Chapter Text
Dantalion sits by his window, watching the sun stain the sky the color of ripe peaches. The still air is warm, filled with the scent of apple blossoms, but something stirs. In the distance, at the foot of the mountain, Dantalion can see something. Someone. He frowns, leaning out of the window to peer into the horizon, eyes narrowing as he wills the clouds out of the way. Almost stubbornly, they move back into place, tinged grey with the threat of lightning as a foot rams into his shin.
"What's this?" Baal asks airily - as if she hasn't just indented her geta into Dantalion's leg, moving her chess piece onto a white square.
The redheaded Archon only hums in response, preoccupied with whoever is traversing up his mountain. His chess partner frowns, violet eyes narrowing. With a cough, she draws his attention again, although this time, she abstains from violence. Baal taps the king piece with a perfectly manicured finger to urge him to continue playing, to which he obliges, and he goes to move a bishop. He stops, his frown deepening. That rook wasn't there the last time he looked at the board.
"Check," Baal says plainly, a small smile tugging at her mouth.
Dantalion scowls, leaning back in his chair as he runs a hand through his hair, spilling the scarlet curls over his shoulders. A sigh escapes his mouth. He hasn't lost to Baal this badly before, and both the action and the reason for it confound him. It's usually her sister who fights nobly and persists until a stalemate. His gaze returns to the open window, to the stranger climbing his mountain, and to whatever they want.
It's not as if he is a hermit god. Many pilgrims come to him wishing for his blessing, many mothers bearing sick children for his guidance, and many warriors seeking his tutelage. On the rare occasion that he descends to see his people face to face, he is simultaneously revered and feared. Apparently, wings that can catch fire and a body that stands at seven feet tall are not viewed as welcoming or, dare he say it, cuddly. They are afraid. The sensation itself is nothing short of disquieting, as anyone would agree. Having people shy away from you and refuse to meet your eyes in fear of a divine smiting doesn't spark the feeling of overwhelming joy. Dantalion has grown used to it.
Abruptly, he stands, pushing his chair back and vaulting through the open window, soaring through the air like a falling star. Too much thinking and not enough investigating. Behind him, leaning out of the window, Baal calls his name, clicking her tongue in frustration as he plummets downward.
"If you're going to be such a spoilsport, don't let me best you!" She yells, narrowing her eyes sharply, but even with the rapidly increasing distance between them, Dantalion can hear the smile in her voice. With a huff, she turns, retreating back into her chair.
As the wind runs gentle fingers through his hair, tugging at his clothes, Dantalion scries the mountainside for his intrepid explorer. When he finally finds them, making their way slowly but surely up to the summit, there is a sudden pang of dissonance that wracks Dantalion's body with the sensation of something utterly wrong. The hairs on the back of his neck stand up, not unlike they do when Baal yells at him, but this time, they are accompanied by a series of shuddering chills that creep up his spine like wayward claws.
This stranger is, simply put, an anomaly. He grits his teeth, unfolding his wings and slamming them against the clouds to halt his fall, slowly circling around to the plateau that his explorer is nearing. He hasn't seen many strangers recently. This one reeks of the Abyss, darkness teeming off of them like the stench of decay. Perching on an overhanging rock over the running stream, Dantalion waits for the stranger to emerge from the trees, raising his wings out in an instinctual urge to make himself seem intimidating. Bashfully, he tucks them back down, wondering why his senses are making such a fuss over a mortal.
"Are you the Archon who resides here?" A voice calls out over the sound of the babbling stream, proud and unfettered by fear.
Dantalion raises an eyebrow. "Perhaps I am. Your name, if you -"
An arrow whizzes past his face, lodging in the downy part of his left wing. Eyes blown wide, Dantalion glances upward, staring straight at a young man with a longbow. He is grinning, freckled cheeks pinched red from the cold, and if his eyes had any shine in them, the Archon is sure that there would be the tell-tale glimmer of wild battle-lust. With a head of ginger hair, he has a general air of looseness to him, and he seems as if he goes through life unbridled by custom and tradition. Dantalion can tell because he just shot at him, which is, in general, considered heresy.
Then, another arrow loosens itself from the man's quiver, hurtling towards the redheaded Archon at impossible speeds. When it buries itself in his secondary feathers, Dantalion falls back, dropping to his haunches as he grits his teeth, attempting to pry the arrows from his wing out. When he wraps a hand around one, it disappears in his hand, leaving his palm wet. Cursing, Dantalion shakes the water from his wings, flaring them into the sky as the feathers spark into flames. A Vision bearer, practically coated in the Abyss, trespassing onto his mountain with the intent to kill him - this is a predicament indeed.
An expression of pure wonder breaks out across the man's face like the sun breaks out across in a glorious display of dawn. "Incredible!"
Dantalion takes the opportunity that the man's marveling has given him to barrel into his torso, rearing his hand back to rip his heart from his chest. Before he can do so, a sudden stinging pain in his neck stops him, the flash of metal gleaming in his periphery. Ah.
The man grins, eyes sharpening with calculated smugness. "Seems I've caught you at a standstill, here, sunbeam."
Dantalion sneers at him, baring his teeth like a feral animal. "What is it that you desire from me?"
"Your hand."
A pause. Frowning, Dantalion blinks, feeling the motion of his hair slipping from where it was piled behind his shoulders. Now it hangs around this stranger like a curtain of fire in the dying sunlight. An odd wish, really.
"Elaborate." He puts it simply. It is unlikely this stranger has come for his hand, especially with the rather rude introduction where he stated neither his name nor business and instead shot him in the wing.
With a shrug, the knife still pointed against Dantalion's throat, the stranger gives him a haphazard smile, his dull eyes lazily flicking around the Archon's face. "I said it as simply as I could." The careless smile grows sharp. "What were you thinking?"
Ah. Not only is this human stranger terrible at introductions, but he's also insolent.
Biting his tongue, Dantalion glares down at the mortal, an eyebrow quirking. With a roll of his eyes and an irritated huff, the stranger - oh, so kindly - does as Dantalion asks.
He elaborates. Rudely, but he elaborates nonetheless. "I am here to invoke my right to your hand."
There is a long, swollen pause.
"Your what?"
With another impertinent huff, the stranger gives him a stare of utter disbelief. "Several hundred years ago, you gave the promise that whoever bested you in combat would be given the right to something of yours. I, Childe of Snezhnaya, want your hand in marriage."
Dantalion looks down, horrified, as the mortal holds the knife up to his neck with a rather impressive resolve. Mortified, he recalls the day he made that statement, and then his eyes darken, lip curling into a sneer. Baal. She has always been fond of long-lasting promises and bets, and so when Dantalion forgot to show up to one of their bicentennial meetings, she made him promise something to his people, never to be taken back. And so, Dantalion gave a statement. The said statement came to bite him right back in the ass, apparently.
"Whatever would you want that for?" He asks, utterly confused as to why someone who planted an arrow in his wing and is currently holding a knife to his throat would want to marry him.
Childe of Snezhnaya shrugs. "I'm a simple man of simple pleasures."
With a sharp glare, the Archon gnaws on his lip for a moment, unsure of what to do next. He's dealt with many things in his time as an Archon. However, this is not one of them. In terms of how he's dealing with this, he's simply not. He could take Childe of Snezhnaya back to Baal, have her rescind the promise - but she would rather walk on her lips than undo an oath, so that solution was out of the question. Perhaps he could simply throw the mortal off the cliff? Not deal with him and leave him for the carrion birds? Far too cruel for Dantalion's liking - the mortal must live.
The only solution, really, is to return with Childe of Snezhnaya - Celestia, what a mouthful; he'll stick to Childe - to his living space and ask him if there is literally anything else he wants from an Archon that doesn't include marriage. With a huff, he raises his hands in surrender, motioning for the knife to be taken away.
Childe, eleventh in line to the throne of Snezhnaya, flicks his knife away from the winged Archon's neck. A rush of pride surges through his head like a tidal wave, and he lets out a sigh of content. Besting an Archon in battle is no trivial feat, and yet Childe did it in a matter of seconds. As is expected of him as the youngest of his siblings, victory is the only option. And, besides, he'll be damned if he doesn't prove his worth some way or another, even if it is something as mundane as fulfilling his mother's request.
"You are to climb this mountain," she had said, pointing a black fingernail to the parchment of the map, "and you are to defeat its Archon in combat. After you do so, you must invoke your right to wish."
He had nodded at the time, lost on any words after "combat," but his mother had taken him by the chin, wrenched his gaze to her pale eyes, and hissed out a final order.
"It is imperative that you invoke that right after you have bested the Archon. You are to require their hand in marriage, and after you do so, you are to kill them and bring me their Gnosis. Am I understood?"
Paralyzed with fear and preening with satisfaction at being the one chosen to complete such a task, Childe had nodded fiercely, bowing his head once she released him.
And look at him now. Quite an excellent job he's done here. Now all that's left is to pop the question to this temperamental redhead. Before he can open his mouth, the Archon tenses his arms, wrapping them around Childe's waist, and without warning, he shoots into the air. Buffeted by wind and clouds, Childe shuts his eyes, clinging to the swathe of fabric pushed over the man's shoulders, turning his head away from the current of air. Warm to the touch, the Archon's shoulders thrum with pent-up energy as his wings beat the sky below them, but his hands are surprisingly gentle, shielding Childe's face from the onslaught of the wind. Slowly, the prince opens his eyes, taking in the soft pink that dyes the clouds coral, washing everything in a warm shade of gold as the sun hangs low in the sky. It is silent up here, save for the sound of the Archon's wings, and the quiet doesn't seem oppressive as it does in the halls of Zapolyarny Palace.
"Are you alright?" The Archon glances downward briefly, carmine eyes shining like embers in the sunset. Childe blinks, then remembers to reply.
He nods, loosening his grip slightly on his clothing. "Right as rain."
Before he can truly savor this scene, Childe finds himself falling through the air, protected only by the reddish-brown feathers of the Archon's wings as they form a protective shell around the both of them, twisting through an open window. Childe slides across the floor, wincing as his head drags across the wooden floorboards.
With a curse, the Archon's head whips around, watching a chessboard clatter to the floor. Standing beside it, a tall woman in a pale kimono stands, her arms akimbo. The look on her face is thunderous, crackling with rage.
"Dantalion, you utter child." She barks, violet eyes narrowing. "If you wanted a rematch, you could have just asked!"
(Dantalion is his name, then, Childe muses. Looking at him now, it suits him. Dantalion. Dantalion.)
And then she sees the prince, and her face falls oddly flat. With a groan, Dantalion nods. "This," he gestures to the man in his arms, "is your fault."
"What do you mean?" The woman says, her eyes trained on Childe as he slowly gets to his feet, accepting the hand that the scarlet-haired Archon offers him.
"I'm his fiancé," Childe says with a lopsided grin, squaring his shoulders and placing his hand on Dantalion's arm. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss...?"
Next to him, with a sharp glare, his soon-to-be husband flashes him a look of warning. "Watch your tongue, mortal!"
"Oh, Dantalion."
Her tone is jovial as she swats a hand through the air, an easy grin on her face. With her hip cocked to one side and her hand resting in the crook of the other's elbow, her demeanor has changed rather too quickly for Childe's liking. He'll have to be wary of her. Nevertheless, he smiles back twice as brightly.
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. A sly, sweet smile stretches across her beautiful face, and never in his life has Diluc wanted to punch someone so badly. "Congratulations."