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“Kaeya?”
Kaeya paused with his arm still holding the door to Angel’s Share open.
“What?”
You can’t do it alone, the note had said.
“I—” Diluc hesitated when Kaeya’s back stiffened, and the door handle creaked under his furious grasp. “Never mind. Have a good evening, Sir Kaeya.”
Kaeya huffed, slamming the door behind him.
Diluc placed the glass he had been wiping on the counter. He’d thought it would be easier if Kaeya had some time to calm down before he apologised, well more explained than apologised this time, but Kaeya only seemed angrier with every passing day.
And so Diluc had backed out of yet another opportunity – possibly his last. If he’d just managed to soldier on, to ask for the help Diluc knew he needed at the very least, he would have had the time to string his words together into something that made sense.
Maybe.
Instead, he put away the last of the glasses and packed everything away neatly for Charles tomorrow. Double checking his row of elemental vials, he put out the last of the candles and locked up Angel’s Share with a fond parting glance.
… xXx …
Dragonspine was treacherous on a good day with blaring sunlight and a team of allogenes.
With only the moonlight spilling onto the mountain, even the odd hilichurl was a tricky foe when the darkness behind it could hide a cliff. The Fatui that littered the area around Durin’s heart were expected, but even so the mixture of the ice and electro from the Fatui Skirmishers left Diluc feeling like one big, and mostly frozen, bruise by the time the last Geochanter fell.
As his information had predicted, the elemental energy grew stronger once Diluc stepped into the cave. It suffocated and pressed down on him with every step closer to the beating heart.
Claymore planted into the ground to support him, Diluc lay a hand on the beating heart, swallowing through the nausea at the slimy feeling of the air against his skin.
“Would you like to go to the top of the mountain to play? There’s a big floating rock where you can see the moon and the stars. Would you like to come with me?”
The elemental energy paused questioningly.
“You can come back here to rest when we’re done,” Diluc reassured. There was a tiny bit of Diluc that hoped the dragon’s conscience would disagree; that they would have to find another way, but Diluc knew that was selfish. He already knew what Durin’s corruption would do to Mondstadt. He had been the one to ask the Seeker to find a solution before the problem grew.
The solution had been the same as the solution for Dvalin: purification.
Diluc gnashed his teeth together to stop himself from screaming. The dragon’s conscious drew itself into his mind and body and it felt like he was drowning and being crushed at the same time.
It could have been minutes or hours when Durin’s conscious cautiously poked at his own. Finger’s slowly unclenching, he wiped at the warmth that dripped from his nose and left spots of red on the ground that quickly sizzled. He dared a glance at his flickering Vision and steeled himself for the climb up Dragonspine.
Human bodies, even allogenes, weren’t supposed to carry more than one conscious at a time, Seeker had warned him. When pressed, she had reluctantly agreed that a short time wouldn’t result in severe lasting damage. The corruption was the other unknown variable and the bigger risk, she had warned.
But Durin truly was as innocent as they had expected, Diluc thought as the dragon stopped him to watch the snow slide off a tree when Diluc’s claymore dug itself a little too close to the bark.
The hilichurls and mitachurls seemed to give him a wide berth as he passed, flinching as he came too close. If what he was currently containing was a weak form of the corruption, then Diluc could understand how a festering form could bring Mondstadt to her knees. It was all Diluc could do to throw the last Anemo vial at the Elemental Monument and deploy his windglider to catch the air current that would take them to the Skyfrost Nail.
Durin chirped happily at the sight of the moon that seemed to sit within the embrace of the broken head of the nail. Diluc could feel the weight of the corruption he had welcomed into his body lighten as he got closer to the nail, solidifying his belief in the plan.
He wasn’t looking forward to the climb, but the rest once he reached the top promised to be memorable.
The moment Diluc touched the Nail, ready to climb to the top, a pulse reverberated through the nail. Diluc managed to catch himself with his windglider after the first pulse, but the second tore through the glider’s wings and threw him across the mountain.
Despite Durin still being with him, the weight of the corruption didn’t return. He could feel Durin’s panic in his mind when he plunged into the icy water, but he couldn’t help the relief that filled him all the same: it worked.
You can go back to rest, was Diluc’s last thought to the dragon.
… xXx …
“Kaeya?”
A brief memory of Diluc calling him with that same tone flashed through his mind. Kaeya brushed it aside for another day.
“What brings you here, Jean?” Kaeya asked, glad for a break from the paperwork he had taken off Jean’s desk that morning. He would never understand why Jean didn’t just delegate it in the first place. “I thought you were in the middle of—”
“Diluc is at the cathedral.”
“So soon? He left for that business trip only two days ago. Which poor Knight did he drag in this time?” Kaeya sighed, grabbing his coat as he stood. He didn’t want to see Diluc, but he was the only one that could stop one of Diluc’s tirades.
Jean shook her head and bit her lip. Her cautious expression had Kaeya pausing.
“Amber found him washed ashore on the beach near Starsnatch Cliff. It’s… not looking good.” Jean hesitated. “He was too injured for even my healing ability to make a difference.”
Kaeya’s coat slipped from his fingers, and he could only stare blankly at it.
Kaeya didn’t even want to think about what Diluc was doing when he was supposed to be somewhere in Inazuma beating their fledgling wine industry into submission. Either Diluc had somehow floated all the way from Dornman Port south or, more likely, he had floated north from Dragonspine.
As rash as Diluc sometimes was, he wasn’t careless. He knew when he had a chance, and he knew when to retreat. Kaeya knew he had grown ever more cautious while having to watch his own back.
But Kaeya also knew that as long as any negative consequence would fall solely on his own shoulders, Diluc would consider the risk worth it.
Had Diluc already known when he’d held him back at Angel’s Share that things were already set in stone, and he needed help?
Pulling himself together, Kaeya picked up his coat and dusted it off.
“Let’s go.”
The walk to the cathedral was silent. Kaeya could feel Jean’s glances burning into his face, but he refused to engage with her. There was nothing to say. All of Mondstadt probably knew how tense things had been between Diluc and him for the last week. An argument about how Diluc had ‘mysteriously’ been showing up almost everywhere Kaeya had been.
“Barbara? How is Diluc?”
“Jean!” Barbara exclaimed jumping up from the bench in the cathedral. “…And Sir Kaeya.”
“Barbara,” Jean repeated when Barbara continued to nervously glance at Kaeya without speaking
“We managed to get him breathing again.” Barbara licked her lips nervously. “But it’s not really because Master Diluc’s body is stable enough, but it’s as if there’s something else keeping him alive. By our estimates, he was unconscious for at least a day, if not two. He shouldn’t…” Barbara shook her head. “It’s a miracle from our Archon Barbatos. We’ll do everything we can to finish his work and save Master Diluc.”
“You sit right back down, Barbara,” Rosaria threatened. “If you wear yourself out too much, you will be joining Master Diluc on one of the beds. Are we clear?”
Barbara yelped and sat back on the bench.
“Sister Rosaria, have you sent word—?” The old nun’s gaze caught Kaeya’s. He caught the pity and regret, and his stomach sank. “Sir Kaeya, I’m so sorry.”
She reached forward with a white cloth in her hands. Kaeya knew this tradition. He had seen it countless times. The nun stood in front of him, and Kaeya wanted to turn around and bolt out the cathedral doors.
Like it wouldn’t be true if he was never given the cloth.
But he held his hands out.
He didn’t want it.
HeDidn’tWantIt.
hedidntwantit.
Diluc’s gray Vision stared up at him from between his two palms.