Work Text:
It was evening. Beautiful evening, with no clouds to be seen in the sky. It was a warm summer evening with so much potential. Many had used this opportunity to spend the evening with loved ones. After all, it was the first warm evening, and the day had been so beautiful and full of joy. It was the best kind of day to spend with your family and friends. The universal experience that most people have at least once experienced.
Nevertheless, no matter how much it felt like a peaceful, almost eternity-lasting moment, you could never know if it was the last warm, sunny evening you could spend in such a way. It was not something you could usually expect to be the last one. You could never know if the next day, next week, or the day before would be the next time an evening like this would come up.
Kaeya hadn’t know. He had no way of knowing that the last evening like this was when he was 15. The next year, there was no one to spend the evening with. It was not like the Ragnvindrs had ever even been a real family to him, but those evenings Kaeya had always closed his eyes to the fact. And sometimes, when he really tried, he could forget and feel like he was a real part of the family, not a dirty traitor or a sinner from the day he was born.
After all, Kaeya had been born a sinner. Not just any sinner. No, he was born a Khaenri’ahn. And even worse, he was born royalty. It was the worst sin a living being could commit, and he committed it just by being born. So, it was crystal clear to anyone that Kaeya was the worst sinner on Teyvat. Every breath he took was another sin.
And on those evenings, it was like he somehow committed a worse sin by at least trying to forget how bad of a person he was. It was a thing that no one could even imagine to be true if they didn’t know.
It had been seven years since that. A lot had happened, but one thing never left Kaeya. His feelings. His entire life, he had lived a life of guilt and shame. A life full of internal fights with himself. At least Kaeya had something to prove the conflict with the cryo vision next to him.
That vision was a laugh to his face; it was evidence of Celestia’s cruelty. Who else would ever have thought to leave such a reminder of their sin of existing—a reminder of the day their life went downhill? It was indestructible, and Kaeya couldn’t get rid of it in any way. Anyone who thought these things to be a gift from Celestia was a naive idiot.
It was no gift. No, it was more of a curse. It was an unspoken truth among allogenes. Everyone knew it; it was such an obvious thing. A vision was a curse that you couldn’t get rid of. It may be your biggest strength, but it will always be your biggest weakness. You spent the rest of your life connected to that little piece of unknown material. It had been proven that if you lost that little wicked thing, you lost your entire self. Your passion, memories, everything—it's just gone.
No, there was no bigger weakness than a vision. There was no other thing capable of destroying a person that quickly or completely. And not to forget that there had to be a reason why Celestia gave them out. Knowing Celestia, it couldn’t be any good.
Kaeya had always wanted to get rid of that thing, but it was impossible because of the curse. He was a full-blood Khaenri’ahn. It would be such an ironic thing for him to go insane this way. Not when he had barely escaped the curse of being turned into one of those insane beasts of the abyss.
While Kaeya had no idea of the year of his birth, he knew one thing for sure: He was born after the cataclysm, meaning that he couldn’t possess the curse of immortality. Kaeya didn’t really know about it all; it hadn’t ever been explained to him, but that one thing he knew for sure. It was most likely that his vision was the curse he was chosen to possess as the biggest sinner alive. There was no other reason as to why his vision was the way it was.
Kaeya had thought about visions a lot. It was a matter of coping. To make himself think that little glowing light blue thing is something neutral, to not make him feel particularly anything while looking at it. Nevertheless, it had done nothing. Knowing all this made no difference to him. Every single time he saw the thing, it was like something tried to rip him from the inside.
But in no way was that feeling comparable to the feeling of using it. It was hell, not just mentally. It was a special curse set out just for Kaeya alone. He knew it was just him. No other vision holder was hurt by using their vision, even in small amounts. And no other vision user was hurt if they didn’t use their vision for some time.
It was really something hellish. Every time he used that cursed thing—the voices, the memories—it all hurt so much. The frost spreading little by little in his limbs, the pain worsening every second. And when he didn’t use the vision, it was all the same. Kaeya wasn’t allowed to forget and move on. No, the reality he lived in was made to be his personal hell, with torture every day.
Kaeya was such a sinner.
Kaeya had gotten his vision when he was 16, not long before it would have been the evening of warmth and sun.
But it all went wrong, sosososososo wrong.
That evening had been the worst of his life. Since that Day, it has always been called that in Kaeya’s head. The Day. It was not a day that Kaeya thought a lot about voluntarily, but it was forced on him. With the curse of a vision, with the mental scars, and with the physical scars that covered most of his torso. Those scars made it hard to move basically every day; the pain always made it hard. The scars put his life in danger every second.
Crepus had died, and Diluc had left. Diluc had taken Kaeya’s inheritance and Ragnvindr name before leaving. He had taken everything from Kaeya except his sins. And every night Kaeya yearned that Diluc would have taken those too and stopped his miserable existence as the Sinner of the World.
Those mornings that Kaeya just couldn’t get up, he thought about a lot of things. Visions were just one topic. One of the things he thought about was his heritage. He was the last prince of Khaenri’ah. He might even be the last royalty of the whole country, as there was no guarantee that his father was still alive and sane.
There was one sure way of recognizing a member of the royal family of Khaenri’ah. It was the golden star of Khaenri’ah. For Kaeya, that star was in his eye. He could see from it, but he couldn’t show it to Teyvat. No person from the whole Teyvat had seen it, not even Diluc. It was just too much evidence of his sins.
There were memories from the ruins of Khaenri’ah, the country that was once so proud and so great, reduced to just ruins full of abyssal power. Memories were the thing that Kaeya drowned in again and again every night. It was hard to breathe.
Kaeya was a captain of the knights. Such a useless cavalry captain without even a cavalry. He didn’t even do his job properly half of the time. Or so people thought. In fact, Kaeya was one of the reasons why Mondstadt hadn’t fallen apart, while Varka was Barbatos knows where with ⅔ of the whole knights, leaving only useless and new ones behind. It was basically a miracle that the man hadn’t taken Jean with him.
There just were not enough knights, and as said, there were very few capable ones. Kaeya didn’t want to be mean, but he was so tired of being told he was lazy and didn’t do anything. He was the one who figured out the Abyss’ new plans, made the routes, trained the knights, and kept the whole organization running.
Jean did obviously work too, but her work was more of the political daylight paperwork. Nowhere near the amount that Kaeya did in the shadows. If it wasn’t for him, the whole city would’ve been heavily attacked so many times. If it wasn’t for him negotiating with different criminal organizations, he wouldn’t have figured out their intentions. Diluc might hate him, but at least the man still tolerated Kaeya enough to listen to what Kaeya thought to be a danger.
Last time Kaeya had warned Jean about an incoming attack on one of the small villages of the nation, the woman had just brushed it off. If Kaeya hadn’t been there to stop it, the whole village would have been robbed. Jean trusted him but didn’t respect him nearly enough. It was not like Kaeya could blame her, though. His job wasn’t something to be seen publicly, so he kept it secret. He also had a hard time doing his paperwork. After the Day, his mind started to wander, and he couldn’t focus on the job. It wasn’t enough action to keep him focused.
It still made him annoyed to be called lazy every day while he did his best. Sometimes he felt like just quitting and watching how the Knights of Favonious would fall down. The knights hated him. Kaeya knew that he was hated by most of the city. No one knew what he had done to make Diluc leave the city for four whole years, but every citizen knew it was something bad. He was even accused of murdering his family, especially after Diluc announced that Kaeya was no Ragnvindr anymore and left him with no Mora to his name.
That rumor died down when Diluc, after four years, just appeared out of thin air. For a few days, Kaeya didn’t know if he would be killed or forgiven. In a short amount of time, it became apparent that Diluc didn’t want anything to do with his once-brother.
Those years, Kaeya was hated so much. Not even in a violent way. No, Kaeya was in almost complete isolation from everyone. No one spoke to him other than Jean, if not absolutely necessary. Kaeya was sure that if it hadn’t been for the lack of knights, he would have been fired.
Every look he was given was more and more hateful than the last one. He almost lost his home and became homeless. The only reason that the landowner didn’t kick him out was because Kaeya could offer him even more money from the apartment, and he didn’t ever complain about the little problems like the ceiling leaking almost every single drop of water it came in contact with.
When Diluc came back, everyone acted for a while like they had done nothing, until it was made clear that Diluc still hated Kaeya. After that, it was even worse. People talked shit about him in front of him, like he didn’t even exist.
And still Kaeya had protected Mondstadt with all of his might.
At least until this evening. It was obvious that Kaeya had been tired for so long. He had almost attempted it many times but thought it would be symbolic for him to die the day he was taken in. It was the third of June, the day Ragnvindrs had taken him in from the storm outside. The 10th anniversary.
He had wanted to die for years and years but had always just tried to go on. One day, Diluc people would accept him again, right? It didn’t seem like it. Someone might wonder what the last nail in the coffin was. It was the oh-so-mighty Traveler appearing with their superpowers.
Now, Kaeya didn’t hate that person, but he couldn’t help but be so jealous of them. For years, he had tried to rebuild his career, the respect he had, and the popularity he once held. But the great traveler, now the Honorary Knight, had just appeared, taken care of the problem, and was one of the most respected people in the nation.
It wasn’t even so bad before leaving; the Traveler had expressed distrust of Kaeya and single-handedly destroyed every little bit of his good reputation he had finally built up again. After that, it would be too idiotic to even try to keep going. It was just not possible anymore.
So, today was the day he would leave this hellhole of a country behind. In a way, he wanted to just do his job as a spy and go back to the Abyss as their new ruler. Kaeya would surely get that job just because of his heritage, or at least another high-ranking one. Nevertheless, despite all the treatment he got, he still knew he deserved it. The citizens were in no wrong when they did not trust Kaeya; he was a born sinner and a traitor after all.
It would just be best to die and hope that Celestia would not torment him when he was dead. That would be too cruel, even for Kaeya. They would probably just throw Kaeya’s soul into the deepest part of the Abyss, which he deserved. It would be only right for the last child of the Abyss to spend the rest of eternity in its deepest parts.
The method of suicide wasn’t hard to decide because he didn’t decide it. No one would care enough to check up on him for weeks, so his only challenge was to make sure he died for sure. No one would be there to stop him, so it made it all easier.
This was the story of how Kaeya found himself in the apartment’s bathroom. There was warm water filling the tub as fast as possible, hallway done. The floor was in horrible condition, with the tiles cracked and covered in stains and mold. The walls were so full of mold that it was a miracle of its own that Kaeya hadn’t died of it yet. One might argue that being homeless was better than this apartment, and Kaeya wouldn’t know how to respond to that.
There was an empty pill bottle on the sink, with the contents currently going down the Cavalry captain's insides. There were dozens of them, maybe even more. It was not like Kaeya had even attempted to count.
He was in his most comfortable sweats and t-shirt in the middle of the mess. His curse, his vision was next to him. It was only fitting that Kaeya would die with that symbol of his sins. The man hummed the song Crepus had hummed to him when he was just a kid—not innocent, but not this much of a sinner. There were no words, or maybe there were. It wouldn’t surprise Kaeya if Crepus just decided that Kaeya had no business being treated that much like a real Mondstadtian kid.
Don’t get him wrong. Crepus had been an amazing father, but Kaeya still couldn’t trust him all that much.
The tub was now full, and Kaeya closed the tap and got in. On one hand was his vision, and on the other hand was the biggest knife he owned. After sitting against the wall of the tub, he put his vision down to get the job done.
It was not hard at all to place the tip of the knife a little under his wrist and just push it as deep as possible. The slicing down was a little harder, but nevertheless possible. The nausea had started to hit him, and Kaeya felt like throwing up. It was a good sign; the pills worked.
Kaeya felt so dizzy already, and his blood felt so hot against his arm. It all felt so euphoric. He took the vision in his hand and decided to lie down under the water. The water made his eyes hurt; it all looked so blurry. He couldn’t really even comprehend what was going on. His stomach hurt, and he was so dizzy. He was so cold, cold. Kaeya was dying.
He gave the evil, cruel world named Teyvat one last smile and closed his eyes. Kaeya was sure the end was close. His arm hurt, the blood made the water warmer. The pills burned his insides, but it was in no way comparable to the burning of his lungs, as they wailed about not getting any oxygen.
Kaeya’s senses were leaving him one by one. He didn’t taste anything, and he didn’t hear anything but ringing. His sight had left him when he shut his eyes. The breathing slowed down. He was so cold, and it all hurt so much, but it was worth it. His head made all of the pain feel good. His time had finally come, and he couldn’t feel a single tip of regret. He should have done this long ago.
He felt the life leaving him and the sin leaving him finally. For those few seconds, Kaeya felt relief for the first time. The world was so black and hurtful, and he was so dizzy when he felt it all go away. There was a blue light. Little blue light. Suddenly he was sitting in the tub, his eyes widened.
The nausea had left him; he didn't even feel dizzy anymore. Why hadn’t he died????????
The tub was impossibly red. The crimson-colored blood had colored his clothes. There was too much blood for him to still be alive.
He took a panicked look at his hand. Kaeya’s horrible realization was that there was not even a paper cut. His old scars from cutting himself to battle scars were all wiped out of existence. The burning feeling of not getting oxygen had disappeared, like the symptoms of the overdose.
Looking at his hand, he realized that his cryo vision still glowed. Kaeya couldn’t help but laugh like a maniac. Of course, Celestia had found the most cruel way to make him immortal. One might call Celestia's intervening in his suicide attempt a miracle, a gift from the gods.
Kaeya knew the visions, so-called gifts from the above, to be a curse. Like that, Kaeya knew this to be a curse disguised as a gift. And so Kaeya knew that the only people who would understand this would be those who had also experienced it.
So Kaeya just laughed like a psychopath, knowing that the ever-so-cruel Celestia had found the best way to get the last laugh for the rest of eternity.