Chapter Text
Standing before a crumbling mess of a house he now owned, Ajax couldn’t believe his fortune. Or rather the lack of it.
The merchant he met in Snezhnaya raved how it was "a big house that previously belonged to a renown family of blacksmiths," "situated in a great location" since it was close to the city and that "no one would give you such a good price for a place as perfect as this." Admittedly it sounded super shady, and Ajax already knew salesmen liked to colourise a lot, but this...
"This is pushing it."
The redhead sighed and looked around – technically speaking the merchant didn’t lie. The house was indeed big, even though it was highly possible the roof will come crumbling down as soon as he opens the door. And the city truly was a stone’s throw away... minus the fact that to get here, you first had to enter one hell of a scary-looking forest and not die of a heart attack when a random crow decides to land on a branch above your head and caw as if it was trying to summon an army of the damned. Yes, he was speaking from experience here.
Clutching his small travel bag, the young blacksmith approached the entrance. The three wooden steps ominously creaked under his weight, but by some miracle didn’t break. From up close, the building's walls appeared even more dilapidated than he had assumed at first glance – they were half rotten and overgrown with wild vines. Well, at least the doorknob seemed fairly new. Not to mention its unusual shape: it looked like a crescent moon.
Weird choice for a blacksmith workshop.
Ajax brushed his finger over its polished golden surface. Smiled.
I like it, though.
Who says everything you do has to be reasonable and logical? If that were the case, he wouldn’t end up in this hellhole in the first place and instead chose to stay home in Snezhnaya. After all, the man loved his country and its snowy scenery. And, of course, he loved his family, too. Mom, dad and a gazillion of siblings.
Yet at the same time, it all felt just too... stifling.
In Morepesok he wasn’t just Ajax Alexeyev – he was "the son of Ilya Alexeyev, Master Blacksmith." People never looked at his skills through the prism of his own efforts and hard work.
'Your father is a legend, of course you’re gonna follow in his footsteps.'
'Can you make me a sword? You know, like the one your father gifted to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa.'
'Hmmm this is a good weapon, but can you reshape the hilt? Your father does it differently.'
Everyone has a limit, and Ajax eventually reached his.
His brothers and sisters had no talent for the craft, so all the expectations of the Alexeyev clan were unceremoniously dropped on the middle son’s shoulders. The responsibility to carry on the family legacy was suddenly solely his to bear. In the beginning, he didn’t really mind – the work in the smithy was hard and demanding, but fun. Creating something from scratch with your own pair of hands could give you one hell of a rush! Yet constantly hearing "father this, father that" would dampen the spirits of even the most resilient of souls.
And so he run away from the nagging voices and ended up here.
Ajax wanted to test his limits, push at them with all his might. See if he truly had what it takes to make a name for himself not depending on dad’s influence and connections.
A wolf howled in the distance.
That had to wait, though - a more urgent issue at the moment was surviving the night.
Taking a deep breath, Ajax pushed at the door handle and entered the house.
What greeted the man was... not much different than what he had already seen outside. The ginger looked around – despite the sorry state of the building, he couldn’t deny that it must have been inhabited by a pretty rich family in the past. The hall alone was huge; there was also a kitchen, dining room, sitting room, the workshop at the back and the whole second floor. He approached a long fancy table and dropped his bag there. The puff of dust disturbed from its long slumber immediately assaulted the redhead’s nose and his loud sneeze echoed around the house.
When was the last time this place has seen any visitors?
'Ages ago' seemed like too short of an assessment.
...yet also something didn’t quite match up.
"What’s this?"
Ajax peered at the row of jars standing on the cupboard by the fireplace. There was nothing earth-shattering in finding some forgotten preserves in old houses but these things...
The blacksmith poked the glass.
It seemed like one of them had lizard tails in it, the other was full of butterfly wings and someone decided to stuff another with cores extracted from crystalflies.
"Talk about weird hobbies."
He would have to get rid of this stuff later... or not! Ajax snapped his fingers experiencing sudden enlightenment. There’s a better idea – alchemists would probably pay a handsome price for this gruesome display and quite a few of them just happened to reside in Mondstadt.
What was that guy called again? The genius something-something-prinz? The stories about him reached even Snezhnaya, so he seemed like an appropriate first target to approach.
Content with the brilliant and lucrative idea, the ginger set out to look for the smithy aka the main reason he travelled across half the world and ended up in this accursed place.
Let's hope my dear new merchant friend didn't bullshit that part of our deal, too.
In that case, he might be compelled to pay him a visit and not many people knew, but Ajax was very proficient with not only making weapons but also using them. He liked testing his creations first before handing them over to the clients, that’s all.
At least that was the official version.
The workshop was at the back of the house and, the merchant could heave a sigh of relief, looked fairly well-equipped and maintained. Big windows assured the place was well lit and with a bit of effort, he could clean it up and get the tools to a usable condition.
The only thing Ajax found odd was the number of plants in the room. Vines were draped around the furnace and almost everywhere stood a pot with some kind of flower or other green-thingy he had no clue how to call.
They also felt awfully well cared for in this seemingly abandoned place.
Was someone from the city or maybe a nearby village using the smithy as a greenhouse? But the thick layer of dust appeared to be telling another story – if that was the case there would be footprints all over the floor and there were none...
"Hmm..." The blacksmith scratched his chin. "Maybe this place really is haunted?"
But he snorted soon after muttering these words.
Ajax didn’t believe in ghosts – and he certainly never heard any stories about ghosts interested in botany.
*~*~*
The rest of the day the new owner of "The Haunted Mansion," as he dubbed it in his head, spent with a rag and mop in hand. Otherwise, the couch in the living room Ajax chose as his temporary bed would choke him in his sleep with dust.
Then it was time to chop some wood, light up the fireplace and finally eat something – the man was famished after hours of hard work but sadly didn’t pack his travel bag with a lot of supplies. The young blacksmith kinda assumed he would just order something in town but... yeah, there was no way anyone would be willing to make a trip through this forest after dark. The image of the crows sitting all over the trees, and branches looking like claws that were only waiting for the opportunity to spirit you away into some unknown land was just—
Ajax closed the window and forcefully pulled the curtains.
"Yep, apple it is."
But an hour later, he found himself laying on the couch and staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. His legs were dangling over the armrest, the ginger was pretty tall after all, so admittedly it wasn’t the most comfortable position for a peaceful nightly slumber. Yet that wasn’t the reason for his temporary insomnia.
He sighed and linked his hands behind his head.
Everything felt so new. The country, the weather, the place.
"Can I actually pull this off?" the man whispered into nothingness gazing at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. It was not like him to have such doubts, but then again, at the end of the day, Ajax was just a mere human like everyone else.
The fireplace crackled releasing a cloud of sparks into the air.
Well, if the house were to just burn down, he would certainly have one less problem to worry about.
But then suddenly something crashed! Fell to the floor and broke into pieces.
The blacksmith jumped to his feet!
Looked around, tense like a string that was about to snap.
It was a muffled sound of shattering glass, no doubt about it. But where did it come from?
Upstairs? Ajax planned to leave exploring that part of the house for tomorrow, but since he couldn’t sleep anyway...
Armed with an oil lamp in one hand and a sword in another, the redhead climbed the stairs. Cringed every time they made a loud creaking noise that could probably even wake up the dead if there were any in the vicinity—
No, scratch that thought.
Zombies, just like ghosts, were just stories to feed naughty children. Yes, that’s right! And stories do not destroy someone else’s property in the middle of the night.
The second floor mostly consisted of a few boring bedrooms and, the most notable highlight, a library. The room was big and filled to the brink with all kinds of volumes.
Ajax slowly walked along the row of bookcases.
'The Heroic Tale of Vannessa.'
'History of Teyvat.'
'One Hundred Greatest Ballads of Our Times.'
'Pharmacy for Dummies.'
'Tasty Dinner from Across the Sea.'
'I Was Reincarnated as the Villainess, but All I Want to Do Is Sleep.'
The list went on – there seemed to be books on every topic imaginable, from cooking to history, medicine, art and fiction. Hell, at this point Ajax was pretty sure somewhere amidst this bibliophile's heaven also hid a nice stash of volumes about blacksmithing. Maybe even the trade secrets the previous owners of this library left behind? Wouldn’t that be an interesting development.
But before he could mull over the exciting thought a bit more, something reached his ears again. A sound. Similar to... crunching? Or tinkling?
It hit him.
Someone is sweeping the broken glass.
But how can there be a "someone" in an up-till-now abandoned house? Was he seriously so lucky to move in during an ongoing robbery?
That would maybe make sense, if not for one peculiar fact: the noises weren’t coming from the bedrooms, as Ajax assumed that was where the leftover valuables could be found. No, they were coming from this very spot. From—
"Behind the bookcase?"
Ajax heard about castles or palaces having hidden passageways, but why would you need one in a blacksmith’s house? Yet as the scratching sound repeated, followed by a painful hiss, there was no doubt about it – someone really was hiding behind this wall!
And he wasn’t going to let the damn thief get away!
Putting aside the lamp, the man tried to push at the side of the bookcase and move it, but it didn’t even budge. Leveraging with the sword didn’t work either, so it became clear that brute force wasn't a viable solution in this case.
That only left one possibility.
"There must be a switch somewhere around here..." Ajax muttered, pulling at every single book within reach and checking the back of each shelf, but it had no effect whatsoever.
Crossing his arms he looked around again, trying to calm down.
If it’s not a book then...
The nearby wall lamp caught his eye. It wasn’t lit, so maybe that’s why the young blacksmith overlooked the fancy gizmo before, but now that he could take a closer look, a dangerous grin bloomed on his face.
Its crescent shape was awfully similar to the house’s unique doorknob and it couldn’t have been a coincidence.
"Gotcha."
Something clicked as soon as he pulled at the lamp. Aaaaaand... that was it. The disappointment hanging in the air was almost palpable. But epicness or its lack aside, the switch did its job – now the bookcase could be opened just like an ordinary door.
What happened next, however, surpassed all of Ajax’s expectations.
“Hiiyah!”
The attack came out of nowhere.
And the passage was so small and narrow, there was no space to dodge.
A broom hit him straight on the head and almost knocked the man out!
...wait.
A broom?
"Stay away, you thug!" a feisty voice called.
Sitting on the floor and massaging his head, Ajax could only stare wide-eyed at the bizarre picture stretching before him.
At a cosy room down the corridor filled with plants, and at his attacker – a short, blond-haired girl in a big pointy hat that barely fit under this low ceiling, clutching a broom to her chest in an iron grip. His weird brain also instantly noticed a stray drop of blood running down her finger. She probably cut herself earlier cleaning up the broken glass...
Unbelievable.
Her eyes, now glaring at Ajax, were like liquid gold.
"A witch?" the young blacksmith muttered dumbfounded.
People said witches went extinct hundreds of years ago! How could there be one living under his roof?!
But he wasn’t given the chance to ponder the unexpected mystery any further.
Lead by a surprisingly swift and skilful hand, the broom crashed onto Ajax's skull once more and the darkness finally swallowed him whole.