Chapter Text
Night setting over Mondstadt had always felt comforting, safe, and calm as the shops closed to the sound of the citizens puttering from the main square. Knights changed shifts with hushed updates to their relief as a hooded figure passed them silently. The sharp features of her face were exposed to the dim lanterns hanging from their posts, not causing alarm as she passed with a quiet humming. It was clear the stranger wasn’t lost, though newer knights kept a keen eye as her figure passed along the cobblestone. Despite the heeled boots she wore there was a coached silence that her steps allowed. A subtle uneasiness fell over the guards until she was out of their direct sight when turning a corner.
Once through the gates into the main square, Ariwen’s hand moved to slip the hood away from her head. Exposing her features fully to the warm light of the pathway, with careful movements she tugs the train of her hair from where it had been safely tucked into her cloak. The braid moved over her shoulder and over her back with enough weight to cause her nose to crinkle in annoyance as it settled down her back. A gentle gaze follows the trinkets hanging in a shop window as she skips two steps at a time on her way up the small path. Her hand reaches to steady a child rushing past the gates as their parents call for him, nearly crashing into the smaller person as her gloves brush inches from him.
A sympathetic smile graces her lips as the parents apologize quickly and reach to take the boy's hands in their own and allow him to pull them down the path. A sigh parted her lips as she watches them a moment too long before continuing through the city to stand outside the tavern. Steps halting near an array of empty tables, explained by the sounds of chatter through the open tavern window. Her fingers find the back of a chair, nails tapping with an anxious rhythm against the chipped wood as she watched the door. She’d gone through plenty of times, years ago, before she’d left the city in search of the world. It felt wrong to stand in front of it, knowing all she had left behind, the absence she had created unintentionally with her silence.
“Everything alright, miss?” a voice breaks the focus she’d had on the whirlwind of thoughts chasing each other throughout her mind. The woman's crystal gaze zoning in on a man straightening the standing sign outside of the door, watching her in confusion as her lips parted yet she doesn’t speak.
“Sorry, I – I’ve been traveling, my exhaustion is catching up with me I suppose,” she smiles, despite the panic in her chest as she moves toward the door. Nodding in thanks as the man pulls the door open for her yet does not move inside. The low light of the tavern wasn’t an unwelcome sight in the late evening. Various sources of chatter chased away the plague of her wild thoughts as she glances around, noting the differences quietly as she shrugged the cloak off with the welcome warmth of the building.
“Welcome, I’ll be with you in a moment,” a familiar voice calls from behind the bar she’d wandered by, head turning to watch the bartender move about the length of wood to pass another patron a drink.
“No need to worry –” she speaks in a quiet voice as she moves to the bar to take a seat furthest from where he’d been tending to. Watching him for a moment with a pursed smile, she waited for his gaze to settle on her. Both paused as she raised a slow hand to close a hand in a stiff wave before lowering her hand to the wood of the bar.
“Surprise?” she gets out with a guilty smile as he approaches, looking her over with a gaze she couldn’t discern between anger and confusion, “Adelinde told me where you’d be–”.
“When did you get back?” he asks as he moves to fill a glass with chilled water before placing it in front of her without hesitation. Her head turns to search for the source of a clock before pressing her lips into a thin line.
“Arrived at dusk, took some time to get my bearings, and I didn’t know where to look,” she explains as she glances away from the ticking hands of the device on the wall. Cool gaze unintentionally locks onto his but neither wavers from the action.
“Where are you staying?” he questions as he returns to pulling glasses from a clean rack to wipe them clean of the condensation forming on their sides.
Ariwen watches between his hands, counting scars unintentionally before looking to his face once again to find him studying her with the same intensity, “I’ll likely go to the inn, if not I’m sure I can find –” only to be cut off with a scoff.
“Don’t bother, they’ve been full for months with the Fatui diplomats, and I’m sure Adelinde already told you to stay at the winery, we both know how she is,” he comments with a flat tone though a fondness fills his eyes as his attention sways from the woman in front of him.
Her nose scrunches, lines forming against the bridge from the pinched skin as she makes a noise of unease, “I don’t want to be a bother after all these years, Diluc,” she laments finally bringing the cup to her lips and glancing away from him.
“It was more of a bother when the letters stopped abruptly in the last year,” he comments without looking toward her again, avoiding her entirely as she sighed sharply into her glass. Leaning awkwardly against her forearms, baring herself between the space of her body and the ledge of the bartop.
“It’s complicated, I didn’t plan to stop writing – “ she bickers as if he’d been the one to hurt her though they’d clearly both touched a nerve in the weakness of the other.
They had been friends in their youth, fresh teens with more hope than sense. Ariwen had claimed dreams of joining the knights, just as her friends had – only to slip away from them, watching as they went without her into the ranks. Soon after she traveled instead to Sumeru to attend the same Akademia that her parents once had, leaving the land of freedom for that of wisdom. Ariwin hadn’t had it in her to lay her hands to be a hunter, let alone the responsibility of being a Knight. Bravery surged her heart yet not able to strike in the aspect of necessary justice, and any wasted training with the cause left behind in the shell of her childhood home. Any of the tempered peacekeeping her hands from staining with guilt or sin had died in the land of wisdom.
There were too many unsaid things between the two of them, letters that had been addressed over pen and paper but now filled the air awkwardly in silence. Ariwen wanted to fill it, push something warm between the chill setting between them as her hand gripped the gifted glass too harshly. Releasing it to keep from cracking it under her own discomfort. Fingertips push it away from her immediate reach as her eyes raise to watch Diluc move to tend to another guest. Leaving the pregnant silence to stale the air as a shaking breath finally escaped her lips.
The look of annoyance crossing his face suddenly in the direction of the inner dining room causes her gaze to shift to the source of the footsteps. Accompanied by a steady laugh and clumsy steps as a small group shifts into the main entry, a familiar head of blue hair comes into view but pays no mind directly to the bar. Speaking to a shorter male as they step toward the vicinity of Diluc with mischievous grins dancing across each of their faces. Kaeya’s was too familiar, though the thought leaves her mind of memories she’d seen before. Her gaze landed on the unfamiliar patch covering his eye the golden accents of it catching in the light.
Whatever conversation has sparked Diluc’s irritation further has been lost to her as she reels from what may have been kept from her. Their lives weren’t hers to claim knowledge or demand stories from, not anymore in the slightest. Yet the question tinges at her bitten tongue as she looks away from them only to feel the vacant seat beside her taken without warning. She curses the lack of space until she feels someone drape their arm over the seat backing wordlessly.
The skin of her cheek is captured by her teeth as the droplets of water on her glass become the most interesting thing in the room. Cursing as the cup is moved out of her vision by someone who surely was not the bartender. Only to be followed by damp fingertips finding the point of her chin, thumb pressing into the soft flesh of her cheek to playfully pull her face to look at none other than the blue-haired nuisance she’d befriended years ago.
He seemed far too amused, unlike his brother, to see her and she hated the way he grinned like a cat that caught the mouse.
“That’s one big scar you’ve got there from studying,” he teases as she shoots him a glare, ignoring as his thumb traces along the still paling slice that brandished against pale flesh from the curve of her cheek past where he could not see from the high necked top that shielded her throat.
“What’s with the eyepatch?” she shoots back ineloquently from her previous tempered speech, eliciting a chuckle from the male who smooths over the scar with his thumb before freeing her chin with a shake.
“I told you I had a surprise when you came home, makes me look quite dashing doesn’t it?” he plays off with enough ease she already suspects it to be something more than he would let on today. Not bothering to push further as she tries to steady her wandering mind over the interaction, instead looking to Diluc as if he’d be any aid. Instead, he seemed to be either bickering or bartering with the cheerful man who had accompanied the Calvery captain to the bar prior.
“Though, that was quite some time ago – just like your letters, we’d all but assumed you’d either grown tired of us or somehow – drove yourself mad,” he continues his teasing as he steals the glass of water she’d forgotten to sip from as if it were his own. Ariwen moves to take it back, huffing at him while doing so as she puts it back on the counter, wiping the edge of the glass with her sleeve.
“I wasn’t exactly able to write – “ she starts before closing her eyes with a pained expression, opening them only after the silence had settled in. Returning her gaze to find the smaller man had gone from view, Leaving Diluc standing with arms crossed and Kaeya watching her from where he’d perched his elbow on the counter to rest his chin against his closed fist. Both waiting for an answer as pale eyes glanced between them both with unease, “I was in Inazuma for the past two years, I left Sumeru three years ago.”
The silence returns as the playful gaze in Kaeya’s eye disappears and Diluc stiffens in his stance, any ease rolling from his shoulders.
“What? Why?” he questions as he watches his old friend's features shift to defense as if she was planning what to say next. Eyes shifting between them as if expecting an attack of some sort despite the mood shifting to tense in concern.
“I – I don’t know, I wanted something new, something far away –” she whispers as if having done something wrong as a shaking breath passes her lips, “I was tired of being told what to do, being pushed, I don’t know,” her tone turns to that of exasperation. Not a knight. Not a scholar. Nothing that her parents wanted, as if the dead could project wants even now that she felt the need to run from.
Broad shoulders slump as exhaustion finally begins to bite from her travels, “I got into things I shouldn’t have, I should have stayed where I belonged – kept my head down,” she explains. Refusing to raise her gaze even when Diluc once again moves away. Her own scarred fingertips guide circles against her temples as she shakes away the lingering feeling of loss still haunting her chest. In the silence, she thought Kaeya may have also retreated, grown tired or bored of the mess forming at the bar to something more interesting. Instead, his once teasing hand moves to soothe against the cloth covering her back in a calming motion despite his silence.
“How long have you had that?” the question comes while jarring the silence and breaking away from their prior conversation. His hand wanders from her back and instead to the vision glowing on a silver chain from her belt, noting how it matched Jean's, clutching it carefully to twist it to the proper position. Ariwen flinches when she feels the chain move against her hip exposing the flowing turquoise gem, looking at his hand on the hanging weight.
“A bit under two years, though it hasn’t been in my possession very long … I uh, it got taken a year or so into having it, after I got it, and I’ve only had it a few weeks again, I still don’t know why I was even blessed with it,” she gets out as if the words pain her to speak. The charm falls carefully from the male's hand after a moment of studying the vision in his hand, gloved thumb tracing along the side of it before it’s set against her hip once more.
Despite the strain, a smile attempts to pull the corners of Ariwen’s mouth upward from the frown that had begun to drag down. When his eyes return to her, she flicks a finger toward him causing his hair to blow away from his face, she looks away teasing smirk not meeting her eyes, falling into ease as if they were both still teenagers attempting to rile the other up. There are no further prodding questions, their conversation goes uninterrupted as Kaeya coaxes out stories from her travels that the letters couldn’t compare to. Somewhere along the line, she rests her head against her folded arms on the bar as Kaeya exaggerates a story from the Knights. Ariwen doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep until she feels something shaking against her arm.
A sudden gasp escapes her lips as she sits up, only to have Diluc raise his hands to show he had no plans of harm as the woman calms her breathing again. Her shaking hand drags over her features as she looks around the now darkening bar, empty of all patrons, including Kaeya.
“I’m so sorry –” she gets out after a moment, mouth dry and eyes still clearing as she collects herself, looking to him once more and shaking her head.
“You only drooled on the wood enough to make it a bit strange,” the redhead points out in a calm tone, the joke causing her to choke as she looks back to make sure it isn’t true, “come on, we’re going back to the winery, I don’t wish to hear you argue the matter. Adelaide would scold me if I didn’t return with you if she knew this is where you came.”
The moment of hesitation passes as Diluc shrugs on his jacket before retrieving the cloak she’d draped over her chair before the night to slip over her shoulders as he starts heading toward the door. Ariwen debates only a moment before she moves to stand, ignoring the sharp pain in her legs from the prior lack of movement as the uncomfortable stinging furthers to wake them.
Their steps sound together as they begin the trek back to the winery through the darkness lingering, any sign of light caused by fires nearby, she welcomes the silence throughout the majority of their trip.
“Are you alright?” Diluc finally breaks the silence between them when it becomes thick, any sound causing the air to shift with her nervousness as if waiting for an invisible attack with each sound the forest provides, “I won’t let anything happen to you, you should still know this.”
“I don’t doubt that though – I can defend myself,” she pushes as if it was an accusation and not an observation of the evident fear at the slightest sign of life, “I’m not defenseless–”
“I didn’t claim you to be, Ariwen,” he counters without any urgency, though his gaze has moved to look to her as they walk, “I know you’re exhausted, you’ve nearly tripped four times.”
The woman's lips have pushed together as if to silence her accusations from further causing invisible harm, “I’m sorry.”
Silence follows them once more, and she doesn’t find comfort in it the way she had at the start of the journey from Angels Share.
“I would have written, I know – I know I stopped, I planned to come home, I had so many plans,” the silence dissipates from the sudden admission, “I promise – I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything, I just –” the words die out as if all the air has deflated from her as they finally reach the expanse of grape vines bordering the property. Diluc doesn’t answer her, simply nods his head as he takes the steps ahead of her toward the door to the winery. He doesn’t miss the falter of her steps as she stops at the bottom of them, looking up at where he waited. The taller of the two quirks his eyebrow as he waits for her to move inside.
“You need to rest before you pass out where you stand, I have work to finish, we both cannot simply stand here letting in the bugs,” he warns her, which allows her shoulders to slump as she follows after him. It wasn’t as if she had much of a choice either way, Adelaide had taken her bag when she’d first shown up and not taken no for an answer as she made sure the woman had eaten and at least accepted something warm to drink. It could have been retrieved by morning, surely, yet she knew it was a battle she would not win as Diluc instructs one of the lingering maids to show his old friend to a spare room.
“Thank you,” she gets out when she finally takes the final steps toward them both, only to follow after a girl a few inches shorter than her. When she glances back to Diluc he’s already moved from view, leaving her to bring her attention back to the woman guiding her through the same halls she once wandered with friends when they trailed in from the nearby shores in their youth.
Somehow, she felt smaller than she had in her younger years as she walked the halls. Listening to the door to the room open, set up for her unknowingly in her absence, bag sitting on the bed as she moved to rustle through it. Shrugging her cloak lazily from her shoulders, tugged her boots from her calves and off her feet to follow the articles of clothing joining the pile unceremoniously on the floor. The anemo user shifts onto the bed, crossing her legs as she once again rubs at her eyes only to allow herself to lay back once more, trying to calm herself enough to focus. The far too familiar feeling of being lost chasing the warmth of the room away and chilling into her skin like a winter morning.
It takes her longer than she should realize that her breathing has turned to a stuttered sob in her chest, devoid of sound but tightening the muscles in her throat. The heels of her hands tried to press into pained eyelids to stop any flow of exhaustion wearing her down. It didn’t stop the sudden overwhelming feeling of being safe despite being alone, despite the ache in her chest of not belonging in the comfort she had been given. The loneliness had taken kin to the loathing she carried like a weight to her chest she’d personally chosen to bare, though her mind had never been allowed to focus on accepting any of it. All the years away, from the moment she left Sumeru in the night without any warning, choosing to free herself from a life she felt was not her own.
She should not find safety in the walls of someone who owed her nothing, though she should also not be here, alive and well, or attempting to assimilate into the past as if it hadn’t been shattered into a mosaic she could not piece together. Despite the pain growing like a stubborn thorn in her body she loses her focus and falls from guilt to the fear of her nightmares.
When she wakes again, the light of morning has slipped through the cloth curtains and into the room. In the moments she steadies herself by remembering where she was, once again attempting the acceptance the safety of something now foreign to her. Embarrassment fills her chest where the sorrow from the night before leaves her, guilt accompanies it like an old friend as she tries to pull herself together. She would need to leave once more, to not trouble the staff any further, to find a new purpose in the home she’d been pulled from.
The garments from last night are peeled from her body only to be replaced by a similar style of clothing she’d had prior. Cloth once again covered nearly to her jaw as she pulled the new shirt over her head, not wanting the scar on display despite the fact it was still visible on her face. It’s some time before she wills herself to pack the bag she’d dug through and sling it from her shoulder again. Quiet steps allow her to sneak out of the room and into the foyer to take the steps down to the first floor. Ariwen is thankful for the near absence of any others as she glances around in hopes of finding Adelaide to thank her for her kindness the day before.
Instead, she nearly runs into Diluc while he rounds the corner coming up from the basement, her shoulders tensing as she looks up at him. “Sorry, sorry,” she gets out as she quickly moves away from him cursing herself for once again being in the way. Diluc looks at her, hands reaching out to ghosts across her upper arms before pulling back suddenly.
“You need to be more careful, you could have gotten hurt,” he tells her as he steps around her and ushers her to follow him. The taller male continues walking despite the hesitation from his companion, “leave your bag, you’re not going to need it.”
It takes longer than he expects for her to drop the bag carefully out of the way before she’s following him out into the day, rushing her steps down the stairs to catch up to his pace. Only slowing when she manages to match her steps to his as they step through the winery.
“You need to be cautious, if you aren’t going to stay here, you need to be wise of where you wander off to –” he speaks as he inspects one of the vine racks, a cracking sound causing Ariwen to dip her head down to his eye level as well to watch as he repairs a small area of the lattice.
“I’m not a child, I’m older than you,” she reminds him as she reaches out to pull a vine out of the way he’d been pushing with his index finger.
“Barely, and as I said last night –” he repeats.
“ – I won’t break, whatever is here – it won’t be worse than what I’ve faced already,” she interrupts as the vine slips from her fingers to once again get in his way. She retreats further down the path, looking out toward the statue of Barbatos in the distance. It looked like someone had put care into it recently though she battered it with the idea of it with her likely poor memory of it.
“I wouldn’t be able to counter that claim,” he reminds as if his words are a cool knife against her side in a reminder she had left them in the dark. It felt safer there, where no one could see how the cracking glass of her youth had been shattered repeatedly.
Even as his footsteps follow to bring him to her side, Ariwen can feel his eyes on her, when she finally glances over at him she can see him focused on her features. Gaze focused on the nasty scar along her cheek though upon being caught attempted to divert his gaze to appear less direct.
“It happened when I first arrived in Inazuma before the borders closed, I should have left then – “ she begins, her gaze turned back to the statue as she lets out a breath. She hadn’t told Kaeya last night, Diluc remembers the question his brother had teased her with had been countered.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he offers.
“ – I didn’t, I couldn’t tell you exactly why, I was likely somewhere I didn’t belong, and if it hadn’t been for this I likely I would have died there,” she unclips the vision from its place on her hip, extending it out in her palm. Her sight remains on the statue. As if it would somehow move to give her answers to all the questions she'd asked ever since the gift had come to her.
“I don’t know why he blessed me with this, I don’t know what I did to deserve it, in that moment I wasn’t thinking – I was lucky I didn’t kill the person who attacked me, it was blind and stupid to fight back,” she hums out as she wraps her fingers around the glow of her vision. “I did though, I have been – I don’t believe I deserve it, but – I don’t have to hurt them, not always, the wind allows me to do some surprising things,” she breathes out a laugh at the admission while clipping the vision back to her hip.
“You’ve never been a fighter,” Diluc hums out, which had been the catalyst to her departure.
“I wasn’t, I’ve found reason to, albeit against my will,” she huffs while starting down the path again listening as his boots crushed dirt in the same direction she was treading. “I joined the adventures guild, shortly after in Inazuma, then the borders closed, I got stuck –” her hands move along the leaves absentmindedly as she passes them.
“ – a long story, but along the line, I lost this again,” she continues in a hesitant tone, hearing Diluc stop behind her. “I lost everything, I don’t remember it much admittedly, losing myself – I won’t lose either again”.
“If you’re staying in Mondstadt you should stay here, you’ve done so before, I can’t imagine you have another plan since last night, and don’t say the inn,” he doesn’t ask, and the suggestion feels heavy that he won’t push it – but she doesn’t think the offer will fade.
“I don’t want to be a bother,” she counters, putting the concern on the table as she watches him finally begin walking again, diverting their path toward the winery again.
“Nonsense, there’s room,” he reminds, and his tone gives away something between concern and distrust of her words. She doesn’t take offense to either this turn of conversation.
“Fine, but I need to do something for you, if you’re doing this for me, don’t argue it,” she starts before he can, “I’ll go into town, speak to the guild here, and then by nightfall I’ll have a plan, and you’ll find a way for me to be useful.”
The plan settles a silence between him, Diluc looks like he wants to argue it, wants to push the topic more but they’ve reached the stairs and Ariwen stands before him with an outstretched hand.
“Deal?” she questions.
The pause settles and Diluc’s hand falling into hers is an acceptance, shaking it with a stubborn sternness on the part of his friend.
“Make sure you don’t stay out past dusk, Adelaide will worry,” he warns though it’s far from a threat.
“I’m sure you’d find me if I did,” she reasons, hand lingering in his before she’s stepped back and moved away. Following the path, they had the night before to get to the winery. In her absence, the uneasiness of her return fills the space in Diluc’s solitude once more. The winery owner's attention moves back toward what he’d been working on that morning before allowing himself to become distracted watching as she retreated once more.