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The City of Freedom was basked in a warm orange glow as the sun slipped down low against the horizon. The moon was finally becoming visible in the night sky peeking out behind the clouds above the Knights of Favonius Headquarters.
Most of the knights who worked within the building who were not on patrol or staying late for overtime were clocking out for the evening and heading home or to their favorite tavern.
Kaeya was normally one to hit up Angel’s Share but the recent leyline development at Falcon Coast and his attempt to see Diluc being snubbed had him recalling old memories. So the Cavalry Captain, instead of joining his coworkers at the bar, secretly headed up to the rooftop of the HQ and after making sure not a soul followed him there he settled down by the door and checked the stone bricks.
A long time ago, when he left the Ragnvindr estate, he brought with him only a few things. Most of the furniture had been theirs, it was only the small sentimental things that were his alone. Letters from Diluc that he had saved-- treasured even. And the old bag of seashells they had collected together. Kaeya sprinkles the contents of the bag out onto his hand, thumbing over sand and the smooth shells with fondness.
It had been his first summer in Mondstadt when Diluc brought him to the beach. The season’s heat and the sun beating down over his skin still felt stunning and new compared to where he’d grown up and he loved it. Life had always been so dreary and hopeless until he met Diluc. He lit up his world in more ways than sunlight did and felt just as welcoming and warm.
Kaeya recalled his hesitation upon seeing the water, a little unsure of how to have fun like the rest of the kids their age. But then a warm hand clasped around his and dragged him into salt and foam and that anxiety washed away with the waves as Diluc splashed him with water, laughing as they both began to play. They dug through the sand finding crabs and seashells for hours until they were both exhausted and Diluc’s pale skin was now as red as the crabs they’d caught earlier.
Remembering how much Diluc had complained during the long ride home made Kaeya chuckle fondly. He gingerly returns the shells to their bag only to go still as he senses another’s presence. Without thinking about it his hand reaches for the blade at his hip but then a familiar voice speaks.
“I was wondering why you weren’t at the Tavern,” Diluc’s voice is smooth and calm which only somewhat calms the near heart attack he’d given Kaeya.
The Cavalry Captain releases the hilt of his blade to quickly hide the contents of his precious hidden stash though he attempts to be casual about it, “Master Diluc came all this way to see me? I’m honored.”
“Mm,” Diluc hums in response though his eyes are on the items Kaeya’s quickly tucking away.
“If you wanted to see me so badly you should’ve let me stay for dinner-,” Kaeya’s attempts to hide the letters in his bag are stopped along with his words as a warm hand takes him by his wrist.
Seeing how that starry eye widens in shock almost startles Diluc enough to let him go but his hand only loses its strength for a moment before tightening in resolution, “Kaeya.”
It’s just his name but it has the knight at a loss for words and breath. He wants to throw off this serious atmosphere with a joke or a laugh but seeing the way Diluc stares back at him with turmoil pursing his lips and eyes emblazoned with purpose Kaeya can’t manage a single word.
Kaeya waits for Diluc to speak for so long that the sun has completely shrunk behind the hills and now the stars above watch in equal expectation as Kaeya’s one eye does. However, as he waits the tension begins to fade and slight embarrassment at feeling a fool for waiting gives birth to some sudden irritation, “If you have nothing to say-”
“I read your letters,” Diluc finally blurts out to keep Kaeya from pulling away.
Diluc waits for Kaeya to say something, anything, but it seems now it’s the redhead’s turn to wait for nothing. The only response he gets is the other staring at him almost incredulous. Diluc mentally curses himself, feeling his cheeks begin to heat up. Of course, Kaeya knew he’d read them, he’d received the letters he’d sent after all. He steels himself and continues.
“... And I kept them.”
Now this earns a raised brow from Kaeya and though the dim lights make it a bit difficult to see Diluc can see the other is clearly a bit flustered by this news.
“All nine of them,” Kaeya asks but can’t resist trying to brush off his own embarrassment so he quickly adds, “I didn’t realize you were so sentimental, Master Diluc…”
“Says the one reading my letters up here by yourself.”
Kaeya’s hand curls around the paper a little tighter but now he can’t bring himself to look Diluc in the eyes.
“I’m sorry, Kaeya.” Diluc’s hand slips off of the man’s wrist and lower to hold onto his hand, gently now, “I should have written back more.”
“It’s fine, it was my fault for making things uncomfortable between us.”
Kaeya tries to shrug it off with a smile but Diluc knows him far too well to think of it as genuine, even if Kaeya was a good actor so Diluc has to push a little harder, “It was a bad time for me. It wasn’t my intention to ignore you… I just didn’t know what to say at the time.”
The knight begins to pull away out of Diluc’s grasp but instead of backing off, Kaeya simply takes a seat against the old worn stone and offers Diluc the space next to him by patting the ground gently. Diluc awkwardly accepts and stiffly sits down next to him. Even if their shoulders weren’t touching he felt overly conscious of the other man sitting so close.
“I thought so,” Kaeya speaks finally after they’ve settled in, “I know you were probably overthinking things… that’s why I kept trying to reach out. I didn’t want you to keep feeling guilty over what happened.”
Diluc can’t argue. He did feel guilty at the time, still feels guilty now. He’s not sure he’ll ever stop feeling that way but he’s done clinging to the past, he wants to move on and the only way of doing that is to finally talk with Kaeya. Not skirt around the topics as they’ve done for years… but to salvage what they can instead of brushing the shattered pieces under the rug.
“I wrote but I…….” Well, he burned them when he wasn’t satisfied with his letter. He tried multiple times in fact to write Kaeya but the words never felt right. It was silly, really. Through ink, he could convey whatever he felt like without having to see Kaeya’s reaction and yet whenever he put pen to paper he couldn’t find the words he’d wanted to say. It was moments like these that he was silently grateful that Kaeya knew him better than anyone. Their eyes met and he knew that Kaeya knew what he was feeling.
“It’s fine. Master Diluc wrote to me a whole two times,” Kaeya jokes, “I hope that was more than what others received.”
“It was,” Diluc admits.
Kaeya had only been joking around but the confirmation makes his heart swell with some pride, and for once Diluc sees his lips tug in a familiar, but genuine, smile. The smile is a bit contagious, he feels that warmth bubble in his chest but he tries to suppress it though it sneaks up to spark a warmth in his eyes as he watches Kaeya fondly.
It doesn’t take long for Kaeya to notice that look. One moment he’s laughing quietly and the next he’s quiet again as he stares down at the papers next to him though it doesn’t conceal the red tinting his ears. Diluc can’t muster the care to stop staring. It had been a while since he’d seen Kaeya like this, and he’d sorely missed it. When they were younger he got to see it all the time. Now that they were older and because of the incident, he hadn’t seen it in over five years. Kaeya had gotten so much better at putting up walls, especially in public, but Diluc had done the same so experiencing a moment like this was more precious than before. He wasn’t quite ready to give it up.
The two share the silence, a bit awkward and a little like their hearts could burst at any moment until finally, Kaeya starts packing up his secret box.
“Isn’t it dangerous to keep…. that paper here?”
He doesn’t want to ruin the mood, but it makes him a bit worried to see Kaeya hiding something in the open. Sometimes knights would come up to the roof for their smoke breaks, and he didn’t want one careless knight to discover the stash on accident.
Kaeya glances at Diluc, “Why? Are you worried about me, Master Diluc?”
The redhead sort of hates that he’s started calling him that again and can’t help the scowl budding between his brows, but at the same time it’s sort of a telltale sign that Kaeya is getting a bit annoyed with him. “I want you to be careful,” Diluc urges evenly, “It puts you at risk.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
Diluc’s lips purse together. He didn’t mean to but he feels like he stepped on a landmine.
“It’s more dangerous to keep it in my office,” Kaeya points out.
“What about your home?”
Again, Diluc winces when Kaeya replies with a petulant, ‘What home?’
He tries again, “The dorms, Kaeya.”
“It’s not safe there. Klee, or Jean… Lisa. Another knight. If someone came in while I wasn’t there and somehow found it, that’d be worse.” Kaeya takes a deep breath, “I know it’s stupid. But I don’t have anything else from him. Just my name and this paper. That’s all he left me with. Hell, I shouldn’t even have this paper to begin with…”
Diluc feels for him, he really does. At least when Crepus passed he had a lifetime of memories, good and bad. He had the paintings he’d made, recipes he’d left behind. Servants and those who lived with him to share the memories with. Kaeya didn’t really have that for his own father. Sometimes it was worse because it would remind Diluc that his father was long gone, but at the same time, it kept the embers burning and the memories alive.
“Do you… want to talk about him,” Diluc offers slowly, “You never really talked about him.”
Kaeya shuts the box and slips it back into the wall, wedging the brick back into its place to shelter it from prying eyes. He moves at a sluggish pace, just enough time to debate whether or not he wants to talk to Diluc about this. After all, the last time he opened up about anything similar, it had been catastrophic for them… but that was under different circumstances. Perhaps now that they were older and Diluc was the one offering to listen things would be different.
The knight sits back down, his hands folding over the space between his knees in thought.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything,” Diluc answers, “Whatever you feel like.”
That was pretty broad so Kaeya takes some time to ponder. “Hmmm,” he hums out, “He was pretty serious… Proud.” He steals a glance at Diluc but seeing the man staring with overwhelming attentiveness makes him feel a bit awkward so he looks away again, “Well, maybe you’d have liked him.”
Diluc isn’t sure of that. He doesn’t comment but he does frown a bit.
“What, you don’t believe me?” Kaeya cocks a brow and nudges Diluc, “Here I thought you’d be thanking him for dropping me off near Dawn Winery.”
“Hmph, I’m not too sure about that.”
“Are you saying you didn’t enjoy our time together?”
“It’s not that,” Diluc shakes his head, “I don’t think he made things easy for you… doing such a thing. No child wants to lose their parent.”
“Hmmm,” Kaeya’s smile dims, “Well it’s not like he had much of a choice.” He sees Diluc’s puzzled expression and continues, “I guess I didn’t have time to bring it up… Our nation died out a long time ago, but leading up to it… a lot had happened.”
Diluc had once tried to research the fall of Khaenri’ah a few years ago but it was extremely difficult to find any information about it. Even when he made attempts at wringing the information out of abyss creatures their ramblings were near incomprehensible as they cursed Celestia and the gods that reigned under its rule.
It is then that Kaeya does something rather strange in Diluc’s eyes as he reaches for Diluc’s vision and then his own, covering it up with the cloth.
“What are you--”
“This isn’t something the Gods should hear,” he warns with a brief smile.
Diluc’s ignores the slight chill that runs down his spine and waits for Kaeya to continue.
“This is all things my father talked about. The creation of this world. The purpose of the gods and why the cataclysm happened. You mustn’t tell a soul.”
The redhead nods silently, already intending on taking this to his grave, whatever it was. After all, he’d kept Kaeya’s secret safe for years now. Even at the height of his anger, he’d never thought to betray him.
“Khaenri’ah resides within the Abyss. It is the only place outside of the view of the Gods,” Kaeya explains while Diluc nods, “In the beginning, they were unsure of why this was, but with research, it became clear as to why. The gods fear the power of the abyss.”
“Why is that,” Diluc can’t help but ask. After all, what is more powerful than the gods themselves?
Kaeya tries to think of the best way to explain this to Diluc without sounding crazy. After all, this was information that the other would surely struggle to accept. “The Abyss is made up of raw chaotic energy. Being exposed to it for prolonged periods of time can alter a person’s mind and soul,” he looks towards his old friend and though Diluc says nothing, his gaze flickers to Kaeya’s covered eye with brief concern. Nonetheless, Kaeya continues.
“To be in the Abyss is to be sentenced to death by the Gods,” he says, “That’s why the unwanted Gods sank into the sea and the Abyss during the archon war. The power there slowly corrupted them until they became evil gods and their blood became poisonous when spilled. But there are far more humans than there are gods. And humans adapt more quickly than they do. We discovered that within the Abyss there was a tree of life. To drink its sap would stave off the corrupting power of the Abyss. This raw leyline energy sustained us in more ways than one. It held the memories of ages past, things that had long been lost to current civilizations. It even had memories of other worlds.”
Diluc brow’s cinch together.
Seeing that his companion isn’t going to ask any questions he speaks again, “Because of this our technology advanced quickly. Almost too quickly. Khaenri’ah quickly leaped far ahead of Teyvat’s other nations. Though ours was young it held a fountain of wisdom even Sumeru could not compare to.”
Kaeya pauses, his own expression starting to slowly lose that wonder and turn towards discomfort.
“The Sages were a group who provided council for our king. They began to have wild ideas that they whispered to our king. It was strange because in the past our king was impervious to such whispers… but as time went on it seemed like the abyss was taking its hold upon him… Eventually, my family stood to take care of the mundane tasks a king should do in his place. No one was allowed to see the King except the sages. We made progress in salvaging his mistakes but it wasn’t enough. We weren’t truly the ones in power, it was the sages who ‘delivered’ his words to us.”
“And then things took a turn for the worse,” Kaeya takes a deep breath, “Suddenly the King began making orders to manufacture weapons. Ruin guards and sentinels. They began to experiment with Abyssal energy rather than use the leyline energy. My father was against it but he wasn’t able to stop them. After all, he was not the ‘true king’. And our king had been so powerful and strong that the people followed him blindly. We don’t even know if it was truly his doing or if he had been dead the entire time. The sages delivered these messages and we were those who bore the weight of the consequences.”
“Eventually, my father forced his way in to see the king but it didn’t end well. The king was completely deranged… and he didn’t trust my father’s words. My father… didn’t want to go to war with the gods. He wanted us to stay safe in the haven we had created for ourselves but the king… there was something wrong with him. He was convinced that my father only meant to steal his position. Surely the sages must have fed these ideas to him over the years… it was too late.”
Diluc, after spending a considerable amount of time quiet finally speaks, “Those sages, they’re now…”
“Yes, part of the Abyss Order, I’m sure.”
Kaeya’s bitter tone made Diluc’s stomach churn.
“It seems that whatever they did to our King, they’re now doing to the new ruler. Typical. I wonder every day why it was that so many of our people died or lost their humanity… and yet those wretched people somehow clung to life and mind.”
“They’ll get what they deserve,” Diluc reassures in a grave tone, “I won’t let a single one get away with what they’ve done.”
A small hopeless laugh comes from Kaeya but it’s a bit appreciative, “I mean, I think you’ve destroyed more abyssal strongholds than anyone else.”
“How did you get out? The cataclysm was worldwide and it was five-hundred years ago…”
“A god took pity on us,” Kaeya says simply, “Although she couldn’t save our nation, she managed to save us. She knew the truth about the situation and cut off ties with the other archons. Surely a nation shouldn’t be condemned for the foolish folly of a few….”
“You don’t mean the Cryo Archon…”
Kaeya glances at Diluc, with a brief and pained smile. “You have every right to be angry. I knew… it wasn’t something you’d accept. Regardless of how close we are, the loss of your father is still connected to me no matter how you look at it. I only said a little about it at the time knowing it was a bad time… But things are so complicated I wasn’t sure how to explain it all to you at the time. Admittedly I was scared. I wasn’t supposed to be telling you any of it. Even when you didn’t reply to most of my letters I kept sending them to you… After all, you’re the only one who I felt understood me. Even if almost everything was a lie, it still felt real-”
“Kaeya…”
Diluc’s pained voice isn’t enough to stop Kaeya from talking, “It’s not like I wanted to hide it from you. If I could go back in time I’m not sure I’d have the courage to tell you again. The only reason why I’m telling you this now is that you already know who I am. Telling you a bit more won’t make any difference and it won’t fix anything either.”
He’s not sure if Kaeya is right or wrong so he can only stifle his words in his throat and hold his tongue. He understood Kaeya-- knew it wasn’t really his fault. And yet it wasn’t a lie to say that the reveal a few years ago had created a gorge between them that was difficult to cross. Himself because it cost him the life of someone precious to him, and Kaeya because it crushed what they had thought to be an unshakeable trust between them.
“Our nation is overrun by abyss creatures now and failed experiments Ms. Eden left behind,” Kaeya shrugs it off like it’s nothing but his voice is pained, “Father held strong for a long time… I know he wanted better for us but we were powerless to correct the mistakes of our king.”
“Do you hate him,” Diluc asks quietly though just loud enough that Kaeya can hear it over the sound of drunken laughter below.
“Mm… I’m not sure,” he admits, “I want to…. I should… Seeing you and Crepus made me realize what I was missing out on. If my father didn’t have grandiose plans that required him to leave me here in Mondstadt… would things have been different? Would I have resented him more as I grew up, seeing him give up on the very things he taught me? ‘Be proud’, ‘live like a raging flame’... but now that I’m older and I know better now that he wasn’t as strong as he was pretending to be. Maybe that’s something we share. And he did well to leave me at Dawn Winery. I got to grow up with you. And Crepus never treated me badly… It wasn’t the same as having my own father but… well he was a good man. I respected him too.
Of course, there was always a line drawn between them. It wasn’t super obvious but one couldn't mistake how Crepus acted towards Diluc was a little more loving, a little more prideful, than his feelings towards Kaeya.
They both had beautiful and well-tailored clothes. They both had spacious rooms, their own horses, their own swords. But the expectations were different and the affection Crepus showed, though muted and hard to see, was reserved for Diluc as he told him how proud he was. Kaeya wished he’d had that… but given how he’d wavered in his duties he wasn’t sure he’d ever hear it from his own father.
Kaeya stares down at his hands, remembering that the last touch was his firm hands on his shoulders. It wasn’t even a proper goodbye. His father only saw the ashes of their nation in him, and embers that could be rekindled, not a son he was walking away from in the pouring rain whom he wouldn’t see for years to come. It’s been over ten years now and Kaeya isn’t sure he’ll ever see him at this point. Perhaps he’s been forgotten.
Sensing Kaeya’s mood has fallen Diluc shifts awkwardly. He’s not that great at offering comfort. He was as a child but all his years traveling alone and living in grief had truly stunted his ability to speak his feelings. It takes him a moment before he reaches out to hold Kaeya’s hand and surprisingly Kaeya doesn’t pull away like he usually did. Instead, he lets the warmth of Diluc’s hand envelop his own, and eventually, his palm turns up to hold his in return.
“This reminds me of old times,” Kaeya jokes.
“I was thinking the same thing,” the redhead responds with a small tightening of his hand around his, “Don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t,” he says back though a smile is dawning on his lips. After a long comfortable silence, Kaeya speaks again though barely above a whisper, “Thank you, Diluc.”
He’s not really sure what he’s being thanked for so he turns to give him a questioning look. By now Kaeya recognizes it and adds some clarification, “For talking with me.”
“I thought it was about time I did… after reading all the letters from those years ago I didn’t want to leave things the way they were.”
“It’s okay,” Kaeya flashes him a smile that’s a bit bittersweet but has Diluc sucking in a breath to stay sane, “I never blamed you for it. We were both immature at the time. I think we both needed some time to sort things out… I don’t know if we can go back to being the way we were before but… maybe we could start again instead. What do you think, Master Diluc?”
Previous times he’d called him that to put up a wall between them, this time it had the opposite effect and Diluc found himself leaning closer to let their shoulders finally touch.
“What do you think?”
Kaeya’s laughter is better than any bard’s music, Diluc thinks and Kaeya in return thinks Diluc’s smile is warmer than those summer days.