Chapter Text
He had been snatched at the age of seven, and brought before the throne.
Taken from his barren, militant room as he'd been reading through a book, by his own father - told nothing, given nothing - but made to dress his best.
Khaenri'ah's main halls of towering pillars, arched walls and stone.
Grandoise. Fallen.
Ruin and remains.
It is home; the only place he had ever known, with its blackened fields for training, crumbling barracks and desolate forge.
The son of a warrior, he was; a warrior decorated, known and accomplished. His mother had been a loyal hand-maiden in the palace before he'd been born - or so he had been told - though he had never met her, and though his father never spoke her name.
He had been told it mattered little.
In his blood was servitude, regardless, be it by hand or sword.
But now, he kneels, confused, over broken stone and ruptured tile.
Confused by the silence that surrounds him.
Confused by the stoniness of his father who holds stoic posture at his side.
Unsettled by the weight of the many gazes upon his head.
Had he done something wrong?
He had wondered.
He had gazed down at the falsely-created flowers blooming small beneath his hand through the fissures of the uneven floor.
The result of tentative, alchemical creation - first tests - of an attempt to breathe life back to the kingdom, and destroyed nation.
"This is him?"
A voice speaks after eons.
It's a voice that sounds unusually like his own.
"The resemblance is uncanny. Lift your head."
He does.
The vivid blue eyes of Khaenri'ah's hope gaze down upon him.
A youth who sits on a cold, squat throne with grace, adorned in royal dressings, though the eve of royalty has long-since sunken into eclipse.
There is a miasmic fog that seeps through the cracks in the decrepit halls, masking the small figure on the throne in murk.
Poison it would be, were it not for the mages and their tomes, loyalists who surround and offer the palace protection in the place of the Old Order that had fallen.
The youth leans forward, slightly, with marked interest on his face.
A crimson-robed advisor at the side of the throne chuckles, lighthearted; amused at the reaction.
A fire-blessed mage of inferno.
Enjou- was his name.
Something temporary, picked up from his travels in a foreign land above ground - yet infinitely below it - so whispers in the halls had said.
"Disappointed, your Highness?"
The youth on the throne loosens his grip on its armrests, and after a prolonged moment of staring at the mage (sharing silent conversation none else is privy to hear) offers a sideways smirk.
"...On the contrary. Fascinated, is the word. Is it not a sentiment you share?"
"Oh shared indeed!" comes the tinkling agreement. "A marvel it is! A shame, really, he was kept from you for so long."
"Yes. It is."
And Prince Kaeya and Enjou turn their heads back towards him at the bottom of the grandeur steps, rolled in lackluster blue carpet.
But who the Prince speaks to next is not him, but his father.
"You certainly waited long enough. I wonder what changed your mind. Was is it the sight of the last body of ‘mine’ you found dead?"
His father does not speak.
The Prince smirks, almost looking satisfied by it.
He leans back in his throne.
"Do answer me, warrior. For what reason do you give him to me now?"
The father and warrior of the brought boy answers.
"So that he may be of service."
He does not bow.
He does not salute.
He stands and looks at the youth on the throne with little regard for reprimand.
"War is upon us. We cannot chance the risk of losing your Highness before it begins."
"Touching."
The Prince crosses one leg haughtily over the over, boots adorned in gold.
They glisten in the darkened shadows and drifts of poisoned fog.
Dangerously so.
"I was beginning to think you had no care for this prince of yours. Yet here you are sacrificing your own flesh and blood. I wonder at your motives. Who you are within my ranks means nothing. My livelihood takes precedent."
He props his cheek against the closed fist of his hand, and waves the other.
"You abandon him. He will die like the rest."
Warrior and father did not blink.
"I am aware."
"How callous. So be it."
Prince Kaeya addresses the father no longer.
He speaks to he; the boy given by his father, whose features share near identical likeness, from the length of his lashes to the slope of his nose and curve of his jaw.
And he, the boy, gazes up at the Prince whose diamond pupils in his eyes shine alight.
"You must be terribly confused," speaks the Prince, smug. "But not to worry, you're in my care now. You will be taught. You will be trained. You will dress accordingly. Your father -" mockingly it's said - "must have told you little. But little is enough. You are no longer who you were. You are me, and I, you. If you understand, speak, and tell me your name."
He stares at his Prince, comprehending the nature of the exchange that had occurred, without truly comprehending.
He speaks his true name.
The Prince blinks startled once - then blinks a second time - slow.
There is something odd in his gaze; something that cannot be placed.
But soon the look is gone.
"...Your name," he says after a time, "is mine. Speak it. I will not ask again."
"Kaeya."
The Prince rises from the throne.
His smile is false.
"Yes. A nice name, isn't it? Do take care to remember it."
He offers down a hand through the sifting darkness, though the distance between them is great.
"From this day forth, until death, or the war of our great nation ends and sees us part, you, Kaeya, are my double."
And so he is.
He is given a sword of royalty.
His father's is taken away.
His is given tomes to study; educated in history.
His collected tales of adventure are stowed out of sight and reach.
He is bound by ritual to Prince and crown and throne, made to carry the weight of the same curse; made to walk not the path of a warrior, but of a stepping stone to lie and die in the place of his original.
He is told what to say, he is told how to act, he is told how to weild his sword, who to speak to, where to go.
He is treated as the Prince.
But it is strange.
Though they should be kept separate, the Prince often entertains company at his side.
And Kaeya (for that is his name now) wondered on it once while gazing at the old, torn pages of a historical book.
Was it normal that the Prince was so attentive; content to stay beside him? Had he been the same for the other doubles who'd died for him?
Was the Prince supposed to sit and read beside him, dine at the same table, oversee the drills from martial instructors; the practiced repetiion of political speech and magic spells from advisors, priests and mages?
According to Enjou - the answer was no.
"It gives us a headache, I assure you, buuuut I suppose it can't be helped. He quite likes you."
"But I haven't done anything."
"You won't ever need to. Appreciate it. Normally little folks like you are just another body to cremate when they're gone and dead."
"Why am I different?"
"I do hope you don't plan on going around moping about the meaning of your existence and asking where you belong. I'm not equipped to handle the life crisis' of children shorter than my leg. Once was enough and never again. But if it takes that wretched look of confliction off your face, fine, I'll attempt some consolence. Your constellation - you're aware it's unusual - are you not?"
"It's the Pavo Ocellus."
"Yes, it is. Though I didn't ask. There is more written in its stars than you know. I'll leave it at that. Although it would be wise of you to start questioning who your mother was - ah! Ah ta ta! Don't get distracted, my dear little mimic. Watch the signs you weave. It has no effect on you, but wiser mages - and I, of course - will see the mistakes right away. Goodness. Any enemy would think you're trying to blow them up. Now follow me, once more, carefully. The incantation goes like this - "
Understanding the elements and natural laws of Teyvat becomes the most difficult challenge for Kaeya to overcome.
He has no inclination towards magic; not an ounce of power.
He is ordinary, meant to be a warrior that lived by the sword and died with it in hand. He could never call the forces of dark and frigid chill that the Prince himself could.
But such teachings, he's told, are for the purpose of pretense.
"In this line of work, dear Kaeya," the Prince says to him, one evening, over bitter tea, "you are meant to pretend. So do it well."
Remnants of a past.
Echoes of a present.
Hopes of a future.
Kaeya learns what it means to be the wielder of a fallen nation's dreams.
Over the years; as discontent brews deep in the fissures, as tensions between the Abyss and crooked crown rise, Kaeya suffers one missed assassination attempt after the other from dissonant factions of Khaenri'ah.
He is poisoned, kidnapped, blindfolded, beaten and bruised.
Once, he is stuffed into a barrel and rolled over a cliff.
Khaenri'ah had taken advantage of many people and nations; it had stolen from their archives, it had acted with lies.
Those who come to pick at what is left of the broken nation, do so with pleasure, and self-justified vindication.
There is a time, after Kaeya is stricken into coma, when he wakes weeks after, that the Prince makes a decision to shift a moderate degree of the protection of the Heralds away from the throne and towards Kaeya himself.
Fingers drummed on the stone armrest of throne; a lazy smirk, unreadable, yet calculating blue eyes as the order is set in place.
"It's not a problem, is it?" he inquires to Kaeya who stands on a crutch below. "You portray me so convincingly, they believe I to be the false crown. Or maybe there is something about you, that draws attention to you more. I've been told, after all, that a number of my own guards are far more fond of your company. Enjou, in particular, traitor that he is."
The mage beside the Prince snorts and coughs.
"Your Highness, I promise you are the only one I swear whole-hearted fealty to serve. No need to go spilling the close-kept secrets between you and I."
The Prince's smirk grows.
He doesn't look bothered.
Despite his bold words in their first meeting, he pronounces:
“He is I. And I will see him kept alive."
Kaeya asks the reason why.
Not to the Prince, but to his own father on a day months later when the seasoned warrior is finally granted permission to visit his son.
They meet in the desecrated palace gardens under dark skies, surrounded by little that thrives.
Much is wilted; much has died.
There had been a lack of water in Khaenri'ah since the war of five-hundred years.
A lack of crops.
Of resources.
"Why does he try to keep me alive? There must be others who can do the same as I."
He doesn't say he is tired of being pricked by needles and knives; that he is shaken; that when assassination comes and no Lectors, Heralds or mages are around to protect him; he fears he will truly die.
It is not the mindset of a warrior.
Something quiet reminds him he is not yet ten-years old.
But his father, warrior, strategist, lines of battle in his face, reminds Kaeya again, of what is in his blood.
And his father stands at his side, gazing off distantly at the upside-down ruins that encircle the indigo false skies beyond the palace walls.
He says what the Prince has told Kaeya again and again.
"You are not like the others."
Kaeya, crouching, royal sword strapped along his back, picks at a few weeds in quiet before he speaks again.
"...Father. I thought I would be a warrior."
"You are."
"It is... not the same. It's not at your side."
"No, it is not."
Kaeya holds the weeds pulled that lie limp and useless in his palm. He sets them on the ground.
"Was mother really a servant?"
"Yes."
It's a lie.
Kaeya has learned to discern them from truths, living as a double; a disposable tool meant to die. But he says nothing about it. There is another question that bubbles up in him, silent, still.
Why did you give me away?
His true name is spoken.
A hand falls on his head.
When he looks up from the discarded weeds, he realizes his thoughts have been spoken aloud.
Yet his father only gazes at him with the smallest of smiles. It's the closest thing to warmth Kaeya has seen on him in years. He leaves Kaeya soon after, with departing, age-old words.
"It is for the greater good."
The Prince finds him later in the library.
He doesn't take the seat beside him, but rather stands at his chair, arms folded, eyes resting lightly on nothing in particular ahead.
"Your father is a fool," is what he says.
He doesn't give explanation.
Kaeya feels something strange pull in him nonetheless, looking up at the face that is a mirror of his own, only cold like steel.
He is eleven with a broken arm in brace and sling from yet another murder attempt when he is called for a private audience in a private study with the Prince.
Informal thing that it is.
Enjou greets him with a clawed hand ruffling his hair before casually waving him through and keeping post in the shadow-cast hall outside.
Kaeya is welcomed with the sight of the Prince standing at the largest window by the opposite wall.
He is a healthier, brighter twin image, blessed by frost and gold, and though he and Kaeya dress the same now (as they have long-since become one-and-the-same) deep blues, rich blacks, fluffed whites, laced boots - Kaeya still feels lesser.
The Prince, after a great deal of time spent overlooking the corrupted darkness beyond the window, finally turns around.
A disarming smile clears the shadows on his face.
"Kaeya. You've come to me so quickly. Didn't hurt yourself on the way over, did you?"
"No, your Highness."
The Prince smiles more. "Good."
(Kaeya wonders how someone their age can seem so much older and wiser. How someone the same age as him can bear the weight of a crown without a mother queen and father king. How someone, a kid, could be so many leagues ahead of the brilliant minds that surrounded them.)
"You look better," the Prince says. "I must thank you for taking that attack from those dreadful emissaries on my behalf. We received warning their intentions were foul; but I wanted to see them expose themselves for the snakes they - well - are themselves."
Kaeya bows.
His arm aches.
He ignores it.
The Prince hums.
"Kaeya, you are observant, swift and smart. You show fascinating potential in the art of the sword; better than myself. There is little, outside of magic, you cannot do. For that reason, when you are healed, there is something I would have you take a look at. It's above-ground."
Kaeya thinks of the books he had lost years ago. Journeys of the surface. Tall mountains and rolling hills.
"Above .... ground?"
"Yes, above-ground," the Prince muses. "Come now, are you a parrot. You've been taught to speak much better than that."
He picks a foreign book off the desk by the window afterwards, goes to the black shelves along the wall closest to him to set it back in place from where it had been taken.
"Mondstadt. It's a beautiful, thriving nation. Their resources are many. Their military might unmatched only by Snezhnaya. I have interest in their economy. ...And a choice few other matters. Spatial rifts are far more common there than anywhere else in Teyvat. Their curious history allows for it."
He pauses.
Then he speaks.
"Pose as me. Your 'father' will escort you. Take the length of the journey to enjoy his company before losing it. I know you view him as a parent still."
Losing it?
The Prince faces him.
Kaeya realizes belatedly, once more, his thoughts have been spoken aloud, on accident, as they have many times before. Yet there is no ire, no unpleasantness that the Prince wears on his expression. Simply a bend of his lips, upwards, mysterious, fond.
"An operation. Important. I'm afraid I must ask you to be my spy. But you'll be gone for quite some time."
A hand on his shoulder.
Thunderstorm and rain.
His boots sink in the mud.
The earth floods.
His father echoes and repeats the last words the Prince had said before Kaeya had been ushered from the underground.
"You are our last hope."
Though the Prince had said something else, in the privacy given between the two, as Enjou had leaned and rested languidly at the farthest end of the long, dark hall.
Two smaller hands on his shoulders, warmer, despite their spells of cold, than any hand of his father.
"Kaeya, I have said it before. You are different than the rest. You are me, and I am you. Understand this. Thus you are strong and resilient, and I believe you will not die. The others with my face could not accomplish what I wanted; they could not see what I sought. But there is blood in you, like my own. Nurture it. A day will come when you will know the reason why. But until then - "
And the Prince, in that moment, gives Kaeya a smile, heartfelt, unlike any he had shown in the face of the court or dismal corridors of the palace before.
The stars in his eyes shine bright.
"You must go and see the world above - so that when we meet again - you can tell me what it means to be free."
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01
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In the dense forests laden with blossoming flowers, brambled thorns and thrush, quiet rain falls.
Kaeya gazes at the wet bark of the nearest, gnarled tree.
Blankly.
He had woken with muted ears and a muddled mind, hearing the echoes of drums; feeling the thrum of a storm.
He hadn't known from where.
But now there is a headache in the back of his skull, a terrible one, that overrides any thought of faraway typhoons and the grasses that bow beneath them.
Largely because of the conversation occuring less than six feet away behind him.
"Who's going inside?"
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"Because it's dark. And it's a long way down."
"So?"
"So you go."
"I don't want to."
"Well someone has to. My shoulders are too big to fit."
And Kaeya feels the attention of five knights fall onto his back.
He resolutely does not look at them.
It was a misfortunate encounter, an unwanted one, he'd had while on the walk for fresh air.
He didn't want to get involved. It wasn't fair.
He had only just escaped the confines of the Grand Master's Office and its infernal stacks of paperwork.
He had only just gotten away from Pallad who'd been getting mauled by a pack of wild boars in the valleys of Brightcrown's woods.
(Granted, he had saved the man, but the enormous amount of effort it had taken to get him out of the tree and the branches he was caught in, had done nothing but make Kaeya want to hide in his adoptive father's Winery and never come out the cellars of barreled wine again.)
"Captain..."
No, he doesn't want to.
"Captain please...."
"You're the only one with such small shoulders. We can't fit down this well."
He turns around and sets his hands on his waist, staring the younger group of greenhorn knights who look back at him.
"You shouldn't have been dropping your swords down a well in the first place. What's wrong with you?"
"Well, we were trying to figure out how deep it went," one says. "But the sticks we found weren't long enough."
Kaeya's not sure what's worse.
The fact that they had spent their patrol this bamboozled by a well - or that they looked this upset their stick endeavour didn't turn out.
He reluctantly, very reluctantly, walks over.
Relief spreads on the features of the knights.
They brighten, and part and allow him to step nearby to the well, before regathering on either side of him, shuffling shoulders and faces close.
"...What do you think?" the girl beside him asks after a long moment.
He gazes into the dark, dark, darkness of the well with no clear measure of where the bottom is.
If one exists at all.
"Did you hear your swords strike earth or stone?" he questions.
"We did," the slightly older boy on the other side of the girl responds. "But it took three minutes."
Kaeya's face twists into a scrunch.
Well.
It wouldn't be the first time he puts himself down some sort of infinitely abyssal hole on someone else's behalf.
"...If I get stuck down here..." he warningly begins.
"Don't worry sir! We'll be sure to tell the Acting Grand Master what happened."
"No, you pull me out - "
In the end, Kaeya makes the very wise decision to spare himself the hassle of potential death, and tells the knights to put in a new order of swords with the blacksmith.
He's not sure why that hadn't been the first thought any of them had, but he consoles himself with the excuse that it had been a long morning and leaves it at that.
He's just setting foot into the Grand Master's Office, and dodging a pen thrown by Amber (who he had left unapologetically to deal with all the boring paperwork whilst he was out), when Huffman comes from somewhere down the hall and into the room with a suffering face and sighing report.
"Captain. It's Matthew."
Kaeya looks at Huffman and Huffman looks at him, and Amber snickers behind a document at the words until Kaeya ices her boots to the floor beneath the meeting table.
He's heading for Dragonspine within the next half hour.
Matthew, a squire and knight-in-training, had broken into one of their warehouses by the barracks, and made off for the mountains with a number of weapons and gear.
To bring to the Fatui, of course, as Matthew's oldest brother had gone and joined the ranks of the Snezhnayan forces after a recruitment officer had wandered through the city with offers of 'excitement', 'wealth' and 'adventure'.
Unfortunately the months of grueling, life-threatening training on the peaks of Old Vindagnyr hadn't been advertised as clearly.
Nor was the fact that sufficient clothing, food and gear wouldn't be provided to the reckless youths from Mondstadt who wandered, enticed by their promises, into those Fatui camps.
Huffman had asked, more out of courtesy than any intention, if Kaeya wanted company.
Kaeya had turned down the offer, seeking solitude, and not particularly wanting to deal with another handful of knights who might toss their swords down a gorge on Dragonspine and ask him to get it next.
A terrible mistake it turns out to be.
He finds himself in the gorges of Dragonspine, anyway, fighting, ambushed by Fatui, then later hounded by wanderers of the displaced Hilichurl tribes after escaping onto higher ground.
He's in the middle of speaking irritable words in Hilichurlian to the chieftan who clubbed him over the head, when a commotion in the nearby remnants of the Ancient Entombed City draws him away.
(He should've never gone).
It's Pallad he encounters.
Pallad, who he could've sworn was heading off to Springvale after the near-death encounter with those boars, and who (in an attempt to flee the Whopperflowers chasing him) knocks them both into a hole and into the plummeting bowels of the frigid caves below.
The mission with Matthew is aborted.
He becomes much more preoccupied with the monstrosity of a buried Ruin Hunter that wakes as they drop down on its back.
Long-engraved serial numbers dictating its role and model-make, and Kaeya, rolling off of it, has seconds to recall its particular weaknesses read in books in another place, in another time, when he was not a Captain but a boy in a palace forgotten by the world -
Before it tries to bombard him and Pallad straight out of existence.
And it nearly does.
Immune to Cryo.
Why wouldn't it be. It was a rotten day from the start. Why should things look up?
He's hiding behind a self-made construct of ice around the corner of a looming cavern wall, contemplating whether to leave Pallad to die, when their saving grace arrives in the form of sundering golden earth and flowers.
The flying machine from Khaenri'ah explosively bursts - and blasts rippling shockwaves throughout the tremendous cave.
Pallad goes soaring.
Kaeya tumbles head-over-heels over drifts of collapsed and scorched snow, bewildered by the sudden intervention, before he manages to get his hands beneath him and sit up, catching his breath, small.
Albedo drops down from above and lands near, taking stock of the situation - then turning to regard Kaeya with judgmental eyes.
Kaeya narrows his own eye at the alchemist in return. "What are you doing here?"
Albedo wipes soot off his jacket and folds his arms across his chest. "You were fighting beneath my lab," he indifferently responds. "I found it hard to concentrate. There are plenty of open spaces you might think about engaging enemies in, in the future."
"Wow. You don't say. I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm trying not to die. Open spaces. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"That was sarcasm."
"Was it? A coincidence. I was speaking insincerely as well."
Kaeya scowls.
Footsteps echo from a darkened tunnel across from them.
A second Albedo soon emerges, hurrying over; brows furrowed, gold eyes sharp.
Frost fogs from his breath as he stops, also taking stock of the situation, before helping to pull Kaeya to his feet.
"What's brought you here? Is it work? That was a reasonably loud commotion. I thought there might be some sort of consequential collapse - "
"Captain Albedo?!"
The trio look over their shoulders.
Pallad, gawking, sits up from the pile of snow he'd been thrown into.
"Why are there two of you?"
Kaeya and the Albedos share a look. They speak to the adventurer in unison.
"You're concussed."
"Huh? But I feel fine - "
A pebbled shard of Geo whizzes from the Imposter Albedo's hand into Pallad's forehead. Pallad goes down, unconscious. Kaeya makes a face.
"Really Albedo?"
The Imposter smirks at him. "My apologies, Captain. It was instinct. Though I suppose now you'll have to carry him out the tunnels, down the mountains, back to the city all on your own."
After not-so-apologetically blasting that Albedo into the nearest cavern wall with ice in response (as the actual Captain Albedo sighed at the familiar antagonistic exchange Kaeya and his Imposter often shared) Kaeya does lug Pallad's body back to Mondstadt.
He drops it off on the front steps of the Guild, then trudges, battered, bruised and grouchy to the Knight Headquarters for an early clock-out.
He's met with Jean's apologetic request to help her pull wayward flyers off the rooftops of nearby buildings instead.
"You're trying to punish me," he says, "for blowing off that stovetop. Wasn't grounding me enough?"
She sighs. "Kaeya, it's not a punishment. We have dozens of citizen reports to go through before the day's end - "
"I'd rather die."
"Kaeya."
"Fine. Alright."
He grabs the flyers.
He grabs them, balls them into trash, and lies to their owners they'd been lost to Barbatos' mighty wind.
After a lengthy list of completed errands later as the clock-hand of time edges just past two in the afternoon, Kaeya goes to the Angel's Share with the intention of drowning himself with wine.
He doesn't expect to see Diluc working shift.
The other had been absent from Mondstadt City for so long, Kaeya had begun to think his once-sibling had gone off on another Fatui-hunting expedition and left him behind.
But no, here he was.
Diluc glances up as he walks in before going back to counting coins in the register Kaeya knows is beneath the counter.
He doesn't offer a greeting and Kaeya doesn't expect him to. He slides onto his favored wooden stool across from Diluc, drums his fingers on the bar-top, and after a moment of considering his words, says:
"How's the Winery?"
"That's none of your concern."
"Business brought you to the city?"
"No. Don't ask."
"Well what should I ask about? Your day?"
"You could leave."
"I came for a drink."
"Then order."
Diluc says it slightly louder; annoyance raised.
Except Diluc had no reason to be annoyed (at least not as many reasons as Kaeya has with the way his day has been) so he flicks frost flakes of Cryo at Diluc's head - and gets a dirty, wet rag thrown at his face in response.
"I should file a complaint," Kaeya says, pulling the rag away.
"Go ahead. You'd be filing it to me."
"Good. I hope you're prepared to go through sixty pages, because I have a lot to say about you."
Diluc shuts the register, grabs a bottle of wine off the shelf, their father's mixer and a tall glass without hearing Kaeya's order or saying another word.
A clear sign he's had his fill of conversation between them, and wants it to end.
Kaeya huffs beneath his breath before resigning to deal with it.
He rests his cheek on a propped up fist, and watches Diluc work.
The tavern is far from empty, but it's not exactly busy, and Diluc's motions in drink-making are methodical, with less flair and given with certainly less care compared to what others received.
But beggars can't be choosers, and this behavior had been normal ever since Kaeya had revealed himself as spy all those years ago.
So truly, he's unfazed.
He’d be more concerned if Diluc suddenly started enjoying his company, laughing, smiling and cheerfully telling him every last detail about his day again, like when they were kids.
And what a time that had been.
For Kaeya's youth while in Mondstadt had been nothing short of confusing feelings, identities, decisions and duties, left to grow and spill and blossoms in the teachings of a new father, care of a brother; love of a household who brought to him the definition of the word 'family' he had never truly known.
An open heart with good intentions; the freedom of choice.
And in return, in the wake of their father lying in a pool of blood, cold and dead and gone, Kaeya had sought out that brother and said -
"I lied to you, Diluc. About everything. I'm not - My name isn't Kaeya."
His name wasn't Kaeya - had never been - but he was still supposed to be a warrior, strong and fast and swift. But he hadn't reached the woods on that day, and he hadn't been able to protect anything.
He'd had a sword. That was it.
If he'd had magic, like the real Prince of Khaenri'ah, maybe then things would've been different. The Prince would've sensed the Delusion. The Prince would've known how to counter the malefic beast that attacked Crepus and Diluc. He would've frozen the black flames and saw the carnage ended before it even began.
…Or he wouldn't have.
That Prince had always been colder.
The only one he had ever tried to save in the years Kaeya had stood at his side - was Kaeya himself.
And what would that Prince say if he ever got his hands on Kaeya again?
Would he call him a traitor for fleeing the role of duty?
For choosing a different purpose and a home?
Kaeya had chosen to forget.
He had chosen to burn missives from afar.
He had chosen to snuff out messengers of the palace (trilling Mages of the Abyss) or turn them away with warning to stay far away, and not come near.
Who in Mondstadt needed to know the truth about him?
The real reason he skulked about the shadows so often; wandered from the city so far?
Who needed to know why he was the first to pick up missions concerning the Abyss Order? Why he was the first to follow any suddenly-appearing trail that marked involvement close to the city at the hands of Khaenri'ah?
Diluc was who he had told, and Diluc had given his response.
And it had become clear to Kaeya then, through breaking rain and thunder, clashing sword and flame, that those from Khaenri'ah, could never be forgiven.
(And Kaeya had learned the truths of Khaenri'ah and its trangressions whilst living above-ground. All of them. He and his people were sinners.)
The Vision belted on his waist is unwanted.
But how mocking that his will to live free from any shackles had manifested itself as ice against Diluc's damning flames.
Ice.
The very element Khaenri'ah's prince had been naturally born to wield. It was as if it were a direct message from the universe that conspired against him.
You cannot run away.
....Not for lack of trying.
He frowns.
As he frowns, Diluc speaks.
"Something the matter? If you're not going to drink it, I'll dump it out."
Kaeya blinks back to the present.
He looks at Diluc in mild confusion. "What?"
Diluc folds his arms. His gaze goes down and Kaeya's naturally follows and he finds a full glass of oddly-colored wine set before him. The dark liquid is miscolored by the severely melted ice cubes stuck inside of it.
Kaeya stares at the ice for a good long while.
Then speaks very softly, betrayed.
"Why would you do this?"
Diluc rolls his eyes. He turns his back and busies himself with nothing.
"If you have a headache, you shouldn't be drinking anyway."
"I never said I have a headache."
"Then you shouldn't sit there looking like you do."
Kaeya wraps a gloved hand around the frigid glass of watery-diluted alcohol. He's not even sure what the mix is. "It was a long day, Diluc. That's why I came here. For a glass of normal, strong wine."
Diluc snorts. "It does seem like you fell down a mountain."
"It was a cave. And almost a well."
And Diluc turns back around at the words and leans his hip against the counter. He re-folds his arms, and although there's little Kaeya is able to read off of his old sworn brother and once close friend, it does seem as if he's giving Kaeya and the drink a second evaluation.
"Knights. Always so incompetent."
"Become a Captain again, Diluc, and we'll see how well you fare."
Diluc's eyes narrow.
Kaeya surlishly brings the glass of whatever-it-is to his mouth.
A bitter taste touches his tongue.
A grimace tugs his lips.
A strange burn in his throat and chest is the only sign of something wrong occuring before an invisible gavel of judgment, from leagues beyond any realm of the physical rears back its mighty arm, and swings down on his head.
White bursts behind his eyes.
Excrutiating pain erupts.
The glass falls from his hand.
It shatters and spills red.
There are voices of people swelling; there are drums of war; cries for help; cries for liberation.
There is a lone, high-pitched ringing arcing through the fathomless pits of nothingness in his head, like a bleeding, falling, breaking twilight star.
His hidden eye weeps.
The curse in him burns.
His hands go to his head; his fingers tangle in his hair, and for a moment it's as if the portals of broken space and time between Khaenri'ah, Teyvat and the Abyss have been ripped apart and flayed bare, and he's falling, tumbling, disappearing into its pits.
"Kaeya-?"
Diluc is speaking.
Kaeya can't hear what.
The tempest of a forgotten storm; violet lightning; the breath of galaxy-born stars.
A name on his tongue he has never once spoken before.
Tartaglia.
Delusion sings dissonance in the air, and the last thing Kaeya sees before pitching backwards off the stool in dazed disorientation is a swell of water and tide - and Diluc - suddenly lunging across the bar to -
Grab him?
But someone else does first.
There's the feeling of teleportation.
An echo of a familiar, lilting voice he can't place, of a magic; an infernal fire, once left far, far behind.
"Grounded for blowing off a stove top. Heh. That's something new."
Then comes silence.
And the darkness of nothing at all.