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On the anniversary of his father’s death, Diluc Ragnvindr goes to the graveyard behind the Cathedral. It’s too early in the morning for anyone else to be awake, but after a night of staring at the ceiling of his room, he just wanted to get it over with. Diluc carefully sets the bouquet of lampgrass and cecilias over the grave and takes a step back, grieving silently. This day is the one day he allows himself to face his emotions and memories; as unhealthy as it is, is the only time he can afford to do so.
Footsteps echo in the courtyard behind him. Perhaps a sister from the church, Diluc thinks as he turns his head — or perhaps someone that has no business being there.
It ends up being the latter.
“What are you doing here?” Diluc growls, feeling an all-too familiar surge of anger in his chest. It’s too much, too soon, and he doesn’t know how to hold back yet.
Kaeya stands still, a good distance away from him. There is a bouquet of calla lilies and cecilias clutched in his right hand and, for once, there is no trace of that awful smirk in his face. Diluc almost enjoys seeing him so serious, so bare in the early morning light.
“I thought no one else would be here,” the cavalry captain replies, voice almost a murmur. The tension in the air feels almost unbearable.
Diluc stands with his back to the grave, which feels like a looming presence behind him reminding him of his mistakes, of not being enough, of what could’ve been but wasn’t. In front of him, the man he had considered a brother, the constant reminder of the betrayal, the words spoken that night.
I have a duty to my nation. To Khaenr—
“Leave,” he says, not entirely registering the raw hatred dripping from his lips. Whether it’s directed towards himself or towards Kaeya, Diluc doesn’t know.
Kaeya keeps staring at him, an awful, sorrowful look in his eye. Diluc knows what it means, he knows what he wants to say — he was his father too. He doesn’t let Kaeya say it.
Instead, Diluc storms past him, fiery red hair almost ablaze with fury, and Kaeya stands there, the bouquet wilting in his hands as he stares ahead unseeingly.
Perched on top of one of the Cathedral’s many pinnacles, a lone bard looks down sadly at the scene.
Diluc doesn’t know how long he has been standing on top of Starsnatch Cliff, going over the same repetitions with his claymore again and again, but he can feel his arms and legs aching with exertion. The sun is setting in the distance, bathing everything in a beautiful orange glow, but he’s not really registering any of it.
He just swings the claymore again, and again, and again, focusing on anything except the wave of emotions that has been threatening to crash into him all day.
“Diluc.”
The voice makes him stop. It’s one he hasn’t heard in a long time, belonging to an old friend that he has been purposefully avoiding around Mondstadt.
Slowly, Diluc lowers the claymore to the ground, exhausted and trying to control his breathing.
“Jean,” he says without turning around.
There’s a rustle of grass and then a hand comes to rest on his shoulder. Diluc thinks she can probably feel just how hot he’s running under his shirt.
“Adelinde was worried about you. She said you left in the early morning and no one had seen you since then.” Jean speaks softly, carefully. She knows what day it is.
“How did you know where to find me?”
The Acting Grandmaster hesitates before replying.
“Venti the bard told me I might find you here.”
Diluc finally, carefully, turns around and looks Jean in the eye. She looks older, more mature and with her adventurous spark subdued, but is still the same loyal friend as when he had left all that time ago. He feels guilty. Jean shouldn’t be looking at him so hopefully and openly welcoming, not after the mean words he’d thrown at the Knights that night.
Then again, he doesn’t exactly regret those either. The Knights had tried to cover everything up, and Jean was just caught in the crossfire by asking him not to leave.
After a moment of silence, Jean sighs and walks towards a nearby log, sitting on it and patting the spot next to her. She looks beautiful, Diluc thinks, bathed in the golden-orange light, and his mind suddenly drifts towards a certain bard, trying to imagine how he would glow at the cliff top, surrounded by cecilias like the one in his hat.
“When you left,” she starts, slowly, choosing her words carefully. “Everyone was affected. Me too, I won’t lie, your words hurt. But then I realized how hurt you must have been, and made my peace with it. Not everyone had that chance.”
Diluc keeps his eyes fixed on the horizon, hands tightly wrapped around one another. Jean places a hand on top of his, softly.
“I don’t presume to know what happened between you and Kaeya, but I do know he blames himself fully for it. He has been doing good work here for the Knights, but sometimes he gets this look in his eye… and then he drinks himself into a stupor that night.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.” Diluc grits his teeth and, to his horror, he feels his eyes burning.
“Sorry,” Jean apologizes, but her hand stays over his. “What I am trying to say is, you’re allowed to be hurt, and you’re allowed to grieve. But so is everyone else. We missed you, Diluc. And we miss Crepus, every day.”
“I missed you too,” Diluc mumbles, his voice sounding embarrassingly choked off.
Jean grips his hands tight, once. The feeling of her rough calluses, likely from wielding a sword regularly, grounds him somewhat. He still refuses to cry, but he does give in a little and lets some of the emotions seep through.
“I’m so glad to have you back, Diluc,” Jean says, and there is a bright, genuine smile on her face when he looks at her.
They stay like that for a while, sitting on the log and watching the last dregs of sunlight disappear on the horizon, the whole of Mondstadt’s lush green fields sprawling under them. At some point, Jean rests her head on his shoulder, and Diluc lets her.
“We look like a pair of lovers,” she laughs lightly, the flyaway hairs spilling from her ponytail tickling Diluc’s neck as she does.
“We aren’t,” he replies firmly, although he can see the humor in the situation.
“I know,” Jean chuckles. “We’re far from each other’s types.”
That had been established long ago, in the comfort of their easy friendship. Diluc brushes a hand through his hair, keeping the sweaty strands away from his forehead.
“How’s Lisa doing these days?”
Jean jumps a little and straightens up, swatting him lightly on the shoulder where her head had just been. When Diluc looks at her from the corner of his eyes, he sees her cheeks reddening at the speed of light. A smile tugs at his lips. He always loved teasing Jean over her embarrassing crushes when they were younger.
“Same as always,” the Acting Grandmaster reluctantly replies, fiddling with her hands, “I see her at the Library sometimes, she seems fine…”
“I bet she is.” Diluc replies evenly, and has to actively fight a smile when Jean swats at him again.
“Shut up, will you? What about that bard, then, huh? Made a new friend recently? He certainly knew where to find you…”
Now it’s Diluc’s turn to feel heat traveling up the back of his neck, and he fully avoids her eyes, pretending to be very interested in his claymore lying on the grass a couple meters away from them.
“He comes to the tavern sometimes, must’ve seen me walking here.”
The reminder of why he had gone to Starsnatch Cliff in the first place is bitter on his throat, makes Diluc want to retreat back into himself once again. Jean places her hand on his shoulder, however, and he relaxes a little.
“Come on, let’s go back to the Winery. I’m sure Adelinde has something delicious ready for dinner.”
They make their way back together, and Diluc thinks that maybe it hasn’t been too terrible of a day after all if he has gotten his best friend back at the end.
The grief and guilt for his father are still there, a heavy weight on his shoulders that might never go away, but now it feels a tiny bit easier to bear the burden. Silently, Diluc thanks Venti for sending his way the person he needed most, and also sends a short prayer to Barbatos for good measure.
It’s on the busiest night of the week at the tavern that Diluc sees the bard next. He is, as per usual, fixing drinks and cleaning glasses behind the bar when Venti comes in, already strumming his lyre and seemingly in high spirits. Everyone cheers and starts asking for their favorite songs — must be because the Weinlesefest is starting soon, Diluc realizes.
“Alright everyone!” Venti shouts, louder than the rest, and the patrons fall silent. The bard surveys the room with a smile and winks at Diluc, who averts his eyes. “Tonight, I’m going to sing… The tale of the fall of Decarabian.”
His voice easily fills the room as the bard starts singing and Diluc finds himself listening intently along with everybody else, movements stilling as he sets the now clean glass on the counter.
The spell is broken, however, when a very familiar face sits at the bar right in front of him.
Diluc forcefully tears his eyes away from where Venti is singing, braids almost glowing teal and eyes closed, and glares at the newcomer.
“I apologize, I know it’s your favorite,” Kaeya says, and it’s so strangely sincere that Diluc forgets momentarily about kicking him out. “But this is important.”
“What is it?” He asks, leaning closer so no one overhears.
Kaeya looks unnaturally serious, and if he didn’t know any better, Diluc would think the Cavalry Captain was nervous.
“There has been a concerning sighting by the Brightcrown Mountains. Some Knights came back, scared out of their minds, talking about,” he lowers his voice and leans even closer, “a dragon.”
Diluc raises his eyebrows in surprise.
“That’s impossible. Durin was defeated a long time ago,” he immediately says. Kaeya shakes his head.
“It’s not Durin.”
Venti is still singing, music filling the tavern as everyone around them pays attention or sings along to the bits they know. Diluc casts a brief look and then turns to Kaeya.
“Does it pose a threat to Mondstadt?” He asks.
The look that Kaeya gives him is more than enough confirmation.
One hour later, both men are riding horses at full speed towards the Brightcrown Canyon, wind whipping at their hair and clothes. Diluc had gotten Charles to cover his shift and had also casted one last glance at Venti, who was in the process of collecting mora, before leaving. He regrets missing the bard’s songs, but a dragon threat is too much of a pressing matter.
“Does Jean know?” He asks Kaeya as they dismount, receiving a nod in response.
“She’s sending another squad tomorrow. I tried to convince her to come, but she is still swamped in work.”
“She should stop overworking herself,” Diluc mumbles. Kaeya shrugs.
Even with the dragon threat to bridge the gap, tension hangs heavy in the air between the two of them.
They walk in silence for a while in the darkness. Diluc lights up the path with a controlled flame in the palm of his hand and Kaeya leads the way, holding a lantern of his own. The scenery around them —what little is visible anyway— feels unfamiliar to Diluc, who hasn’t had many reasons to go to Brightcrown Mountains, but Kaeya seems to know exactly where they’re going.
Eventually, they leave behind a small cluster of trees and reach the edge of a cliff. At first, Diluc can’t see anything in the distance, but as they get closer, he sees lights flickering, floating in the air, where they shouldn’t be.
“What’s that?” He asks out loud. If he squints, he can barely make out the pattern the lights are following.
“No one has been able to get close enough to find a conclusive answer,” Kaeya explains, also staring at the lights in the distance. “They only appear at night. During the day, it’s just a bunch of ruins.”
“And the dragon sightings?”
“Thrice it has been seen near the ruins, but again, no one has managed to get closer.”
Diluc frowned.
“Why?”
Kaeya turns to him and crosses his arms over his half-bare chest, making Diluc briefly wonder why on Teyvat is such an uniform allowed at the Knights of Favonius, a supposedly respectable order.
“The Abyss Order keeps appearing at the most inconvenient times. I’ve been informed they have also been repeatedly showing up near Mondstadt, and this change in activity is most irregular. Wouldn’t you agree, Master Diluc?”
The last part is said in a teasing tone, clearly meant to get a rise out of him. Diluc decides to ignore it — whether Kaeya does or doesn’t know about his nighttime hobby, he doesn’t care as long as the Cavalry Captain can’t prove it.
“I thought the Knights were more than capable to handle the Abyss Order,” he says instead, crossing his arms as well. Two can play that game.
“Not since Varka left with all our horses and half the Knights,” Kaeya replicates. He appears genuinely irked, and it’s not difficult to imagine why. A Cavalry Captain without a cavalry is not much of a captain at all.
“Have the Knights of Favonius truly fallen off this much?” Diluc muses out loud.
Kaeya seems ready to reply with something equally as biting, but something catches his eye, and before Diluc can react, he’s rushing forward, sword in hand.
“Duck!” He says, and Diluc jumps out of the way instead.
Somehow, an Abyss Mage has managed to sneak up on them. Diluc feels a horrible chill course through his body as a shard of ice barely misses his shoulder, followed quickly by another one. Whatever Kaeya plans to do against a cryo Abyss Mage, he doesn’t know, so Diluc charges forward with his claymore aflame, ready to shatter the cryo shield with his pyro vision.
The fight lasts a short while, the mage appearing and disappearing randomly, until eventually Diluc gains the upper hand and completely destroys its shield, sending the creature tumbling to the ground.
Kaeya immediately steps in, looking down at the mage coolly and crossing his arms again.
“Why were you spying on us?” He asks, voice dangerous. Diluc stands beside him, holding his claymore menacingly.
The Abyss Mage lets out a string of warbly, incoherent words in its high-pitched voice and Kaeya grows impatient, so he kicks the creature on the side.
“The Knights must stay away.” His voice is like nails against a chalkboard, like the tainted sound of the abyss, and it only makes the two men scowl harder.
“What do you mean by that?” Diluc questions further, but the moment is over and the mage just starts chanting gibberish.
Kaeya brings down his sword and it disappears in a flurry of particles, but the chanting doesn’t stop.
Before any of them can react, a jet stream of water erupts from the ground, sending both of them flying to the side. Diluc recovers quickly, grabbing his claymore and standing up just in time to see a hydro Abyss Mage hovering over Kaeya, who is still on the ground.
Diluc rushes over and raises his weapon with both hands, bursting with flames. The hydro mage cackles and disappears at the last second as he swings the greatsword down with momentum to strike, and the only thing Diluc can see is unbridled terror on Kaeya’s face as the fire grows closer.
With great effort, he manages to divert the claymore from its falling course and it hits the grass beside Kaeya heavily, singing most of it. Diluc stands, breathing heavily, and the Cavalry Captain just stares at him. Behind them, the hydro mage keeps cackling, a horrendous, high-pitched sound.
“Foolish humans,” it says, appearing right next to them.
Kaeya moves fast as lightning and freezes its bubble with a burst of cryo. Diluc spurs into action and smashes its shield. Between the two of them, it’s quick work to get rid of it in a flurry of energy particles.
They stand there for a moment trying to regain their breath. Diluc glances at Kaeya out of the corner of his eyes, and sees that he’s still sprawled over the grass, applying a small amount of cryo to his foot.
“What happened?” He demands, walking closer. Kaeya’s shoulders tense minutely but he doesn’t look up.
“Nothing.”
Diluc isn’t having that. He looks around to check that there aren’t any more Abyss Mages waiting to ambush them and then drops to a crouch next to the knight.
“You sprained your ankle,” he states. Kaeya doesn’t correct him.
Eventually, they get back to their horses. Diluc makes a reluctant Kaeya lean on him to walk after seeing the barely-hidden pained expression when he tries to walk on his own, and they don’t exchange a word the entire time. They ride in silence as well, Diluc keeping watch in case it becomes too painful for the other, and not a word is spoken until they stop near the stables, to the side of the city wall.
“You should see Barbara about your ankle,” Diluc says as he dismounts. Kaeya gets off his horse as well, slowly.
“Jean and I will go back tomorrow,” replies Kaeya, not meeting his gaze as he waves over the boy who takes care of the stables. “We’ll keep you informed if something comes up.”
Diluc nods, but hesitates before leaving. The other man is still a good distance away, and he remembers Jean’s words on the cliff. Sometimes he gets this look in his eye…
“About that night,” he says abruptly. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”
Kaeya has his back to him, but some indiscernible emotion seeps into his voice when he replies:
“I know.”
Diluc walks away without looking back.