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Ganyu isn’t scared of much. She’s seen war, blood, death; and worst of all she has seen the inexorable passage of time, tearing loved ones away from each other, leaving her alone in a world where she doesn’t quite belong. She’s not scared of that, not anymore; she’s not scared of monsters, human or otherwise. But for some strange reason, the mere presence of the 77th Director of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor is enough to send shivers up her spine. There’s something about her eyes, those flat, lifeless crimson irises, that makes her want to run as far away from Hu Tao as she possibly can, and never turn back. She doesn’t understand – doesn’t understand why Morax seems so comfortable around her, why Xiao has yet to eliminate her, given the danger to Liyue she so clearly is. Mostly, she doesn’t understand why Hu Tao scares her so much.
Sure, everyone in Liyue agrees that Hu Tao is a little… unconventional. Some, not quite as polite as the rest, might even call her creepy. Still, Ganyu has no real reason to be as afraid of her as she is. But there’s something, something she can’t quite put her finger on, something that makes ice cold fear prick at her skin whenever she’s in the same room as Hu Tao – not that that happens very often, since Ganyu does everything she can to avoid it. But sometimes, as she’s walking the streets of Liyue, Ganyu feels that familiar tingle, all of her instincts screaming at her to run, and she catches a blur of black and red out of the corner of her eye. She tries to tell herself she’s just imagining it, that she’s tired, that she’s being paranoid, but deep down she knows she’s being followed.
She’s thought about telling someone about it, asking Morax to intervene, but she knows he doesn’t see Hu Tao the way she does. He doesn’t see her sinister side – or perhaps she doesn’t let him see it. The most Morax would do is ask Hu Tao nicely to be more considerate. It wouldn’t change a thing. Ganyu has a sinking feeling that it’s far too late to go back – far too late for whatever strange obsession Hu Tao has with her to be nipped in the bud. They’re long past that stage, now.
She wonders when this all started – thinks back to when she saw Hu Tao for the first time, when she made her way down to the funeral parlor to express her condolences for the old Director’s death and to congratulate the young woman on her new role. She remembers it vividly – a chilly spring day, a cold breeze blowing through her hair, lifting it away from her back. A woman, no, a girl, standing in a garden, surrounded by plum blossoms, dressed all in black. The pale, late afternoon sunlight reflecting off those oddly-shaped irises, strangely flat even then despite their vivid color. And that strange spark that she had witnessed in them – not a bright spark, no, there was no sign of life in those eyes even back then; but a darkness slowly beginning to take shape, creating an odd glint as the light reflected off it. That was the first time Ganyu had felt that strange sensation crawling up her spine, one she had been rather unfamiliar with at the time, one that she now knows as well as an old friend.
She wishes she had known, back then, what that glint had meant, what it had in store for her. She wishes she had had the foresight to warn Hu Tao off right there and then, or even, as much as it pains her to imagine, to run from Liyue and never look back, to find refuge in some faraway place, where those crimson eyes could never find her. But all that is in the past, and there is nothing she can do now but tremble through every night, jolting awake at the slightest hint of movement, the faintest noise, heart beating furiously inside her chest. She locks her door and she locks her windows but if Hu Tao has already gotten into her head there’s no telling where else she could find a way into. Ganyu is half-adeptus, a war veteran who has killed countless demons and monsters, and yet Hu Tao makes her feel like prey cornered by a predator, a rabbit trapped under the paw of a wolf.
It’s only a matter of time until something gives. Ganyu knows this, but she likes to pretend like she doesn’t, likes to pretend that things will just keep going like this forever, like Hu Tao will be satisfied just watching from afar, because she doesn’t want to have to think about how sooner or later Hu Tao will do something that will change her forever.
It comes sooner than expected. Ganyu thought she might have a few more months at least, perhaps one or two years. But Hu Tao doesn’t give her that luxury. She’s having tea with Morax at the Heyu Tea House – something they do every so often, to catch up on the events of their current lives, and reminisce about their past ones – when Ganyu starts to feel a little too relaxed. She frowns as her vision begins to blur. Morax watches her with concern.
“Are you alright, Ganyu?” he asks, the corners of his lips turning downwards with worry.
“I’m f-fine,” she stutters, lifting a hand to her forehead. It’s hot and clammy, and her arm feels weak. “I think I just n-need a nap…” she breathes. The world begins to spin around her. A black and red blur enters her peripheral vision, and then she hears a voice that makes her blood run cold.
“Aiya,” says Hu Tao in that strange, breathy voice of hers. Ganyu wants to scream, but can’t get her vocal cords to obey. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know,” Morax replies. Ganyu prays and prays that he’ll realize, that he’ll understand that Hu Tao is the one who did this to her. “Maybe she’s coming down with something. She said she needed a nap.”
“Why don’t we take her back to the parlor so she can sleep it off in my room?” Hu Tao suggests, and it sounds innocent, a nice thing to offer for an acquaintance, but Ganyu knows if no one intervenes this will be the end of life as she knows it. She hopes someone will swoop in to save her – Xiao, Cloud Retainer, Shenhe, anyone – but really she knows it’s too late, knows there’s nothing anyone can do for her now, knows Hu Tao has won.
“Hm, good idea,” Morax responds, and a single tear rolls down Ganyu’s cheek. She has to hold on to her strength, her emotional fortitude. She knows she’s going to need it, wherever she wakes up.
-
The first time she wakes, she’s still so limp she can’t even force her eyes to open. There are soft silk sheets rubbing against her cheek, sunlight streaming through what she presumes is a window and falling across her face, painting red shadows behind her eyelids. She can hear voices speaking in low tones not far away – perhaps in the next room. They sound familiar, and deep down she knows that she needs to figure out where she is, who she’s with, but the air around her feels syrupy and thick like molasses, and the darkness is so inviting, and she falls readily back into the warm embrace of sleep.
The second time she wakes, she feels much more alert, but the bed she’s lying on is nowhere near as soft, the sheets scratchy rather than silky smooth, and the room is dark. Her mouth is dry, tongue sticking to her palate, and there’s a dull, aching pain throbbing through her skull. She tries to sit up, hoping to find a glass of water, but soon realizes she can’t sit up. Her wrists are tied to the bedframe above her head, enclosed in soft leather cuffs with chains that loop behind the metal of the bed. Looking down, she realizes her ankles are similarly restrained. Her heart sinks into her stomach as her memories come rushing back.
Hu Tao. Hu Tao has finally done what Ganyu feared she would do.
She wonders how long she’s been here already, wonders if anyone has noticed that she’s missing yet. She remembers Hu Tao offering to let her sleep in her bed. Surely Morax will have noticed that she’s not there anymore…
Ganyu twists and turns and tugs at the cuffs desperately, the chains clanging and rattling against the bedframe, but to no avail. She has never felt so pathetically weak, so pathetically mortal as she does in this very moment.
“Help!” she tries to scream, but her voice comes out reedy and hoarse, barely loud enough to echo around the room she’s locked up in. She goes limp on the bed, and begins to sob.
Suddenly, she hears a faint noise – the creak of a door opening somewhere in the distance, the sound of footsteps on stone steps. A spark of hope reignites inside her, and she begins to struggle again, tugging at the cuffs and screaming as loud as she possibly can. The footsteps grow louder, clearly getting closer to her, and she almost sobs with joy, but something holds her back. Those footsteps – they’re rather slow, strangely leisurely for someone hearing screams for help. But still, Ganyu hopes, prays, begs to all the Archons that this is Morax, or even Xiao, coming to save her.
Then the door creaks open. A familiar laugh, high-pitched and breathy, rings out, and Ganyu slumps back against the bed, defeated. There’s nothing anyone can do for her now.
“Oh, Ganyu,” Hu Tao sighs, “there’s no need to struggle! I’m not going to hurt you, I promise… Oh, let me turn the light on! We can’t have your beautiful face hidden in the dark now, can we?”
As promised, the light flashes on. It’s brighter than she expected, and Ganyu has to squeeze her eyes shut against the glare. When she finally adjusts to the brightness, she steals a glance around the room, and has to hold back a sob. There are coffins stacked in piles everywhere around her, in all shapes and sizes and colors. Hu Tao sees her eyes widen with terror, and giggles.
“Sorry about the mess,” she sings. “I would have cleaned up, but… I wasn’t sure my plan would work, anyway. See, it’s not easy to find drugs that will work on a half-adeptus! I suppose you have Baizhu to thank for this,” she giggles. The horror of the situation sinks in a little more. There’s no way Hu Tao will ever let her go.
“Why… why would you do this, Hu Tao?” she whispers, holding back her tears.
Hu Tao freezes, unusually serious for once. She tilts her head to one side, looking down at Ganyu where she lays, spread out on the bed, restrained and helpless.
“Because I love you, Ganyu,” she says, her voice so different from its usual musical tone. She sounds – genuine, sincere, maybe a little sad around the edges.
Ganyu’s horror doesn’t fade – if anything, it grows, because what kind of fucked up person drugs and kidnaps someone they claim to love – but at least she can work with this. Maybe, maybe she can convince Hu Tao not to hurt her. Maybe she can convince her to let her go.
“If you l-love me,” Ganyu whimpers, “don’t you want me to be happy?”
“Of course I do!” Hu Tao exclaims, bending over the bed to cup Ganyu’s face between her hands.
“Then… can you let me go? I don’t want to be trapped here, Hu Tao.”
Hu Tao’s face grows dark all of a sudden. “I wish I could, my love,” she sighs. “But you deserve better than that. You deserve better than all those people who see you as an outcast, as someone who doesn’t belong in Liyue. I see you for who you really are. I see how beautiful and caring and perfect you are. They don’t. They don’t deserve you.”
“B-but I want to be free!” Ganyu sobs. Hu Tao shushes her gently, running her hand through the adeptus’ hair. Despite everything, Ganyu can’t help but find the gesture almost comforting.
“I know, my love,” Hu Tao whispers. “But I can’t let you go. Soon you’ll understand. I’m doing this for you.”
Ganyu closes her eyes, resigning herself to her fate. “Are you… going to keep me down here forever?” she asks, although she’s afraid of the answer.
“Of course not, darling,” Hu Tao replies, looking down at her with what Ganyu assumes is supposed to be a reassuring smile on her face. “No, don’t worry, this is only temporary. Like I said, soon you’ll understand why I brought you here. Once you do, there’ll be no need to keep you here anymore. I won’t need to restrain you, because you’ll want to stay. You’ll want to be mine, my love, just as I am yours.”
Ganyu shudders. In some ways, this is worse than the scenarios she had imagined in the past, when the shadows on her bedroom wall grew too large for comfort and the wind howled out her window. But she can work with this. She can do what Hu Tao wants, be what Hu Tao wants her to be, she can pretend, and if she can do that then she can be free. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel now, a flicker of hope. She looks up at Hu Tao, into those eyes, that shade of crimson that will be seared into her mind forever now, and nods. Hu Tao grins.
“Good,” she hums. “Shall we start?”
She turns away, shrugging out of her jacket and laying it over the lid of a coffin. Her hat comes off next, laid carefully on top of the jacket. Then she turns back around. She looks different without the hat – younger. Ganyu wonders if things would have turned out the same if her grandfather hadn’t died. The shirt she wears underneath her jacket is a deep red, short-sleeved, high-collared. That makes her look younger too. Ganyu thinks back to the girl in the garden with the plum blossoms and wonders where everything went so wrong – why everything went so wrong.
“W-what are you going to do?” Ganyu whimpers.
“Well, Zhongli told me the reason you feel so out of place is because you’re half-human, half-adeptus. Not fully at home in either world. I want to help you fix that.”
Ganyu frowns. “What do you mean, fix that?”
Hu Tao hums noncommittally and leans over Ganyu, reaching for something on the shelf on the other side of the bed. Ganyu isn’t quite sure what she’s grabbing, but she sees the telltale glint of light reflecting off metal and feels her blood run cold.
“No, no, no,” she whispers, beginning to tug at her restraints again. “Hu Tao, please, no!”
Hu Tao shushes her, stroking her hair with one hand while she adjusts her grip on the saw in the other. “I know this might hurt,” she murmurs, “but it’s for the best. I promise you’ll feel so much better afterwards.”
And then she grabs one of Ganyu’s horns and begins to cut.