a mince pie. You see and feel, through the Vision, pride and happiness at your growth and skill. You feel his despair when your younger self tries to shove the entire mince pie into your mouth in one go. You feel his hope when you see yourself riding atop a horse, moving as one with the animal like you were born to sit atop a saddle. You feel his dismay when you see yourself try to stand while riding, and his exasperation when he gives chase and tells you to sit back down.

(The Gods hate you. Why else would they give you Arvid's eye?)

You laugh and you laugh and you laugh. You laugh until you fall. You laugh so hard you don't hear Diluc's words. You laugh so long you don't remember when he leaves.

When you stop laughing, Diluc is gone. The only thing that remains is Diluc's Vision—your kinsmen's eye—burning in the rain.

.

.

.then

His father's eyes weren't the ones he possessed before Khaenri'ah fell. His eyes had been a clear, crystalline blue—the color of water so pure one could see all the way to the bottom of, the color of a perfect cloudless summer sky, the color of the streaks of energy that ran through the trunk and branches of the Irminsul.

His new eyes were brown. The pupils were circles. They were dull and lifeless. They were alien pinpricks on his face.

But he could see and lead them both across the distance to Teyvat and Mondstadt, which was all he needed them to be.

Kaeya's missing eye, however, wasn't replaced by an eye at all.

"It hurts," Kaeya said, and his father gingerly held Kaeya's chin in one hand as he pulled Kaeya's eyelid up with the other. "What is it?"

His father was silent. Kaeya couldn't read his expression with the new alien eyes.

"It's a bud," his father said eventually. "It looks like a bud of the Irminsul."

Kaeya jerked back and out of his father's grasp. "No! Does that mean Dain— I wasn't supposed to be the next Bough Keeper!"

"I know," his father said. His voice sounded frightened, like it did when Gold stormed into the throne room all those days, years, centuries ago. "I don't know why you would have obtained a bud instead of an eye, but—"

He cut himself off and pulled out a dagger. For a moment, Kaeya stood frozen in fear that his father was going to carve the bud out of him. Instead, his father cut off a strip of his shirt.

"You can't go around with that... I'm sorry, Kaeya, but we'll have to cover this up."

"It hurts," Kaeya repeated as his father wrapped the cloth around him. "Can we take it out?"

The knot was tied at the back of his head with trembling fingers. "I don't know if that's wise. Kaeya," his father said as he clasped Kaeya's shoulders, "you know why we've come, yes?"

Kaeya nodded.

"We have to cleanse the corruption," Kaeya said. "We have to revive the tree, so that it no longer needs to live off Dainsleif. We have to restore our kingdom. We have to get revenge, so the Gods can never cast down another kingdom of men for their satisfaction."

His father patted his shoulders. "Yes. It is a heavy, heavy burden, but we must get it done. Arvid is gone; Dainsleif is too important to risk harming. There will not be a second chance. Do you understand, Kaeya? You are our last and only hope. You must see this done, no matter the cost."

Kaeya nodded. The bud scraped against the inside of his eyelid.

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.

now.

The Fatui camps outside the city are a distraction. Kaeya realizes this too late, when they've already cleaned up a camp near Dragonspine. He swears and barks an order to the fastest runner among his men to deliver a message to Headquarters. The others he sends to scout closer to the city itself.

Then he sprints all the way to Dawn Winery.

There are no Fatui there. Conner and Tunner are having a chat over a basket of grapes. Two of the maids are gossipping in the distance.

Kaeya lets out a breath of relief.

"Captain Kaeya?" Conner says, halting his conversation to give Kaeya a concerned look over. "Is something the matter? You came running with such urgency."

"Haha," Kaeya says without any humor. "We just cleared a suspiciously understaffed Fatui encampment, and I'm a little paranoid about where the other members are. I suggest you all head indoors and get to safety. Where's Master Diluc?"

Conner and Tunner lapse into silence, and it takes them a moment to snap out of it and respond. The maids also grow quiet, halting their gossip to rubberneck.

"I— He went out for a moment to collect some Mist Flowers for me. Will he be all right?"

"Oh, I'm sure he can handle himself," Kaeya says as he resolves to go hunt down Diluc as soon as the others are safe. "Why don't you all head inside? Adelinde knows what to do during times like this. I'll head into the city and get some backup for you. If I see Master Diluc, I'll be sure to send him back here."

Kaeya doesn't wait for Conner's reply before he's off again.

He runs towards the coast and makes it past the Statue of the Seven before he sees Diluc's Pyro phoenix soar in the distance. He pushes himself to run towards the fire, to pump his legs faster even though he's out of stamina and breath.

He sees the Harbinger before he sees Diluc. Kaeya isn't sure which one of them it is, but the man's broad form is sitting on a throne of stone that gives way to a foundation of ice frozen from the water.

Kaeya sees Diluc's flames next, claymore wreathed in Pyro as Diluc cuts down one, two, three, then four skirmishers with brilliant efficiency. One of the Hydrogunners readies his gun, and Kaeya lobs a shard of ice at him half on instinct, freezing him in place.

That gets the attention of both Diluc and the Harbinger.

"Kaeya?" Diluc says as the Harbinger stands.

"Ah, the esteemed Calvary Captain of Ordo Favonius," the Harbinger says. He walks with methodical steps, water freezing into a path of ice beneath his feet. The stone and ice throne behind him crumbles into nothing. "I have been waiting to meet you for a long time."

The other Fatui soldiers have stopped approaching Diluc. The battle is, temporarily, on hold. Diluc holds his claymore in a defensive position, attention split between Kaeya and the Harbinger. He looks uninjured. That puts Kaeya's mind at ease enough to focus solely on the Harbinger.

"I can't say the same," Kaeya says even as he adjusts his stance to be ready to fight. "Could I ask what the Fatui have against Mondstadt's wine? I know Snezhnaya has their own alcohol industry, but surely our wine can coexist with your fire-water."

The Harbinger ignores Kaeya's words and continues to walk unrelentingly from the water to the shore. The moment he steps off the ice and onto the wet sand, Diluc sends a wave of flame towards him. The Harbinger raises a hand, and the flames dissipate in a hiss of steam.

"Pantalone," Diluc growls, "this fight is between us."

"No," Pantalone says. "This fight was merely to bide time for his appearance." He looks at Kaeya. "Kaeya Alberich, I have something that once belonged to you."

He reaches towards his Vision, and Kaeya's blood runs cold. In that moment, several things happen:

Diluc roars and rushes Pantalone, only to be stopped by several Fatui agents. They block his path and force him to step back, and though Diluc can hold his own, he cannot push past them.

Pantalone unclips his Cryo Vision, revealing the Geo Delusion beneath it, and tosses it above the fighting towards Kaeya.

Kaeya's body moves, running on pure adrenaline and instinct, but his blood is frozen and the bud in his eye socket throbs in pain. He is grabbed by an agent, and although he manages to summon his sword and stab the agent in the gut, an Electrohammer Vanguard pins him down from behind.

A Cicin Mage catches the Vision. As Kaeya struggles and Diluc shouts his name, she grabs Kaeya's hair, pulls his face up, and then puts the vision over his eyepatch.

Kaeya screams.

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.

???

You don't remember much of your life before Khaenri'ah fell. Dain tells you it's because of shock, but something about it doesn't feel right. You have no other explanation, however, and so you accept his answer. He is, after all, the one who will become the Irminsul tree. He is the one who will read through the world's memories and learn the truth.

What memories you do have of before are precious. Your father's smile. Your mother's singing voice. Dainsleif trying to wield a spear taller than he was on his first day of weapons training. Arvid praising you for your quick footwork during your practice duels. The smell of freshly baked mince pies from the market stalls. The wine your father let you have a sip of when your mother wasn't looking. The way the light fell through the stained glass of the throne room.

You don't remember how to get to the market from the castle. You don't remember how big the riding fields were. You don't remember the best hiding spots in the castle to avoid getting dragged to lessons. You don't remember what color your mother's eyes were. You don't remember the face or name of Dain's mother, the woman who helped nurse you. You don't remember your sister, born only two months before the Gods condemned you all.

You don't remember how you lost your eye.

But you do now. You do now because you are seeing it happen. Your face is in pain. The bud beneath your eyelids is withering. Ice, like fire, burns.

You see Arvid dragging you away. He's telling you not to look back, but you do anyway. Your parents' bodies are still on the ground.

(You see the Visitor exchange blows with a God, their blond hair flying out behind them as they try to push back. You wonder why they couldn't have gotten there before your parents died.)

The floor shakes, and Arvid throws you in front of him as a monster crashes through the walls and snaps at the space where you were. Arvid draws his sword and shouts at you to run as the monster bites down on his blade. You scramble to your feet, but you don't leave. You can't leave Arvid behind.

Arvid yells at you to run again, and your bottom lip trembles before you bolt.

The castle is on fire. You're on the third floor. Though you know every secret and shortcut the castle has to offer, you find your knowledge works against you. Hallways have collapsed. Stairs have broken. The flames are hot and the air is thick with smoke. You crawl on your hands and knees and find a window. You break it open, uncaring of the shards of glass that embed themselves in your arms. You've climbed down from the third floor dozens of times. You can do it again.

Your arms and legs tremble as you heave yourself over. You end up gripping a jagged shard of glass, and you nearly fall. You want to cry, but you can't waste energy on tears. You have to live. You have to climb down. You have to escape.

You climb and leave a trail of blood on the walls. You drop down to a second floor balcony and have to stop and rest. Your hand is bleeding. Your arm is bleeding. Your parents are dead. Khaenri'ah is burning.

You sob and curl into a ball.

That is why you don't notice someone is there with you until the Visitor screams.

The God is pristine. Amidst the fire and soot, she hovers with pure white hair and features. Not a speck of dirt or ash to be found on her as she reaches towards you. You see her hand outstretched, fingers extended towards you. You hear Dain yell your name. You hear Arvid let out a thundering roar. You hear the Visitor curse the God.

You hear the God's voice.

"The price of sin," she says, and then she sinks her cold fingers into your eye.

.

.

.then

Diluc asked him why his eye was always covered only twice before he stopped. Crepus asked three times, and Kaeya suspected it was only the screaming tantrum he threw at the third time that prevented any further inquiry.

They gifted him a set of eyepatches the day after, before Kaeya could even apologize, then left him alone so he could put it on in private.

The room they gave him was modest but amply furnished. He had his own bed. A closet. A trunk for whatever possessions he wanted to store in it. A desk. A bookshelf.

It was more than he had since the fall of Khaenri'ah.

"It's a trap," Kaeya whispered to himself as he unwound the bandages. "The Ragnvindrs can't be trusted. None in Mondstadt can be trusted. Don't forget your mission. Don't forget your duty."

He repeated those words as he opened his eye. The bud was still there, properly molded to the cavern of his eye socket in the weeks since it first appeared. He touched it lightly and felt it push against the back of his eye socket. Kaeya shivered, then closed his eye and strapped on the eyepatch.

The eyepatch was a good fit. Far more comfortable than the bandages. He stared at himself in the mirror and realized he wouldn't have been able to recognize himself if he saw himself in a crowd.

"Don't forget," he said to himself. "I'm their last hope."

He didn't know how long he stared at his reflection before someone knocked on the door.

Diluc's voice came through the door, muffled by how thick and sound absorbing it was. "Kaeya? Are you done? Can I come in?"

He didn't want Diluc to come in, but he also knew he needed to have a good relationship with the Ragnvindrs for his mission. He swallowed down his pride and nodded, then realized Diluc couldn't see him.

"You can come in," he said, and he winced at how dry his throat was.

The door opened slowly, and Diluc's red hair peeked over the edge of the door before his face did. When Diluc saw him, his expression lit up. It wasn't fair. The sunlight in Teyvat was already overwhelming after so many months-years-centuries in the darkness. That he had to live and spend time with the human personification of the sun as well was too much.

"It looks good on you! Does it fit okay? We can get them tailored to fit you better."

"It fits fine," Kaeya said. "Thank you. I should thank your father as well."

"It's okay," Diluc said, and his smile was so sweet and pure and innocent Kaeya hated him a little for it. "He'll know as soon as he sees you wearing it."

There was a lump in Kaeya's throat he couldn't swallow past. "I wish you two wouldn't be so nice to me," he muttered.

He didn't intend for Diluc to hear it, but Diluc did. And in response, Diluc reached out and took Kaeya's hands in his. They were warm. Diluc was always warm.

"Why? You deserve nice things."

Kaeya stared at their joined hands. "You don't even know who I am. Do you two take in any child that gets left behind? I thought this was a winery, not an orphanage."

"We are a winery," Diluc said, and his grip tightened a little bit. Not to hurt, but to comfort, and Kaeya felt the lump move to his chest. "But you were all alone, and you looked so sad, and—"

"I don't want to be pitied!"

"It's not pity. It's not," Diluc said, tugging Kaeya's hands back when Kaeya tried to extricate himself. "I can't speak for my father, but for me, it was about justice."

Kaeya gave him a look with his single eye. "Justice? Really?"

Diluc nodded, and his enthusiasm and sincerity burned so bright Kaeya had to look away. "Justice. You were hurt. I decided that you shouldn't be hurt anymore. Justice, see?"

Kaeya laughed with no feeling and tried to take his hands back. Diluc refused to let them go. "I don't think that's how justice works."

Justice, after all, was revenge. Was completing his mission. Was restoring Khaenri'ah and bringing about the downfall of the Archons and Celestia. Was destroying the human foundations that perpetuated the broken system the Gods created.

Justice would be annihilating the Ragnvindr line.

"That's how my justice works," Diluc said. "And on my justice, I promise I'll never let you get hurt again."

The lump multiplied. It was in Kaeya's chest, throat, mouth, eyes, everything.

"That sounds nice," he said, and then he started to cry.

.

.

now.

The Vision is taken away from him when Diluc cuts into the Electrohammer's armor and sends his flames inside, cooking the man alive. The Cicin Mage teleports back to Pantalone, Vision in hand, and Kaeya screams.

"Give me my eye back," he roars. The bud beneath his eyepatch twitches. He barely notices. "GIVE IT BACK!"

Diluc says something, but his voice sounds muffled, as if spoken through a thick door. Kaeya brushes it aside as he stands. The bud twitches again. His body is heavy. The sensation of the God's cold fingers reaching into his eye is a phantom pain. He's burning from fire and ice all at once.

"Our Tsaritsa is not cruel for cruelty's sake," Pantalone says. "In fact, her goals align with yours, although I understand if you do not believe me."

Even Pantalone's words sound more distant than they are. The bud quivers. Shakes. Yearns to be unbound and free. It hurts. Kaeya is experiencing the hurt of two lifetimes.

"I want my eye back," he hisses. He doesn't have any idea what's going on anymore. He sees Pantalone and his Vision—Kaeya's eye. He sees the castle burning and the nameless God that took his eye. He sees them both, and both of them are his enemies.

Someone grabs his arm. He shoves them to the side.

"Give it back," he says again. His eye socket burns both hot and cold. There's blood running down his face, but he doesn't know from when. "Give my eye back to me!"

He rips off his eyepatch, and the bud blossoms.

His vision whites out. Power surges through him and out of him. A wave of voices and memories wash over him. None of them are his own. The information pours over him, drowns him, and he does not even have time to react before it pulls him under.

The current of history drags him down to the Ley Lines. It's both chaotic and orderly here. Human history flows in only one direction, but the river is large and the current is relentless. He struggles, tries to swim against it, but he doesn't have the strength to. The voices keep filling his head. He can't hear his own thoughts.

His strength gives out, and Kaeya submits.

Dainsleif slaps him.

"I told you," he says as Kaeya holds his cheek. "I am not the one you ought to fear."

The voices are gone. The current is still. The memories are unreadable.

"Dain?" Kaeya says.

"Play your part," Dainsleif replies. "Whatever that may be."

When Kaeya wakes from his dream, he's in a bed. One that is, much to his own dismay, nostalgic in all the wrong ways. He tries to sit up in Diluc's bed, but a hand gently presses him back down.

"Kaeya," Diluc says, and if Kaeya doesn't know better, he'd swear there was concern in Diluc's expression, "are you okay?"

The soreness of his body hits him all at once. Combined with the fact he's in Diluc's bed again for the first time in years, he'd just had a close encounter with his own missing eye, and how he nearly lost himself to the Ley Lines, Kaeya's pretty fucking far from okay.

"Just peachy," he says sarcastically. He tries to leer at Diluc, but he knows he lacks the strength for it. "My, standing watch over me, Master Diluc? Watch out, I might start thinking you care."

Diluc flinches, and Kaeya's expression falls. He turns and leaves the room without a word, and Kaeya doesn't have the strength or desire to stop him. When the door slams shut, Kaeya releases the tension in his body and gives in to bonelessness. Diluc's bed smells like him. Kaeya still remembers what Diluc smells like.

"This has not been my week," he mutters, then resolves to sneak out the window while Diluc is gone.

It's a struggle. His body is sore in a way it hasn't been in a long, long time, and the physical weakness he feels is the most manageable part of his injuries. Kaeya realizes after sitting up that his eyepatch isn't on his face and, worse, there's nothing in his socket. No blossom. No bud. Just an empty hole. He goes so far as to stick a few fingers into his empty socket before it gets to be too much, and then he has to lay back down and try not to panic.

Though the current of power and memories from the Ley Lines no longer flows through him, he remembers what it felt like. He feels empty now, and although he never wants to experience the sensation again, his body and mind can't figure out what to do with itself now that it isn't overstimulated with all of Teyvat's miserable history at once.

Empty. He feels empty in every way.

He sits up again, core and arms and back shaking, and scoots one leg off the bed.

The door opens. Diluc has a tray of food and water in his hands. Kaeya stares at him, and Diluc stares back before focusing on the leg that's on the ground.

"Really?" Diluc says, stepping inside and setting the tray down on a table. "You can barely move, and you're trying to leave?"

"I know better than to overstay my welcome," Kaeya says. He falls back to the bed. His leg is too heavy to lift up again.

He watches Diluc approach, a frown on his face. Diluc has a frown on his face most days. It's his new neutral, and Kaeya doesn't want to dwell on it because everytime he does, he remembers he's part of the reason why Diluc doesn't smile anymore.

He jolts when Diluc bends down and lifts Kaeya's leg up and tucks it back under the covers. His grip is firm, gentle, and Kaeya can't handle Diluc touching him this many times in the past few days after years of drought.

When Diluc moves to help Kaeya sit up again, grabbing some of the pillows behind him, Kaeya holds up a hand. Diluc pauses, one hand braced on Kaeya's back. His body is close enough for Kaeya to feel the warmth radiating off his person.

"If you feed me," Kaeya says, too tired to lie, too exhausted to make his voice emote, "I will have a breakdown."

Diluc says nothing for a second, then rearranges the pillows and helps Kaeya lean on them so he can sit up with brutal, distant efficiency.

"Can you feed yourself?" Diluc asks once he steps away and turns back to the table. There is nothing in his voice.

"I don't know," Kaeya says to Diluc's back. Diluc turns, sets the tray over his lap, and then leaves without a word.

Kaeya misses him before the door finishes closing.

He looks at the food on the tray. The soup is hearty and warm. A thick slice of soft bread lays next to it. There's a glass of water, only three-quarters full to avoid spilling, next to it. The bread smells like an Adelinde sourdough. The soup, however—

Kaeya remembers the soup. He remembers helping Diluc make it when they were younger, when Adelinde had fallen ill. The resulting mess in the kitchen made the wrinkles on Crepus's brow more pronounced, but he helped them clean up and then deliver a bowl of the soup to her anyway.

Forget feeding himself. Kaeya's too nauseous to eat.

.

.

???

You see Dainsleif examine the fountain in the square, and your breath leaves your body. You snap out of your asphyxiated vertigo only when he turns and stares you dead in the eye, and you take several deep, shuddering breaths as you walk towards him with trembling steps.

You have to pull it together. Pretend you don't know him. You're just going to say hello to this obvious stranger as part of your duties.

Dain pulls his blackened, Ley Line infused arm out from his cloak, and time stops.

"It's all right," he says as he holds up the arm. "This is only a dream. A shallow one, but a dream nonetheless. No one born on Teyvat will be able to see or remember me unless I will it."

You stare at his arm. It is the same blackened wood as the Irminsul, but it isn't a part of the Irminsul. A dream. A dream within a dream, or only just a dream?

You ask instead, "Why are you here? Has something gone wrong?"

Dain tucks his arm back. "There was a build up of elemental energy blocking the Ley Lines. I'm spending it and doing a little sightseeing at the same time." He stares up at the statue of Barbatos, expression unreadable. "A lovely place. Are you happy here?"

Your breath leaves you once again.

"I haven't forgotten my duty," you say, even though you do not know where the air in your lungs comes from.

"I know you haven't. But things have changed. You know this. Do you have a plan? Or were you merely hoping to have thrown fate off your trail because you have a Vision and the Anemo Archon has pretended not to notice what you are?"

"What will you do if I decided to stay?"

"I can do nothing." Dain sighs and clenches his wooden hand into a fist. "I will do nothing if you choose this place over Khaenri'ah. But I am not the one you ought to fear."

Time resumes its flow, and you hear a familiar voice calling your name.

"Captain Kaeya," the Traveller says. They come to a halt once they draw close, and they stare at Dain. "Oh, it's you."

You have to bite your cheek to keep from shouting. How? How does the Traveller know Dain? What has Dain been doing?!

Dain's smile is soft. It is something you have never seen on him before. Or if you have, it was one of the memories that had burned away with the rest of the kingdom. He bows towards the Traveller, showing more respect towards them than he ever had towards you despite being your servant.

"Hello again. I hope my request isn't too troublesome."

"It should be fine. I was going to ask Captain Kaeya to help me. Do the two of you know each other? You looked like you were talking."

You smile, and it disgusts you how easy this lie spills out of your mouth. "No, I was just about to ask this stranger who he was. If he's one of your friends, though, then I assume he can't be any stranger than Paimon."

"Hey!" Paimon shrieks, and you keep the smile frozen on your face as you look over her protesting form. Dain refuses to meet your eyes.

.

.

.then

Kaeya and Diluc were physical with each other. They threw their arms around each other's shoulders, grappled during their duels, and got into play fights where one or both of them would inevitably end up with getting their faces ground into the dirt. Kaeya had a tendency to shove snow down Diluc's back in the winter. Diluc retaliated by smearing mud on Kaeya's face during the rainy spring and summer seasons. Kaeya draped himself over Diluc's back to read reports. Diluc would grab Kaeya and reposition him to block the sunlight streaming into his eyes during late summer afternoons.

They always had their hands on each other. No one batted an eye when they sat too close, or were too handsy, or held hands for brief moments because that was simply what Diluc and Kaeya did.

Combined with the thick doors and walls of the Ragnvindr Manor, it was all too easy to keep their activities a secret.

Kaeya toyed with a lock of Diluc's hair as they lay in bed. Diluc had pulled down a series of reports before the sweat on his skin even cooled, and they read by candlelight as they cuddled.

Well, Diluc read by candlelight. With the way they were spooned together, Kaeya's eyepatch was peering over Diluc's shoulder. His good eye was pressed against the pillows, seeing only the red of Diluc's hair.

It worked out just fine for Kaeya. Unlike Diluc, he wasn't a workaholic and thought the idea of pouring over reports after sex unromantic. He'd much rather run his hands through Diluc's hair and relish in the sensation of their bare skin pressed against each other.

Diluc flipped the page before he spoke. "Kaeya, can you even see this report?"

"Nope," Kaeya said, and he laughed when Diluc turned around and smacked him on the face with the paperwork. "Come on, you'd really rather do work than cuddle with me?"

"We can do both," Diluc said. His mouth was scowling, but his eyes were fond. Kaeya pulled him in for a kiss, and Diluc didn't protest or resist, melting into his arms and dropping the paperwork on the bed.

Diluc stroked his face when they parted, trying to put on a grumpy expression but looking fond instead. "You're distracting the Cavalry Captain from his work. That's insubordination."

"Oh, no," Kaeya said. "Whatever shall Ordo Favonius do, now that our esteemed Cavalry Captain is kissing his second-in-command instead of reading reports on how Winston's mules destroyed the fences for the third time this month? Think of the poor plants getting devoured by those terrible beasts as we speak."

Diluc kissed him again to shut him up, then pulled back with a satisfied look. "Actually, I've told Winston I'm not responsible for his mules' property destruction anymore."

Kaeya raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Unlike you to throw work onto someone else."

"It's not serious enough to warrant my attention, so I've told him to make reports to my second-in-command instead."

A pause. Kaeya stared blankly at Diluc with his one good eye as Diluc gave him a beatific smile.

"You didn't."

"Ludi Harpastum is next month. I heard he wanted to set up a petting zoo for the kids with his mules."

"Diluc."

"Of course, given their temperament, I don't advise it. You're going to have to talk him down."

Kaeya groaned and buried his face into the crook of Diluc's neck. "You're a terror. Whatever happened to your promise to never let me get hurt again?"

Diluc patted his back and said dryly: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Sir Kaeya."

Kaeya pinched his ass in response.

.

.

now.

Kaeya manages to force down two spoonfuls of soup before he realizes Diluc hadn't asked him anything about his eye, Pantalone's Vision, or the entire Ley Line thing. He loses his appetite all over again, and does nothing but lie back in the pillows and stare at the walls for another half hour as the food goes cold.

When Diluc returns, he takes a look at the nearly untouched food and sighs.

"It's not poisoned."

"I don't have an appetite."

"You should at least drink water," Diluc says before he picks the tray off Kaeya's lap. "You've been asleep for over a day."

"Terribly sorry," Kaeya says, trying for chipper but landing at bitter instead, "for stealing your bed for so long. I know how much you hate harboring some Khaenri'ah rat under your roof."

The tray jostles in Diluc's hands. His back had been turned to Kaeya, and Kaeya watches Diluc's shoulders hunch up as the line of his body goes tense. Kaeya regrets saying the words aloud, but he knows full well how words once spoken can never be taken back.

Diluc moves to the table, body a bundle of visible tension, and sets down the tray of food with more delicacy than Kaeya expects. Kaeya watches him take a breath before turning around.

Diluc looks—

Sad.

Hope and guilt and love churn and surge and roil in Kaeya's chest, filling the emptiness. Diluc moves to the bed, sits down on it next to Kaeya, and the feelings pull Kaeya under. It's not any gentler than the Ley Lines, and Kaeya can't do this anymore.

"Why aren't you asking me questions," he says.

Diluc looks at him with remorse. "It's not my place to ask."

Kaeya laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs. He laughs until he falls over to his side and collapses on the bed. He laughs so hard he can't hear Diluc's call of concern. He laughs so long he doesn't know how much time has passed before he stops.

And when Kaeya stops laughing, Diluc is still there. Still sitting on the bed, looking at Kaeya with open concern.

It's too much.

He's hysterical. He keeps laughing even though he wants to cry. Keeps laughing even as he speaks.

"You know," Kaeya says, and his good eye burns, "all those years ago, when I stupidly confessed, I told myself I was never going to lie to you again."

Diluc freezes. Says Kaeya's name as his eyes widen and his pupils contract. Fear. There's fear on Diluc's face, and a part of Kaeya relishes it even as the rest of him hurts.

"Do you want to know? Do you really want to know?" Kaeya asks as he pushes himself up on his elbows. His arms are shaking, his whole body is shaking, but he still crawls across the bed towards Diluc. He's mad. He's gone completely mad and he knows it, but the truth has scurried out of his heart and wants so desperately to be free.

"I'll tell you everything," Kaeya says. He's half sobbing, half laughing. There are so many feelings written plain on Diluc's face it makes Kaeya dizzy. "You're going to regret hearing it, though. There's nothing but poison in me, nothing but ugliness in my past."

Amidst the madness, Diluc's expression softens. "It's you, Kaeya," he says. "Nothing about you is ugly."

Kaeya's good eye burns, and the tears fall at last.

.

.

to the stars and abyss

"Tell me what you know," Diluc will say. He will have his claymore out, but it won't be pointed at Dainsleif.

Dainsleif will regard the weapon and then the man. He will shift, turn to face Diluc fully, and the branches of the Irminsul tree that will become his arm will shift in turn. There will be leaves, small and fragile, on the branches of his arm. They will be the first leaves the tree will sprout in centuries.

"The people of Khaenri'ah dream of dreaming," Dainsleif will say. "We have always had a connection to the Ley Lines of the world. Through it, our dreams can manifest into physical form. Through the power of the Ley Lines, even life can be created. This was the basis of Khemia. Of course, the ability of creating life is a power that belongs to Gods, not men. That was why the Gods turned their eyes to us. That was why we all suffered for the crimes of one."

Diluc will take a step forward, but the roots of the Irminsul tree will rise up and tangle his feet. He will try, in vain, to cut them through, but the roots will climb up his sword and swallow it whole, dragging it down to feast. Dainsleif will watch, unmoved, and Diluc will eventually stop struggling, bound by his legs and feet to the ground.

"You are the tree," Diluc will say. Dainsleif will nod.

"You are a part of the Ley Lines," Diluc will continue. Dainsleif will nod again.

"You are the one dreaming," Diluc will say, and this time, there will be something different in his voice. Dainsleif will stare at him for a long, long time before he replies.

"There is no life or death here. There is only the dream. Once the dream ends, not even the sinners will be left. Do you understand now, Ragnvindr?"

"And," Diluc will say, and his voice will break in between his words, "Kaeya..."

"What is a dream but a lie we tell ourselves?" Dainsleif will look at the tree. He will pull lightly on his branches. They will shake, but the trunk of the Irminsul will not move. "What is an awakening but a truth forced upon us?"

No words will be exchanged as the roots tangled in Diluc's legs recede. Diluc will stand motionless, head bowed, and he will stare at the corrupted, poisoned soil that lies beneath him. Beyond that, the true stars will churn, and the constellation-less sky will twinkle without consideration to the broken, inverted world of Teyvat.

"Are you going to end the dream?" Dainsleif will ask once the silence grows so heavy that even the Irminsul can no longer bear its weight. "Are the answers you've been searching for worth the price?"

There are a hundred million possibilities, but the Ley Lines record only memories. In a dream about dreaming, waking is the same as termination. There are and never will be records of what happens outside the dream.

One day, the dream will end. Only then will his choice be known.