Chapter Text
"This doesn't mean we're working together now." Kaeya hooked a finger through the strap of his sword-belt in attempted nonchalance, but every taut nervous line of his body gave him away. "Only that for today we have a mutual interest."
Diluc measured his breaths cautiously on the uphill climb, guarding against another coughing fit and trying not to show how much the hike up towards Starsnatch Cliff was telling on him. He couldn't afford to be weak for any of his responsibilities.
"A mutual interest," he said. "Yes."
Kaeya's dark head was silhouetted against the sunset sky above him on the steep path. "A mutual interest of getting my boss back, so that I don't have to do her paperwork. 'Acting Acting Grand Master Kaeya' doesn't have a ring to it that I enjoy."
"I doubt they'd appoint you of all people," Diluc said, shortly to save effort.
"What do you know about the Knights' hierarchy, Master Diluc?" Kaeya said, and laughed.
Diluc didn't bother answering that one, concentrating instead on putting one foot ahead of the other. Five weeks out from the bridge battle and three from enforced bed-rest, and he was still shakier than he hoped to be, his heartbeat showing a disquieting habit of racing with exertion, his lungs sensitive to chilly air and unhappily prone to giving out on him at the wrong moments. Cryo poisoning didn’t let its victims go without a few fading scars, it seemed.
“Amber was crying in the library this morning about how she should have gone with Jean yesterday,” Kaeya said over his shoulder. “Said that Jean insisted on going alone, since half of the others were down south dealing with the bandits near Dragonspine. I told her I’d bring our Acting Grand Master back in one piece… well, in however many pieces I found her in. So I do appreciate your assistance in not disappointing Amber.”
Sometimes Diluc envied Amber, always able to wear her emotions on her billowy sleeves and take any censure in stride. Maybe letting people see you cry made them all the more pleased to win your smile, but he couldn’t imagine taking the chance anyway.
He coughed, against his will, chest spasming for a moment. Ahead of him, Kaeya paused, arching his visible eyebrow.
“It’s a little way still until the Thousand Winds Temple. Shall we…?”
“I’m fine.” Only the slightest wheeze behind the words. He readjusted the claymore’s hilt at his back and glared at his foster-brother up above. “I don’t want to delay if Jean needs us.”
“Have it your way.” Kaeya didn’t start walking until Diluc had passed him, though, and he did seem to have slowed down somewhat – in any case, the new pace wasn’t as hard to keep. Neither of them spoke for a while, leaving only the sounds of an uphill climb to fill the stillness – boots crunching on dry sandy dirt, panting breath, the clink of metal and the squeak of leather. Somewhere high above two falcons circled on the updraft, and a lizard scurried through the thick grass at the side of the path. The wind shifted, bringing the faint tang of the sea with it, salty and sharp on Diluc’s lips – unless that was sweat instead, despite the thin spring chill of the day.
Ahead, where the pink of the sunset was now fading to dusk, the uneven rocky ruins of the Thousand Winds temple stood black against the sky beyond. Diluc strained his ears between steps, although he knew he was too far away still to hear anything of use.
“Hilichurl supper-time,” Kaeya said, squinting at a distant curl of smoke rising from the valley below them. “Maybe we should drop in on some of them on the way back, what do you think?” The twist at the corner of his mouth said he was joking, though.
Diluc laughed, as he was meant to, although a little thinly.
*
The two of them slipped into wilderness scouting patterns as they drew closer, crouching low to the cliff-edge, where the dry grass rubbed bristly against Diluc’s hands and face. They’d dodged a hunting patrol of hilichurls on the way upwards, unwilling to chance a disturbance so close to the temple and its potential perils.
Diluc’s chest ached by now with every breath, a small familiar exhaustion wrapping around his ribcage. As long as he kept his breaths slow he could ignore it. About the trembling of his legs he could do less.
The wind off the water was too loud in his ears to let him guess by sound what was going on beneath them, so sight would have to do. Closer and closer to the brink – Diluc readied the pull-cord on his glider in case he needed to unfold the metallic wings at his back, and crept forward to kneel by the crumbling rim next to Kaeya.
What remained of the daylight filled the wide, ruined stone dish of the Thousand Winds temple below them, the long shadows of the towers dwindling into dusk at their tips. But there were new scores in the stone paving, and fresh scatterings of rubble that weren’t weathered pale yet, and rusty metal scattered across the ground like strange flower-petals. And as they watched, the Ruin Guard dragged itself forth in its endless circuit, one leg shattered and unsteady, one arm broken off and sparking faintly at the empty shoulder.
“She put up a fight, anyway,” Kaeya muttered, hoarsely. His eyes were narrowed to slits, searching the landscape below them, the hazy concentration of elemental sight crossing his face for a moment. “The whole place is alight with Anemo.”
Diluc tightened his jaw, fear clutching at his insides.
Look at the facts, some detached part of his mind was saying, gently cudgeling him with logic. The Ruin Guard’s still up. Jean’s nowhere to be seen. There was obviously a battle here, and the winner is likely to be the one still standing…
But no. That couldn’t be all. Jean – Jean had been there two days before in Mondstat outside the Angel’s Share, laughing with a handful of the Knights, covering her mouth with one long sword-callused hand as if ashamed of her joy. A week ago she and Barbara had called at the winery for a matter of commercial shipping interests, and shared supper over the long table with him and the others, till the small hours of the night interrupted their chatter. Surely she was fine, somehow, and would turn up again in a few more days, slipping into the bar for a mug of cider and a meaningful look at Diluc over its rim.
The idea of Jean being – being gone did not fit into Diluc’s mind. You had to have more warning for that kind of thing, you did not just wake up and find the world missing a piece…
Kaeya poked him, vigorously, and he nearly fell off the cliff with the force of his startle. “Look.”
Diluc looked, squinting along the line of Kaeya’s pointing finger, to the sunward side of one of the high pillars. His heart beat loud in his ears, afraid of what he might see, afraid of not seeing anything at all.
Dry grass, old scarred stone, a cluster of cecilia flowers – then, a glint of reflected light, as if from a weapon, and a heap of green and gold and pale stained cloth lying motionless on the ground.