Work Text:
A few months before he disappeared, Collei may have stumbled into the reason he left.
It was a sore day, which was what she called the day after a significantly terrible flare-up. They’d been getting much more frequent at that point, especially when compared to the flare-ups of years prior.
It resulted in a big argument between her and Tighnari. Words were said that she could barely remember in the haze that was the stinging of the scales and that constant tingly feeling of loss of blood circulation crawling up her arm. Most of them said truthfully, but in that same ugly, bubbling feeling she always associated with the voices. She had said something that made Tighnari’s ears press flat on his head, made his hands raise in defense, made him leave before she passed out.
One thing was certain.
She probably had to apologize.
The next morning, she dressed lightly, wrapped her poncho around her shoulders, and hobbled out of her hut. She hoped Tighnari had not gone home that morning.
(An ironic hope.
On most days, she usually hoped not to see him in the outpost when his shift was already done for the night.
Tighnari had a very concerning work ethic.)
She greeted the residents as she passed, making sure to announce herself to Grandpa Keon, and to wave at Farbod as she passed. It was early enough in the morning that she knew she could avoid getting into another argument with Kamran, the dew from the moss beneath her shoes cold enough to send phantom sensations through the soles of her feet.
(That last part was probably her imagination though. She hadn’t been able to feel much from the soles of her feet for weeks.)
As she approached Tighnari’s hut, though…
“… don’t have to do that. It was just a few hits from the boughs.”
“Stop moving.”
That was Cyno, who hadn’t been by recently.
Collei made sure to pause by the porch of Tighnari’s quarters, uncertain. From the urgency in Cyno’s tone, it seemed… tense in there.
“This is— I’ll recover after a bit.”
“Normally, I would take your word for it. We both know you’ll be lying, and I’ll turn my head and let you do it anyway. But this is no light matter, Tighnari.”
“I know what I can and can’t handle.” Oh no. Collei knew that voice. He was getting annoyed, and this was probably going to end in a shouting match. “I’ve dispersed tumor growths before. Without your help.”
“I know. I trust that you have,” came Cyno’s level-headed response, always wooden in his reassurances. “But this time you were one hit away from succumbing to the decay.”
There was shuffling, sharp, like something being pulled away with great effort.
“Tighnari.” There was frustration in Cyno’s voice now.
“… haven’t been by in a while.” Collei leaned forward, trying to keep her feet off the squeaky floorboards of the porch, trying to hear what was being said. Tighnari was mumbling. “I can’t have you worrying about … This is the first time in a while you’ve had a moment to relax. Just leave it.”
“This isn’t just ‘something.’ We’re talking about you, I’m worrying about you.”
Loud, firm. “Just. Leave it.”
The scrape of a chair being pushed backwards. Collei couldn’t help but feel deja vu at that moment as she winced, breath hitching.
Had that happened last night as well?
“I’ll leave it. Fine.” Collei hasn’t heard Cyno this worked up before, cold and distant, but undeniably angry. Well. Well, she has, just not at Tighnari. “You will work the rest of the day with decay in your veins because you are too stubborn to let me use Hermanubis’ powers to draw it out of you and give you some relief. Continue your self-flagellation, fine. You will collapse by this afternoon, and you will be too sick to stand for the rest of the week. Collei will have to manage on her own and the rangers will have to go into the zones themselves. It seems that’s what you want.”
“… I could last until tonight, for all you know,” was Tighnari’s petty reply.
“Save it.”
In her two years of staying in Gandharva Ville, she didn’t think she ever noticed if Cyno and Tighnari had had a disagreement.
Now, it seemed obvious that they had. Which led her to believe that she really hadn’t ever seen them argue before.
Cyno was with her during the day. Since it was a sore day, she wasn’t allowed to be on patrol. So, he stayed on and taught her how to play Genius Invokation.
This was not entirely unusual.
If she hadn’t overheard the conversation from that morning, she probably wouldn’t have known they had a disagreement at all. Cyno was usually quiet and awkward around her, except when they forgot their awkwardnesses. Help with homework or having her read a book with him, the sort of stuff she’d usually do with Tighnari if he wasn’t busy.
What was unusual, was that Cyno didn’t ask her to help make lunch.
In the years past, Collei figured he did it because Tighnari was the one thing they had in common. It was something to do with their hands and a reason not to look at each other while they spoke, and Tighnari was someone they both cared deeply about. By the time Tighnari dragged himself away from his work, they would gather in Tighnari’s quarters and force him to eat.
Not this time, though.
This time, Cyno excused himself, came back with a few of the servings Ashpazi had from across the ledge, and they ate together in silence, in Collei’s hut.
She looked up from her food and tried to ignore the fluttering in her stomach as she stammered, “Um… Lord Cyno?”
Cyno mumbled something under his breath that sounded something like I’m on leave. But, he looked at her and inclined his head in askance, something she saw Tighnari do a lot.
“Did… You and Master, did you— um…” She should have thought ahead before she asked.
Cyno’s brows furrowed.
Collei waved one of her hands, as if to signal to him that she was starting her sentence over, like erasing her pencil scribbles. “Have… have you and Master ever gotten into a fight before?”
Cyno’s brows did not furrow, but Collei was too relieved that she’d managed to swerve away from telling him that she’d eavesdropped unintentionally. Perhaps he was giving his answer some thought.
“What kind of fight.”
“With each other?” What other kind of fight could she have meant—? “Oh, you thought– No, I know you and Master have fought together. You must have, if you knew he was a good enough archer to teach me before bringing me here. Right?”
“Right.” Cyno answered with a nod, not suspicious at all. Then, he started picking at his pita pocket. “I don’t think we’ve ever come to blows about something before. Usually, we talk it out, or we understand enough about each other to expect certain outcomes. We’ll be frustrated, we’ll argue, but we’d understand. Why, have you and Amber gotten into an argument?”
Collei blinked. She expected…
Well, she didn’t know what she expected. Usually when she asked indirectly like this, people would spill. It didn’t matter if it was with a patient or a mercenary or one of the rangers. If someone had gotten into a disagreement with someone else and was feeling intense feelings about it, it didn’t take much to get the floodgates open.
Cyno, it seemed, was not angry.
She worried at her lip, trying her best not to lie. “Um… Amber never really argued with me. I was sulky, sure, but she tried her best to try and cheer me up even if I didn’t want her to… But not recently, no.”
Cyno nodded. “That’s good.”
“What about you and Master, then?”
“Hm?”
Collei scratched at her ear. “It’s just… Usually, we’d go and cook some lunch for him, yeah? But today we sort of just… stayed here. O-or maybe I’m assuming things.” She added in a rush, sheepish. “Did Master ask you not to do it? I get how he’s like, he doesn’t really like when people do him favors he doesn’t deem necessary. It gets a little frustrating sometimes.”
Cyno looked at her for a second, then looked away with a sigh. There it was. “It’s… He’s been doing field research, recently. He told me about it, in his last letter. The basic gist of it is he’s trying to understand the connections between the Withering, Irminsul, and its effects on Sumeru’s environment. With my help. Anything related to Irminsul is related to the ley lines or the stars. Since I’m from Spantamad, I’m the best he has.
“Sometime this morning, on the way here, I found him trying to dispel a tumor growth at a nearby settlement. By himself.”
Collei winced. “I-I don’t wanna seem like I’m making light of the situation but we’ve… Um, we’ve been short-staffed, recently? Ever since my flare-ups have gotten worse, he’s the only Vision bearer we have. A bunch of rangers dropped out of classes as well, since a lot of their families had to relocate with the recent growths. Whoever we have left has been pawned off to the Bimarstan since… um, apparently they’ve been getting more patients recently. And… even when Master offered to start teaching the Corps of Thirty or the Adventurer’s Guild about how to dispel the growths, his offer was turned down.”
Throughout her explanation, Cyno’s face grew more and more serious.
He didn’t know, then.
Collei didn’t find that too odd. She figured Tighnari probably didn’t tell Cyno to keep him from worrying too much.
Cyno asked, “Did he say why it was turned down?”
Collei shook her head. “All I know is that every time they do, he gets a follow-up question about accepting some project in the city. It’s been annoying him recently. Usually he’d rant at Mister Kaveh about them, but Mister Kaveh’s at another project out in the desert.”
Cyno grunted, looking at the floor, deep in thought.
“So… what happened after you found him this morning?”
He blinked out of his reverie. “I helped him disperse it, then dragged him back to his hut. He wasn’t too seriously injured, but the decay had settled in. Too many hits from the boughs. He wouldn’t let me help cleanse it either, saying he’d rather I enjoy my free time than fuss over him.”
From the tone of his voice… he didn’t seem all that saddened or frustrated by it. Perhaps he did see the reason in Tighnari’s lame excuses. Perhaps he knew something Collei didn’t.
“Oh…” she intoned. “That blows.”
Cyno snorted.
Collei’s shoulders raised, as well as her voice, “It’s just! It’s natural for us to worry about him! He does so much for us, right? And-and if he doesn’t want favors, then helping ease the burden would be the next best thing. But he keeps trying to shoulder everything. You just wanted to help…”
Cyno huffed, shaking his head. “No, I understand it.”
Collei gave him an incredulous look. “Really?”
Cyno only looked at her.
She sighed.
“As the General Mahamatra, I’m responsible for keeping things in line in the city. That means tracking down scholars when they’ve gone on the run, means filing through papers for a plagiarism case, means going undercover for a while to uncover some wild conspiracy against the country. Even as the General, I’m obligated to take cases that should go to my subordinates.”
Collei nodded, trying to parse through his meaning.
Perhaps noticing, Cyno added, “It means even if it’s not a big problem and should probably be up to someone else, I have to do it.”
“Oh… Why?”
Cyno took a deep breath. “Because the Sages tell me to. And to set an example.”
“For who?”
“For whoever comes next,” he said, looking a little tired. “I am one in a long line of generals, as Tighnari is one in a long line of chief forest watchers. In times like this, people like us need to appear and stay strong. To make sure that the rest of our people follow suit. If he were to fall ill at any moment, you and the rangers would start to panic–”
“That’s not true!” Collei gasped, then put a hand up to her mouth. “I— I’m sorry, Lord Cyno. Um.”
Cyno put a hand up, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine. Go on.”
“N-no, I was just. I was just upset because.” Collei took a deep breath, staving off her panic. “Because you and Master are both great teachers. That’s what the rangers need. I don’t know about the Matra. But as students, the rangers have gone through years worth of training and have studied all that Master Tighnari and the other forest watchers have to offer. So that we’re ready. If you or Master were to disappear or fall ill, we’d know what to do to move forward. Because that’s why we’re here. We’re not here to just sit around and gawk until one of you tells us what to do! We’re supposed to be helping you! It’s a team effort!”
Cyno nodded. “I see. Perhaps you’re right.”
She lowered her gaze, fidgeting in her seat a little as her words sank in. “I… I just want you and Master to know when to ask for help. To rely on other people too. Or… me, if you can’t trust them.”
They lapsed into silence after that, Cyno deep in thought, Collei beset with worry that she’d overstepped, or worse. Shown her naïveté.
“I do. Trust you, I mean.”
Collei glanced up at him. “Really?”
Cyno nodded, then smiled. It was a soft thing. Collei imagined perhaps before that day, it was something only Tighnari had been privy to previously. “Really. That’s why… I’m asking you to help me.”
“Huh?”
“I trust him to take care of you, and now I’m trusting you to take care of each other.”
“Oh…” Collei could feel her face get a little warmer. “Um. I won’t let you down, Lord Cyno! B-but. You have to, um. Be safe, so that when you come back, Master and I can take care of you too. Okay? You should count on your subordinates more too.”
“I’ll try.”
Despite their talk, Cyno left before nightfall. He left the Casket of Tomes he let her use all the time, a few gifts (for both her and Tighnari), and a vial of something.
“Give this to him,” Cyno told her. He was careful to keep his touch brief, though Collei wished he didn’t. Not after their conversation. “He’ll know what to do with it. Do not take no for an answer. I need to be back in the city for something urgent.”
“Excuses,” Collei mumbled.
Cyno huffed, shook his head, and said, “Let me be a little mad at him for a while longer. It’s the least he deserves for being unreasonable.”
And just like that, he left.
So, she grabbed her scarf, covered her head and shoulders against the muggy dusk temperature, and made her way to Tighnari’s hut.
Tighnari was stubbornly slumped by his desk, ears flattened as he pored over what seemed to be letters. To Naphis, perhaps. Or an apology to Cyno. Or another sternly-worded letter to the sages.
Notably, there wasn’t a hint of paperwork on his desk. Cyno’s doing, no doubt.
Collei knocked on his doorway.
It was a testament to how unwell he was that it seemed only then that he even noticed that Collei had entered his hut.
His face was flushed, eyes unfocused. “Collei,” he croaked. Perhaps from dehydration, perhaps from not having talked to anyone the entire day.
He looked past her, then back. Then, he looked at the vial in her hands and frowned.
Collei mustered up her courage, and a bit of her own frustration. She entered his hut, walked up to his desk, and put the vial down next to the inkpot.
“L-Lord Cyno told me to give you this. And that you’d know what to do with it.”
Tighnari glared down at it, almost petulantly.
Grasping for straws, she added, “What’s it for?” Tighnari always did like it when he had the chance to teach her something. Admittedly, she was only really asking so next time, she’d force-feed it to him if she had to or something.
“It’s a relaxant,” he mumbled, moving to uncap the vial. His movements were sluggish as he brought it under his nose. “It’s made with alchemy, and needs the use of Dendro and Electro. Cyno and I came up with it years ago, when I was still in the Akademiya. It’s mostly to help scholars who faint from Spirit Borneol. Balances the elemental energies in you.”
“What happened to you, then?” Collei asked, pulling her scarf a little tighter around her.
Tighnari glanced up at her. “Don’t you already know?”
“I know what Lord Cyno told me. But, Master, it’s not like you to turn down his help. You’re always going on about how he’s supposed to be helping more around here.”
“With you,” Tighnari retorted. “He’s supposed to be helping me with you.”
Collei shrugged. “Guess I am a handful.”
Tighnari shook his head. “I’m just your teacher, Collei. I’m not your brother or father or… whatever it is going on between us. You made that very clear last night.”
She could feel herself nodding, but it felt a little numb. Not in the Eleazar flare-up way, but in the ‘this isn’t happening right now’ way. Like she’d just taken a step outside her own body.
“Is that why you were turning him down? Because— because I told you you weren’t my—”
“I’m not trying to replace anyone you’ve lost, Collei,” he added. Almost pleading. It was evident that he’d been thinking of saying these since their argument. “I’m not even trying to be more than your teacher. But Cyno has put you in my care, and as it happens, I’ve grown to care about you. More than I can even express.”
Her vision began wavering as she turned to look towards the doorway, trying to blink away her tears. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you are,” he said. Not to be mean, but just to be factual.
And it was true.
Collei wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t sorry that she said Tighnari wasn’t her brother or her father. Because he was more than that, and maybe he knew and was just stretching this out.
Tighnari wasn’t mean, but it was an easier story to tell herself than the alternative.
“I won’t just give you back to Cyno because you don’t like this. You’re here for a reason.”
“I know,” she said, then sniffled. “I am sorry though. I just— I think— I would hate it if you lost… someone important. Wouldn’t you? I would. I do. I hate it and I’m tired of it. I thought I’d— I thought I’d be done with this,” she took a deep breath, which caught into a sob. “Th-that I’d left it in Mondstadt for good, all this pushing away. Because all of you kept giving me these good enough reasons to look on the bright side, and I’d gotten used to feeling safer where it was dark. But now that I have all of this, all of you. I just can’t handle thinking about how I’m going to lose it anyway.”
She took a seat, feet feeling a little numb, on Tighnari’s bed. Her knee bounced as she continued, “Just today, while you and Lord Cyno had this weird spat, he gave me another reason. And it makes me sick that I might be breaking that promise one day.”
“What promise?”
Collei glared at him, “Why were you turning him down?”
Tighnari looked away.
“Master, please.”
“It’s stupid.”
She stood from her seat and knelt by his chair, holding onto the seat of it, knuckles grazing his thigh, both of them ill and teary-eyed, too stubborn to say what needed to be said. “Was it me?”
Tighnari sneered, turning away from her again. “No. No, never you.” He gave her head a quick pat, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sensation. “I was just being— I needed to feel like I deserved it.”
“Hypocrite.” Tighnari was always telling her that she shouldn’t feel guilty for needing treatment, especially since everyone should be allowed to be given treatment.
“I regret teaching you that word,” Tighnari muttered under his breath. Fond. “But… true. Yeah.”
“No wonder Lord Cyno wanted to keep being mad at you.”
“Funny way of showing it,” he said, swirling the vial of relaxant around with his other hand.
“You know why he does that,” Collei said.
“Yeah…”
Tighnari glanced at her, then patted her elbow, gesturing for her to return to her seat.
She did so, grateful for the reprieve to her aching joints.
“You don’t get to decide for us, whether we want to take the risk of loving you,” Tighnari said, putting the vial down. “Because we will. That’s just how it goes. And whether you live or die, it will have happened anyway. So, why bother pushing it away?”
“You say that like it was inevitable.”
“Is biting into a fresh fruit going to make you sick because you know it will rot?”
Collei shook her head. “No, I guess not.”
Silence fell over them.
Then, after a moment, Collei couldn’t help it.
She snorted.
“What?”
She had to gasp her next word through the shaking of her shoulders. “It’s nothing.”
“I’m trying to be serious here,” Tighnari said with a smile.
“Are you hungry, Master?”
“… Maybe a little.”
“That’s what you get for pissing off Lord Cyno. Skipping meals, I’m telling him in our next letter.”
“Oh, you won’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she started, because that was always how she started.
When deep in pain, though it broke Tighnari’s heart every time, Collei always seemed to want to apologize for something that wasn’t even entirely her fault.
A little distracted thinking about how he had to drop by Pardis Dhyai to check on Haypasia that night, he asked, “What for? You’ve been nothing but good, Collei. Just keep at it.”
She shook her head, listless, gasping, “No, no. Lord Cyno hasn’t come home yet. It’s been so long…”
That was because Lord Cyno was in exile.
There was something brewing in Sumeru City that seemed to have awakened Lesser Lord Kusanali from her slumber. And whatever it was, Cyno had put himself right in the middle of it.
All because Tighnari had asked him to look into what was going on with Naphis the last time they spoke, months ago.
But Tighnari couldn’t tell Collei that.
Not because she’d let all out of the bag, but because that wasn’t the way Cyno operated. There were very few things Cyno let slip to the public when it came to his actions. Tighnari would not be surprised if this was going to be one of them.
Perhaps it’d been the week of helping patients and running back and forth between Pardis Dhyai and Gandharva Ville, or perhaps it was the desperate look in Collei’s eyes that told Tighnari she was going to do something drastic if he didn’t step in.
But hey, what was the harm of letting people know about Cyno’s good deeds for once, right?
“That’s not your fault, Collei,” he whispered, patting her knee briefly before leaning down to wash the oil off his hands. “He’s been undercover for a while. He’s not supposed to come home until it’s all over. He’s just busy saving the country as usual. It’s not your fault.”
“B-but did he accept your apology?”
Tighnari snorted, “What apology?”
“Master…”
“Oh, you’re worrying for nothing. But fine, when he gets back, I promise I’ll apologize for being an idiot. Alright? So, stop crying. I’m sure he’ll be back soon. I can feel it.”