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The secret of living was to always keep your blade at the ready. That was exactly why Childe, the Eleventh of the Fatui Farbingers, had found himself getting rid of every single hilichurl in the area and was now trying his best not to bang his head against the table of Adventurer’s Guild from boredom.
“Seriously?” he groaned, fists unclenching and clenching back again. “Nothing?”
Katheryne of Liyue looked at him, just as calm and disconnected from reality as usual, but now it physically hurt. “No, I’m sorry. We are currently out of commissions for your qualification.”
Childe sprung up, wary. “What do you mean ‘my qualification’?” he asked, frowning. There was no way there was a single person more qualified than him. He was a Harbinger, damn him! Only the Traveler could ever count as ‘more qualified’ and even that was doubtful.
Katheryne hesitated. “Well, there is one but…”
“I’ll take it.”
Katheryne patiently attempted to explain. “It’s more up the Traveler’s valley…”
“I’ll take it anyway,” Childe repeated, impatience bubbling under his skin like magma. “What’s there of a kind I can’t solve but Aether can?”
“It’s not a martial commission.”
That made him stop and reconsider. Every person in Liyue could tell exactly how much he preferred battle over any other task - the battle was as natural to him as breathing and, if he may brag, as swift too. Still, if not for this commission, he’d have nothing else to make himself busy with. He’d already done all the paperwork forward a month, massacred every hilichurl up to the outskirts of the nation and wandering the streets of the harbour was no longer fun. He has been in Liyue for too long.
Childe was a shark, in a way. Sharks couldn’t live without constant movement. Stalling in place meant death, before quite literally, now more figuratively - the death of boredom.
“What’s the deal, anyway?” he asked. “What commission there is?”
Katheryne eyed him up and down, apparently recalculating his identity in her head. Wow, what a surprise, he decided to do something that didn’t include bloodshed. Annoyance burned his throat.
“We have received reports about an unusual ley line,” she began carefully. “The ley lines like these tend to carry memories inside of them, but this one seems more potent. The memories provoked by it have proven to be corporeal and have a certain degree of sentience, as well as…”
“What?”
She pursed her lips. “Well, apparently they emerge after the ley line is destroyed. The way to send them back into incorporeality is still under question.”
Childe’s eyes flared in curiosity. Now that sounded much more intriguing than the usual kind of non-martial commissions. He could use a break from the endless slaughter that didn’t include delivering mail for elder ladies. Don’t get him wrong, that sounds lovely but that wasn’t up his valley.
This? Ley lines, memories, mystery? Challenge? That he could absolutely enjoy.
In hindsight, Childe should have been wiser. He should have let Aether take over and forget about it, maybe go and find another way to make himself busy. But that’s the thing: Childe never was the wise one, he never had a moment to ponder the repercussions. Life made him ever-moving and unstoppable because if he knew anything it was that in his mind the only real consequence was the one of stalling.
So second-guessing wasn’t his strength. If anything, it was a luxury he could never afford. Nothing was quite faster than the speed of thought, and Childe has forged himself to outrun his own mind.
It was the way he survived the Abyss. There was no reason for him to ever change for the world that couldn’t guarantee him safety.
Regardless, there he was, staring into the thick glow of the ley line and sharpening his blades. He knew what to expect from it, he could feel the energy in his bones as his body prepared for trouble.
The first wave of monsters was a smooth sail. His water razors cut through flesh like it’s butter, staining his hands and shoulders with the dark and thick blood-like substance that hilichurls’ bodies were so full of. Childe convinced himself that their dying wails were a song to his ears, and by the time his feet were adorned by bodies, he let them fade into the background, like an orchestra of doomed souls.
The second wave was more of a challenge. Childe let himself get lost in battle, and he couldn’t recall a single thing he did, not really. The swishing of the blade and splash of water and dry sounds of skin being slashed open didn’t awaken anything in him. If anything, he felt drowsy with heavy numbness, and it’s why at first he didn’t pay attention to the forming of a slick shadow behind his back.
He turned around, sharp cheeks splattered with black and brown, ready to sink the weapon into another countless chest before a single rusty dagger sliced the hilichurl’s mask in half and dropped beneath his feet.
It was quiet. Or maybe Childe felt deafened with the sense of recognition. He knew that blade very well, he remembered hastily crafting it under the heavy gaze of a stranger.
The hand that held the other dagger dropped, fingernails black with thick dry dirt under them.
Childe didn’t have to look - he knew the owner of the dagger. He knew every freckle of his sunkissed skin, he knew every ugly battle scar under his ribs and on his shoulders. He knew the bright juicy orange of his hair was now dampened with sweat and bleak from dust and lack of sunlight. He turned to make sure he still remembered because sometimes he looked in the mirror and couldn’t find his own reflection.
Instead, he sees a boy in his teenage years, his hands tightly wrapped in bloody bandages and throat raw with dehydration. The boy’s name was Ajax, and despite having no way of confirming it, Childe knew he was fourteen years old.
The memory of his victory was staring him in the eyes, drawing a blade to his bony bloodied chest. Childe could recall every single scratch on that metal, every single enemy it has slain, every single death that dagger brought.
“Where are we? Who are you?”
Childe took a deep breath and calmly began speaking, despite the storm being born in his mind. “We are in Liyue. I am… it’s hard to explain but you’ll have to trust me on that.”
Before he could even start his explanation, Ajax’s frown changed into a sharp scowl, and yet his eyes became distant like two stars in an empty sky. “No. Rule number one - you never trust a stranger.”
Childe felt his bones and blood freeze in one swift motion, as Skirk’s words left Ajax’s lips. Of course, he remembered. Years and years have gone by, and yet every single night he woke up reciting these rules like a mantra. Like a prayer to the gods that were so far away from his darkness that they would never hear him plead.
“Rule number two, never take anything for free,” he continued, and Ajax’s eyes widened. “Rule number three, noise means you’re in danger, quiet means you’re dead.”
The boy in front of him leaned forward defensively, staring at Childe in disbelief, but it was too late - the dam had been broken, and he recited the rules that kept him alive to this day, word for word, letter for letter.
“Four, always clear your trail behind,” he rambled. “Five, no mercy to the defeated or someone else won’t be merciful to you. Six, rely on skill, not luck.”
Ajax’s lips trembled, and he spoke again.
“Rule number seven,” they said in unison, “never stop moving.”
Ajax’s hands hesitantly lowered, and Childe exhaled, feeling the bitter taste on his tongue. These rules had kept him alive for so long, why’d they still taste like rust, adrenaline and blood?
“How do you know this?"
Childe shrugged. “It will take a while to explain.”
It took a reasonably long time for Childe to make the story work. Part of him swelled with pride at his younger self for not trusting him even after a fairly believable explanation. Besides, he found it was quite easy to resort to the tactics he used with Teucer, with slight corrections. It worked well enough; soon Ajax stopped trying to pull a knife on him and instead silently walked by his side toward the bright lights of night Liyue.
And now, when the adrenaline was gone and the conversation died out, Childe found himself lost and without a plan. It’s not like Katheryne didn’t warn him of the consequences but it still didn’t help that he had nowhere to put that memory. It would simply become a sore spot until… until what?
Childe chose to kill time by chattering away and filling Ajax in on everything they’ve been through for the past decade or so. It helped him from thinking too much about the implications of his existence, and of the possibility of the world seeing him like this - arguably at his strongest but also his most vulnerable.
Ajax didn’t seem impressed with Childe’s story.
“I don’t understand,” he hoarsely grumbled, frowning at his own feet.
“What exactly?”
“I thought after so many years you’d be… smarter. Stronger. Better, I guess.”
Childe couldn’t hold back a little laugh. It was far from his sincere ones but it was most definitely not a fake chuckle. Ajax was quite judgemental, at least, for someone who was just a memory of what was no longer him.
“Well, I don’t know comrade,” he said with a smile, “I think I’d gotten pretty good, hadn’t I?”
And yet, Ajax’s face didn’t return the smile. In fact, his frown grew deeper, and a shadow fell on Childe’s face. They just passed the first bridge leading toward the city, when Ajax’s voice rose again.
“Then why are you still the one to be fooled by others?”
The question stopped Childe dead in his tracks. The storm he tried so hard to conquer suddenly wailed louder than his own voice, and through the thick wind, Childe struggled to find him an answer. The truth was that he didn’t know, and out of all possible variations of the question Ajax chose the one that hit the hardest.
He could have asked why Childe was defeated. He could have asked how did he allow himself to lose the battle. Answers to those questions Childe had prepared from the very night he asked them himself, but this boy said the exact words he feared to hear the most.
That he, Childe, the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger, was a fool. And he had nothing to fight against this claim with.
“Anyway,” he said after a brief pause, disregarding a question, “I will hopefully leave you for safekeeping with a good old friend of mine, and then I will find someone to help us with this predicament, deal?”
Ajax stared at him with the same blank expression, only the small frown Childe saw on his face before still slightly lingered. “Friend?”
“Yes, friend.”
Well, Aether could be hardly considered a friend in societal understanding. Of course, they had been in a sort of convoluted peaceful agreement most of the time, aside from the Osial incident. And, yes, perhaps he had been rather unwanted for the most part, not that it bothered him or anything. But for Childe, the fact that Aether wouldn’t want to kill Ajax off or abandon him somewhere without a second thought was already enough to consider him a friend.
At least, for as long as Aether was willing to tolerate the boy, which Childe hoped would be enough to figure this out.
The main issue was that the blonde traveller could be literally anywhere, even in another nation, since for him utilising teleportation was an everyday occasion. Dumping the child on Zhongli straight away simply wasn’t an option - especially with the bitter feelings that he still had about the man. Archon. Didn’t matter.
Lucky for Childe, he managed to find Aether swiftly and thank archons the noisy and nosy Paimon wasn’t there. The last thing that he wanted at the moment was her bluntness and adorable cluelessness, as well as her inherent inability to read the room. He looked relaxed, which meant it was likely he wasn’t busy.
“Aether! My friend!” he loudly exclaimed, hoping that his voice wouldn’t fail to cover the exhaustion and hunger that started to seep through his intricately crafted facade.
“Childe?” he murmured, clearly confused. Still, he didn’t try to pull a weapon on him, which was great progress. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to celebrate it at the moment. “Is this another one of your siblings?”
“As a matter of fact, no. But I do need assistance again. Yours, that is.”
A shadow of annoyance passed Aether’s eyes, and suddenly it was clear to Childe that the traveller held no intention of helping him. For the first time in forever, he felt desperation claw at his throat. He truly had no one else to ask, and if his loneliness usually didn’t bother him, now it was suddenly overwhelming. In unison with the storm, the desolate ocean wept in his mind, waves chipping at his carefully curated smile.
“You know the commission about the ley lines that Katheryne planned to assign you?” he asked and, receiving an irritated nod, he continued. “It happened so that I have completed it but it does have… unfortunate side effects.”
Aether slowly looked at Ajax, then back at Childe’s face, and then his eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me this is…”
“Yes,” he hurried the answer, “younger me, indeed. A memory of him. I am planning to ask Zhongli for help since the man knows about everything, and I will leave Ajax in your safe hands for now, how does that sound?”
“If you really are me,” Ajax interjected, the voice suddenly slightly less harsh than before, “I wanna ask a question.”
Childe turned to him, raising his eyebrows. For a memory, Ajax had a lot of autonomy; he frowned, he glared and he asked questions. Part of him reminded Childe that that was his memory, a part of him that stayed in the Abyss even after he crawled out victorious. “Sure.”
“When you become strong enough,” his voice slightly wavered, and Childe suddenly no longer felt hungry, “are you no longer afraid?”
His throat tightened. Childe took a deep breath, ostracizing himself from the ginger boy that had the same face as him, the same freckles and the same eyes - blue and deprived of the spark he so often saw in the eyes of others.
Just like Teucer, he repeated to himself. Just like Teucer. He sat down, crouching to his height and ruffled Ajax’s hair.
“Of course, I’m not,” he lied, a bright and fake smile tearing his lips apart. Aether gave him a questioning glance, but Childe only dismissed him. “Look out for him, and I’ll find Zhongli.”
“But…” Aether tried to protest, but Childe was already walking away, the smile slowly fading off his face.
No, he thought. You never stop being afraid.
That was one of the things Childe always thought was permanently torn out of him - the sense of fear, such a low and primal instinct that nevertheless was always present in humans. But when he looked in the mirror he saw no human, he saw something even lesser than that. You wouldn’t come out of Abyss human, among monsters you adopt their nature, and Childe wasn’t ashamed of the thought of being that. A monster.
There was nothing to fear in life if everything that could ever hurt you was losing to you in strength, agility and ruthlessness. Childe knew what he was fighting and training for - Tsaritsa, yes, but most importantly for the knowledge that there was nothing in the world that could scare him. That there was nothing in the world capable of hurting him more than he would hurt it back.
But despite a decade of forging himself into something restlessly dauntless, in front of Zhongli’s door he heard the storm in his mind grow louder. And he was afraid.
Childe took a deep breath, and it thundered in his chest. Tonight he wasn’t the person who went for lunch with Zhongli, the consultant of a funeral parlour. Tonight he was the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers, requesting the Geo Archon’s assistance.
He knocks on the door a single time.
Childe wasn’t sure what his facial expression was showing, all he cared about was that it wasn’t the desperate sense of anxiety that throbbed in his throat. Regardless, it must have been unpleasant, as Zhongli’s eyes immediately darken on the sight of him.
“Oh dear,” his deep voice murmured, “let me fetch some herbal tea for you. Come in.”
Only now did Childe remember that he was still splattered in dark browns and reds, his hair hard with coagulated blood and sweat, and he still gripped the handle of his blades with such force that his knuckles stayed white this entire time and now dimly ached from tension. He couldn’t find a single cell in his body that cared, as he walked through the doorway, his limbs were stiff like wooden.
“I came here for information,” he didn’t even recognise his own voice, as it sounded so distant and hollow through the howling wind between his temples. “I need to know everything about ley line anomalies, specifically the memory manifestation kind.”
Zhongli appeared from the kitchen, ever so calm and collected, not even his amber eyes showed a single strand of confusion. Suddenly, anger bubbled in Childe’s throat. He didn’t bother acting on it or even showing it to the world. That anger was for him alone to keep, and it was merely a product of deep-rooted grief.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. Both of them did unforgivable things, both of them were monsters of their own kind and both of them had their conscience permanently tainted with choices they made back in the Golden House. Then why the hell would Zhongli get to stay unbothered and steady, like an unmovable mountain, while Childe was doomed to be constantly torn by the storm?
“That is quite a broad subject,” Zhongly slowly said, as Childe crashed by the coffee table, blankly staring at its surface. Anywhere but Zhongli’s eyes. “Please, have some tea.”
Rule number two, never take anything for free.
“No, thank you.”
“I insist.”
Something in Childe’s throat finally stopped bending and snapped. “Quit it, Morax!” he banged his fists on the coffee table, and it quaked, almost sending the teacups flying. “Just give me the information and I’ll go. Let’s get this over with.”
Zhongli reeled back ever slightly, and for the first time in ages, Childe could see a shadow of emotion in his irises. He fought the forming dampness below his eyelids. Oh, unfair indeed, that out of all possible responses Zhongli seemed to be genuinely hurt.
“Childe, I am sorry…” he began, but Childe cut him off instantly. Liyue had made him soft, made him gullible. It made him believe in the beautiful lie of good intentions. It was time to go home, where Snezhnaya carved suspicion into his empty rotten heart.
“No need,” he calmly responded. “We are both professionals. Let’s now behave like it.”
Zhongli hesitantly pulled back. Childe watched him with sorrowful satisfaction. That’s right, he thought, keep distance. The best way of healing a broken heart was detoxication.
“Now,” Childe hummed, “ley lines. Recently there has been an appearance of an anomaly that manifests one’s memory into a semi-sentient being and we are yet to find a way to dispose of them.”
Finally, Zhongli quit trying to soften him. Instead, he pondered for a moment or two, before nodding. “I believe I have encountered such an occasion long ago on a visit to Inazuma. There, such ley lines are more common, however, the memories tend to dissipate within several minutes and are not sentient beings. They are more of a fragment of a recording, often going on a loop.”
Childe shook his head. “That is not the occasion. The memory is fully sentient and is a separate being, capable of free speech, critical thinking and emotion.”
“How accurate is it to its origin? How much does it resemble the memory it is supposed to represent?”
Childe swallowed heavily, remembering Ajax’s dull, lifeless eyes and steady hands, his frantic repetition of rules Skirk made him remember by heart within the first fifteen minutes of their meeting. The boy knew not just exactly what Childe thought but knew exactly the questions he was terrified of answering.
“Identical.”
Zhongli paused again. “I believe I know what we are dealing with. Such ley lines are indeed more potent but they require nourishment.”
“Elaborate?”
Zhongli looked at Childe anew, but this time his expression changed into something much softer. Childe gripped his knees and swore to Tsaritsa that if he sees any pity in the glowing amber of Zhongli’s eyes he will strangle the man himself.
“It doesn’t simply latch onto a random memory,” Zhongli explained calmly, though his eyes remained piercingly perceptive. “Such ley lines are malicious and thrive off fear and despair. Likely, it would penetrate the deepest parts of your mind and lure out your darkest moments, then it would dissipate, latching onto you, and drain you with endless despair.”
Childe shook his head violently, refusing to process his words, but Zhongli didn’t stop, only further inflating the bitter knot in Childe’s lungs.
“Whatever it is you are most terrified of confronting, it embodies it and then follows you. There are two options: you either slowly lose yourself to your own demons… or stop being afraid.”
Childe barely even registered his last words. His tongue tasted of metal; it was possible he accidentally bit through his cheeks and now the wound was flooding his mouth, but he didn’t care, as the storm in his mind finally took over and roared proudly, shattering the insides of his skull. Zhongli appeared to be speaking again, but it no longer mattered.
When he was younger, his father had taught him the three fear responses - fight, flight or freeze. All humans, when put in a situation so stressful that adrenaline takes over, ultimately choose between the three.
After Abyss, for Childe there was only one option left.
The blade was stopped an inch away from Zhongli's face by the hard and steady hand. His golden eyes stayed gentle but unreadable; an immovable object let the immovable force crash against it and crackle in a whirlwind, as Childe hasn't stopped forcing the power of his body against the weapon.
He needed to fight him. He needed to win. He needed to breathe again.
But his chest contorted in a futile attempt to re-establish the comforting rhythm, instead, his heart violently thrashed against his ribcage. Childe couldn't see. He couldn't see and then above him there was an empty sky, and suddenly he was falling and falling…
"You don't need to be afraid of me," Zhongli said, his voice deep and distant. Against the rumble of the storm, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Fight me."
Zhongli's irises darkened, and Childe felt the thrumming of blood in his ears. The world around him slowed down and seemed to sludge heavily through time, while Childe himself felt like he still kept accelerating in speed.
"You exhibit symptoms of a panic attack, you need to…"
"Fight me!" he cried out, even though by this point he could no longer hear his own voice. There was only endless howling and then quiet. Deep, unnatural quiet, the kind that only happens before the storm, the kind that only ends with wounds in your chest and shoulders and desperate crawling away from the inevitable.
Rule number three, quiet means you’re dead.
You’re dead. You’re dead. A singsong voice rang in his ears, celebrating his untimely demise, as he desperately clawed against his own chest and face and stomach. He thought he vaguely heard himself desperately screaming hoarse. Maybe it was “I am alive!”, maybe it was “I am human!” or maybe the storm found its way through his lungs and escaped, tearing the room apart.
Outrun his mind. Outrun his mind. A razor cut through his arm, and he heard Zhongli’s screaming through a veil of deep blue water. He was bleeding, it was red, it hurt, he was alive, he was human.
He was not.
Two strong palms were around his wrists, and a deep soothing voice rang through his head. “Childe, you need to breathe with me.”
He needed to breathe. He needed to breathe. How?
The voice continued, it vibrated with the strength of a mountain range, like deep primordial quaking, and it finally was louder than the wind. “Breathe with me. You are not alone.”
Alone. He had to go through it alone, he always did, there was no one in the Abyss to save him, and there was no one in Snezhnaya who would grieve, and there was no one in Liyue who would hold his hands so gently and soothe him with whispers coming from the earth itself. Except there was. The tempest cleared, and he was sat in Zhongli’s arms, the place where he cut himself open already bandaged and clean.
He almost stabbed this man through his face, and yet he was cradling him like nothing else mattered. What a ridiculous visage they were.
“What the hell happened?” Aether’s voice tore Childe out of the emptiness he floated in. He was supposed to guard the memory. God fucking damn.
“Where’s Ajax?” he rasped. His throat was burning raw, perhaps he really did scream. A fool. He was a fool.
“Asleep in my room, I left him at Wangshu inn,” Aether said. “Why are you bleeding? Did you actually try to fight Zhongli?”
Against his will, a bitter maniacal chuckle rose through Childe’s mouth and hit the ceiling. Aether looked at him like he was insane. Wasn’t he already? Was he? In the Abyss there was no such thing as sane.
“Childe required my help,” Zhongli replied shortly, and Childe peered at him. He could have told Aether the truth, he could have easily let him know that Childe went off the rails and needed to be restrained. That Childe was the monster they all knew well again. Instead, he chose to mock him and tell Aether that Childe was someone who needed saving.
Fool, he decided in the end. It was Zhongli who was a fool out of two of them. Childe didn’t need saving, for archon’s sake. He was already so far beyond saviour.
“Did you learn anything at all?”
Zhongli repeated the same old story he told to Childe, the same ridiculous concept of Ajax being the embodiment of Childe’s fears. He knew he had no fear of the Abyss; no one would survive it by being afraid or cowardly or archons forbid indecisive. Abyss might have torn the humanity out of him but it also forever changed his view.
Death was no longer something improbable or vague, it was palpable and he tasted it every day on his fingertips. There could be no fear if every night you are so acutely aware that by another dawn you’ll fight death itself and win.
“So,” Aether incredulously looked at them both, “you mean to tell me that this childhood memory is everything Childe fears?”
“That sounds stupid, I hope you know that,” Childe muttered, words still painfully sharp in his throat. “I’m a harbinger. I’ve seen shit. I’m not afraid of my child self.”
“It may not be as literal as you read it,” Zhongli replied. “Sometimes you fear not the memory itself but what it entails.”
Childe was sick of this. The energy he burned out a moment ago came back to him, and now he was oozing it, as it morphed itself into irritation and a dire need to keep moving. Whatever it takes, he had to make progress on this case, so he could finally forget it ever existed.
“I know, I’m not stupid,” he tapped his feet in impatience, “but what do I do? How do I destroy this… this memory?”
Zhongli sighed, ever the patient, and Childe felt his insides bubbling with terrible desperation. Never has once he felt this despaired. Not when he stood up to his feet, glaring into the void full of every nightmare they have told him of as a kid. Not when he crawled out of it to discover that the world kept going when for him time has forever stopped. Not when he looked in the face of defeat that had golden blonde hair and now was standing next to Zhongli, his best and only friend.
“You see, Ajax…” Zhongli began.
“Childe,” his voice was iced and seeped venom. Ajax was the muddy ginger boy that was currently sleeping in Aether’s bed, clutching the sheets in a desperate attempt to hide from the nightmare of his own mind. “I am not Ajax. Not anymore.”
Zhongli sighed and continued. “Ley line memories are like ever-bleeding wounds. The knife may be gone, but the injury still needs healing.”
“It means you have to stop lying to yourself, Childe.” Aether’s eyes were dark and serious, and Childe wanted to throw up.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” he snarled. “Unless you want me to kill him, there’s nothing I can help you with.”
With the words, Aether’s face subtly changed, and it was not irritation as Childe expected. It’s worry and deep profound sadness, and it struck him so deeply that he couldn’t make himself look Aether in the eye.
“Would you…” Aether whispered. “Would you actually do that?”
Childe read the situation thoroughly; he didn’t like the heavy air in the room or the concerned glances that the men exchanged. He didn’t like it, it felt far too vulnerable, far too raw, and it made him want to writhe away back into the Abyss, where things were much simpler. Where the only choice he had to make was if he was going to fight or run.
“What?” he said defensively. “It’s not like he is real. He is just a memory.”
“It’s still part of you,” Zhongli’s voice was so sorrowful that Childe’s lungs felt like they were on fire. “What is it, Childe? What part of you has resurfaced that you are so adamant on destroying?”
Childe stood up, annoyed out of his mind, and despite his chest still heaving and despite almost toppling back onto the floor, he shook off the crumbles of dried blood off his hair and turned his back. “I’m going to go back and keep an eye on Ajax. Let me know when you actually can give me something useful.”
He passed the doorway when Zhongli’s quiet remark made him stop and take a sharp, ragged breath.
“I can sense Abyss on you,” he said, burning a mark into Childe’s tense shoulders with his gaze. “Is that what keeps you at night, Childe? Are you afraid of what you have become?”
Childe summoned all of his strength to keep his voice from breaking when he turned around with a deadly expression. “Don’t pretend to know who I am, Morax.”
The door slammed behind him, hiding the quivering exhale that followed his words.
The road to Wangshu inn was long, too long. But Childe simply chose the easiest option of all - he used the last of his energy to make it an evening run instead. The more exhaustion his eyelids gathered, the less coherent thoughts ran through his mind, and the less he had to worry about analysing it all too much. He hit the first stairs of it in record time, still slightly breathless from the improvised training. Through some barter with the owner of the inn, he managed to score himself a place next to where Aether was staying and, allegedly, the memory was lying asleep.
He walked inside of the room, feeling the sound of emptiness in his chest ring like a church bell.
The hydro vision on his hip glowed in the twilight, and Childe stared at it, eyes dark with such animosity that their bright skyline colour slowly shifted into a deep midnight blue of the Abyss itself.
He rarely thought of it more than an instrument, an extension of his weapon, but now it shone and reflected in his irises, reminding him that this tide was a part of him. That the day he received his vision, bloodstained and reeling from exhaustion, the day he learned that neither time nor stars were on his side Childe had learned that he would always be inherently different from the people around him.
You couldn’t truly be human when humanity was burned and scarred and torn from you. When he thought of his vision, he always pictured the distant image of Fontaine and their damn ruler, the archon of justice.
Justice, he bitterly chuckled. How was this existence, marked by the raging waters of his mind, ever fair?
Oh, Archon of Justice, he thought sarcastically, thank you for granting me your priceless favour, now tell me what does it mean to be blessed by your fairness if I don’t even have any integrity in me left? As always, no matter how many words he sent into the night before, none of the gods ever bothered answering his prayers.
He fell asleep after forcing himself to take a long shower, where he sat down under the cold water and stared at his own scarred shoulders, wondering if justice was something he simply no longer deserved.
Now, despite what someone might think, Childe almost never had nightmares. In fact, he sparsely ever dreamt at all. His life was too intense from day to day, and often he simply collapsed into bed from the sheer exhaustion, so his nights were dreamless and swift. Most times it felt like he barely closed his eyes before he once again had them open, which didn’t bother him - he had enough rest to be at the peak of his skill at all times.
So it was safe to assume that the ley line that hid somewhere inside his bones was simply powerful enough to give him the ability to dream again. So he was once again stranded midflight, hair flapping wildly in the howling wind, as his body was tumbling rapidly through the thick fog. He was helpless; no matter how much you train or exert yourself, no matter how much will your mind holds, there was nothing that could defeat gravity. So he was a hostage of the fall, and he knew all too well that the fall was never going to be over.
Childe wasn’t the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers here. All he was was a child sinking lower into the deepest parts of hell. It tasted like blood, vomit and tears.
Childe woke up drenched in sweat and swallowing a shout that would have surely woken up every living soul up to Liyue harbour. He was nauseous; the hair was sticking to his temples and the sheets around his throat strangled the last instances of breath in him.
He launched himself off the bed in animalistic horror and crumbled to his knees in the middle of the bathroom floor.
Childe wanted to scream for someone, anyone, to take him away and shelter him. But there was no one to call out for; he was alone as he keeled over the toilet, wrenching and coughing up bile from his throat, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. The scream died in his chest without ever being born to light. Instead, he curled onto himself and rocked back and forth, mirroring the waves in the ocean, until nausea ceased to exist.
Childe crawled out to the room, the dim blue of his vision illuminating the bedstand, and suddenly wrath came over his mind, as he stood.
The vision hit the floor with tremendous impact, making the wood vibrate, but it never shattered as he hoped. He felt it boil in his blood as he desperately hit it again and again with the first blade that came upon his hand until it shattered and left him smashing the vision with his bare hands. He kept striking it, until his fists went raw and broken, until the gentle blue was impossible to see behind the blood seeping from his knuckles. And yet, it was still whole, the glow outlining his feral eyes.
For a moment, Childe stared blankly at his vision in silence. And then he keeled over again, but now instead of vomiting, he cried like a newborn infant for the first time since falling into the Abyss.
He didn’t remember any of it. But it didn’t matter to him, as he was well aware of what these hands were capable of.
Whatever human soul was in him as a child had been extinguished too long ago.
Aether found him like this in the morning; in the tangle of sheets in the middle of the floor, floor and vision bloodied both from his knuckles and his old wound that was barely holding onto its bandage. Regardless, he was restlessly asleep, abyssal curses falling off his lips as he trembled in his slumber.
“Childe?” Aether cautiously pushed him just to see if he was alive, and Childe launched at him instinctively, ready to defend himself. Bare-chested and faint, he hardly looked like a warrior, more like a teenager with deep shadows etched under his eyes and constellations of scars battering his back, shoulders and stomach.
“I’m awake,” he said, startled, unphased by his nudity. Shame was the first thing he lost in the Abyss and hardly the last one.
“Uh,” Aether said, “I’ll… wait for you. Wanted to go back to see the place where it was.”
Childe nodded absentmindedly and watched the traveller quietly shutting the door. In a few moments, he was dressed and every trace of the night terrors he had experienced was murdered in cold blood and buried deep inside of his memory to be lost in the oblivion. Aether said nothing of his state but kept glancing at him, probably looking for a flaw or a weakness that could prove that he was as easily shattered as he seemed a moment ago.
Childe took pride in how solid his facade of normalcy was under the wondering stare of the traveller.
He quickly strode towards the stairs. Aether gave him a puzzled look, as he quickly climbed the railing of the balcony. “You can just jump off. It’s a shortcut.”
Childe gave one long look past the railing, where the land of Liyue was sprawling beneath him at an impossible height. Aether had a reputation of simply jumping off everything and gliding for miles, and Childe could admire that concept. However, he shook his head. “I don’t own a glider.”
“You don’t?” Aether looked at him incredulously.
“Nope,” Childe responded with a popping sound and continued his descent.
“Are you afraid of heights?
Childe snorted and looked back at the traveller with a hint of amusement in his eyes. “No, I’m not.”
He wasn’t lying. He loved heights and sometimes he would climb a random peak in Liyue to watch the sunset slowly collapse onto itself and bleed until the sky darkens into night. He was fond of balconies and even back in Zapolyarny palace in Tsaritsa’s headquarters he loved to oversee the endless white snow of his homeland. As long as there was a way down, Childe loved to feel above everything that held him down.
“Why don’t you simply use the gilder then?”
Childe glanced at the blue mirror of water far off in the distance for the last time. “I just like to keep my feet on the ground, that’s all.”
Aether shrugged and leapt off, and as Childe quickly ran down the endless staircases, his eyes followed the lean blonde figure gracefully gliding across the grey and blue of the skyline. His stomach churned, a wave of nausea rising in his throat, so he took his gaze off Aether and instead concentrated on descending quicker than his companion.
No, Childe wasn’t afraid of heights at all. It’s the sense of falling that he dreaded.
Aether slammed into the ground next to him the second Childe felt the earth beneath his feet. Childe didn’t even flinch, only looked at him over the shoulder. “Ready to go? I can show you where it was.”
Aether nodded, suspicion still lingering in his voice. “Sure. Lead the way.”
The walk wasn’t long, it was merely half an hour from the inn, and the little meadow where he found the glowing swirl of energy wasn’t all that different from any other place. It was a simple patch of grass with a tree covering it with a half-moon shadow. Aether glanced around, perplexed. “Are you sure it’s the place?”
“Doubting me already?” Childe teased half-heartedly. “Yes, it is. See, there is even some dried blood left.”
It was true - an old splatter of dark spots adorned most of the grass beneath their step. Aether’s eyes suddenly changed colour and glowed neon blue, and Childe assumed he used the rumoured elemental sight of his that many people gossiped about. Aether frowned deeply and returned his eyes to normal.
“This place is pretty much a colour fest,” he muttered. “And you are full of it as well.”
Childe blinked, slightly taken aback. “What do you mean?”
Aether checked again, letting his elemental sight scan the entirety of Childe’s skin, but his expression only got grimmer. “The ley line. It’s all over your body.”
The thought made Childe snap his mouth shut. So it was true then. The ley line was happily feeding off his weakness, while he struggled to keep it together. “Do you think you can just… blow it away with your anemo ability? Like you did with elemental dust?”
Aether shrugged. “I mean, I doubt it but I don’t think it would harm anyone to try.”
He launched forward, a crackle of teal-coloured magic rippling through his clothing, and a gust of wind swept through the grass, scaring the birds away. Now Childe could see it too; suddenly a swirl of deep dark golden magic manifested into the air and swung around them in a vortex. It accelerated, spinning in massive blindingly bright circles, and before Aether could finish his scream Childe was isolated from him by a wall of roaring energy.
The light then suddenly went away, and it got dark and foggy. Childe turned around, looking for an opening, but futile. Where there were walls of light before there was nothing. The dark glittering starlight matter of Abyss stared back at him, as the wind suddenly howled and launched him in the air, dropping him from the invisible height.
Panic struck Childe with such intensity that for a moment he forgot how to breathe. He was alone, and Abyss closed in on him as he tumbled through invisible space, fragile and defenceless. His mind immediately tore itself open. Look, it sneered, the depths have come to claim you, to put you back where you have always belonged. For a moment he believed it, he believed that this was it, that he would be forever falling into the endless void beyond where any god could ever hear his cries.
Until he was slammed into the ground, red warmth seeping from his nose. It was so quiet, and Childe stood up just to have all of his blood rush away from his face, leaving him deadly pale from terror.
Teucer’s tiny figure looked at him with an expression of unadulterated horror.
“Big brother,” he whispered, “did you do that? Did you kill them all?”
Childe stammered through his words, struggling to explain himself. “Teucer, I promise, this looks worse than it is…”
His face remained unchanged, a marble mask of disdain, fear and disgust. His eyes were still blue but this time empty, and something told Childe that it might not be Teucer at all. But did it matter? “How could you? You’re a monster.”
Childe was too desperate to ever feel the tears sliding down his cheeks, as he pleaded. “I had no choice! I had no choice, I had to live somehow!”
Teucer’s image multiplied and now he was surrounded by a ring of them - whoever it was, it wasn’t his brother. But it took his name and face and voice, just to chant the words he feared the most, just for them to repeat the same thing over and over, echoing in his head and within the walls of Abyss that trapped him inside for so long. “You’re a monster. You’re not human.”
Childe whipped his head around, feral, trying to escape, trying to find a way to silence the voice that was no longer his brother’s. He saw the image change and shift until he looked at his fourteen-year-old self, but his eyes were just as empty and his face and hands were covered in blood.
“ You’re a monster. ”
He shouted, and his wailing ricocheted back at him, desperate and deafening, as he slashed the million figures with a blade, and all of them shattered into glass except one. His brother, Teucer, stood there with his stomach carved open, and his innocent face distorted in pain.
“Big brother,” he whispered and collapsed into Childe’s arms.
The scream that Childe let out of his throat was anything but human. He crouched to his brother's little body, as he sobbed over him senselessly, feeling his hands shaking and still covered in blood. Blood was everywhere, it covered his hair and his clothes and the grass beneath his feet, and Childe wept and wept away, as Teucer’s eyes went blank and starless and he let go of his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he cried, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Suddenly the earth shuddered, the walls of the Abyss crumbled down, and his brother’s image dissipated into flickers of golden light, as a vortex of drumming wind crashed through him and threw him out of the swirling trap, dropping him prone on the back. He was no longer drowning in blood, only his face had a scarlet streak going down from his nose, and the sky above him was blue again, overshadowed by Aether’s terrified face.
“Childe!” he shouted. “Holy shit, are you okay? I am so, so sorry, I didn’t know it would react that way and then it swallowed you and I panicked!”
Childe rose on his elbows, dazzled. There was no Teucer. There was no Abyss. Only some stupid fear-feeding ley line and his own humiliating weakness.
“I’m fine,” he said, and his voice broke. “I’m…”
His face was still tear-stained and haunted, as he rose to his feet. The crashing waves of fear subsided, and now numbness was gnawing at his chest, as he stared into the space in front of him, drained out and hollow. Maybe that was what Zhongli meant by being lost to your own demons. If anything, the word “lost” described the feeling pretty well.
“Is this…” Aether carefully asked. “Is this something that you’ve gone through in the Abyss?”
At first, Childe wanted to try and talk his way out of it. But there was no point in lying - it was likely Aether witnessed his broken sobbing over his brother’s illusion, he witnessed the helpless dread of falling, he saw everything that he tried so hard for a decade to kill and bury without a trace. “Sort of.”
Aether’s eyes darkened. “The sunset is soon. I’ll gather some wood for a fire.”
Childe wasn’t sure how fast Aether did what he promised - he spent that time replaying the hallucination in his mind, taking it apart and trying to make sense of his own emotions. After all, there was nothing quite as efficient at fixing things as taking them apart and then reassembling them again. But none of it made sense. All he knew was that a part of him could feel the danger he was starting to become to everyone he ever held dear and that the part of him that feared it was likely right.
The crackle of fire did little to calm him down. Aether was silent too, probably thinking about his sister. Sometimes Childe wished that he remembered anything about the Abyss, so if he had to go through that place, he could at least give Aether something to hope for. A memory or a fragment of her, or at least a guarantee of her safety.
But all he knew was that he didn’t remember and that he was incredibly and selfishly thankful for that.
Finally, Aether broke the silence.
“I never realised how broken you were,” Aether said, sincerity nauseatingly clear in his voice. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not broken,” Childe immediately replied, but there was no anger in his voice nor did he believe his own words. Both of them knew Childe was lying, and the hypocrisy of it stung.
No, he thought, everyone knew exactly the kind of wretch he was. No one bothered to mend him, so he was forced to fix himself. And that was the simple truth Childe knew; no one noticed the wounds but many have scorned the carelessness of the stitches.
Aether replied after a pause. “I mean, not that there is anything embarrassing about it. I’d say most people are broken. More than you’d think, to be honest.”
Childe snorted, wiping the dried blood off his nose. “Well, I’m not people. I don’t break.” Besides, he thought, you heard what they said, I’m not human. He picked up a random stick and rummaged through the embers absentmindedly, listening to them crackle apart. The truth is, Childe thought, I don’t know what I am.
The silence rose between them again, and it was the closest to comfortable Aether would ever probably feel next to him. The thin wall between him and everyone else that he felt ever since he crawled out of hell now felt like it was miles and miles thick.
“What now?” Aether asked, lifting his eyes. “Are you still searching for a way to get rid of it?”
Childe chuckled darkly, and the stick that was slowly festering this entire time broke in half. He already knew what was next. “I’m going back to Snezhnaya, that’s what.”
“What?”
Childe looked at Aether, as he incredulously stared back. The silence grew thicker. “I have been here for too long. I grew soft and I grew vulnerable. I can bet however much mora you like that back by Tsaritsa’s side this minor inconvenience will starve to death.”
“What about Ajax?”
He shrugged. “You could kill him for all I care.”
Aether fumed, clearly frustrated, but Childe couldn’t find any energy to actually care about it. “Don’t you get it? We know nothing of how it works!” he snapped. “What if it does something to you? Or your mind? What if it actually fucks up time and maybe you will disappear entirely out of existence? Do you not care at all?”
Childe stared back at Aether, his face unchanged. Aether froze, the realization hitting him harder than any projectile. “You… don’t, do you?”
Without an answer, Childe looked towards a half-finished chicken-mushroom skewer. Someone had to finish it for him. He stood up mechanically and started moving towards the inn. Aether’s “Wait!” drowned in the void of his mind, as he walked through the fields of Liyue for the last time.
He didn’t have many things to pack - some of them he managed to bring to Wangshu inn, others were back in the harbour but he could always pay one of his subordinates to get them for him by dawn. Then he would take the first ship to Snezhnaya and soon it would be forever gone from his memory.
He wished he could say goodbye to Zhongli but it would only feed his weakness.
“You are a fool,” a voice suddenly said, “you know that?”
Childe spun around, prepared for a fight, however, the man didn’t seem interested in attacking him. He was shorter than average, with similar amber eyes to Zhongli’s but sharper, and his blue hair fell down in streaks on his tattooed shoulders. Childe realized he might know who that is - Zhongli spoke of Xiao highly, though with certain sorrow in his voice that later Childe would recognise as parental.
“What a generous assessment,” Childe replied, staring back. Not hostile just yet, just cautious and vigilant. “Xiao, right? Nice to meet you this late.”
“I’ve been watching you,” he instead claimed. “Or your ley line memory, rather. Rex Lapis requested it of me, and though I am far from fond of you, harbinger, I know how he cares for you. It’s rare.”
Part of Childe’s chest fluttered, and he cursed himself for letting sentimental matters interfere with his plan to leave as soon as possible. “Well, you can tell him my goodbyes then.”
Xiao let out a deep frustrated sigh. “You mortals are so complicated. Your time is merely a glimpse in adepti’s eyes and yet you still waste it on stupid things like grudges. Rex Lapis’s affection for you is unbelievable to me.”
Before Xiao could disappear again, Childe called out fervently. “Wait, what the hell do you mean by affection? He lied to me and used me so I could make a fool of himself! What kind of affection is that?”
Xiao looked at him with a long complex expression. “You know, the memory you have brought to life isn’t just a manifestation of fear. If it were so, I would have already dealt with it. It’s your desires as well, the ones you are afraid to comprehend.”
“Then what the hell is it? What does this thing need to disappear?”
“I don’t know,” Xiao simply said. “What do you need?”
“Thanks, very helpful.” Childe rolled his eyes, annoyed, and yet a tinge in his chest told him that the yaksha struck home. There was a deep need in his chest that he struggled to put in words.
Xiao climbed the railing, his lean figure was a sharp outline against the rising moon. “And one more thing.”
Childe huffed, glancing at him. “What?”
Xiao sent him a piercing glance but something in those eyes was… not soft or affectionate, not yet, but it was a brief glimpse of compassion that for a moment seemed to be a play of light. “I have seen a fair share of terrible wretches in my time. You are no monster. All you are is a human with a scarred mind and an inflated ego.”
Before Childe could ever get offended by that statement, Xiao’s silhouette blurred and snapped away into a cloud of blue and black smoke, and he was alone again, staring at the starry sky above the Liyue harbour.
“No monster, huh,” he repeated into the air, the restlessness in his limbs slowly coming to a halt.
Childe absentmindedly sat on the bed, spinning a blade between his fingers, it flipped and flipped until it found a rhythm that sang along with his heartbeat, fast but steady. What was it, what was the urgent pressure in his chest that begged to be released for so long that he forgot what it was asking for? He flipped the blade again and saw his own reflection: battered with bruises, exhausted, a perfect image of a victor cut out of stone.
Suddenly he knew what he wanted, and so he picked up his vision and took off to Liyue harbour in the middle of the night.
Zhongli opened his door reluctantly, but it changed as Childe’s figure hovered in the doorway with a determination that could turn mountains and dry rivers on his face. “I want you to fight me.”
The amber eyes flickered with irritation, as he prepared to run a lecture and send him home, but Childe interrupted. “No, Zhongli, I need you to fight me. Please.”
Zhongli froze, his face uncertain, but Childe knew that the barrier was broken. For the first time in these two days, he was fully lucid and knew exactly what he was doing, and that was what fueled the thrumming anxiety in his bones. He knew what he needed, for the first time in so many years.
“Only if you promise me that we stop before any serious injuries,” Zhongli finally caved in, and Childe eagerly nodded. The energy of the fighting thrill vibrated beneath his skin.
Zhongli’s eyes glowed, golden, and suddenly they were in a desolate space in the middle of nowhere, and only the alabaster moon was there to witness their silhouettes, standing on the battlefield with their positions struck. Childe grinned, summoning two hydro blades in his palms. He knew exactly how this battle would end, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t give it all he got.
“No shield,” he teased, and Zhongli rolled his eyes. “We want this to be fun, right?”
And then it started. Childe leapt through the air, wind howling in his lungs, and for the first time in forever, he felt truly alive, as he clashed with Zhongli’s polearm. He swept across the battlefield, planting calculated hits with lightning speed. And yet the polearm always found him and twisted his movements in its favour. Hydro blades crashed and crashed against the metal as ocean waves would crash against the shore, and Zhongli’s steady shoulder never failed to remind him that the immovable force remains immovable as it should.
And yet… “Come on, Zhongli,” he shouted, his heart beating against his ribcage, “I know it isn’t all you’ve got!”
Finally, Zhongli left the defensive position, as his face darkened in calculated wrath. He slammed the blades back at Childe and spun, his eyes still ever-present. Childe no longer had the upper hand, and he struck endlessly, upholding the attacks, feeling maniacal laughter rumble in his throat. He knew it was a matter of time before it was over, and he was right. A single breath later, he fell upon his back with a sharp metal edge propped to his throat.
The desperate need in his chest untangled its spiral and finally released free.
“What was that about?” Zhongli demanded, as Childe finally caught his breath and stopped laughing in relief so boundless it almost flooded him instead of Liyue.
“Your errand boy, Xiao,” he said, ignoring the protests of the adeptus about him not being anything remotely close to an errand runner, “told me that the memory was not about fear but a need.”
Zhongli looked at him, still confused. “Your need that was so strong it bent time and matter was to challenge me to a fight?”
Childe snorted and shook his head, the grin on his face slowly warping into something more sheepish, almost… vulnerable. “I needed to lose.”
A beat of silence rang between them, as Zhongli stared at Childe speechless.
“I needed to lose because I knew that the only person I would ever trust to defeat me was you.” Childe finally exhaled, as the weight from his shoulders was finally gone. “I think… I needed to lose to finally feel human again.”
Zhongli didn’t answer him for a brief moment. Then, he connected their eyes once again and spoke firmly, and yet something in his voice told Childe that tonight he was speaking to Zhongli, the consultant of a funeral parlour and not the immortal Rex Lapis.
“I know what I have done and why I have done it. I had my reasons for it and I hold no regrets,” he said, and Childe winced. Ouch, harsh. “But I have not deceived you once when it came to how I felt about our friendship and how I felt about you.”
Childe’s eyes widened, as his heart beat against his chest in a slim ray of hope. Despite everything, despite the release of Osial, despite the endless blood on his hands… Zhongli saw him as no monster. He saw him as human, and that made Childe that maybe, just maybe, one day he could see it too.
“Well, I can certainly say that shit you did is unforgivable,” he awkwardly laughed, and Zhongli’s face fell. “But, you know, so is mine.”
Childe hesitated but then he put a hand on Zhongli’s shoulder. “Both of us are kind of monsters. And indeed both of us don’t get forgiveness. But the world is a strange place.”
Zhongli’s eyes flickered, as Childe swallowed heavily, letting the small glimpse of hope settle. Maybe it was worth the risk. Maybe good intentions wasn’t that bad of a lie to believe in. “So let’s hope that if there isn’t forgiveness, there might be redemption for us both.”
“Do you still see a friend in me, Childe?”
Childe paused, feeling his throat go bitter. Still, he went too far to let the spark of hope die this quickly. “I have known you once. I could do it again.”
And even when he stumbled into Aether’s room unprompted and saw no trace of a ginger boy with bloodied knuckles, he hasn’t changed his mind.
“Childe,” he jumped, worry obvious on his face, “what happened? Hallucinations again? Ajax just disappeared, I don’t know…”
“He’s gone,” Childe said. “For good.”
Aether’s face relaxed and he fell back against the chair, seemingly also struggling to sleep. “Good. Good.” He looked Childe up and down and winced in compassion. “You had a rough night, I won’t ask anything. Paimon will, when she is back, though.”
Childe snorted and crashed against the floor, back propped to the wall. “It’s fine.” He looked at his own hands, still calloused from fighting Zhongli, and sighed. “I… I think I will stay at yours for tonight. Won’t sleep, just gonna sit here. Don’t want to go back.”
Aether nodded, reading the hidden message. I don’t want to be alone.
It wasn’t quite vulnerability just yet nor was it redemption. But tonight, for this moment, it was enough. Despite everything, Childe still remembered Skirk’s motto. Never stop moving. For a brief moment, Childe thought outside his window he saw a lean figure with blue hair in strands falling upon tattoed shoulders that nodded to him in quiet acknowledgement and vanished into the branches of Wangshu inn.
I am human, he repeated, I am human. For a breathless moment, he believed it.