Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Forgetting, Diluc’s father had once said, could be the sun glistening on mountaintops.

He had not understood him, then, young and not yet tall enough to see any mountains, even less their tops; had not yet known the sight of blood on its snow, of its cold. Forgetting had only been the slight tilt of the morning – his favourite toy, his homework, vocabulary given by his tutor.

Forgetting, Diluc’s father had once said, could be a delight if done right. Twenty years later, and he lies dead and Diluc works by the tavern alone, legacy flushed down with the taste of wine, and agrees.

It is a relatively quiet night. Despite the approach of summer, heavy in the air, the nights are still cool and the people still busy. The corners are dark. The voices are lowered. The glasses Diluc cleans are crystal-clear, golden light reflecting distorted through them.

Kaeya slides wordlessly onto a stool. His usually kept hair is ruffled. The cuffs of his sleeves are undone, collar pulled to the side despite the chill in the air. He always gets strange with temperature when upset; as a child, he would crawl beneath Diluc’s sheets shivering in search for warmth, only to kick away the blankets ten minutes later.

Diluc pours him a drink. Kaeya eyes it as if it was blood in a cup and drains it in one go, setting it back on the counter with a clunk. In the far corner, Venti, three bottles of wine empty by the table, picks up his lyre and begins to sing a lilting tune.

By myself I’d be in Árd Tí Cuain, where the mountains stands away. And ‘tis I would let the Sunday go in a quiet land above the bay. ¹

“Rough night?” Kaeya asks without expecting an answer.

Diluc says nothing. He sorts the bottles by the counter for the fifth time, watching his hands as if they were far away. There is a dull twist to his chest. It has always been there, ever since that night – but it is a little deeper this time of year.

Kaeya scoffs and lets his head drop to the counter. His hair spills around his shoulders, braid almost undone. “It doesn’t get better, does it? All these years and it still hurts like shit.”

“Stop talking,” Diluc merely says. “You’re drunk.”

“I wish I was.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you know?”

Diluc knows. The memories are louder when in a haze, easier to press forward, through his sternum up into his throat and out of his lips. The nightmares like to swirl in alcohol. Guilt is the ice glinting at the bottom of his glass.

Oh my heart is weary all alone, Venti sings. It hangs in the air like honey; sticky and sickly sweet, pulling at something in Diluc’s chest. And it sends out a lonely cry. To the land that sings beyond my dreams. And the lonely Sundays pass me by.

That damned bard and his damned voice.

Ignoring his own principles, Diluc pours himself and Kaeya another glass. Principles did not save his father. They toast with a clink. They both know who it is for, and yet Kaeya still dedicates it to him.

"Happy Birthday, Diluc," he says. There is no mockery in his tone, only exhaustion, and yet it appears like a crude joke nestled in the tone of a whisper.

Diluc only grunts. The rum burns in his throat, chasing tears into his eyes where salt already sat all evening.

Kaeya watches him. Whereas he would usually tease him about it, today there is silence. Kaeya’s hand subconsciously ghosts over his face where the scars are faint traces of the night the world came crashing down on them.

A man slides up to the bar. “A Dandelion wine for the bard, please,” he says, dirt clinging to the cuff of his sleeves. Along with the Mora he slides over a piece of paper, hidden beneath the coins. Diluc grants him the bottle without a second glance.

Only when the man has left again, placing the bottle in Venti’s vicinity with a nod, does Diluc open it. Kaeya edges closer. “What is it?”

Diluc promptly burns the paper in the palm of his hand and does not miss the way Kaeya flinches with the flame so close to his face. The ache blooms and blooms the same way Venti’s voice bleeds into the night, throbbing and yearning.

“Got a tip," he says clipped, “for something I’m searching for.”

Kaeya grins. “Oh? Something precious, I reckon?”

“Priceless.”

“Never knew you were after Mora.”

“I’m not. It’s not for selling.”

“What is it for, then?”

Diluc doesn’t answer. He turns back to his dishes, only to find them all frustratingly clean. Kaeya leans forward.

“Alright. Keep your secrets. Where are you going?”

“Liyue.”

“Splendid. When are we leaving?”

“I never said you could come.”

Kaeya clicks his tongue. “Pity for you, brother dearest, that I am a grown adult with the ability to make choices for myself. I have to deal with some merchants in Liyue, anyway. Letters only go so far, so it might be a good idea to show up in person.”

“Would Jean agree?”

“She’s been begging me to take a vacation since forever, so yes.”

“Didn’t you just say you’d be there for work?”

Kaeya shrugs. “Couldn’t it be both?”

Diluc looks at him for a long moment. The light is too dim. The tavern is suffocating in its familiarity. Every stone in Mondstadt’s streets is laced with memory. He feels as if he was choking; as if any moment now, the past would rise up in him to smother him completely from the inside out.

Kaeya carries the same desperate edge in his gaze.

They both need to get far, far away from home – if it even is home, nowadays. Sometimes, Diluc feels like a stranger. The man haunting the vineyards of his home is a memory, merely, all gone with adulthood and grief.

Would he even miss it? Or would he be able to breathe beneath new skies?

“Alright,” Diluc sighs. “We’re leaving in two days. But I’m not paying for any of your expenses during the trip.”

Kaeya smiles. Relief is edged into his face. “Of course,” he says smoothly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I would rather back the twisted years through the bitter wasted wind if the gods above would let me lie in a quiet place above the wind, Venti sings.

The sunrise is a lovely thing above Mondstadt, casting it into pale hues of spring. Diluc grips the mane of the horse tightly. It is warm beneath him, and his father is warm behind him, and the air is crisp and young.

They ride on top of the hills where the vineyards touch the fields. As far as the eye can see, there is nothing but green, hopeful in the morning light. His father holds him tight as he shivers in the breeze.

“See that, son?” Father asks. “One day, all of this-," he sweeps out an arm across the vineyards, where crystal flies drift like gathering dew, “will be yours.”

“It’s so big,” Diluc says, entranced.

Father chuckles. “It will shrink as you grow. But no matter how old you get, it will always remain home.”

“It already is,” Diluc says, and, chest vibrating, Father laughs into the dawn.

They spend most of the journey in silence. They leave Mondstadt while dawn paints the sky grey. By nightfall, they are just two hours away from the Dawn Winery. Diluc’s feet ache as he unpacks his tent. He would not admit it, but it has been a while since he has travelled far distances by foot.

Despite the packaged food they brought along, Kaeya returns from wood gathering with a squirrel. They roast it over the open fire. The sky is clear, a lovely set of stars scattered across it. The embers drift upwards almost as if wanting to join them; but they always fade away too quickly.

The woods are alive around them. Bushes are rustling; crickets are chirping. Diluc rests the crossbow he took instead of his claymore on the ground.

Across from him, Kaeya picks apart the squirrel down to the bone. He catches Diluc’s eye across the flames and smiles. “Quite nostalgic, eh?” he says. “Just like when we were younger.”

Despite their wealthy upbringing, their father had insisted on teaching them the art of survival in the wild. It used to be a game to them, camping in the wilderness for days until the sounds of the forests seemed like a second home to them. Diluc now knows it was not. Nothing ever was a game, not really.

He shrugs. “I suppose so.”

“You used to hate it. Too much hardship.”

Diluc scoffs. “You are one to talk. It took hours for you to stop whining.”

“What can I say? The Dawn Winery was simply much too cozy to leave.”

Silence hangs between them, for a moment.

“...I feel like," Kaeya says, the fire reflecting in his eye like a raging dance, “that was just my perception back then. Everything appears warm to children, does it not?”

“It did not to me.”

“Oh, don’t be a liar. You were the most energetic, chaotic child there could be.” Kaeya grins. “Barbatos knows how Adeline managed to put up with you while Father was away.”

Diluc says nothing. He does not like to remember his childhood. It was filled with scraped knees and ink-stained collars, summers full of vibrant evenings and trees with branches so heavy with dreams, they’d droop to the ground. He used to pick them in dozens until the juice dripped from his chin and stained the grass crimson. He used to share them with his brother.

He used to believe in them.

Kaeya watches him curiously before pulling out a flask of rum. Diluc watches him disdainfully as he takes a long swig from it.

“I won’t hear you complaining about a headache tomorrow,” he says. “We’re leaving at dawn. Three more days until Wangshu Inn, you know that.”

Kaeya waves his hand. “Leave the pestering. It’d be embarrassing for me to get a hangover from this.”

“Tell that to the guy who’s hauling your drunk ass home every week.”

“Well, maybe you should pick another spot where I could find you so I wouldn’t have to go to the tavern every time I wanted to see you.”

“Maybe you should stop seeing me altogether if you can only stand to do so drunk.”

Kaeya says nothing. A shadow has fallen over his face. He takes another swig from the flask, not even wincing at the taste.

Diluc is disgusted at himself. He sighs, dragging a hand down his face. He does not know why he does it. Every time he talks to Kaeya, his words come out colder than intended. There is a razor in his throat, scraping against his skin, bleeding him open and sharpening every sentence that leaves him.

“Look,” he starts, “I didn’t mean-”

“I know,” Kaeya says nonchalantly, expression schooled. “You never mean it. But you say it anyway, don’t you?”

Diluc leans forward, elbows on his knees, and stares into the flames. His bones are heavy from exhaustion. He wouldn’t admit it, but Kaeya with his freakishly long legs has set out with a tempo that is almost impossible to keep up with. He isn’t getting any younger, and the strain of the journey only makes his already sleep-deprived body protest even more.

And yet – if he were to lie down, he knows what would await him. He sees enough memories in Kaeya’s gaze. It is an endless cycle.

He can almost sense Kaeya pulling away, then, hurt and ready to disappear as he always does – ice melting to fire, snow fading away to spring quietly and unnoticed – so he clears his throat.

“...The thing I’m looking for,” he begins awkwardly, “it’s the vial.”

“What vial?”

Diluc tosses Kaeya an exasperated glance. Kaeya’s jaw falls open. A moment later, he is doubled over, shaking with laughter.

“That vial?!”

"Don’t make fun of me.”

“You’re still looking for it?”

“It’s serious business.”

“Don’t you already have like, a couple hundred of them stored away?”

“...Yes.”

“What tough luck. What tough luck!”

Kaeya wipes at his eye, giggling. Diluc levels him a glare.

“Barbatos,” Kaeya says, and gasps. “Literally! The church would crumble. The atheistic, stoic Diluc Ragnvindr on a quest to restore a vial of Barbatos’ breath.”

Diluc frowns. “Don’t you dare tell them.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t believe me anyway. It would be like Lord Barbatos being a random drunkard in the tavern.”

Diluc winces.

“So, how come you still haven’t found it?” Kaeya asks, taking a deep breath to calm himself.

“There are a lot of fakes on the market,” Diluc confesses, “but it’s impossible to tell unless you buy them.”

“If this one is actually the right one, how will you recognise it?”

Diluc says nothing. Kaeya grins, cat-like and insufferable. “You don’t know, do you?”

“I’m sure the actual vial will be more... divine in feeling.”

“Sure it will. How would you even collect Barbatos’ breath?”

It lands as a joke, but it settles in Diluc’s gut like a leaden stone. He blinks with startling clarity. How does one collect Barbatos’ breath? He thinks of shoving a vial under Venti’s nose, waiting for him to choke on his drink, and the imagination is so out of range, it almost makes him wheeze just a tad hysterically.

When he was young, he used to cower in the dark of the chapel, his father a solid presence beside him. Prayer was a routine. Its words were a poem without meaning to be memorised until he grew older and they became wishes without fulfilment; until he grew even older and they became unanswered and bitter.

He cannot imagine praying to the drunkard that frequents his bar now, cannot associate him with the ever-missing, delivering, promised presence of Barbatos in his youth; and yet, sometimes at night, when the vineyard lies quiet and his life lies stripped as bare as a preacher’s hands before him, he finds himself whispering a prayer or two.

He could have asked Venti. Surely he would know where the vial had gone. But it feels like such an unreal notion to him, he does not even let himself finish the thought. How does a man react, when God descends to earth? How does a man react, when God is even more and even less of a man than he himself? How does a man react when God sings in his tavern?

“Why are you looking for the vial, anyway?” Kaeya asks. “You said yourself you can’t sell it.”

“I’ll return it to the church,” Diluc says.

“But what for?”

Diluc stares into the flames for so long, they keep on dancing behind his lids even when he closes his eyes. That’s how it’s always been; the past, ablaze in the dark of the night; burned into the flesh of Kaeya’s cheek.

“I don’t know.”

It is a dark and terrible night when Father bursts through the front door with a bundle in his arms.

They do not let Diluc into the guest room for hours. He falls asleep only temporarily nestled into the big armchair downstairs, too afraid of the branches scratching against his own bedroom window. When he awakens, he finds Father watching him. There is a blanket draped over his shoulders that wasn’t there before.

The fire is burning low. The mansion is quiet. The first traces of dawn draw long shadows over the counters, dreamlike.

“How is he?” Diluc asks.

Father’s eyes are bloodshot. “Cold,” he says, voice as husky as the light. “Dehydrated. He’s asleep now. We’ll see if he makes it to the morning.”

“What’s his name?”

“He didn’t tell us.”

Diluc chews on his lip. “What will you do with him?”

Father looks out of the window, dawn in his gaze. “I’m not sure, son. For now, I’ll pray. That’s all we can do.”

Diluc follows his example and presses his palms together. In the crackling of the dying fire, he asks for a god to answer him; but the only thing he receives is the coming day.

Three days later, they finally arrive at Wanghu Inn. Despite it being late afternoon, the sun is beating down on their backs. Around them, Liyuen plains lie flat and rocky. There is none of the cool comfort the woods of Mondstadt grant, with its sweet, whistling wind. There is only heat upon heat upon heat. Sweat drips from Diluc’s brow, and even Kaeya, clutching his Vision as an own personal cooler, is struggling to trudge up the final few hills.

They sit down by a blissfully shaded table and groan in relief. Their food, only vegetables to survive the smouldering heat, is served not soon after. They eat in silence.

“So,” Kaeya eventually says, “now that we’re here, have you got any idea what to do next?”

Diluc chews stoically.

Kaeya waves his chopsticks. He’s much more adapt at dealing with them than Diluc, to Diluc’s dismay. “No location? No name? Nothing?”

“Stop pestering me.”

“I’m not pestering you. I endured your brooding for four whole days, brother dearest. Forgive me for wanting some information about where we’re actually going.”

“I told you, you didn’t have to come.”

“And I told you, I have a job to do in the harbour. We might as well head there, don’t ya think? Chances are you’ll just find it on the market.”

“No one would be stupid enough to just sell it in broad daylight.”

“As always, Diluc, you underestimate the talent some people have in being idiotic. It’s a real skill to have! It must be exhausting.”

Diluc groans and rubs his forehead. He is exhausted. Kaeya only shrugs, popping a piece of tofu into his mouth and grinning all the while. “I’m just sayin’. I’d bet you, no one would recognise something as utterly strange as a vial of Barbatos’ breath. If they would, it couldn’t have gotten sold so easily on the black market in the first place.”

“Famous paintings have been sold before,” Diluc argues and leans forward, hastily taking in their surroundings. None of the other visitors are paying them attention. “And can you keep it down? We don’t need all of Liyue to know.”

“What? That the famous heir of the Ragnvindrs is secretly a fangirl of Barbatos?”

Diluc opens his mouth, ready to retort, when suddenly, there is the sound of the air parting around them. Both Kaeya and him whirl around, hands on their weapons, half out of their seats – but they both halt at the sight of a slight man with pulsing tattoos all over his skin. His arms are crossed. He levels them with a stare of gilded iron, sharp and unyielding.

Diluc unwillingly shivers.

Ah. The sweet scent of the divine. How much he has missed it.

“You were speaking of Barbatos,” the man – not quite a man, probably, if Diluc’s deduction is correct and the screeching of a thousand embodied voices piercing his skull is enough proof – says. His voice is gravel. Perhaps he has joined the voices in screaming. “You will tell me what you want from him.”

A spear is levelled at Diluc’s nose. It shimmers in the setting sun. Kaeya chuckles nervously, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “You see,” he says smoothly, “we are travellers from Mondstadt. We are looking for an artifact that was stolen almost a year ago.”

Diluc throws him a glare for giving up their secrets so easily, but Kaeya doesn’t meet his eyes.

“What artifact?," the man asks.

“Eh...” Kaeya weakly gestures towards Diluc. Diluc fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“A vial,” he explains, “containing Barbatos’ breath.”

The man blinks. The blade does not shift. He blinks again. It looks utterly foreign on his face, as if he was not used to it. If Diluc didn’t know any better, he would call his expression confused.

Then, he finally drops the spear.

Kaeya clears his throat. “I believe introductions are in order. I am Kaeya of the Knights of Favonius, and this here is Diluc, Master of the Dawn Winery.”

The man straightens his shoulders. A soldier’s stance. “Adeptus Xiao,” he says curtly.

Kaeya’s expression is schooled and would appear completely unfazed to any other person. But Diluc spots the way his jaw tightens, his hold shifts. He uses the silence to take over the reins.

“Do you know Barbatos?” he asks. Although he could not possibly conjure up how the Adeptus in front of him could be associated with a cheery, overbearing Venti, he has learned that when speaking about the gods, not everything is always as it seems.

Adeptus Xiao’s frown deepens. “...We are acquainted.”

Kaeya has gone a little pale. Diluc swiftly moves on.

“Does that mean you could perhaps help us?”

Adeptus Xiao takes a step back. “I do not interfere with the business of mortals.”

“But this is not-”

Before Diluc can finish his sentence, the man has disappeared into a flurry of anemo particles. He huffs. Immortals and their flight response.

Kaeya across from him coughs. He looks a little shaken. Diluc does not comment on it. Instead, he only continues with his meal, mood sour. Kaeya is right. He has nothing to go off on.

When they are finally finished with dinner and walk up to the woman behind the counter to check into their room, she only smiles knowingly. “Not often that Adeptus Xiao shows up,” she comments in perfect Mondstadtian as Diluc signs the papers.

He frowns at her, surprised. “What do you mean?”

“Mondstadtian travellers always have news to share, but usually not the ones that pique his interest. He must’ve been intrigued by you – or at least by whatever you had to say to him.”

Diluc grunts. “Well, apparently not intrigued enough to tell us anything useful in return.”

“What is it that you need to know?”

Clutching the feather between his fingers, Diluc looks up to find a strange glint in her eye. A familiar feeling of warning sinks into his gut. Kaeya must notice it, because he leans against the counter all casual and bears that smile of his, all silky and smooth. “Your name, for once,” he says. “I could not sleep tonight, not knowing what I should call a beautiful lady like you.”

She only raises her brows. “I'll let you know that I'm married. You may call me Verr Goldet,” she says, unimpressed; but then she leans closer and lowers her voice. “And the man you might want to be looking for you may call Fan Qui.”

Diluc recognises the look on her face. He squints. "Where are you from?"

"Mondstadt, sir. Just as the two of you."

"Where in Mondstadt?"

"My, do you interrogate every innkeeper like this?"

“What organisation do you belong to?”

“None that you need to concern yourself with, sir. Merely gotta keep my hotel safe. It’s not always fair play around here, you know? In the middle of the wilderness, a hotel with lots of travellers, lots of merchants and their stuff...” She points to the roof. “Our local Adeptus might keep the monsters outside at bay, but I’m responsible for the ones inside.”

Kaeya whistles. “Deep.”

“Hardly so. Your man belongs to the treasure hoarders, though, I assume. Came through here three days ago. Left in the direction of Liyue Harbour, but talked about branching off to a merchant’s place in Guili Plains. I can mark it on your map – I have an inkling where that might be.”

Diluc catches Kaeya’s eye. They missed them only by so much. He turns back to Verr Goldet, who watches them with an almost amused expression.

“Why are you telling us this?”

“It’s in the interest of my employer to keep untaxed ware off the market, especially when it is valuable.”

“Ah, I get it,” Kaeya says. “Why waste Liyuen forces and bureaucracy when it can be swept under the table much easier?”

“That’s a way to phrase it, yes.”

“One hand washes the other. Very efficient.”

Interrupting Kaeya’s attempt at flirting with a married woman, Diluc packs the newly marked map back into his satchel. “Thank you,” he says earnestly. “It’s a great help.”

Verr Goldet’s eyes crinkle as she smiles. “No problem. I hope you are able to rest well tonight. Breakfast starts at dawn.”

She hands them their key. While making their way up the stairs, both more than ready to fall into bed after days of travel, Kaeya chuckles. It is the only thing to be heard in the dark hallways.

"Isn’t it kind of embarrassing," he says, "that the official intelligence network of Liyue knows much more than both of our private ones combined?"

"Shut up."

Chapter Text

The strange boy settles in like a shadow settles into a corner. He does neither speak nor smile, but Diluc does not mind. For the first time, he has another companion at his home other than the silent walls and stern teachers.

He takes him to the fields. He takes him to the woods. He takes him to the lakes he loves to bathe in, but the boy – Kaeya, he called himself after minutes of trying to get him to understand – merely watches from the sidelines while Diluc shows him the longest amount of time he can hold his breath.

He takes him to the city, excited to introduce his new brother to Jean. He buys sweet fruit for the both of them. He does his best job at showing Kaeya around, and yet-

When the statue arrives in the distance, wings shielding the square from the sun, Kaeya freezes, pales, and promptly turns around and walks back all the way to the gate.

It takes months for Diluc to understand. It takes months for Kaeya to learn enough Mondstadtian to make him understand.

“Where do you come from?” Diluc asks.

“Below," Kaeya says and points towards the ground, “and back.”

“Why are you here?” Diluc asks.

“To hope,” Kaeya says and squints against the sunlight.

“What’s the deal with the eyepatch?” Diluc asks.

“Sinners,” Kaeya says and grows scornful, “traitors.”

“Traitors of what? Who betrayed you?”

Kaeya looks up at the statue and its pleading, giving hands, and a ghost haunts his face. “God.”

The spot Verr Goldet marked on their map turns out to be a cave in the Liyuen wilderness. Diluc and Kaeya pay a farmer to take them along on his cart for half of the way, saving themselves a day’s worth of travelling. Still, the sun is already setting when they finally spot some suspicious motion they can follow.

Careful to stay hidden behind bushes and rocks, Kaeya eyes Diluc from the side. The treasure hoarders they are tailing are too far away to catch their voices. Even if they did – Diluc's Liyuen is mediocre at best.

“You sure it’s a good idea to do this now?” Kaeya whispers, pointing at the quickly darkening sky. “We should set up camp somewhere. Stay low. It would be foolish to rush into a fight without proper preparation.”

“We won’t fight,” Diluc says absentmindedly, not taking his eyes off the treasure hoarders slowly making their way deeper into the wilderness. There is not a single landmark he recognises as especially note-worthy, but the treasure hoarders seem to have no problem navigating their way. “I’ll only take a look.”

“Sure you are.”

Sighing and muttering something about letting idiots lead him into an early grave beneath his breath, Kaeya follows Diluc further. The sun sinks below the horizon, casting a red hue over everything. The treasure hoarders light a torch. Soon, it will be even easier to tail them, with the shadows on Diluc’s side.

It is a familiar feeling. The embrace of the night is the only one he knows – although in the past, it always used to be accompanied by the cold. He used to cower between the pine trees of forests far away from anything remotely warm, breath fogging in the air and stars cold and distant hight above, and watch man meet man, man meet woman, human meet human, creature meeting creature, and then he would lunge out of the snow like a beast himself, and he would-

A hand touches his arm. It is cold, but not like the snow. It is chilled, but not like the fingers of frost creeping up the pine trees. Kaeya’s face swims before him in the twilight, brow furrowed.

“You okay?”

Diluc blinks to find himself just a few feet away from the entrance of a cave. The treasure hoarders have disappeared, but the elemental energy of their torch lingers on and wafts into the dark. The sound of crickets, a song of a summer night – far, far away from the cold and the snow – pulls him back into his body.

He vaguely nods at Kaeya. “Yes.”

“Are you sure? You were kind of blanking out there.”

“It’s none of your business. Stop being so worried,” Diluc says, a little harsher than he means to. Kaeya’s face hardens and he pulls his hand back.

“I’m not,” he says clipped. “I just don’t feel like hauling your ass back out of a cave filled with treasure hoarders if you lose it while we’re in there.”

Diluc huffs and rights himself from his crouched position, wincing slightly when his bones pop. He is not getting any younger. “Well, lovely then that you have nothing to worry about, since it won’t happen.”

“I sure hope so.”

Without saying anything else, they approach the cave’s mouth. In the dark, it looks like an animal’s maw, black and deep and impenetrable beneath the bushes. Diluc descends without hesitation, Kaeya at his back. The stone swallows them whole.

Within seconds, the temperature drops and the night disappears behind them. A chill settles over his skin. He keeps one hand on his crossbow as he blinks into the dark to no avail. The only light is the dull gleam of their Visions, and it is barely enough to trace any shadows on the walls.

Tapping into the warmth of his Vision, Diluc sinks into the uncomfortable itch of elemental sight. The trace of the flame from just minutes ago is already faint in his mind – he was never the most adapt at elemental schooling.

As they slowly make their way down the narrow tunnel, palm on the wall for support, Diluc does not have to turn around even once. Kaeya remains a steady presence behind him. He cannot hear his breathing or his steps unless he concentrates on them – it is, just like the noise of the tavern at night, a background sound he is so familiar with, it does not register anymore. Despite it, Kaeya is solid and firm by his back. Without him, the dark would surely creep in on him; close him in and leave him searching for that flickering memory of a torch.

Diluc would never admit it out loud, but in a way, he is glad that it is Kaeya who came along.

The deeper they trudge, the staler the air becomes. A thought crosses Diluc so quickly, it is gone again in the same instance – below the earth, there is no wind. Without wind, no one, not even Barbatos, can hear them. It sends an involuntary shiver down his back, and, feeling a little silly at himself, he considers sending out a quick prayer in Venti’s name before internally cringing at himself.

What a joke.

When the darkness finally shifts into a soft shimmer of light at the end of the tunnel, Diluc can’t help but exhale in relief. With every step, it grows bigger and bigger, until they stand just a few feet away from the entrance to a much larger cave, lit up with torches.

Voices ring up towards them, distorted by the echo of the walls. Diluc peers past the entrance down a narrow path, only partly brought together by railings. It leads down to a camp where a few dozen men and women sit around fires, sharpening weapons or loading boxes off carts. Despite the canopies and wooden structures twisting all around the walls in a wild assembly of colours, there is barely anything to fill them. Their clothes are ragged and worn.

Kaeya beside him raises an eyebrow. “Quite negligent, to leave no guard at the entrance,” he whispers. Diluc only scoffs at him and then gestures towards the camp – but right as he is about to leave the safety of the dark, planning to slink down the path in a hurry and hide behind the next crate a few feet away, Kaeya grabs his arm and pulls him back.

“Are you insane?! They could see us!”

“They won’t.”

Kaeya huffs. His eye glints in the dark, star aglow. “Right. Excuse my ignorance, oh Master, I was not aware that pyro Visions grant the ability to be invisible.”

Diluc turns back to the entrance, but Kaeya does not budge. “Let me through.”

“There are around thirty people down there. There is no way that even you could beat that many!”

“I don’t need to beat them. I’ll take one of them as a hostage and ask the others questions.”

“You’re overestimating the bonds of treasure hoarders. Most of them are nothing but colleagues, trying to get the same thing. There is no compassion between them.”

“If they’re beyond compassion, then I will simply slit one of their throats and have fear do the job. Even men knowing nothing but greed and hunger have that.”

Something in Kaeya’s expression shifts. His gaze flits back and forth between Diluc’s eyes, almost as if searching for something he does not find. “...When have you become so ruthless?” he asks, and despite his loose tone, there is confusion swimming in it, too; hurt, right below the surface, gasping for air.

Diluc rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Fine,” he says cynically, “if you have a better plan, spill it.”

As swift as it changed before, Kaeya’s expression morphs back into a grin just as easily. “Questions are good,” he says, “but let’s keep violence as a last resort, alright? Jumping around on stone ground is horrible for the knees.”

“What’s your idea, then?”

Instead of answering, Kaeya only sticks a hand into his pocket and pulls out two small silvery chips, gleaming in the dim light. They appear just as wicked as the smile on his face. It takes Diluc a few moments to realise what they are.

“...Why in the world do you carry around treasure hoarder insignias?”

But Kaeya is already busy with clipping the insignia to his belt and slinking his Vision beneath his shirt. He takes one look at Diluc. “I suppose it’s good that it’s summer and we have travelled loads,” he comments. “There is not much we have to do to pull off the look. Or the smell. But hide your vision.”

Ignoring the jab at his appearance, Diluc bristles and follows his command. It feels wrong to take the insignia – almost as if his very honour and legacy was washed down the drain when putting it on his person. But then again, he remembers, there is not much of his honour and legacy left to lose, anyway.

“What about your sword?” he asks.

Kaeya hums in thought and then moves to peek down towards the camp again. None of the treasure hoarders carry weapons any larger than a crossbow. With a sigh, Kaeya unclips his sheath and carefully rests it on the ground. “Good that I took a spare,” he says playfully. “It would pain me to lose my favourite.”

“You’ll be unarmed,” Diluc protests. Kaeya only sends him an unimpressed glare before pulling out a knife from his boot.

“I’m probably more armed than you.”

Ah, right. He used to sleep with a blade beneath his pillow even as a child.

“Alright,” Kaeya says and pats his arm. “We go down there. We act wary, but not too wary. We are treasure hoarders from Mondstadt, wanting to talk to Fan Qui. Got that?”

“There is no way-”

“Let me do the talking. Just keep your mouth shut and your posture simple.” Kaeya jabs him in the back. “Not as straight as a wooden board. One look at you and they’ll assume you’re a noble.”

Before there is any more time left for discussion, Kaeya steps out into the light. Cursing him beneath his breath, Diluc quickly follows. The light throws long shadows onto the walls. Their steps echo. Within a few seconds, there are several heads turned around to look at them. There is murmuring, followed by the sound of a dozen crossbows being loaded.

Kaeya was right, Diluc begrudgingly admits. They would have been spotted in an instant.

“You!” one of the treasure hoarders calls out in Liyuen. “Who are you?”

Standing calm and steady on the narrow path, Kaeya looks down on them and raises his hands in defeat. “We mean no harm!” he replies smoothly, and Diluc can barely keep the surprise from his face. Since when did he speak Liyuen that well? “We have come to declare that the crane flies at dawn!”

The speaker’s eyes – a man in his late forties, bulky and tanned – widen at Kaeya’s words. For some reason, some of the crossbows are lowered. Kaeya keeps on walking, hands still lifted, and Diluc follows him in a similar manner.

It is strange, seeing him from behind. Usually, Diluc is the one in charge, either on his own or leading whoever trudges behind him in a mission – but now, there is a feeling of helplessness that builds within him. He is fully out of his depth here, and it makes his skin itch with irritation.

Kaeya’s hair is a messy braid, his backpack worn and sporting a few holes. His earring blinks in the light, just like the coin he tosses towards the man once they make it off the path and come to a stop before him. His hands are steady and cool when he lowers them, always keeping them within sight. There is a glint to his eye that Diluc has never seen before, greed gleaming in the bottom of a well.

It is unnerving, how well he fits in.

“Who are you?” the man asks again and shoulders past a few of his fellow treasure hoarders, all watching them with burning stares. “You are not from Liyue.”

Kaeya shakes his head apologetically. “No,” he says in Common, “and my friend here does not speak Liyuen that well. We are Kurt and Friedrich from Mondstadt.”

The man squints at them, but still takes Kaeya’s offered hand. “Bai," he curtly introduces himself, Liyeun accent unusually strong in his Common, but still comprehendible enough - much to Diluc’s relief. “It’s rare to have men from Mondstadt venture out this far. What’s your business here?”

“We’re looking for Fan Qui. Is he around?”

Something in Bai’s posture changes, but only barely. “Why?”

Kaeya sighs. “I would really not want to drag you into this-”

“If it is important enough for anyone to come so far, then it is important enough for me to hear. Why are you looking for him?”

Kaeya laughs nervously beneath Bai’s glare. It is utterly jarring to see. “Alright, alright. You see, we helped him get his hands on a precious artifact from Mondstadt about a week ago, and he promised us a third of its prize once he sold it. The deal was to venture to Liyue Harbour together, but the second we turned our backs once, he disappeared, artifact and all. We must find him to... settle the score.”

Bai scoffs. “If it was precious enough for you to follow a man all the way across the country, you should’ve made a contract, son.”

Kaeya’s smile turns to silk. “Oh, we did. And he burned it in the very fire he shared with us the night before.”

Murmurs pick up in the crowd around them. Bai works his jaw, clearly in thought, but then he shrugs. “Well, no contract, no contact,” he says simply. “I won’t sell a fellow Liyuen out to some foreigners.”

“Not even if we promised twenty-five percent of the Mora we would make off that artifact?”

“How would you be able to get a single coin? You just said Fan Qui all up and left you in the dust.”

“Not for long. With your help, we could get to him, make him, well, pay what he owes and all come back richer from it.”

There is a hunger in his voice that is so unfamiliar to Diluc, it almost makes his squirm. There is no more trace left of the timid, senitive boy he once was, Diluc realises with an odd feeling in his gut. They both have changed beyond recognition.

Bai’s gaze shifts from Kaeya towards him.

“What about him? He hasn’t said a word.”

Kaeya laughs. “You don’t want him to. He’s got a wife to feed back at home, you see, and Fan Qui made sure she’ll go hungry all summer.”

Bai squints. Diluc does not know what it is he sees in his face, but it must look threatening enough, for he turns back to Kaeya easily enough.

“All summer? How much would that artifact be worth, exactly?” someone in the crowd calls out.

Kaeya turns towards the people around them. “It is an ancient artifact from the ruins of Mondstadt,” he says with something like reverence in his tone – but not the reverence reserved for worship and awe at something so old, so divine, but rather at the gold of it - “and it’s wandered the black market for quite some time, so its value has only risen. I would estimate around twenty million Mora.”

Silence fills the cave.

“I can help you,” a woman calls out and steps forward. “I know where he might’ve gone.”

“Qui pulled me off once,” another woman says. “I understand your grudge!”

“A bastard, that one,” a man proclaims. “Too full of himself and too greedy to share a thing. It is about time someone taught him a lesson.”

“Let’s say I would help you,” Bai drawls, ignoring the protests from the people around him. “I could get you to his location and make him pay up. I could even show you the best places to sell the thing – Liyue Harbour is much different from the chaos of Mondstadt. But I want fifty percent of the earnings.”

“Thiry.”

“Forty-five.”

“Thirty-three.”

“Forty.”

“Thirty-five.”

Bai’s gaze burns. “Forty or you can leave here with nothing but an arrow in your back.”

Kaeya leans forward, undeterred, and lowers his voice. “Thirty-five and a map of the Yellow Rabbits’ secret base.”

“...How do I know to trust a traitor?” Bai hisses, and Diluc feels as if he was plunged into cold water at the words.

“I am not part of them,” Kaeya merely says, “but I know my way. There are absolutely no ties between me and them.”

Tension simmers between them. The people around them are utterly still. Bai does not break Kaeya’s stare.

Suddenly, though, something in his eyes shifts. In one fluid motion, he takes Kaeya’s outstretched hand and shakes it firmly. “Deal.”

Kaeya’s face splits into a terrible grin. “Lovely doing business with you. Now, where is our man?”

Bai scoffs. “He was here just yesterday. Missed ‘im by a hair, son.”

“Did he mention an artifact?”

“Not a word.”

“But he was weirdly closed off the entire time!” the woman from earlier says. “Barely spoke to anyone and always kept his stuff by his side.”

“Looking back on it, he probably meant to keep it all for himself,” another treasure hoarder growls.

“My earring has gone missing,” someone else says. “I bet he stole it!”

“No one would steal your earring. It’s made of nothing but shells and rocks.”

“Do you have any other explanation, then?”

Kaeya hums, ignoring the rising bickering. “Do you know where he went?”

“Liyue Harbour,” Bai says, “probably to his usual spot. It won’t be difficult to find him.”

With a slight amount of horror, Diluc watches as within the span of a single conversation, the treasure hoarders turn on their fellow man just at the chance of being rewarded for it. They are surrounded by shouts and bodies, all edging closer as if their grabbing hands might find the promised gold in the air they breathe.

There is someone in the crowd, though, watching them with a hawk’s eye instead. Diluc meets her gaze only for a second, but when it narrows, he realises with dread running down his spine that it is too late.

“You’ve got quite the particular hair colour, Friedrich,” she calls out, and her voice echoes through the cave so prominently, the others fall hushed immediately. “I would recognise it everywhere, that beautiful shade – the colour of dawn, no?”

Some of her comrades begin snickering. “Falling for a married Mondstadter, are we?” the man next to her huffs and pokes her in the side. But the woman does not step back – instead, she only raises her chin higher.

“I’ve had my fair share of education,” she says. “Even if you believe me to be nothing but a robber – don't deny it, I can see it in your eyes.” She glares at Diluc. “You’re not one of us, look at his stance. I bet so high up on a horse, he did not know what walking on his own two feet felt like until he tried stooping to our level.”

“Yan’er...” the man from earlier tries to interject, but she shakes him off. There is something solid to the way she stands – something so certain, Diluc could not believe her tale to be a lie even if it was. Unfortunately, so do the other treasure hoarders.

Bai turns around with something dangerous on his face. Kaeya’s face does not slip away from its calm, collected expression. “I won’t deny Friedrich here looks awfully similar to some Mondstadtian nobles,” he admits, “but I promise, that is pure coincidence. Actually, it’s quite the trick – makes the selling easier.”

Diluc decides to step in and crosses his arms. “And the threatening.”

Bai looks back and forth between them, then towards the woman. “You see, lads, there is one thing you learn as someone who lives so far away from the sun, it ain’t even willing to shine on him anymore, and that is to always trust your gut. And Big Sis over there," he points towards Yan’er, who is much younger than him, “has a gut from the gods.”

The insignia by Kaeya’s belt dangles and glints in the reflection of the fire. Bai’s eyes follow it like a pendulum; mesmerised by the story behind it. Where just a moment ago, a deal was made in common interest, the air freezes with tension. Kaeya does not move, but Diluc can see the veins on his neck tighten. There is movement towards his left – right by Kaeya’s blind spot, a shimmer, a body, a step-

Diluc moves before he can think. Faster than his mind registers, his crossbow is loaded, pointed right at the chest of a man. He is holding a knife in his hand and startles backwards by Diluc’s sudden offense. Kaeya’s back hits his as he whips out one of his blades from his sleeve. The man snarls and jumps at them again, and just like that, the cave succumbs to the sounds of battle.

It is thrilling. It is familiar. They are boys again, chasing each other through the vineyards with wooden swords. Diluc blocks every blow coming towards Kaeya’s blind side. Kaeya disarms everyone too quick for Diluc to register before they can even approach him. Pressed against each other, they dance around everything sent towards them.

Kaeya is warm and reliable by his back. Diluc can feel his every move. He did not realise how much he missed this – fighting with someone to spot him, so tuned to his own harmony of fighting, that even despite the backpacks, it takes merely a flick of a muscle for Kaeya to understand the next approach. It is not cold and lonely and desperate anymore as he has become used to – it is as it should be. Despite the years, they can still do it. They can still hear the music.

Fire sets Diluc’s bolts ablaze. Steam rises as Kaeya melts it with daggers of ice. A few cry out in surprise – most of them, though, only see their Visions as something priceless, something to gather in their own hands, and thus advance further even more violently.

Bai snarls in Diluc’s face. “I should’ve known! Everything you Mondstadtian scum produce is a lie, down to your religion.”

“I don’t think Rex Lapis would approve of your lifestyle,” Diluc fires back and lets the dull end of his crossbow pummel down on someone’s head. “And yet you chose it anyway.”

“Chose it? When do we ever choose anything? Do we choose to have our crop die and our village starve? Of course you would know nothing of it, you God-blessed fool. You have been granted all you want in life.”

Diluc does not reply. Instead, he focuses on pushing Bai back – but the man is a feisty fighter, always back on his feet. Sweat runs down Diluc’s back. His arms are strained from raising his crossbow so often. As quickly as the adrenaline came, he feels his strength drained again. Kaeya’s blows become sloppier, too. He loses a knife and barely has the time to pull out another. With every passing second, it becomes less of a struggle for dominance and more of a desperate attempt to stay alive.

Kaeya was right. No matter their skills, there are just too many.

A hiss pulls Diluc out of his adrenaline-fuelled trance. He barely whips around fast enough to find Kaeya clutching his hand. Blood drips to the ground. There is no time to pause as the treasure hoarders keep on charging towards them – and so, heart racing in his chest, arms trembling and mind deadly quiet, Diluc does not think as he grabs Kaeya’s arm and dashes right through the crowd.

The surprise gives them a few seconds of a head start. Shouts ring out. He can almost feel the breath of his pursuers hot in his neck as they sprint up the path again. They pay no mind to the dizzying heights to their left – only the maw of the tunnel matters now, their steps thunder in the earth, their lungs blazing machines.

Someone tackles Kaeya to the wall. Diluc swings out without thinking, shoving them off the ledge and down a drop of a few feet. Kaeya freezes the ground to their pursuers’ feet, and they slip back down the path with startled cries. It gives them barely enough time to make it to the tunnel.

Kaeya grabs his sword off the ground and, nodding briefly towards Diluc, lets it plummet towards the ground with a shout. A wall of ice shoots out, and for an instance, Diluc is trapped a decade ago again, watching a blow that was meant to kill meet a block of cryo instead – but he has no time to let the memory overwhelm him, because Kaeya grabs his wrist and pulls him back into a sprint again. The ice melts within seconds.

Chest burning and mind a colourless haze, they somehow make it through the dark back outside. The cool air kisses his face like water slides down a drowned man’s throat – he gulps it down greedily, still running, his vision still swimming and darkened by the edges. The shouts of their pursuers blur. The bushes and plains and stars of Liyue disappear.

With a jolt, Kaeya abruptly halts. Diluc stumbles into him and almost sends them both tumbling off a cliff. Heaving for breath, they stare in horror at the white-crowned waves smashing against the rocks, many, many feet below them. They look at each other, and the knowledge sits dark in Kaeya’s gaze.

Even if they were to survive the fall, there would be no chance for them to come back up from the water alive.

The roar of many people rings out through the nights, hollow and haunting. Diluc turns around to find the treasure hoarders pounding towards them. When he looks back, Kaeya is already on the ground, pulling a folded wind glider out of his backpack.

It takes Diluc a startled moment to realise what he is planning.

“Are you insane?” he hisses. “There is no way that will carry both of us!”

Kaeya glares at him as he grabs Diluc’s arm, clipping the glider around it in practiced ease. “Well, unless you want to find out what treasure hoarders do with prisoners, or Barbatos magically blesses you with an anemo Vision right this instant, it’s the best option we have.”

“You’re insane-”

Kaeya shoves both of them towards the edge of the cliff, letting the backpack drop carelessly. “You’ll hold onto me,” he says through clenched teeth. “You’re heavier. Don’t let go.”

Fear shoots through Diluc, sudden and as clammy as Kaeya’s face in the moonlight. “But what if I do?”

Kaeya stills. His eye is only one star in the constellations above them as he blinks at him, wide-blown and darkened with panic. “You won’t. Pray to whatever god you find suited, if you have to – you always were good at that.”

Before Diluc can protest any further, Kaeya intertwines their arms tightly as one would save a drowning man – perhaps that is what they will be in just a moment – and shoves them both over the edge.

He realises then, with startling clarity, that he has never grown up from the boy hunched in the dark, hands clasped – because he sends out a prayer, burning in his mind, and hurls it out into the world. Barbatos.

For a terrifying, absolutely frozen moment, Diluc presses his eyes shut. The wind whistles past his ears, howling, as the feeling of a drop makes his gut plummet. He can already sense the dark waters hitting them, ruthless and hard and cold, and sinking with nothing to hold onto, into the deep, dark depths where he will never find a grave and never find rest and-

Their fall abruptly stops.

After a heartbeat, Diluc dares to open his eyes. The first thing he sees is the raging ocean beneath his dangling feet, but unlike he expected, it does not rise to meet him with a brutal punch. The next thing he registers is Kaeya stiff in his grip, holding on for dear life. When he looks up, he finds himself carried by a wind current in the middle of the air.

It supports his glider without as much as a tremble. He feels it gently billow around him like the cradle of a mother, kissing his heated cheeks in cool relief. Barely daring to breathe, Diluc glances up to the cliffside to see the treasure hoarders by its edge, staring after them with slack jaws or burning glares. In the whispering of the wind and the distant sea below them and the endless night sky above them, they suddenly seem utterly insignificant.

Kaeya in his grip begins to tremble.

Diluc looks back down at him, trying to balance their sudden movement, and is about to pull him closer in case his fear might cause him to slip and fall – but then he realises that Kaeya is not afraid at all. He is laughing.

It starts small as a soft giggle in the back of his throat, but quickly evolves into full-blown hysterical wheezing. It echoes past the walls towards the sky, eerily loud in the silent night.

“Get it together,” Diluc huffs with a strain, “or else we might fall.”

“I don’t think we will,” Kaeya gasps, freakishly long legs dangling over open water. “I don’t think we will. I guess we really are God-blessed! Oh, the irony.”

Ignoring his shrieking, Diluc sets them to a course towards the shore. The edge of the cliff vanishes out of their sight. When they finally hit the beach with a low thud and roll apart into the sand, his legs are trembling. Water lapses at his foot, but he does not care. For a moment, he merely watches the spinning sky on his back and breathes.

Then, he turns his face towards Kaeya. “What in the Lord’s name were you thinking?”

Kaeya’s face is stone. “I saved us.”

“You nearly killed us. There is no way a single glider would’ve carried both of us.”

“But it did,” Kaeya leans closer, sand across his cheeks like stardust, “it did. Against all odds, the wind changed its direction completely off course in a single moment.” He falls back a little and laughs again, but it sounds suspiciously close to heaving. “There is no other explanation than that it was the Anemo Archon.”

Diluc shifts uncomfortably, suddenly feeling protective. Whether it is of Venti or Kaeya, he does not know. “It could have been coincidence.”

“Oh, come on, Diluc, even you cannot be that dense.” He slides a palm down his face. “The Cathedral would riot if they found out. Lord Barbatos, apparently present enough to save two normal adventurers from certain death! ...Except that one of them is not normal at all. Did he know? Does he know? Will I-”

There is a manic glint to his eye, one that Diluc recognises from childhood. Back then, he did not know what it meant – but now that he does, all his anger evaporates in an instant. He takes a deep breath to settle himself. The night is cold on his skin. There is blood clinging to Kaeya’s hand, the cut deep, and he gingerly takes it.

Back when they were younger, whenever the past would come to haunt Kaeya – usually after prayer, or during storms – Diluc would shift his blanket so that both of them would fit. Now, Kaeya flinches at his touch. Diluc tries not to feel the sting and instead settles on bringing out his water bottle from his backpack to clean the wound.

“Don’t-” Kaeya starts, but cuts off with a hiss as the sand is washed away. “You’ll waste your water.”

“We can find a stream somewhere. It’s a few more days until Liyue Harbour. I don’t want you to get an infection.”

“Because it would slow us down?”

Diluc meets Kaeya’s gaze for a moment, ripping off a part of his own sleeve to wrap around the wound in a feeble attempt to keep is protected. “...No.”

Kaeya hums and leans back, slowly coming back to himself. “Are you really still willing to go to Liyue Harbour, even though we only got the general direction of the guy?”

“If it had not been for that woman, we would have his exact location.”

“A shame she was so smart, then. Must’ve been to Mondstadt before, otherwise she wouldn’t have recognised you – or she just knows her potential enemies very well.”

Diluc only clicks his teeth in response. Silence dwells for a moment between them, the breeze gently beckoning them towards the sea. He finds a question burning on his tongue.

“...Speaking of that,” he begins, dreading the answer. “How come you knew the treasure hoarders’ passwords?”

Kaeya only grins his old, pastured grin. “A lot has happened in the past years, Diluc. A lot changed when you were gone.”

A chill runs down Diluc’s spine. Without realising it, he lets go of Kaeya’s hand. “...Don’t say you joined-”

Kaeya descends into a wheeze. “You should see your face! No, I did not join the big, evil treasure hoarders. Just as you have your ways of getting around, I have mine. And the hungry folk talks the easiest for the right prize.”

There is a bitterness to his tone Diluc can’t decipher. He briefly thinks back to Bai’s words. You have been granted all you want in life.

God-blessed. Lucky. Diluc looks up to the sky to find it empty, black like the day his father died, blood mixing with mud mixing with rain mixing with regret. There was no god to save him back then. There was no god to lift him up in the air out of harm’s way. There was no god at all.

“Bai practically despised Fan Qui – you could tell by his reaction,” Kaeya continues. “If he had been alone, we could’ve convinced him much quicker, but because he seemed to be the leader of the group – or at least somewhat – he had a reputation to uphold.

“As for the password,” Kaeya shrugs, “I guessed it. Just like in Mondstadt, it is mostly connected to poetry or silly children’s rhymes. And their insignias displayed a crane. Unexpected, huh, for the poor to have a taste for the arts?”

Diluc grunts. “They can have all the taste they want, if they would not steal it.”

“Everyone steals something. Sometimes things much more valuable than a vial or some gold – but no one ever bears the consequences for that.”

They stare at each other for a moment.

The wind has slowed down to a mere breeze.

Eventually, Diluc sighs and gets up to his trembling feet. His clothes are damp. When he pulls apart the glider, it is half-ruined by salt and dirt. He stashes it back into his backpack anyway and stretches out a hand towards Kaeya.

“Come on,” he says, dropping their conversation back into the sand as easily as he always has. “Let’s move.”

Chapter Text

When they finally reach Liyue Harbour days later, they are both worn out and exhausted. The dust of the roads clings to their hair. The cut on Kaeya’s hand has scabbed over. Blisters have formed on Diluc’s feet.

The city appears like a divine being before them in the morning light. The sun sets the red-tiled roofs aflame, makes the sea glitter like all the treasures traded by its shore. Even from far away, they can make out the ships and their flags, waving in the wind.

For a moment, both Kaeya and Diluc allow themselves to take a breath and admire the sight.

Diluc barely remembers the last time he was in Liyue Harbour. His father used to take him on a few occasions when he was younger, to give him a first impression of the nature of trade. He always used to rather do things by hand and on his own, relying on private, friendly relations with other merchants rather than simple transactional ones like Diluc prefers them. He himself leaves the actual trading to his employees – there is no need for him to step in, and so he doesn’t.

They are eyed a little suspiciously by the guards at the gate as they approach, but once Diluc has shown them their identification, they are let through without a hassle. He thinks back to Mondstadt’s entrance and the way it’s open to every and any soul. Even the soldiers in front of it are nothing but decoration at most. It is just one of the many idiotic stunts pulled by the Knights – leaving the city open like that, especially now that the threat of the Fatui is stronger than ever.

Once they step through the gate, they cross a wooden bridge. Liyue Harbour opens up around them like a whole different world entirely. Just like in Diluc’s memories, it is a melting pot of cultures. Despite the relatively early hour – well, early in an Mondstadtian sense – the streets are already bustling.

People pull their carts loaded with goods over the pavement. Merchants are calling out their products. Millelith are patrolling, their spears glinting in the sun. Down by the dock, fishermen unload today’s catch, hefting heavy nets from their boats. The houses are a forest of red canopies, high above their heads like the crowns of trees. A blur of all kinds of languages hits Diluc’s ear. They melt together into an impenetrable web of sound. The distinct smell of food, fish and meat and soup and spices, wafts in the air.

Liyue Harbour puts even the busiest day at Dornman’s Port to shame.

The second they set onto the main road of Liyue Harbour, Kaeya departs with a quick wave and a promise to meet Diluc later by the hotel they are staying at. Diluc – unable to believe that Kaeya will actually get any work done – takes it as his sign to scour the markets of the harbour for the vial. When even the stalls selling antiques, glittering in the sun, do not turn out to be fruitful, he searches his memory for the information his network had provided him a few months ago on an unrelated case and the names of the merchants he could use as an entrance to less... legal sides of trading.

Yet, when he asks the fishermen and local merchants for any information on those names, most of them only laugh in his face.

“Died on a ship a few months ago,” one man tells him.

“Haven’t seen the guy in months,” another shrugs.

“Probably moved to Fontaine. The millelith were too touchy with ‘im,” a worker by the dock says. “But if you want to know more about the market, especially antiques, you should look for Zhongli of Wangsheng Funeral Parlour. He knows everything.”

Hours pass with no progress on the horizon. All of the names turn out to be outdated. Either it is the truth, and all the merchants that could’ve helped him for the right prize are either dead or vanished now, or it is a simple precaution of changing one’s name every so often. It does not matter either way – he won’t get any further like this. Time is running out. It is only a question of another day or so, and the vial will be gone from the city again.

Diluc drags himself to the first inn he finds. A storyteller’s voice rings out over the customer’s heads. Diluc orders a random dish on the menu and slumps into his chair. Dusk paints Liyue Harbour in a veil of red and orange. His mood is downright sour. His feet hurt. He contemplates simply letting his head drop onto the table and not getting up again.

When his food arrives, he barely looks at what he has ordered before grabbing his chopsticks – on top of everything, they keep slipping from his grasp, as unused he is to eat with them – and digs in. The second the soup makes contact with his tongue, his entire mouth is set on fire. Heaving for air, vision blurred by tears, he grabs for his glass of water. Somehow, it only seems to worsen the effect.

Fate really must despise him.

“Sir, are you alright?”

Diluc looks up and blinks to clear his view. The man sitting by the table next to him has leaned over, slight concern edged onto his forehead. Diluc coughs into his elbow and attempts to chase away the prickling feeling in his throat.

“...Damned spices,” he mutters to himself. Apparently, it is louder than he intended, because the man chuckles. A second later, a glass of milk is placed in front of Diluc’s nose. He eyes it with suspicion.

“It helps,” the man suggests smoothly in Common. Given that there is not really any way the fire in Diluc’s mouth could burn any brighter, he chugs the glass in one go. The burning subsides a little. Huh.

Now that his head is a little clearer, he can take in his saviour more properly. He is a middle-aged man, likely somewhere in his late thirties at least. Despite the warm weather he wears a long coat and gloves. His long hair is tied in the back, and his eyes-

Pure molten gold. Cor lapis, slightly glowing in the evening air.

Diluc feels himself strangely reminded of Venti and blinks.

“I have a friend from Mondstadt,” the man offers kindly. His voice is calm, elegant like the flowing rivers in Bishui Plain and steady like its surrounding mountains. “He reacted the same way the first time he tried Liyuen cuisine. His... constitution caused him to have quite the endeavour.”

Diluc nods. “A constitution concerning the senses?”

“No. Elemental.”

Awkward silence stretches between them. Diluc sips his milk out of lack of anything else to say.

“I’m Diluc,” he tries eventually, “and as you have guessed, I hail from Mondstadt.”

“Delighted to meet you, Diluc of Mondstadt,” the man replies with a smile. When they shake hands, his grip is unusually firm. “You may call me Zhongli. I am the consultant of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlour.”

A spark lights up in Diluc. He suddenly remembers the dock worker’s words on who could help him. Perhaps fate does have something in store for him today.

“Thank you for helping,” Diluc says and nods towards the soup. Now that he inspects it closer, he can spot the chili floating in it.

Zhongli chuckles again. “To be honest, I was a little surprised when I noticed what you had ordered. It is the spiciest dish on the menu. Even Liyuens struggle with it on occasion.”

Diluc, still sensing the burn on his now numb tongue, nods. He can imagine.

“Liyue Harbour really is a sight to see when the sun sets,” Zhongli suddenly muses. Perhaps his face is deceiving and he is older than he looks – because his tone reminds Diluc painstakingly of the elders at Dawn Winery, yearning for the past. “I certainly enjoy listening to the stories the people bring while drinking tea. Despite all these years I have spent here, the city’s beauty still mesmerises me. I can only fathom what it must be like to see it for the first time – and yet, you seem weighed down by something. What is the matter, Diluc of Mondstadt?”

Diluc ponders his response. It would be foolish to reveal his entire plans to the first kind stranger he meets – and yet, he is tired, and frustrated, and Kaeya is probably off in some tavern getting himself drunk off his ass. And the dock worker did claim Zhongli to be knowledgeable in the field... If all, it’s worth a shot.

“I’m looking for something on the market,” he begrudgingly reveals, “but all the merchants that I could have contacted aren’t in the harbour at the moment.”

“Ah,” Zhongli simply says, nodding in understanding. “I see. Quite the predicament, then. May I ask what kind of object you are looking for?”

Diluc grits his teeth and weighs his options. Well, it can’t be much worse, can it? “A vial of Barbatos’ breath.”

Zhongli does not blink. He does not even seem to breathe. He only stares at him, cor lapis eyes unmoved, before he speaks. “...Pardon?”

“A year ago, a precious vial containing Barbatos’ breath was stolen from one of Mondstadt’s temples,” Diluc explains, “and it’s now floating around somewhere on the market. I want to retrieve it to its rightful place.”

A small crease has buried itself into Zhongli’s forehead. If Diluc were to interpret his expression, his best bet would be... confusion? He leans forward. “Is there a problem?”

Zhongli shakes himself out of his stupor by blinking. A laugh leaves him, oddly nervous and amused at the same time. “Not at all. I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I unfortunately do not know of the location of such an object – but I can take you to someone who might.”

All of the sudden, Diluc’s evening is lit up again. The sunset really is beautiful, now that he thinks about it. “Is that so?”

“How does tomorrow morning work for you? Sunrise, preferably, down by the docks.”

It sounds like the perfect scheme to get abducted. But Zhongli, with that serene smile on his face, does not even seem to realise that, and Diluc’s gut tells him that this is a jackpot, so he nods. “That works. Thank you for your help.”

“It is no problem, really,” Zhongli replies. “More importantly: How is Mondstadt faring these days?”

When Diluc returns to the hotel a few hours later, he is surprised to find Kaeya waiting in there room already. He sits on the bed, reading a book. The window is open. The sounds of a nightly Liyue – still awake, still bustling, music and laughter and the scent of food – wanders in. Kaeya looks up when Diluc enters and raises his brow.

“Had fun?”

“I found some leads,” Diluc says clipped.

Kaeya whistles. “So secretive. I already know everything about your operation anyway, why not care to enlighten me further?”

“Because I don’t feel like it.”

“You’re so kind to me. On my end everything went well, thank you for asking. I wrapped up my work quicker than expected.”

Diluc washes his face by the sink and quickly changes into a nightgown laid out by the hotel. He is too tired to care about the way Kaeya’s gaze lingers on the scars on his back and sides. They are old – not old enough for Kaeya to have seen them before, but old enough for Diluc to have forgotten their precise origin. Some Fatui somewhere in Snezhnaya. The scars don’t deserve names.

Perhaps there are simply too many of them to remember them all, anyway.

“So you’re returning to Mondstadt tomorrow?” Diluc asks.

“Nah.” A lazy grin spreads on Kaeya’s face, and Diluc knows exactly what’s coming. “I think I’ll stay here long enough to hear all about your little adventure. I deserve a vacation, anyway.”

“You won’t be hearing much,” Diluc retorts, “because I’m not telling you anything.”

“No need. Are you sure I shouldn’t accompany you on that meeting with a Mister Zhongli tomorrow?”

Diluc pauses in untying his hair. Kaeya keeps his eye on the page of his book. He could not possibly look more smug.

“...You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Diluc groans.

“I try my best.”

The sun beats down on their backs. The river is a wild thing around them, pulling their feet away beneath them. The handle of his wooden sword is slippery and his hair sticks to his face, but it does not matter. Diluc fights on.

With one blow, he has Kaeya on the defence. With the next, he has him disarmed. With the third, he stumbles and lands in the water with a splash. Diluc triumphantly points the tip of his sword to his throat.

“Yield, creature of the darkness!” he declares. “This vineyard is not yours to conquer.”

Kaeya looks up at him through dripping bangs. He bares his teeth in a mix of a grin and a snarl. “Oh, yes, it is!”

A leg twists out from beneath him to swipe at Diluc’s knee. With a shout, he loses his balance. Before he knows any better, Kaeya has him in a tight lock, holding a stick to his neck.

“With this dagger of devouring darkness, I shall end the prince’s life and take all his wine!” he wheezes. Diluc struggles against his grip and comes free. Kaeya merely tackles him again. The water closes over their heads. When they reemerge, they are both gasping and heaving for air through their laughter.

The summer is hot. The river is cold. Monsters and princes and vineyards and swords are only things of dreams, still.

The sun is barely peeking over the far ocean, and yet the harbour is already alive. Perhaps it never slept. Fishermen are returning from their trips. Merchants unload their first goods of the day.

The sea breeze is fresh on Diluc’s cheeks as he makes his way down to the docks. The water lies calm and gentle. The morning sky is a pale blue, greyish clouds streaked in the distance.

It takes him a while to find Zhongli on the endless promenade, but once he does, the man is quick to usher him onto a rowboat. In the distance, Diluc spots the silhouette of a ship against the fog. While a young teen rows them towards it, he takes the moment to breathe in deeply and relish in the silence. He was not aware of it before, but the constant noise of the harbour has taken a toll on him. This, though – the waves gently hitting the sides of the boat, the wind caressing his hair – reminds him of the sacred early mornings at the winery he experiences way too little nowadays.

Zhongli himself seems to be in a similar state of bliss. His gaze rests on the horizon in contemplation. There is a strange air of heaviness to him; like the sky bending beneath a storm minutes before the rain starts. His gloved hands rest in his lap. With the way the light falls on his face, hued and not yet bright enough to crease his features, he almost looks like he is made of marble.

Diluc, for a moment, is reminded of the Rex Lapis statues he saw on their way to the harbour.

When they arrive at the ship – its bow is wedged deeply into the waves, towering high above Diluc’s head – Zhongli painstakingly counts every piece of Mora to give to their ferryman. It takes Diluc a few minutes to realise he apparently does not have enough, so he whips out his own wallet and pays the already exasperated teen. Zhongli inclines his head.

“I apologise,” he says as they climb up the ladder to the ship, “I was not aware it would cost that much.”

It was not a lot at all, but Diluc merely nods in acceptance. “It is only fair for me to pay. You are the one granting me this favour.”

Zhongli only smiles a private and once again amused smile. Diluc deliberately decides to ignore it.

The deck of the ship is even bigger from up close. There is a stage to his left and a building with several floors to the right. The ship has no sails – or if it does, they are constructed somewhere they aren’t immediately visible. Colourful lanterns are hung up in every corner instead. At night, he can only imagine the entire ship to light up like a torch in the middle of the dark sea in a show of brilliance and shine.

There are not a lot of people on deck. A few lounge around the tables, lost in quiet conversation with each other. Zhongli promptly ignores them and leads Diluc towards the building, where a woman bows to them with a smile.

“Hello, good sirs,” she says. Her voice is silky and soft, like Kaeya’s when he is bound to interrogate some poor soul, and it causes a ball of suspicion to grow in Diluc’s gut.

The woman’s gaze slides off him towards Zhongli. “Long time no see, Mister Zhongli!” she chirps. “How delightful to have you with us again. I assume this man is your guest?”

Zhongli inclines his head. “Indeed.”

“Then I officially welcome you aboard the Pearl Galley,” the woman directs towards Diluc. “You may call me Luoxia. If there is any trouble you encounter or a wish you yearn to have fulfilled, feel free to ask me! All within the bounds of the law, of course, as I’m sure your contract has made clear.”

Her smile is that of honey and hues. The pit within Diluc grows. What contract?

“Now, what can I do for you today?” Luoxia asks, this time back towards Zhongli. “I assume you are here for the usual? Or would you like to order some flowers-”

“No need, thank you,” Zhongli hastily interrupts her. “I merely wish to speak to Luo Feng. Is he here at the moment?”

Luoxia nods in understanding. “Yes, you are in luck! If you wait a little, you should catch him for breakfast.” She giggles. “I’m sure he did not expect to see you today. What a delight!”

Zhongli inclines his head in gratitude. They make their way to one of the tables from which they can see the entrance of the building quite clearly. Diluc wonders whether it is on purpose that they are sat so far away from all the other customers.

Speaking of customers...

He leans over the table towards Zhongli. “What is this place?” he hisses.

Zhongli only sighs. “Many a thing,” he explains, and explains nothing at all with that statement. “Best not to pay too much mind to it. It will not serve your mission. Today, this place is merely an opportunity for you to gather what you need to know.”

Diluc takes another look around. Some of the men by the tables seem hungover – he has seen that often enough to diagnose it with one glance – but some of them, intently debating in a Liyuen too fast and too quiet for him to understand, are decidedly sharp in their expressions. Paired with the strange implications made by that secretary-

Barbatos help him. This is a drug cartel. Or a brothel. Or a gambling ring. Or all three.

On second thought, the Barbatos in question would probably thrive in an environment like this.

Diluc really ought to find a new god to pray to.

They don’t have to wait for long. A waitress serves them some tea that Diluc sips quietly, looking out over the waves. Only half an hour after they’ve sat down, a young man leaves the building. When he spots Zhongli, he halts for just a moment, before stepping over to them with a smile.

“Mister Zhongli!” he says, cheerful despite the early hour. “What a delight to meet you again!”

Zhongli inclines his head while pouring him a cup of tea. “Likewise.” He gestures towards Diluc. “How are you faring? Was the wine last time to your liking?”

The man, sitting down by their table, laughs. “Very much, it was delicate to the tongue. Chenyu Vale, you said? No surprises there.” His eyes flicker towards Diluc. “Now, Zhongli, I am truly happy to see you, but I am sure you have come here with a reason, yes? Who is this lovely friend of yours?”

“Friedrich,” Diluc quickly intervenes before Zhongli can reply, and sticks out a hand, “from Mondstadt. A pleasure to meet you.”

The man shakes his hand, a little taken aback. “As it is mine! My name is Luo Feng, but you can call me Feng. A friend of Zhongli’s is a friend of mine.”

“Friedrich here," Zhongli continues smoothly, not even batting an eye at the use of a fake name, “is looking for a precious artifact that has been wrongfully stolen from his family’s heirloom. Is that not right?”

Diluc nods. “Indeed. I tracked its traces all the way to Liyue and would like to find the merchant who sells it so I can buy it off them.”

Feng nods pensively. “Ah, yes, family heirlooms are indeed irreplaceable and beyond value. I understand your dilemma – this city can get quite chaotic, can’t it? It’s not always easiest to find what you are looking for, but trust me, with enough search you always find what your heart desires!”

Diluc, not catching whatever hidden meaning is laced into the words, only nods.

“However,” Feng sighs, “I’m afraid I could not help you without you helping me. One hand washing the other, you see?”

“Name your prize.”

Feng laughs again. It suddenly sounds a lot less inviting.

“Oh, no, I’m not talking about Mora. Who would I be to make a friend pay me! No, I was thinking of favours. It is only natural, no? I aid you, and when the time comes for me to require help, you come to aid me. It is a... contract of sorts, just much simpler and verbal. The contract of friendship.”

The merchant’s eyes are sharp. Diluc suddenly remembers the treasure hoarder who recognised him by his hair alone. A favour with Friedrich, the fabricated version of a rich Mondstadter, is certainly easy to solve by simply disappearing from Luo Feng’s life without a trace. A favour with the owner of the Dawn Winery, however...

“If I may interrupt,” Zhongli says in that gentle, certain tone of his, “I remember that a while ago, I helped you settle some shipments that otherwise would not have gone through, Feng. All for the sake of friendship, of course. But how about we call in that favour on Friedrich’s behalf now, and consider each other’s debts repaid?”

Luo Feng wavers. “I am not quite sure, Mister Zhongli, whether that is the best-”

“If I recall correctly, your wife’s birthday is coming up, no? I am quite well acquainted with the manager of the Yun-Han opera. I’m sure he would close an eye or two about the prizes of first row tickets if I asked nicely.”

The calm expression he continues to wear is beginning to unnerve Diluc significantly.

Luo Feng sighs. “Alright. How thoughtful of you to remember her birthday! I suppose then I can accept this favour.” He turns back towards Diluc. “What do you want to know?”

“I’m looking for a vial,” Diluc says, getting straight to the point so he doesn’t have to stay on this ship reeking of lies and leverage for longer than he has to.

“Just any vial? I’m afraid I’ll need a little more-”

“It is said to contain Barbatos’ breath.”

Zhongli splutters on his tea. When both of his companions look up with concern, he waves them off. “Continue, please.”

Diluc clears his throat. Right. “I followed the traces of a man called Fan Qui. Last I know, he probably sold it here in Liyue Harbour a few days ago at most.”

Luo Fengs hums, tapping his chin. “A vial containing a god’s breath... That’s quite the heirloom, I have to say.”

“It is. That’s why it’s so important for me to get it back.”

“What family?”

“Gunnhildr. They- We're very close to the Church.”

Luo Feng smiles. “Ah, I see. Close to the Church, you say...” After another moment of contemplation, he nods with satisfaction. “Yes, I remember now. I did in fact hear of such an object coming through two days ago.”

“Where?”

“I can’t tell you much, unfortunately. Religious artifacts are of little interest to me, you see, but it caused quite a stir in some circles.”

“Where has it gone?”

Luo Feng chuckles at the fierce look in Diluc’s eyes and then shrugs apologetically. “I’m afraid it got sold to a Sumerian merchant. It’s probably already on its way back to Sumeru.”

Diluc’s heart drops to his stomach. He can physically feel his expression deflate.

“But worry not, friend!” Luo Feng quickly adds. “A merchant is no collector. If you’re fast enough, you can buy it off them with the right prize. And this time, we’re talking actual Mora.”

Diluc fights the urge to bury his head in his hands. Luo Feng pats him on the back. “You might want to catch a boat to Port Ormos. That’s where it’ll be for sure.”

“The Crux fleet is supposed to leave dock to Port Ormos this evening,” Zhongli muses. “For the right fee, they’ll take you along.”

“I suppose they will,” Diluc mutters. Oh, how the tides keep turning on him.

Having said his piece, Luo Feng soon after bids them farewell. Before he leaves to talk to some other men already waiting for him, he pats Diluc’s shoulder once more. “Good luck,” he says. “There are many things you can buy with Mora in Port Ormos. But also many things you can lose! Especially your name.”

With a wink, he is gone.

Diluc pays the fee for their return to Liyue Harbour. The stifling atmosphere of the ship with all the secrets and backhand deals hiding in its corners smothered him, so he is glad to be back on the little rowboat. The sun has long since risen. It’s blinding.

“I may have just enough Mora for breakfast,” Zhongli says once they are back on the mainland. “Allow me to invite you.”

They sit down in one of the inns overlooking the docks. Diluc takes one look at the menu and decides to simply order whatever Zhongli orders. Luckily, when he takes a bite of a dish he cannot name, it is much milder than his dinner the day before.

“I have a query,” Zhongli says at some point during their peaceful meal. Diluc stills. “Why is it that you are looking for that vial?”

Diluc blinks. “I believe I told you yesterday already. I need to return it to its proper place.”

“Which is?”

“...The Church, naturally.”

There is a twitch to the corner of Zhongli’s mouth. “One would assume that a vial of Barbatos’ breath were to belong to Barbatos, no?”

Diluc frowns. Suddenly he feels as if caught – as if there was something large slumbering beneath Zhongli’s golden gaze, waiting, watching. He feels his own breath hitch.

“Lord Barbatos has not been seen for five hundred years,” he says slowly, deliberately not trying to think about Venti slumbering away the day by his counter. “The Church keeps artifacts to ensure their safety. If Lord Barbatos were to return, I’m sure they would be more than happy to give them back to him.”

Zhongli hums and turns back to his meal. Something in Diluc relaxes. He does not know why, but he somehow feels as if he had just passed some kind of test.

“You speak very distantly of it all,” Zhongli remarks in a much more casual tone, “as if your mission did not stem from devotion, but from duty. Are you not religious?”

Diluc – pauses.

Is he religious?

There were times in his life when he prayed. There were times in his life when no answer came. In the past years, he had thought of religion as something he had left behind in the private chapel and candle-lit portraits of his childhood – but the incident a few days ago, when the wind had carried Kaeya and him in a tight embrace and the fact that his last resort was to pull a prayer from his deepest source speaks of a different truth.

What is religion, anyway? Is it believing in a god? Is it trusting in a god? Is it loving him, despising him, serving him both in spirit and a drink at night? He believes in Venti alright – it would be difficult not to, for he is such a boisterous, penetrating presence in all of Mondstadt, it appears as if he bled Mondstadt’s principles from every pore.

He trusts him, too, in a way. He trusts him to laze away his evenings. He trusts him to vanish into thin air the second responsibility is mentioned. He trusts him to sing songs of the past no one but Diluc’s father should know; to stare at Diluc as if he could see the very heart thrumming in his chest; to keep away from Mondstadt’s affairs with bitter stubbornness and return when a dragon is wrecking havoc.

He trusts him to be the eyes at the back of his own eyes at night, silently asking questions he does not want to hear. He trusts him to be the smooth marble of a statue and the motionless apathy of stone. He trusts him to be the clouds that carry in spring and the wind that carries out death.

Who does he really trust? At which point does Venti end and Barbatos start? At which point does Diluc end and his past start?

At which point is it faith, and at which is it betrayal? At which point is it Kaeya with his star-bled eye, and at which is it Diluc’s own reflection in his office mirror, hollowed out by the late-night candlelight?

Diluc blinks to find Zhongli calmly gazing at him. His tongue is dry. His food has gotten cold.

“I used to be,” he eventually says, and corrects himself. “My father used to be.”

“But you are not anymore?”

“If it a question of existence, then of course I believe the wind exists,” Diluc retorts vaguely, hoping to dodge the question. Zhongli only smiles. Somehow that’s worse.

“But is a god really only their element?”

Venti certainly is much more than just the wind. But then again, what really is the wind? Diluc has never been one to hear its voice – how could he claim to know it?

“I suppose I wouldn’t be the one to know,” he admits. “But are we not all more than just our nature?”

Zhongli nods. “Well said. Perhaps gods are more human than one would think – or less, or both at the same time.” He pauses. “For a man who claims not to be religious, you certainly have many thoughts on it.”

“How could I not. It follows you around in Mondstadt.”

Zhongli’s expression softens. “Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“Being reminded of it.”

There is the stern judgement of the sisters. There is the heartless prayer at church. There is the greeting, the farewell, the wind, everywhere.

But there is also kindness of the sisters; and the routine of Sunday preachings; and the greeting, the farewell, the wind, everywhere.

There is the sound of bells early in the morning, ringing out like a distant song of youth and memory.

There are the crystal flies gathering at dusk by the vines.

There are the statues and their warm whispers.

There is the private chapel in the winery, dark Mahagony wood and a dusty altar and a window with sunlight streaming through.

There is the private chapel in the winery, locked.

“No,” Diluc says, “it doesn’t bother me. It is good more than it is bad. It is hope.”

Zhongli inclines his head. “Hope," he says, “is faith, and faith is religion. Perhaps you are a religious man.”

Diluc stares at his food. “Perhaps I am.”

Zhongli, as promised, pays for their meal. Right as they are about to depart, going each other’s separate ways once more, he halts. The sun is creeping along the sky. People brush past them in a hurry. Diluc has a ship ticket to organise.

“Whenever you return to Mondstadt,” Zhongli says to Diluc's surprise, “if you see a bard that goes by Venti – send him my regards, will you?”

Returning to Mondstadt. For some reason, the thought leaves Diluc dangling.

A beat passes. “...I will,” he promises. “Once again thank you for your help.”

Zhongli smiles. “It was no problem.”

Diluc watches his retreating back disappear in the crowd. It takes him a few seconds to realise what exactly makes him feel so baffled – as far as he knows, Venti has not been in Liyue ever since he returned to Mondstadt. And before that, centuries have passed.

A slight chill overtakes him, even while standing in the sun. Perhaps Mondstadt is not the only city with strange appearances roaming the streets.

It is already past midnight when Diluc tip-toes back to his room, his little prayer book clutched tightly to his chest.

There is the private chapel, dark Mahagony wood and a dusty altar and a window with moonlight streaming through.

There are voices downstairs, whispering words of comfort, and a fire crackling.

There is Father, holding a weeping child in his arms.

There is jealousy sneaking its way past yearning, settling itself in Diluc’s gut like honey.

There is a clutched fist and the knowledge: he has never been cradled like that.

There is the private chapel, dark Mahagony wood and a silent altar and a window that never shows anything but the sky.

Diluc watches on, returns to his room and never speaks of it even in his prayers.

Chapter Text

Once again, dusk paints Liyue Harbour red and golden. The sea is a boundless cradle of colours, deepened by the sun. The bustle of the dock carries a certain slowness – drained by the day, satiated on the afternoon’s opportunities and resting before the night’s revival.

The Alcor is a heavy beast in the water. Diluc distantly watches the sea break on its bow, dark wood and sturdy planks. The flag is flying high. The crew is fastening the sails, loading the last few boxes onboard. They’re chatting all the while. Laughter rings out over the dock. It disturbs the still water of contemplation within Diluc, causing waves of restlessness.

There is an itch to his skin. He’s running out of time – and yet, for the next ten days, there will be nothing he can do but watch the sea and imagine the shore he might finally find salvation on. He already dreads it.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come along?" he asks Kaeya beside him. He is not quite sure when it happened – but Kaeya is a few inches taller than him. It irks him.

Kaeya smirks. His jewellery clinkers. The setting sun catches in his earring. “Are you that afraid to go alone?”

Diluc huffs. “You know exactly why I’m asking. I figured you’d like an excuse to further extend your vacation? Get drunk off more impossibly expensive Sumerian wine?”

Kaeya shakes his head regretfully. “As much as the thought tempts me,” he says with a sigh, “I’m afraid there’s no can do. The possibility stands that there’s a certain... acquaintance of mine in Sumeru, and I’d rather not run into him. And anyway, Jean will be glad to have me back.” At Diluc’s unimpressed reaction, he only raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure you understand – you seem to be an expert when it comes to avoiding people and problems. Problems particularly.”

“I have never in my life avoided a problem.”

“What else would you call that trip to Snezhnaya then?”

Diluc has the sudden urge to walk straight forward into the sea.

“Or the fact that you’re too awkward to meet Diona so you two can gossip about the wine industry, so instead you rather walk a longer way than pass by the Cat’s Tail. Or the reclusive distance you feel to your home, which is why you’re here. Or the whole thing with the Darknight He-”

“Alright, alright,” Diluc says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I get it. You know, I’m actually very happy that you’re going back. It’ll be nice to hear my own thoughts again after all that blabbering of yours.”

“We both know you do not want to be hearing your own thoughts," Kaeya snorts. “And besides, with how long it takes for you to formulate one, you’ll have days of silence just for yourself! Sounds relaxing.”

“If there’s one person to know so much about relaxing, it’s you.”

“At least one of us has to take care of themselves. Imagine if Mondstadt had two bundles of wrecked nerves like you running around.”

“At least then the knights would get something done.”

“At least then the knights would collapse from stress.”

In that moment, the captain of the ship – Beidou, as Diluc recalls – approaches. She is a sturdy woman somewhere in her late thirties to early forties. The sun has left freckles and wrinkles on her face. She must be smiling a lot – the dimples on her cheeks are deep as she grins at them, the eye that is not hidden beneath an eyepatch darting from Diluc to Kaeya and back.

“Well, you two are bickering like a married couple,” she says teasingly, grinning wildly. Kaeya begins coughing violently.

“...Brothers,” Diluc says, confused beyond measure. “We’re brothers.”

Beidou’s face contorts into something of an awkward grimace.

Kaeya wheezes. There are tears in his eyes. “Why does this keep happening.”

“This literally never happened before.”

“The hotel owner we were staying at thought we were on a honeymoon.”

Beidou laughs. Like everything about her, it’s a full-body motion, her shoulders shaking. “Apologies,” she says simply. “You looked ready to throttle each other back there. I jumped to conclusions.”

“That’s what brothers do, Captain,” one of the passing crew members says. “Would kill for each other but also each other.”

“My family died when I was very young, you see,” Beidou sighs, “so I never had siblings. Sorry for the assumption.”

Kaeya’s eye twinkles. Diluc wants to bury his head in the sand. He knows what’s about to come.

“Maybe it’s a mistake not coming along,” Kaeya says. “We are basically the same person! An eyepatch, a brilliant sense for fashion, a tragic backstory...”

“If ya can hold your liquor, I can share it with you over a drink.”

“Kindred spirits!" Kaeya cries.

“Unfortunately, though,” Beidou sighs and lifts her eyepatch to reveal a perfectly healthy eye, “this is only for the sake of not having to wait for my sight to adjust to light changes when going beneath deck. Sorry to disappoint.”

Kaeya theatrically snaps his jaw shut. “...Back to Mondstadt I go, then.”

“You better,” Diluc grumbles.

“Alright!" Beidou says, clearing her throat. “Now that the number of passengers is settled, I’d like to ask you on board. We’ll depart soon.”

“I guess this is Goodbye then,” Kaeya sighs and pats Diluc on the shoulder. “Don’t die, will you.”

Beidou barks a laugh. “Not on my watch. Once he’s in Sumeru though, there’s nothing I can do.” She winks at Kaeya – which looks odd with only one eye. “But don’t you worry, he doesn’t seem like the type of guy to up and die, eh? Got quite the muscle. I’m going to put you to work on deck alright.”

Kaeya copies her expression. “Oh, you can’t imagine. He’s got a death wish. You never know.”

“Well, then I’ll keep him far away from the railings.”

Diluc huffs. “I’m right here.”

“Unfortunately,” Kaeya sighs.

Another of Beidou’s crew members passes, raising her hand in a sign. She nods towards them. “We’re leaving in ten minutes,” she says. “Make sure to be on deck by then, yes? Sorry, but I have to run.”

They both watch as she hurries back to the ship, her voice bellowing out over the dock as she orders her crew around.

“So,” Diluc says, “she a relative of yours? You know, with the eyepatch and being a pirate and all.”

Kaeya only throws him an unimpressed glare. “Haha.”

Silence grows between them. With the noise of Beidou gone, Diluc is plunged back into the lull of the dock. There lies a sudden ache, somewhere between the sea and the city. He has not been away from Mondstadt for this long in a while, not since Snezhnaya. And even then, he had not expected to return. He had believed he could leave his life, the last of his family’s legacy, quietly in the cold like footprints; swiftly, silently covered up by the snow, leading to no path. Now, though, his eventual return is imminent. Mondstadt is a string wrapped around his wrist; thin and weightless, but always tugging.

“So this is Goodbye, I suppose,” Kaeya says into the stillness spun between them. When Diluc turns to him, his eyes have lost their mirth. There is a sombreness to him, in the set of his mouth. It feels final.

“Yes,” Diluc says, and suddenly something in his chest flutters with an odd uncertainty. “I suppose it is. For a while, at least.”

Kaeya opens and closes his mouth as if he could not decide on what to say. Diluc imagines it in his voice: Will you be alright? or Can I come along? It does not fit the Kaeya of today, with his sharp edges and smooth words, blades all curved beneath his sleeves. The Kaeya of his mind is younger, softer. He hides his secrets behind a wounded gaze and a curling palm. He does not yet know how to wield a sword, or his words – he barely knows any words in general. They play in rivers and chase each other through fields, and his voice does not carry a thousand layers.

Now, though, Kaeya only smiles. It does not reach his eye. “Don’t get into trouble, alright?" he teases. “Or Adeline will drag me all the way to the winery to manage your affairs. You wouldn’t want me to snoop through your stuff, right?”

“You already do that anyways.”

“And you let me.”

“As if anyone could stop a crooked thief like you.”

He expects Kaeya to retort in this stilted, playful manner again that they have established by now – a husky attempt at their childhood’s tone, not even a reflection of it – but he only looks at Diluc, smile fading, eye searching for something on Diluc’s face. If Diluc were to look down, he knows Kaeya’s hands would hide the slightest tremor. It’s a sign he’s never quite managed to get rid of, beneath all that changing.

Diluc does not know what overcomes him. Suddenly he has stepped forward, tugging Kaeya’s shoulder into an embrace. He’s stiff, and Diluc immediately feels regret washing over him – but then, slowly, a pair of arms sneaks around his own back. Kaeya exhales against his shoulder.

“Stay safe, will you? Don’t do anything stupid,” Kaeya says quietly, muffled by Diluc’s coat. “Mondstadt couldn’t bear losing you.”

I couldn’t bear losing you, he doesn’t say, and he doesn’t need to. Diluc hears it anyway.

“I’ll try,” Diluc manages to admit, and awkwardly claps Kaeya on the back. When they pull apart, for a brief moment it almost feels normal again, to hug him. But then he sees Kaeya’s face, older and sharper, and reality bends back into time.

He shoulders his bag and makes his way down the dock and onto the deck. A crewmember nods towards him, already having seen him with the Captain earlier that day, and pulls up the plank.

“Name’s Furong,” she says. “I’m sure Captain Beidou already told you all about how we do things here? Someone should show you the ropes soon enough.”

Diluc nods at her words. He settles by the railing, watching the crew as they bustle around him. Despite their apparent haste, their voices are merry and light. From the little Liyuen he understands, he catches them teaching each other over sails. Their steps are secure. The preparation is a fluid process, practiced and well-oiled. Everyone knows what to do, where to stand.

Everyone has a place.

Captain Beidou appears on board and shouts the order to depart. The anker is pulled in. The ground beneath Diluc’s feet rocks unsteadily, and he grips onto the railing in surprise. Sails are unfurled, the wind blowing from the right direction, and slowly, the ship tilts towards the harbour’s exit. The breeze kisses Diluc’s cheeks.

He turns around. Kaeya is still on the dock, dwarfed by the Alcor’s massive bow. He doesn’t wave – but he doesn’t leave either, simply watching as the ship pushes into the waves. He’s bathed in the evening light, clothes plain and travel-stained, face strangely pensive. In that moment, he might as well be a stranger.

Their eyes meet. Liyue Harbour looms behind Kaeya like a man-made mountain, a moving, milling thing. Diluc suddenly remembers that they, even more than Mondstadt, are now a nation without a god. There was not a sense of grief within the city, even though it has only been a few months since Rex Lapis’ passing. There was only life, vibrant and unfiltered and spilling out over the seams of the streets. There were stories, too, told in song and speech, although they carried a weight heavier and more ancient than those of Mondstadt. Liyue Harbour is, in a way, Rex Lapis’ legacy – and although Diluc had never cared much for the god nor known a lot about him, he feels as if it is his spirit, too.

An age of mankind, Venti called it once, eyes frightingly clear and old despite the drinks he’d had, late at night; an age of new skies.

They’re living in times of change, Diluc thinks to himself, while Liyue Harbour slowly shrinks into the light of dusk, and Kaeya becomes only a dot amongst many, and then a smudge, and then nothing at all as the ship cuts through the waves; they’re living in times of change, in an era where millennia old structures are taken apart and reorganised into something new, something frail, and yet, there is no sense of alarm or wrongness hanging over humanity’s heads. Life goes on. The daily routine remains the same. The world keeps moving.

If even the death of a god does not cause time to stand still, why should a father’s?

The wind blows steadily, pressing against the billowing sails. The waves are crowned with foam. When he looks past the railing, the water is rushing by at neck-breaking speed. He gets dizzy at the sight, and so he directs his gaze towards the open sea.

The sun has sunken below the horizon. The sky is a deep indigo, streaked with gold. The breeze is cool and wild. It whistles past his ears like laughter. It feels good after days on the dusty roads and later in a stifling city. It feels right. A few starts have already appeared, no longer obscured by the veil of light in the harbour. As far as he can see, there is nothing but water and sky. The line between them is merely an acrylic blur – as if there was no line at all, and they were sailing towards Celestia.

“Mesmerising, isn’t it?" someone asks to his right. Diluc turns his head to find a young man beside him, gaze glued to the horizon. The wind whips through his white shock of hair. His accent is faintly Inazuman, the Anemo Vision by his belt, too. It glows in the approaching dark. The sky glints in his eyes. “I often take a moment to simply watch the sea open up when we leave dock. It feels like leaving the old world behind and entering a new realm, where only this ship exists.” The man takes a deep breath. “After so long, I’ve started to regard the smell of salt as my home.”

When he feels Diluc’s stare, he turns with a chuckle and slightly bows his head. “Now, where are my manners? You must be the Mondstadtian Captain Beidou agreed to take along, yes? My name is Kaedehara Kazuha. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Diluc, perplexed at the formal greeting, nods. “Friedrich. And so it is mine.”

Kaedehara smiles. In that moment, the ship lurches. Diluc topples forward, gripping the railing with gritted teeth. When he rights himself again, straightening his collar, he is met with a soft chuckle.

“Not used to the water, I see,” Kaedehara says. His voice is akin to the breeze; melodic and comfortable to listen to. Despite the rushing of the waves, Diluc can hear him perfectly clear – as if his words were carried by the wind instead of pulled away by it. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll get some sea legs in no time, I’m sure. It only took me a few days when I first travelled with the Crux.”

“How long have you been here?" Diluc asks.

“A little less than a year,” Kaedahara says. “I wasn’t a permanent member in the beginning and planned to only cross the sea to Liyue like you, but the ship and the crew became dear to me. It’s home, now.”

A home on the moving wind and the restless sea. A home not made of bricks and walls, but of people.

Diluc ponders Kaedehara’s words. A year ago, the Vision Hunt Decree was still in full effect in Inazuma. His eyes involuntarily wander to the Anemo Vision. The pieces slot together.

When he looks back up, Kaedehara is merely watching him. Out of nowhere, Diluc feels strangely reminded to another gaze just as clear, just as knowing, glowing behind his counter. A slight chill creeps down his back. He swallows and opens his mouth to speak, when another voice rings out.

“I see you’ve already met our local poet!" Beidou says, hair blowing in the wind as she joins them by the railing. “He might be all flowery words and woes, but watch out for that blade of his. Not to underestimate.”

She reaches out to ruffle Kaedehara’s hair. He ducks out of the way, huffing. Beidou merely chuckles and turns towards Diluc.

“I’m sorry that I have to pull you away from our dear Kazuha,” she says, “but I wanted to show you around, explain everything about the work you’ll be doing, all that stuff. Sound good?”

Diluc nods in agreement and follows her. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees how Kaedehara turns back towards the sea, that has all but been swallowed by the night. Lanterns have been lit around the ship. The wooden deck is cast into a warm gold.

“Alright,” Beidou says as she walks over to the mast. “I’m sure you remember our terms – you're a guest here, and I’m very happy to have you, but here at sea, everybody has to help keep this girl running.” She pats the wood affectionally. “Any questions that have come up since this morning?”

Diluc thinks about it. He is grateful that when he showed up at the docks earlier, Beidou took him in despite such short notice. From the Mora he’d offered her, she’d only taken half – and the promise that he would help around the ship for the time he would be staying with them. At that point he would’ve readily rowed the thing himself if it meant he could get to Sumeru faster, so he agreed immediately. The next ship to Port Ormos would’ve left in two days – and by then, the vial would surely be all but lost.

In the worst case, it would in the hands of the Fatui. They’re not as present in Liyue as in Mondstadt, Diluc noticed, and so the vial had only passed through treasure hoarders and merchants so far – but with Sumeru being a much bigger nation, and its form of government changed only so recently, it is only safe to assume that the Fatui have their web all over its markets. It is only a matter of time until the vial catches their attention and they buy it before he can – as it sometimes goes when he is too slow. He cannot let that happen. He cannot let them have another one, especially if he’s going such lengths.

“Why are you leaving the harbour by night?" he eventually settles on. “Doesn’t it affect your sight?”

Beidou nods vaguely. The light throws shadows across her face. Her eyepatch appears much bigger. “That’s quite simple, actually. The crew knows the waters of Liyue from the back of their hands by now, so navigation is not an issue, especially on clear nights such as this one. In fact, that’s exactly the reason we usually set sail this late – like this, we can avoid other ships and the fishermen. It makes navigating our way much easier since we don’t have to look out for others.”

Beidou looks up to where high in the air, a crow’s nest is perched on the mast. At her beckoning, a man sticks his head out, waving to them. “Up there, that’s Xu Liushi. He’s responsible for keeping an eye on the sea, spotting potential storms, change in the water, all that stuff. Although usually, him and Kazuha trade shifts – the kid’s got crazy eyesight, and a real knack for how the wind blows. He can predict storms days away.” Beidou halts, glancing back at Diluc. “But I don’t think you’ll get to see him working his magic. There will be no storms, not with you on board.”

“What do you mean?”

“You Mondstadtians bring good luck at sea. You know how many sailors pray to your god for fair winds? Well, from my experience, whenever someone from Mondstadt joins us, the wind turns kind and somehow always blows in the same direction.” She points at the sails. “Usually, the journey to Port Ormos would take twelve days, not ten. But you’re probably givin’ us a headstart, son.”

Diluc blinks. Better winds-

Beidou laughs at his expression and winks. “Who knows? Maybe your god isn’t as absent as you think.”

Diluc’s tongue is heavy in his mouth. He looks up at the sails, at the wind rippling through the fabric, letting it grow and fall. It looks like breathing.

“Moving on,” Beidou announces and leads him further up the deck, “I don’t think it makes sense to linger on the sails. In case we need to change something about them, it’ll be a process too fast and complex for you to learn in a few days. Instead, I’d like you to help out around the deck where you see fit. The planks need to be scrubbed every once in a while, sometimes boxes need to be moved, some of the crew needs to polish up their combat skills...” Beidou looks him up and down. “You look like someone who knows his way around a weapon. Claymore, I assume?”

“You assume right.”

“Aye.” A grin spreads across her face. “Nice to find someone up my alley once in a while. The weight’s simply more comfortable.”

Diluc says nothing. There is no use in telling her the truth and souring the air: that before his father’s death, his weapon of choice was the sword, as it is for many knights. It only changed in Snezhnaya. The Fatui he chased were always nimble and quick, and so surprise attacks were his only opportunity at getting them. It was safer to have a heavy blade, hefty enough to slay them in one move rather than multiple, as the risk would run with a sword. And even if they didn’t die on impact, the blow would be too heavy for them to get back up immediately, giving Diluc the chance to-

There is blood on the snow. There is a weight in his hands.

He’s never quite shed it. Thinking of his claymore back in the winery, safely stashed away in his office, he shivers. It never disgusted him before, but now, worlds away, he suddenly feels as if it never was a part of him. Has he gotten so used to his past?

“That up there," Beidou continues, “is Sea Drake.” A man stands by the helm, steering the ship. He’s a silhouette against the night. "Our helmsman. You probably won’t see him anywhere else. He practically lives there. Says he likes the wind in his face.” Beidou smiles – softer, more private, as if she remembered something fond. “When you stand at the very end of the helm, it feels like there is no ship behind you and you are flying. It’s just the wind in your face, the sea and you.” She sighs. “I remember the first time I tried it. It was the moment I knew I could never leave again.”

“Don’t you have anywhere to return to?" Diluc asks, a little unsure on how to react to her nostalgia.

Beidou laughs. “Like I already said, I’m an orphan. Never had a harbour to return to, never had a scrap to eat. I built all this," she motions across the ship, “myself. Every last bit of wood carries the sweat and blood of my crew and me. They are what I return to, and I wouldn’t have it any different.”

He knows now where Kaedehara got his musings from.

At Diluc’s silence, she clears her throat. “Now, enough about me. I’ll show you around below deck – you'll see the kitchen a lot the next few days, I can tell you that – and afterwards, you’re pretty much free to do what you want for the rest of the evening. Everything’s settled for now, so there’s nothing that needs assistance.”

Unlike outside, the air below deck is stuffy and tight. Diluc suddenly misses the wind. As promised, Beidou walks him through some of the little chambers – the kitchen, the doctor’s office, the corner where he can find cleaning utensils – and shows him the door that leads to the bigger storage rooms where they leave the goods they’re shipping. She does not open it, and he does not ask. From what he heard in the harbour, the Crux is a respected crew – so there is no need for him to know what goes on behind closed doors.

It’s not like the Dawn Winery doesn’t have its secrets, either.

After introducing him to a few more crew members – all busy with their own duties, but still smiling broadly at their Captain – Beidou shows him the room he’ll stay in. It’s not big – barely wide enough for a small mattress and a table with a bowl on top to fit, and Beidou sheepishly laughs. “It’s not rare for people to come along with us,” she explains, “but all the other sailors sleep in bunks, and we don’t have the luxury for more.” After a short pause, she shrugs. “It’s not like you’ll get much sleep anyway. Trust me, the waves are very loud when you’re not used to them. Make sure you don’t get seasick, either.”

True to her word, a few hours later, Diluc is staring at the darkness of his ceiling. The floor is hard. The ship rocks. The waves toss themselves against the hull, lapsing and pulling back only to return with another crash. The air is stale.

Still – he can hear the wind. It whistles past the ship’s bow, whispering almost a human tongue. Diluc’s head is swirling. The dusk-bled city of Liyue waits behind his eyelids, and Kaeya forever standing by the shore. The lonely vineyards of his childhood, endless miles away. The line between the horizon and the sea, invisible; unreachable. Kaedehara’s wind-touched eyes, uncanny in their familiarity. The ocean – swirling, swirling, swirling, endless in its depths and lonely in its age. A nation without a god. A son without a father.

Laughing, in the wind outside. A hum, brushing the hull.

Somewhere between the sea and sleep, Diluc loses himself in it.

At fourteen, they are accepted into the Knights.

Varka, a good friend of Diluc’s father, takes them out to train personally. Spring lies in the air. A new life lies right beside it.

Jean, as always, stands steady as Varka hands her a wooden sword and a shield. Diluc envies her calm demeanour. A restlessness has settled in his limbs, making it difficult to remain in one spot. His hair tickles in his neck. Whenever he meets Kaeya’s gaze above the training grounds, he cannot help but grin, buzzing. Today marks his first step into his father’s shoes. Today marks his first step to glory.

They skip the armour-fitting for now, as the three of them are still expected to grow. Varka makes them loosely spar with each other to get used to the weight of the sword and shield. Diluc’s blade finds Kaeya like a long-practiced melody. It is only natural to them by now, a game played for years in rivers and fields, When Kaeya turns, Diluc follows. When Diluc steps back, Kaeya is right behind him.

“Well,” Varka laughs. “We’ll definitely put you two in a unit. What harmony!”

They share a glance. Kaeya’s eye is alight with quiet glee. Diluc’s blood is set ablaze with the fire of youth; sweltering in the coming summer, burnt out by winter. He does not know it, still – he does not know anything. He only knows the walls he swears to protect, the path he vows to follow, the things he promises to love and his two best friends, unarmoured, still growing, still dreaming, with nothing between them yet.

Before Diluc can blink, the first few days have passed.

As Beidou promised, the wind is swift and the skies are clear. The ship cuts through the sea effortlessly. Like Kaedehara predicted, he gets used to its movements by the third day, and is more than grateful that he is spared most seasickness. It only hits him whenever he’s inside for too long, head pounding from the stuffy air – but given that Beidou showers him with tasks, he spends most of his time on deck, where the cool breeze chases away all remnants of nausea.

He scrubs the planks. He helps with the food. He moves boxes from place to place. Mostly, he is asked to train some of the sailors. It is a strange feeling – he has not trained with others in years, even less worked out with a plan that is composed for all. He has to dive back into his years at the Knights – as much as it dreads him – to remember their routines and adjust them according to what the crew wants to focus on.

It’s less about strategy and order with them than it was with the Knights. They fight dirty without holding back, knives strapped to forearms and thighs and shoes. Still – despite their constant teasing of the sunburn blazing all over his face – they listen to him eagerly and do as they are told. At some point, Diluc spots Beidou watching from the helm as he shows a few crewmembers exercises good for core strength. She nods at him with approval.

Once, when dusk has settled in the sky and Diluc is ready to retreat to a quieter spot to watch the colours fade, he is instead pulled along towards the main deck. For some reason, everyone has gathered. They are nursing bottles, whooping in delight as Diluc shows up. The woman that introduced herself to him on the first day – Furong – is wearing a ridiculous paper crown so crooked, it almost falls off her head with every movement.

“It’s her birthday!" someone cries in delight, and Diluc is pulled down to take a seat. “Join us, Mondstadt!”

Only a few minutes in, Diluc has to fight the urge to wrinkle his nose. The beautiful evening is soiled by the crew’s noise as they sway, already tipsy despite the sun not even having set completely, and the smell of alcohol reminds him too easily of his shifts at the tavern. Drunkards, all of them. He’s already nursing a headache.

Still, he cannot quite bring himself to leave as the evening goes on. He spots Kaedehara on the other side of the gathering. He’s the only one who is also not drinking. At his gaze, the man next to Diluc – Xu Liushi, he remembers, the one in the crow’s nest – snickers.

“Kid can’t drink,” he says. “Is wasted after half a cup. Tolerance below zero, ‘s what I’m telling you.”

Diluc knows a lot of people like that. Unlike Kaedehara, though, they usually persist on bragging and drinking themselves to sleep. They always end up being carried home by some other patrons, and they never learn. Those are his least favourite types of customers.

One time, Venti drank a dozen of them under the table in a row. By the end of it, he was tipsy at best, and the others were wasted by the counter. If it had not been such a bother to get them out of his establishment, Diluc might’ve found it funny. It’s always good to teach grown men with such a pathetic tendency for alcoholism a lesson – especially when it comes from someone who they deem a frail teenage boy who has yet to hit his last growth spurt.

Huh – perhaps that’s one of the reasons Venti dons that form.

Diluc blinks. There is no reason for him to be thinking of Venti, or the tavern, or the racket of Mondstadt’s drunks when he has enough of that around him. Why would he- He’s not possibly homesick, is he?

Suddenly the nausea coming from the sea doesn’t seem that bad in comparison.

Someone shoves a bottle into his hands. Diluc looks up to find Suling towering above him, hands by his hips. “You’re a Mondstadter,” he says decidedly. “Aren’t you guys famous for your drinking?”

Diluc huffs. He’s maybe famous for his drinks, but certainly not his drinking.

“It’s Mondstadtian brewed, even,” Furong brags and lifts her own bottle towards him. “And it’s my birthday! A toast, please!”

Diluc sighs and takes a sniff of the bottle. It does not smell familiar at all. When he returns Furong’s toast and takes the smallest sip of the wine, he almost wants to recoil. The others watch him with expectant expressions.

“...This is not Mondstadtian,” Diluc forces out.

Suling frowns. “But we bought it off a Mondstadtian merchant.”

Diluc shakes his head. “You were scammed, then. This is Snezhnayan wine – but the harvest must’ve been bad. No wonder. Nothing of worth grows in that cold.”

Furong begins laughing and points at Suling mockingly. “Ha! I knew the guy was shady!”

Suling turns towards her. “No, you didn’t. You insisted on buying it.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“How come you know so much about wine?" Xu Liushi asks, eyes alight. “Even I don’t know the differences between tastes, and I drink a lot.”

“That’s probably the exact reason why you don’t know the differences...” Yinxing grumbles beside him.

“...I’m a bartender,” Diluc admits slowly, weighing his words. As much as he trusts the Crux to keep their mouths shut about him, he doesn’t want to risk any chances of the Fatui catching whiff of him going to Sumeru. “Amongst other things.”

Exclamations of awe ripple through the round. Suddenly he is presented with a dozen bottles.

“Can you mix us something?”

“What’s the best alcohol?”

“What’s the fastest alcohol?”

“That’s what I meant with best, idiot.”

In that moment, Beidou emerges from below deck. The crew cheers at the sight of her. Furong raises her bottle towards Diluc. “Captain!" she calls. “Can we keep him? He knows his way around a fight and a bar!”

Beidou only chuckles and sits down. A few hands grab a bottle for her, which she all gratefully accepts. Furong turns back around to Diluc.

“Do you arm-wrestle? I have vowed to only ever marry someone if they can beat me in an arm-wrestling match. Although so far, only the Captain has managed to do so...”

Someone slaps her on the arm. “You can’t just marry the first man who’s stronger than you.”

“Why not? It’s a rare quality, apparently, since all of you seem to be weaker than me.”

Beidou raises a silent eyebrow towards Diluc. She knows the truth about him – after all, Ragnvindr isn’t the most subtle of names – but she says nothing. Instead, she only stretches.

“How about we skip the step where he fights Furong?" she yawns, and all eyes are on her. “It’s been a while since I last had a nice spar. No offense to you, Kazuha,” she nods towards Kaedehara, who only smiles softly, “but it’s good to have a different opponent every once in a while. Lest these muscles get rusty.” She flexes her bicep. The crew descends into cheers and whistles.

Xi Liushi claps Diluc on the back. His voice is only one amongst many, chanting at the idea.

“A spar between the Mondstadtian and the Captain!”

“I’m betting. Someone get me my Mora, I’m betting.”

“What does the winner get?”

Suddenly feeling hot under all the attention, Diluc works his jaw. Beidou tilts her head expectantly. Unlike the others, her voice is calm and easy. “You don’t have to, of course. Just an offer, son.”

“Don’t chicken out now, Friedrich!”

“C’mon, don’t bore the Captain.”

“Consider it a birthday gift for Furong.”

Sighing, Diluc caves under the pressure and shrugs. “...If I must.”

While the crowd whoops, Beidou nods with satisfaction. “Xu Liushi,” she says, “get me my spare claymore, will you?”

The crew descends into laughter. “We all know no one can carry that besides you, Captain!" Huixing protests. “Don’t humiliate our poor crow!”

“Or he might fall from his nest tomorrow,” Furong adds, cackling.

Xu Liushi sticks his tongue out at both of them and vanishes below deck.

Beidou, amongst the cheers of her crew, takes a shot and grabs her claymore from where it’s leaned against the mast. Diluc gets to his feet. Xu Liushi reemerges, dragging a massive blade behind him, and hands it to him with some heaving and puffing.

The grip is surprisingly sturdy. The balance is different than with Diluc’s own weapon, which tells him that it must be Liyuen-made. The blade is thicker. He attempts to lift it with one arm as he usually would, but finds it too heavy.

Beidou watches him with a glint to her eye. Her own claymore rests in her grip, an extension of her – that's what swords are supposed to be for the Knights, Diluc remembers bitterly, but mostly, they are nothing but useless accessories to the Knights’ failure.

“Need some warmin’ up or you ready to go?” Beidou asks. The crew gathers their bottles and steps back, faces alight with thrill.

Diluc grits his teeth. “I’m ready.”

“Alright. Then I don’t want to make you wait.”

Before Diluc can reply, Beidou is already charging at him with the might of a bolt splitting the clouds. Her Vision crackles. Diluc barely raises his own claymore in time to deflect hers. The blow sends them apart again, and he grips the slipping blade tighter. He misses the curved hilt of his own.

He expects Beidou to use his moment of vulnerability to make a move, but she only grins at him, arching her eyebrows in mockery. A challenge, then – Diluc can give her that. He dashes towards her, but just as he is about to send a devastating blow, a shield of electro shoots up around her. The impact sends him staggering back once more, skin tingling.

The crew howls.

It goes around and around, then. Diluc takes the offensive, yet every hit is deflected by Beidou’s surprising speed. They dance around each other, much more akin to polearm users. Diluc eyes the wooden floors of the ship. His Vision burns, throbbing with power beneath his skin, but he does not allow it to overtake him. He has seen before what a mix of alcohol and wood can do. He prefers not to see it again, especially when out on open sea.

Despite her defensive manner, Beidou is a formidable opponent. Her style lacks the systematic technique most people have, and is instead reliant on cunning maneuverers and skill alone. It reminds him of Kaeya a little, the way she plays dirty, feigning an opening only to use it as a trap for him to step into. Whereas he sways on the rocking boat, she stands steady.

Diluc uses his momentum to twirl and hurl his claymore towards her. Some people shout as it shatters her shield with force, shoving her back. She, however, only grins, showing teeth. The same thrill that courses through Diluc’s face is ablaze on her face. He gets warm after a while, the cold night wind forgotten, and stops hearing the calls around them. The blade fits into his grip more smoothly. All across the deck they go, back and forth, back and forth. Sweat runs down his back. Beidou grunts when lifting her claymore. Diluc’s muscles are burning from a kind of strain he hasn’t felt in a few weeks now, and perhaps that is what distracts him long enough for her to send a blow directly at his head.

He sees it coming. He hears electricity part the air. His mind does not move, but his body does, and he raises his blade, Vision burning, in a sloppy, last-resort defensive arch.

Pyro meets electro. There is heat and there is a crash. Diluc blinks to find himself staring at the night sky, the folded sails and the mast being cast in flickering light from the torches. He feels as if he had stared into the sun for too long.

Beidou stands above him, grinning. “Knocked yourself out pretty bad, huh, son?”

He numbly takes the hand offered to him and slightly staggers as she pulls him to his feet. Both of their claymores lie tossed away somewhere on the deck. Beidou sighs. “My mistake, really. I should have done that last attack without any elemental energy – I forgot about Overload.”

Diluc shakes his head to get rid of the stars dancing behind his eyes. Defeat is not quite a thing of pride, he realises, as something leaden settles in his stomach, nor of disappointment. It is a dog baring its teeth, digging fangs of discomfort into his flesh. While the crew descends into chaos around them, Beidou watches him with a familiar glint in her eye.

“Say...” She leans closer. “You don’t fight like no normally trained Mondstadtian knight. The form’s there, sure, but you’ve got too many tricks up your sleeve. Who taught you?”

Hunger, Diluc wants to say, hunger in the snow-barren wastelands. First hunger for revenge; then hunger for life; then simply hunger itself, gnawing at his bones like vultures, as if death had already claimed him. “No one,” he says, then works his jaw. “The cold.”

Beidou smiles. It is not a kind thing. “Yeah,” she says, “it gets very cold out here at sea, too.”

Sunlight, Diluc has learned, tends to turn the dust of the chapel golden.

His knees ache from where they kiss the floor. His hands are clasped as if they were someone else’s, grasping for a lifeline. The silence is a hymn. He murmurs words long recited to him, phrases plucked from wine-stained pages, and faith hums back.

Kaeya waits like a shadow in the doorway. His feet do not cross the line that is the threshold. He has never prayed here.

Sunlight, Diluc has learned, tends to turn the dust of the chapel golden – but it does not make it holy.

Diluc finds Kaedehara up in the crow’s nest right as dawn shimmers in the distance.

He scrambles up beside the slight man, trying not to let it show how much he struggled with the climb. Kaedehara raises a brow at him. Diluc attempts to swallow his heavy breathing.

“You come here often?”

Kaedehara tilts his head. Despite his soft voice and the serene look on his face, his tone is amused. “This is my job.”

“Not much to see here, when it’s so dark.”

Kaedehara shrugs and returns to staring at the sea. In the twilight, Diluc can barely make out his face. His eyes are sunken shadows, and the wind ruffles through his hair. “Not with your eyes, no. But there is much more to find if you know where to look.”

“...And where do you look?”

“Where do you?”

Diluc follows Kaedehara’s gaze. So high up, the sea is completely calm. White crowns kiss the sides of the ship. The ocean wraps around the hull fully, embracing it, consuming it. All there is to see is water. All there is to see it a horizon without an end, a journey without a home to return to.

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “I’ve been looking all over the cities, but what I’m searching keeps evading me.”

Kaedehara hums. “Maybe you are just looking in the wrong spot.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s not evading you. Maybe it has never escaped you in the first place.”

Diluc huffs. “I wish.”

“What is it that you’re looking for, anyway?” Kaedehara glances back at him. “Must be quite the treasure if you’re travelling all the way to Sumeru for it.”

“It’s a vial of Barbatos’ breath.”

The silence persists. The breeze whistles in Diluc’s ears. He can hear the faint rushing of the sea, so distant, it might feel like a dream. By now he has learned to tune it out.

Kaedehara does not laugh. He only blinks, and says nothing.

Diluc sighs. “I know. It’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t think so. It’s just an unusual dream. But there are many unusual dreams, so yours might not even be that unusual.”

“You don’t need to lie. I know it sounds silly.”

“It really doesn’t.” Kaedehara turns to face him fully. “A purpose in life is what drives us – it's what gives us life in the first place. I am simply curious how someone can devote their life to a god like that.”

At Diluc’s silence, Kaedehara chuckles. “Apologies. I did not mean to be blasphemous.”

Diluc shakes his head. “No, it’s fine. I think you and Barbatos would be quite good friends, actually.”

“Oh?”

“But to correct you: I am not devoted in any way.”

“Why look for that vial then?” Kaedehara pauses. “Unless it’s not what you’re looking for at all.”

“What else would I be looking for?”

“Maybe something that you will only recognise by finding it.”

Diluc huffs. The sky is a deep indigo, slowly shifting to purple. “The Captain was right. You really are one for poetry.”

“It sounds much better in Inazuman, I can assure you that.”

“I know.” Diluc remembers hours spent hunched over books, ink stains on his fingers. “Common is an ugly language. Poetry is much truer in Mondstadtian, too.”

Kaedehara hums. “You do strike me as the poetic type, yes.”

“Not anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I... stopped.”

Diluc swallows past the lump in his throat and traces the callouses on his fingers. His hands are much too blood-stained to still have the right to hold a quill. Kaedehara follows his movements with quiet eyes and remains still for a while.

“I had a friend," he says eventually, voice so grave, the wind might pluck it from his throat and carry it away to the ears of no one, “who died by the hands of the Raiden Shogun.”

Diluc says nothing. He knows there is no word to lift a pain so deep; no comfort to bring to the inevitable.

“It was his purpose,” Kaedehara continues, “it was his dream. He died for it, and I had to keep living, and to this day, I do not know whether he regretted it.”

He takes a deep breath and pats the sword by his hip. “I killed many, on my way to escape Inazuma. More than I can count. There is an absolute guarantee that those soldiers that fell to my blade were someone’s father, or brother, or lover, or... friend. That is a debt I can never undo, one that is written in the sands of my home’s shore.”

Kaedehara turns his head West, where those shores must lie, white and rocky and oh so far away. “And still, I take the right for myself to remember him. I see him in the way the sun turns winter to spring. I see him in the sakura that blooms for merely a week, and the laughter of children that will grow old soon. I might not be worthy of such reminiscence, with all the things I have done, and I’m sure many would despise me for it. Yet I cannot help it. Art does not pay off debt; nor does debt erase art.”

When Kaedehara turns back around, his eyes are twin lakes in autumn, tranquil and undisturbed and yet swirling with unfathomable depths. “Art is human. It is not confined to good and bad. If gods can create just to destroy, why not us?”

Diluc stares at him for a long, long time.

His eyes wander to the anemo Vision strapped to Kaedehara’s belt. His gaze is unyielding. The wind sings around him. There is a strange air of wisdom around him, wistful and sad and breathing hope, much too old for someone so young. A sickening suspicion festers in Diluc’s stomach.

“...You don’t know a bard named Venti by any chance?” he asks.

Kaedehara blinks, clearly taken aback before a grin spreads over his face. “Any reason why you're asking?”

Diluc huffs. “Nevermind.”

“Is he from back home?”

“You could say that.”

Kaedehara’s eyes glisten, that same sense of amusement back. “You sound like you miss him. All of it, actually. You sound like you miss home.”

What exactly does Diluc miss? The endless hours in the tavern? The bleary headache following his every waking day? The sight of the winery, so beautiful at dusk, it almost feels like a mockery? The dull ache that never quite leaves him, always persistent, always nagging?

Or does he miss the summers spent in the fields? The late-night study sessions and trips to the lakes? A sky which colour he cannot recall anymore, back when he was still young and his eyes still viewed the world through the lenses of a dream?

“Yes,” he says quietly, “I suppose I do miss it.”

Kaedehara hums. “Me too. Me too.”

“But you’re here.” Diluc nods towards the deck below. “This ship can take you anywhere. Why don’t you go home?”

Kaedehara laughs. “Even if I did, the only thing waiting for me there would be my own shadow and the memory of a childhood long gone. I would find nothing but guilt and age in the place I once belonged to.” His eyes soften with the approaching dawn. The sun does not touch the sea yet, but the last remnants of the stars fade away. The stars are suns, too, with their very own places to burn away with.

“You know this, Ragnvindr,” Kaedehara says, the revelation that he knows the truth no surprise. “We can never go home.”

Yes. He knows.

“Yes,” he says. “I know.”

Summer drenches the air in the scent of elderflowers and linden trees. The pond is covered in petals from nearby trees, and as they jump in, it almost feels as if diving into a secret kingdom made of flowers and cool relief. The inky surface is the mirror of the sky. The depth below is the magic of it all.

It is the last summer they will spend as children, but none of them know it yet. Diluc can feel it, though, in the way that the vines of the winery feel the foreboding approach of winter and shed their leaves for protection against the cold. He is caught in the blinding sunlight of the moment, cheers already a thing of the past in his ears, and blinks into it. He misses a moment that is yet to pass. He misses a moment that is already gone.

When he wades back to the shore, the mud sticks to his feet. Water drips from his hair onto his paper. The pen smears, leaving barely legible scratching that his father would scold if he was here to see. He usually is not, nowadays.

Kaeya breaks through the petal-covered carpet of the pond’s surface and snorts. “Quit your musings and come back into the water, you hopeless poet.”

Diluc, knelt in the mud, paper crumbled in his hand, frowns. “I need to write this down.”

“Your writing won’t run away,” Kaeya says, and Jean emerges by his side to nod, “but this beautiful day might.”

“What is life if not to be written down?” Diluc asks, only half-joking. “What is life if not to be remembered?”

“What is life if not to be lived?” Jean argues and douses him and his poem with water like a priest would baptise a babe.

The days pass as swiftly as the breeze. Diluc has barely adjusted to the rhythm of the crew, the ship’s rocking and the salty air when Beidou beckons him away from his work to stand beside her by the railing.

Up there at the helm, where the sun hits his face and there is nothing between him and the racing sea, he takes a deep breath to steady himself. Beidou merely chuckles.

“Strange, eh? Don’t look down.”

Diluc looks down. Ancient blue water hits the helm, the ship brutally cutting through the waves. It swirls in deadly currents. Some of it sprays against his cheeks. It looks deep – endless, down, down, where if he were to fall, nothing would come for him except death.

Beidou laughs at his expression.

“Look,” she says and points towards the horizon to distract him. “See that?”

Diluc raises his head. There, right by the horizon’s edge, blurred in blue and blinding light, is the shadow of a shape. He squints. The afternoon sun burns in his eyes.

“That’s Sumeru,” Beidou proudly proclaims. “We should reach it in an hour or two.”

Diluc blinks. The shadow swims before his eyes, sometimes dipping beneath the skyline, sometimes reappearing faintly. Beidou settles against the railing herself. The wind rips through her salt-curled hair.

“What will you do," she asks, “once you’re in Sumeru?”

Diluc looks at her, but Beidou keeps her gaze trained on the sky. “Find a merchant,” he states plainly. “Figure out where the vial has landed. Take it from whatever Fatuus has it.”

“That’s very straight forward.”

“A job done straight forward is a job well done.”

“But you are aware that life gets in the way, yes?”

Beidou raises an eyebrow. “Sumeru is a gorgeous place. Very good food, lots of beautiful music and markets. The people are kind and the city is grand. You should look around a bit while you are there. I heard you like poetry?”

Diluc snorts. “I don’t like poetry.”

“Hm. I didn’t know Kazuha was a liar – nor did I know you were one, too.”

“You don’t really know anything about me.”

Diluc winces at his own words. Beidou takes no offense. She only chuckles and shrugs. “Enough to let you on my ship. And I might know more about you than you think.” She tilts her nose into the breeze. “I used to be a lot like you – so lost in my loneliness, so hungry for a purpose, I threw myself into my goals until I became blind to the people I’d left behind. Don't make the same mistakes as me. Don’t let that fire – revenge, passion, desperation, whatever you call it – burn you away.”

At Diluc’s glance, she waves a hand. “I’m not assuming anything about your life, of course. But you need to remember that you have a home to return to, even if it doesn’t feel like one. You have people waiting for you. What purpose is bigger than the purpose of love?”

Diluc stares at the sea. The shadow of Sumeru looms in the distance. With it, a new hunt approaches, wrapped in the flesh of his palm, torn away by fate. He feels jagged. He feels like a piece of metal protruding from a wound – wrong, ulcerating, pus leaking from each of his words. His heart is leaking a river. He does not know where it leads – only that he is parched, and the water beneath him is nothing but salt and blood. He cannot find his reflection in it.

He cannot find anything.

“I can see that Kaedehara is your crewmate,” Diluc dryly says. His throat is paper. He does not have the ink to write on it, not anymore.

Beidou laughs like she does everything – with her full body, eye gleaming, shoulders shaking. “Aye,” she says happily, “and I’m glad he is. He taught me that home can be people, and home is only ever temporary in the moment, but never in memory.”

Diluc does not have the heart to disagree. He does not have the heart for anything, really.

Slowly, somewhere in the silence between them and the rushing of the waves and the whistling of the wind and the shouting of the crew, Sumeru grows – and with it, so does the ache in Diluc’s gut fester.

Chapter Text

One night when they are both sixteen, Diluc returns to their shared living quarters late after training to find Kaeya passed out by the table.

The moon peeks through the curtains. A silver lining of light sits in Kaeya’s braid and reflects off the glass in his hand. It is still half filled. The wine sits akin to blood, dark and foreboding.

Diluc sighs and gently pries it away from a limp grip.

In that moment, Kaeya looks up. His gaze is dazed and drunken, feverish. The white of his eye gleams in the dark. The silence rings past his ragged breathing.

Still, his fingers dig thoroughly into Diluc’s arm. There is something foreboding about him. There is a truth and a lie. His breath reeks of wine and whiskey and warning bells deep in the depths of whatever past has crawled in behind his eye.

“Do not pray, Diluc,” Kaeya whispers with tongues unfurling, shadows churning. “God will betray you.”

The moon presses in through the window and turns the quiet into voiceless noise.

That night, Diluc tugs his unconscious brother to bed as their father used to do, watches the ceiling swirl by in the awareness of his shallow breathing and vows to never speak of it again.

The instance that Diluc sets a foot on land, he feels as if doused into a new world.

The dock is cracked and well-worn beneath his boots. The sun, burning and relentless at sea, draws patterns on his face from where it falls through a canopy of leaves. Where the rushing of the waves and the deep blue of the sky were his only accompaniment in the past days, he is now hit with an assembly of sensations that put the busiest night at Angel’s Share to shame.

The world is splattered with colours. The water by his feet glistens green. The stalls are draped in fabrics, hued and patterned. Flowers hang from the posts, rich velvet and bright crimson.

The dock is heavily crowded. People bump against his shoulder, carrying intricate carpets and boxes and vases. He is met with a woven net of languages; somewhere, a merchant calls out in Sumerian. A child cries in Snezhnayan. Inazuman mingles with Fontainian. Men laugh boisterously over their card game. Women pass by, chattering. Workers sing while loading up their ships. The voices circle and rise in a wild song of noise like a roof over his head.

The air is heavy with scents. There is the smell of fish; of nets drying in the sun; of the spices from food stalls, salty and foreign to his senses; sizzling meat and sweet honey. Diluc’s stomach turns both in hunger and shock. His legs tremble.

When they first unloaded, Beidou had warned him that the first impression could be a little much after days spent out at sea. Especially the food was worth to be cautious of, she’d said, given his Mondstadtian stomach - No spices at all, she’d complained, shaking her head like a disapproving parent, One could think y’all wanted to suck all the joy from your cuisine. - and the fact he’d eaten nothing but pickled vegetables and rice for the past week.

It is a sweet gesture, Diluc supposes. Bidding the crew farewell had not been as easily done as thought, although Beidou had assured him that it was very normal for them to get so emotional in times of parting, especially when it came to someone so knowledgeable about wine. Kaedehara with his too familiar, too knowing gaze had luckily been busy unloading boxes, but even he was amongst the crowd hastily sending Diluc off. Beidou had clapped him on the shoulder.

The Alcor will stay in Sumeru for a week and then move on. If he wanted to join them on the way back, he easily could by just finding them again in Port Ormos. Diluc did not have the heart to tell her that he would likely not reach his goal in the span of a week. Fatui are sneaky, and Sumeru seems to have many shadows to slink away in. Instead, he merely nodded, thanked her profusely and added the mental note to give the Alcor a proper discount on the next trade while walking away.

He’s never been one for Goodbyes.

Heeding Beidou’s warning, Diluc weaves his way through the crowd to find both an inn and a plan. It is strange, being back on land. Shoulders brush against his. There is no wind on his face. The pavement remains solid and unyielding beneath his feet. It takes him a while to remember how to breathe.

Crowds always used to unnerve him. A sudden memory flashes before his eyes, blinking and gone again in an instant, a fingerprint in the sand washed away by a wave. His father used to carry him on his shoulders when he was younger and they’d visit the city for Windblume. Trapped in his small body, not yet growing beyond his own self and the whole world that used to be his home, Diluc would rise above the crowds and grasp at the garlands hanging from the balconies. No one could touch him – merely the secure hands of his father by his knees, always secure, but far enough regardless for him to soar.

Recognising the name of an inn Beidou recommended to him, Diluc blinks the memory away and enters. Immediately, his eyes are soothed by the cooling darkness. The sunlight falls in through stained glass windows, drifting onto the wooden floorboards in swirls of green and gold. Dust filters through it like dancing lights. The air is thick with the scent of meat and spices.

Diluc walks up to the counter. Paying for one night and two meals in advance, he settles in a spot by the window. The light throws shades of emerald across his skin. He fiddles with his sleeves and reties his ponytail. His hair has gotten thicker overseas. The curls spill across his shoulders now in urgent need of a trim.

The inn is reasonably empty. It is quite early to be getting lunch, but Diluc’s stomach is tied in a knot of hunger. Letting his gaze roam across the room, he lets himself sink into the familiar sounds: the clinkering of dishes, the sizzling of fat, the gentle chatter of patrons. It is almost lulling. His heart aches a little with it, all too strangely, and yet he finds comfort in the way an inn is an inn all around Teyvat, no matter the language spoken and the food cooked. The warmth of it is universal. The warmth is home to someone.

Home to someone.

Diluc wonders how many people feel more at home in his own tavern than he does.

Diluc wonders how many don’t.

“Diluc?! Is that you?”

If there were words to explain the dread cursing through Diluc’s veins in that moment, he would use them all and then some. However, even Venti could not conjure up the linguistic level of disgust he tries to smoothen out behind a blank expression as he turns around to face Paimon.

She is, impressive considering the months of travel she must’ve endured, exactly as before. She flutters around the Traveller nervously. Her tiny hands wave back and forth, as if she had not already caught Diluc’s attention. Her voice is just as high-pitched and unnerving as he got to know it.

The Traveller beside her is just as unchanged. Their mouth is still set in that deep, serene kindness. Their stance is calm and resolved. Despite the dirt clinging to their clothes and a few strands of hair sticking out, they have barely changed, either. When Diluc meets their eyes – liquid gold, melted starlight, dripping onto a canvas of creation and planet-matter – he feels the old, familiar chill hush down his spine.

It is quite the feat, given the rumours spinning around the taverns about their deeds. If all the stories are true – fighting gods in Liyue and Inazuma, overthrowing the Akademiya, stopping Doomsday in Fontaine and ripping apart the sky in Natlan – they should not only be battered and bruised, but also a changed person. However, their pristine unchangedness does not surprise Diluc.

The Traveller has never been human. When they’d told him that they’re not underage all those months ago, there was no doubt that they were telling the truth. Still, Diluc entertained the motion of not serving them anyway. Some would call it foolish, or unwise, to tease a being possibly much older and more dangerous than the usual frequenters of his tavern, but Diluc is just as used to serving God and his companions water instead of wine on occasion, and he has yet to be smitten, so...

Not that Venti cares much. He usually turns the water into wine with a flick of his wrist. He does complain about the taste, though. It seems that even the divine cannot reach the level of the Dawn Winery’s mastery.

“Hello, Paimon,” Diluc says dryly, hoping his tone carries his enthusiasm. With a nod, he regards the Traveller. “Hello, Traveller.”

The Traveller smiles. Paimon invites herself to the table, scattering star-sand all over the surface. Her eyes are wide. “How come you are in Sumeru?”

Diluc blinks. “All this time, and no one has taught you better manners yet?”

Paimon huffs and crosses her arms. “Excuse you! Paimon’s manners are impeccable. You are the one who’s being rude, mister.”

The Traveller slots into the seat beside her. “It’s good to see you, Diluc,” they say, voice as soft and strangely accented as always. “How’s Mondstadt faring?”

Diluc tilts his head from one side to the other. “Not bad. All’s well and as peaceful as it gets.” He pauses. “I can’t say the same about you, though, can I?”

The Traveller chuckles, picking at their sleeves. Here in Sumeru, where the air is humid and warm, they wear more flowy and light clothes than back in Mondstadt where Diluc first met them. He briefly wonders whether that only has to do with the weather, or with the fact that all that travelling and fighting tore their old clothes. He knows how much they are attached to that cloak of theirs.

“No,” the Traveller says, “I suppose you can’t. We’ve been around.”

Paimon gasps. “Yes! Oh, let me tell the stories, please! There is so much to catch up on!”

Before Diluc can prevent a disaster of having to bear her voice for two hours nonstop, his food arrives. Breathing out a sigh, he generously splits his meal – butter chicken, smelling of spices he can’t quite place but that make his mouth water – and embraces the silence following Paimon’s excited squeal. He’d rather bear an empty stomach than her rambling. Judging by the Traveller’s grateful glance, they feel quite similar.

They eat in relative silence. Diluc is relieved to find the dish not spicy at all. He wouldn’t admit it, but he feared repeating the incident in Liyue, and thus ordered the dish that looked the least dangerous. When he thinks about it for too long, he can almost hear Kaeya cackle in his head – he'd always been more prone to spices.

The food tastes like a breath of fresh air to Diluc, especially since he spent the last two weeks on rice and canned meat and vegetables. The flavour melts in his mouth. It almost lets him forget Paimon right across from him.

“So,” she does eventually ask, voice muffled by a mouthful of food. “You never answered my question. What brings you to Sumeru?”

Diluc lets his gaze cling to his plate. “Work.”

Paimon croons. “Oh, like for the winery?”

“...Not quite.” Diluc pauses briefly. If he thinks about it, he doesn’t actually have anything to go off now that he is in Sumeru. He’ll lose precious time if he just goes around, asking random vendors. The Traveller, however, has contacts all across Teyvat...

“Actually,” he says and leans closer, “I’m looking for something. Maybe you could help me find it.”

Paimon huffs. “But we’re already overloaded with quests as is-”

The Traveller elbows her. “Of course,” they say. “We can help. What is it that you’re looking for?”

Diluc blinks, glances around the tavern – still relatively empty – and lowers his voice. “A vial of Barbatos’ breath.”

Paimon wrinkles her nose. “A vial of Venti’s breath? Wouldn’t that just reek of booze? And why would you travel all the way to Sumeru for it?”

The Traveller sighs. “I’m sure it’s just an allegory for something else, Paimon.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh! You mean like for example, Mora is considered to be the blood of Rex Lapis?”

The Traveller frowns. “But isn’t it actually-”

Diluc clears his throat. “Whether it’s an allegory or not doesn’t matter,” he says. “I traced its way from Mondstadt – where it was stolen – to Liyue and now to Sumeru, and I have reason to believe it’s in the hands of a merchant. I’d prefer to find it before it gets to another country.”

Paimon stares at him critically – which is quite rude, considering Diluc just shared half of his meal with her. “That’s such a long way. Did you travel all by yourself?”

“No,” Diluc says. “Kaeya came along at first, but for some reason he didn’t want to step foot into Sumeru.” He pauses. “Something about an old acquaintance he’d rather avoid.”

The Traveller hums in thought. “Yeah, Dainsleif does tend to hang out around here...”

“Dains who?”

Ignoring Diluc’s question, the Traveller smiles. “But concerning your search, there is a merchant who could help you.”

Paimon gasps. “That’s right! A little shady, a little greedy, dealing in secrets at the brink of legality, collecting weird antiques...” She pauses dramatically. “Dori!”

The Traveller nods approvingly.

“Alright,” Diluc says. “And where do I find this Dori?”

“You’re lucky,” Paimon whistles and puffs out her chest proudly. “She lives in a palace up North – on the other side of Sumeru, basically. It’d take you weeks to travel there!”

Diluc furrows his brow. “But I thought most merchants stay in Port Ormos?”

Paimon and the Traveller share a hesitant look. “They do,” Paimon says slowly, “but Dori is special.” She claps her hands. “Anyway! Like I said, you’re lucky that we’re here. We can just take you along per teleportation!”

The Traveller nods. “Our next commission is near the Lokapala Jungle anyway. It’s no problem.”

“I’m in your debt,” Diluc says, feeling a little faint from relief.

“Consider it a favour amongst friends,” the Traveller replies graciously. “It’s good to see a familiar face once in a while. They pause, a sudden glint to their eye. “If you do want to talk about debts, though... Does that mean free drinks?”

“No. You’ll only get apple juice.”

After agreeing to meet again in the morning – Diluc has already paid for a night, and the Traveller still has commissions to finish in Port Ormos – they part ways. While the Traveller returns to the bustle of the streets – without doubt they’ll run around all night, as they are known to do – Diluc makes his way to his room.

It’s small and sparse, and yet a luxury after the cramped cabin on the Alcor. Through the opened window, the scent of the sea and the swirl of voices drift in. The sun is already setting. The light envelopes the room in an orange hue.

Diluc spends the evening leafing through some of the books he finds in the shelves, both in Common and Vedanagari. Unlike in Mondstadt, where the only major difference is found in regional dialects, he knows that there are multiple languages spoken in Sumeru. He can read none of them, and yet he quietly lets his eyes touch the pages until night has fallen.

Even then, though, the air remains humid. The occasional breeze drifting in from the sea does little to stifle the heat clinging to his skin as he tosses and turns in his bed for hours on end. Despite the heavy exhaustion weighing down his limbs, there is a strange restlessness cursing through him.

Outside, the noise persists. There are people shouting and laughing, and music playing, and dogs barking. Diluc realises with dread that after spending time on the Alcor, where only the sea lulled him to sleep, he has become too used to the quiet.

He cannot say why exactly. Ever since his father’s death, he has despised silence. It followed him that terrible afternoon in the rain, when all was frozen and broken and still. It followed him through the frozen tundra of Snezhnaya, where the snow swallowed every sound. It followed him back to Mondstadt, where the tavern is hollow after everyone has left, and his ceiling leaves him spiralling.

He used to love it. He used to love spinning words into the empty air, listening to his own breath until it sang him to sleep. He used to lie in it and unravel.

He used to love a lot of things, as a boy. Nowadays, he might have unlearned love.

There is a man in the mud.

There is rain beating on Diluc’s back. There is blood on his hands, mixing with water in rivulets. There is a man in the mud, and the man is his father, and his father, alive and smiling just a moment ago, is pale and motionless with a hole through his stomach.

Someone is screaming for a doctor. Someone else is crying. The aftermath of an explosion rings in his ears, digging a grave into his skull. He can feel his own breath tremble in his lungs. Hands are on his shoulders and rain is on his back and water is a whip on his face, and yet he cannot hear a thing.

The world, simply and inevitably, is doused in silence. It seeps into the ground below. It seeps into the sky above. It seeps into his bones and settles, and it stays and twists and screams.

When the Traveller comes to pick up Diluc in the morning, he has barely slept at all. His night was rigged with dreams he can't quite recall anymore, smudged with memory and smoke stains. He swallows his breakfast without tasting much of it, blinking against the sun falling through the windows. The Traveller doesn’t comment on the sight of him – they only smile and nod through Paimon’s usual chatter, saving Diluc the responsibility of replying.

A trip to the local Adventure’s Guild’s post office later – at which the Traveller is overloaded with a dozen letters, which they promptly ignore – they finally settle for teleportation. The Traveller grabs Diluc’s arm, Paimon whoops, and for a moment, the world spins and twists, a sucking feeling down Diluc’s gut – and then they’re out again.

Diluc staggers upon arrival. He hasn’t had the pleasure of partaking in the Traveller’s tricks in a good while, and his stomach turns unpleasantly at the sudden change of scenery. While he tries to find his footing, swallowing down the rising nausea, the Traveller already surveys their surroundings with unbothered ease.

The first thing hitting Diluc’s senses is the noise. Whereas Port Ormos was bustling with people and their respective sounds, the forest is swallowed in bird song and the rustling of grass. High above his head, giant trees and mushrooms stretch towards the sky, marvellous and surreal. The sun isn’t as harsh here, kept at bay by the shadows of the mushroom’s crowns. It draws flickering patterns where it hits the forest ground, mossy and soft and covered in thick bushes.

Despite the relative coolness, though, the air is even more humid than at sea. Breathing almost feels like drowning. Diluc can already sense the sweat coating his forehead. His clothes – a light linen shirt and long trousers – feel damp.

The Traveller glances towards him with pity. “I’m sorry,” they say, “I should’ve warned you. You should’ve gotten better clothing suited for this weather.”

Diluc waves his hand and accidentally bats away a group of mosquitos. “It’s fine. Let’s just get on with it.”

As they walk, the Traveller leading them with unyielding certainty despite the paths being little more than traces in the grass, Diluc almost feels as if the forest swallowed him in its enormous presence. Wherever he looks, there are shadows flickering. The trees stretch so tall, he needs to crane his head to catch a glimpse of their branches. Everything is alive, rustling and moving and breathing.

At his reluctant wonder, the Traveller chuckles. “If you find this forest impressive, just wait until you see the Apam Woods.”

Paimon gasps. “That’s right! The trees there are so huge, even their roots are twice as big as you!”

Diluc involuntarily shudders at the thought.

It is not long until they break through the paths onto an actual road. When Diluc raises his head, he finds it leading up towards a giant palace, nestled in harmony between cliffs and woods. It is crowned in hanging flower beds, palm trees and weeping trees stretching across the walls. There are fountains and pavilions and sweeping curves of marble, arching serenely over stone. Its roof glitters in the morning sun.

The Traveller wastes no time and steers towards the bridge leading across a small canyon. The air is a little less stifling on the road. There are guards in front of the bridge, but they acknowledge the Traveller with a nod and let them pass without further ado.

Diluc, for once, feels completely out of his depth. In Mondstadt, he could be considered one of the richest men in the nation. The Dawn Winery with its generational wealth, proud mansion and vast stretches of wine hills is the pride of his family, and of Mondstadt’s business. But even he could not nearly keep such a palace in his lifetime, towering and mighty and breathing art in every curve. He sticks close to the Traveller as they make their way towards the sprawling gardens. He does not like the feeling of being outdone. He does not like it one bit.

“This is the Palace of Alcazarzaray,” the Traveller explains as they trudge past a rushing fountain and vibrant flowerbeds. The atmosphere is quiet, almost reverent. The only people Diluc sees are either guards, gardeners or what he assumes to be merchants, clad in fine robes and drinking from fine porcelain in the shade. Whenever they pass someone, Diluc can feel their gaze lingering on him – or rather, on the Traveller, who seems completely ignorant.

“Dori lives here,” Paimon takes over, proud to fall back into her role as a guide. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

They don’t even reach the main gate before a man approaches them. The Traveller asks for Dori, and without further ado, they are led to a table in a quieter corner of the gardens, where the rushing of the waterfall nearby mixes with the fountain’s song. They are served tea and sugared candy, the latter upon which Paimon descends with a squeal. Diluc leans back, the tea a flowery flavour in his mouth, and watches the sun glitter through the trees’ crowns. The Traveller sighs, clearly growing more restless within the minute. The birds sing in high above them.

Expecting to wait for quite a while, Diluc is positively surprised when after only half an hour, a tiny woman practically skips down the path. The Traveller straightens as she approaches. She meets them with a wide grin.

“The Traveller!” she croons and plops down by the table. “What a delight to have you visit!” Her twinkling gaze slides towards Diluc. She giggles. “And I see you’ve brought a customer! What a lovely gift indeed.”

The Traveller clears their throat. Before they can speak up, however, Paimon raises her voice. “Dori! This is Diluc from Mondstadt. He’s looking for something.”

Diluc almost wants to groan. So much for keeping a low profile.

Dori’s brows shoot up. “Diluc from Mondstadt? Why, that is a name if I’ve ever heard one. Don’t tell me I’m talking to the prestigious heir of the Dawn Winery?”

Diluc glances over to the Traveller, who only shrugs. He gives in with a sigh. “Indeed. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“As it is mine.” Dori pops a piece of candy into her mouth. “Now, tell me, what is it that I can help such a fine gentleman find today?”

“A vial,” Paimon says once more before Diluc has the chance to intervene. “He’s looking for a vial containing Barbatos’ breath.”

Dori croons. “Oh, a vial containing a god’s breath? That is quite the piece, I must say.”

“Yes,” Diluc agrees, “and it was stolen. I’m travelling to get it back to Mondstadt.”

“What a noble deed. But how do you know that the one you’re going after isn’t simply a fake?”

“I don’t,” he admits. “But I will once I see it. That’s why I need to be quick before it’s sold off indefinitely. Do you happen to know anything?”

Dori huffs and hums. She pours herself some tea and takes another piece of candy, twisting it between her fingers. Sugar drifts onto the table and her gold-rimmed sleeves. With the singing of the birds in the background and the paradise dreaming around them, her obvious stalling almost feels like a cynical part of a play.

“Perhaps I do,” she says eventually and sighs. “But you know, I receive an unbearable load of information every day. Something like a simple vial can easily slip my mind.” She leans back, humming dreamily. “Maybe I need something to jog my memory... Is it not a saying in Mondstadt that the truth lies in wine?”

While Paimon gawks cluelessly, Diluc suppresses a groan. He remembers what Luo Feng had told him two weeks ago on the Pearl Galley – that in Sumeru, many things can be bought with Mora. It is the language Diluc prefers to speak over the one of secrets, and yet it is rare that he enjoys bargaining with merchants – especially with ones as smug as this one. It is obvious she knows something, and yet he must entertain her.

“How about three bottles of the Dawn Winery’s vintage collection?” he begins. Judging from the fine silk Dori is wearing, the golden clasps in her hair and glittering bracelets on her wrists, and the pompous swirls of her gardens and palace, she enjoys wealth. She enjoys status. She enjoys originality, in which case he has to make an offer that she finds even more attractive than the vial.

Dori scoffs. “Oh, please. How would I throw a party with that? How about something more long-term? Like a share of the Dawn Winery’s profit.”

Diluc blinks. “We don’t offer shares. How about a barrel, then?”

“Couldn’t you make an exception for me? After all,” she grins towards the Traveller, “a friend of a friend is a friend, no?”

“Three barrels.”

“Ten.”

“Five.”

“Seven.”

“Six.”

Dori shakes her head. “Mister Ragnvindr, you could almost think that vial is just a cheap souvenir you chase after for fun. Six barrels is barely enough to last me a year.”

Diluc bites down his frustration. “Fine, then. I wouldn’t want you to go thirsty. Six barrels now, as well as a lifelong supply of one barrel a year.”

Something in Dori’s eyes shifts. “Lifelong, you say?”

“Lifelong.”

“Did anyone else ever get a lifelong supply from the Dawn Winery?”

Diluc briefly thinks back to Venti and the ever-growing tab he could probably not pay back during Diluc’s lifetime. “No.”

Dori’s face lights up. “Then that’s a first! I love to be the first one to get something.” She stretches out a hand. Diluc takes it, feeling like his soul is sucked away from him at the prospect of having to sacrifice a vintage barrel every year. Dori smirks at his expression. “Pleasure doing business with you!”

Paimon looks back and forth between them. “I don’t get it,” she loudly proclaims. “Usually you ask us for Mora, Dori, not for wine.”

The Traveller chuckles. “That’s because we don’t have ancient wine barrels like Diluc, Paimon. We’re not loaded.”

“Ah!” Paimon pauses in her hovering. “But wait, those wine barrels probably cost something. Dori’s prices are always insanely high.” She spins towards Diluc. “How much Mora are we talking right now exactly?!”

Diluc does not know what it is she sees on his face – but it must be dreadful enough for her to shut her mouth and sink back to the Traveller’s side with a gasp.

“Anyway!” Dori claps. “Now that that’s settled, my memory is suddenly resurfacing. A pity for you, really, it’s not good news.” She clears her throat. “From what my trusty informants have heard, such a vial did make its way into Sumeru a few days ago, so that’s something!”

Diluc leans forward. “But where is it now?”

Dori shrugs. “Possibly somewhere in the sand. It was sold to another merchant, you see – one much to lowly to carry such an artifact, in my opinion, I don’t even recall his name – which means by now, it’s probably on its way to the desert in an Eremite wagon.”

Paimon frowns. “But what would Eremites want with a vial? And why would they go to the desert with it?”

“Not the Eremites themselves, silly. The merchant who hired them. And the desert is a much cheaper, but also much more dangerous way to get to Fontaine.”

Diluc’s blood runs cold. Fontaine is even further away. Still, he clings onto hope. “Crossing the desert would take ridiculously long,” he says. “A month or two. Why would any merchant risk that?”

“Mora.” Dori giggles. “The true lingua franca of Teyvat.”

“But what if the Eremites lose it?”

“They won’t. It’s not only the merchant’s income that’s at play.” Dori drums her fingers against the table. “Unless, of course, someone intervened.”

Something grim must’ve settled on Diluc’s expression, because Paimon shrieks. “You can’t seriously think about going to the desert on your own, Diluc!”

“He doesn’t have to,” Dori offers smoothly. “I could write to some of my contacts, arrange boats and horses... The merchant who bought it can’t be far yet – only two days ahead of you. If you hurry, you could still catch up. I can help you track the precise location.” She pauses. “Only, of course, if you were ready to reconsider those shares.”

Diluc is already on his feet. His head is swirling. The offer sounds almost too sweet, too easy – but even in his frenzy, skull pounding, there is an even stronger resolution in the back of his mind. He cannot betray his legacy. He cannot betray tradition.

“The Dawn Winery doesn’t offer shares,” he says, clipped.

Dori sighs in disappointment. The Traveller moves to get up as well. “Wait, Diluc,” they say. “I can teleport you-”

“Nothing of that,” Dori says suddenly, cocking her head. “If I remember correctly, you still have a commission to finish for me.”

“We don’t!” Paimon stomps her feet in the air. “You just made that up! Our commission is in the Lolapala Jungle, not for you!”

“Many parts of the Lolapala Jungle are mine, though,” Dori argues sweetly. “And also, you still do owe me for that expensive vase you smashed the last time you visited, don’t you?” She shakes her head with a click of her tongue. “Plunging out of the air like that, so careless. No regard for other people’s possessions whatsoever! The least you can do is stay the day to help around the palace – keep me company for a bit, even.”

Paimon shudders. The Traveller glances sheepishly up at Diluc. “It’s true,” they mumble, “I did smash a vase the last time... I’m sorry. Usually, I would just offer for you to wait, but we’re already behind on schedule with the commissions, and if we’re held up here for today, then...”

Diluc waves his hand. “It’s fine,” he sighs, a headache steadily growing. “I’ll find a way.”

“You are seriously going into the desert on your own?!” Paimon shrieks, eyes blown wide. “You’ll get yourself killed! You-”

Diluc, promptly deciding to ignore her protest, nods towards Dori, thanking her for having him, and stalks down back towards the main pathway of the gardens. His ears are ringing. The beauty of the scenery around him feels like mockery. A cloud of worry and frustration has settled in his chest, burning coals on his gut.

On its way to Fontaine. What a joke.

So far, some god must have liked him, as lucky as he has been so far on his chase – but another one must hate him twice as much.

Chapter Text

The blood is still fresh on his hands when he is approached.

Kaeya looms above him like a shadow. Diluc, kneeling in the mud, grabs his hand, but it is cold to the touch. The sky is an open war above them, rain hammering canons on the earth. When Kaeya opens his mouth, it is not to speak words of comfort, or of grief, but of betrayal.

He has been a spy, he says.

He has been sent to bring Mondstadt’s ruin one day, he says.

He has been lying, he says, all these years, as if the house and the home given to him meant nothing.

Diluc looks at him, and sees the son his father has always loved more, and the brother he has always given everything to, and the empty gaze of a man who he has never resented more.

Diluc’s blade finds Kaeya like a long-practiced melody. It is only natural to them by now, a game played for years in rivers and fields, When Kaeya turns, Diluc follows. When Diluc steps back, Kaeya is right behind him.

The rain beats down on them. The wrath of the gods may be upon them, or their blind eye. It does not matter either way. Kaeya is fast. Kaeya is slippery. Kaeya is a shadow moving amongst shadows, but even he cannot escape the blazing light escaping Diluc’s blade. Just as they used to play in that river, a childhood ago, they weave through the mud, but this time, it is Kaeya who yields.

Diluc’s blood is burning. A festering heat has settled in his ribcage. The storm drowns out any pleads sent his way. What he sees is a legacy dripping with sin; a lifeless body, twisted in the dirt; a traitor, disappearing in the storm the same way as he appeared ten years ago.

He remains alone, then. The remains of cryo drift through the air, shining ice on the ground. There is the scent of burnt flesh, somewhere. He heaves and heaves and cannot breathe. He feels his shoulders rising in effort, and yet there is no air to gasp for. The silence is a mockery of his newly found adulthood, and his life running thin in the mud’s rivulets.

The summer is hot. The rain is cold. Monsters and princes and vineyards and swords are things of reality, now.

Two weeks pass in the blink of an eye, and yet as excruciatingly slow as possible. Diluc spends as little time in inns as possible, opting to sleep in the rattling wagons of merchants and travellers who are willing to take him along instead. He washes his hair in rivers on the way and stitches the holes in his worn out shirts crudely by himself. There is a stubble on his chin that he would not be seen with in Mondstadt, but cannot afford to care for now. Every time he arrives at a settlement and picks out another donkey to rent or a travelling group to join, he asks around for the merchant’s name Dori gave him – ever with the same result. Only a few days ahead at most.

The days blur. Diluc almost gets reminded of his time in Snezhnaya, when his only companion was the steady beat of his own heart, and the solitude turned into excruciating silence that could twist a man mad.

In Sumeru, though, there is at least no biting winter to freeze his fingers and gnaw at the world with bitter darkness. Summer comes in hotter and heavier than he has ever experienced before. The rainforests – lush and brilliant and towering god-like over his head – are bristling with life. From his spots on wagons or donkeys, he spots flowers hued in colours he has never even fathom could exist. The sun barely ever touches the fern-covered grounds. The sounds of birds are deafening during the day and haunting at night. Once, he spots tigers in the far distance, lingering on branches high above. Another time they pass a river where wild sumpter beasts drink their fill.

Even after the sun sets, there is barely any relief to be found. Diluc keeps his hair tied up at all times, and still, it sticks to his forehead. Breathing feels like drowning. During his restless sleeps, jostled by the uneven streets, he finds himself in hazy dreams in which he stands on top of the hill overlooking the winery, a cool breeze to his face. He yearns for the sky.

Therefore, he is met with relief when he realises that the closer they get to the desert, the more open the terrain gets. When the group he travels with during the last few miles – a few artists heading for Caravan Ribat – finally leaves the last stretch of forest, he takes a deep breath at the sight of pure, unfiltered blue above him. One of the artists reaches over across the gap between their donkeys and claps him on the shoulder.

“A big relief for our Mondstadter, eh?” he jokes. “To finally see the open again.”

The other men laugh. Diluc remains silent. He is too engrossed in the view.

In the far distance, a giant wall towers high above them. For a whole day, the group struggles with forcing their donkeys up the uneven hills and narrow paths. The sun beats down on them mercilessly. Without the wind granted by the sea as it was on the Alcor, there is no way to cool down. Ironically, Diluc quickly finds himself missing the shade of the forest, as well as the softer ground.

The closer they get to the wall, the more jarring it appears. It covers half the sky with its harsh edges. That evening, when the sun is low in the sky and Diluc begins shivering in his sweat-soaked shirt, and the group has gathered around a sparse fire to tune their instruments, one of the artists nods towards the towering giant.

“The Wall of Samiel,” she explains. “It keeps the forests safe from sandstorms.”

“And from desert folk,” her coworker adds with a sarcastic edge to his tone. “Wouldn’t want the Akademiya to soil their hands with their suffering.”

Diluc has little interest in the cultural and political landscape of Sumeru. He only heard a few bits and pieces from the Traveller and Kaeya. As long as his business with Sumerian merchants isn’t affected, it does not matter to him either way.

Diluc almost hears Kaeya’s voice in his head at that. So cold-hearted, and yet hot-blooded.

The first artist leans closer to him and points at the furthest tips of the wall. The flames throw shadows across her face. Beyond the wall, the first stars appear. The night makes the wall appear like a looming giant, waiting in patience, but never quite resting.

“See those bits?” she says. “They say that the wall is made of the base of giant trees – large as there are none in this era, large as they only were in the times of the Three God Kings. The desert wind eroded them as it would eventually erode the entire forest, and so Lesser Lord Kusanali sacrificed them to build a barrier.”

While the others murmur something that sounds like a prayer to Sumeru’s goddess, Diluc cranes his neck. The tips of the wall look indeed like splintered wood, softened by time and age. He tries to imagine the sheer size of those ancient trees, and even further, the power needed by storms to erode them, and comes up empty. How can wind be that mighty when all it ever does is blow?

Oh, but even the mightiest of rocks is weathered down by the sea over centuries, Venti would say now, with that horrid, all-swallowing wink of his. That is all the wind requires and all it has: Time and patience.

Against his will, Diluc shivers.

They make it to Caravan Ribat the next evening. Diluc parts from the artists and their donkeys, as they have no plan of venturing into the desert. He is glad about it. As the sun hangs low once more, his gut is churning. He wants no group to interfere with his mission – somehow, he senses it will become bloody.

Despite exhaustion tugging at his limbs, he makes his way through the bustling crowd with perseverance. Sumeru is a nation much larger than Mondstadt, he has realised, which also means it houses a bigger population. The people around him look different than most of the ones he encountered in the forest. There are a lot more Eremites and merchants. The languages he catches must still belong to Sumeru, for he would recognise tongues like Fontainian or Liyuen, but they do not sound like the ones he heard in the harbour. Sumeru, he knows now, is home to a multitude of cultures, woven into a carpet of history.

Diluc approaches a merchant selling food conserved for travelling. Although he wants to grimace at the unsightly price he is presented with, he pays up with a sigh for a few packs of dried meat and fruits. The merchant eyes him with an amused glint.

“Did you not just arrive here, Mondstadter?” he says. “And already planning to leave back to the forest again?”

Diluc shakes his head. “Not the forest. I’m heading for the desert.”

The merchant laughs so loud, a few heads turn in their direction. Only after a few seconds does he realise that Diluc is serious. He furrows his brow.

“With all due respect, young man,” he says, a sudden urgency to his voice, “but you cannot mean that. Do you really want to go into the desert alone?”

Diluc blinks. “Yes. Is that a problem?”

The merchant snorts. “Not for me, no. But for you! The desert is dangerous. Only people born and raised there dare to venture into it on their own.” He squints and pauses. “Well, a Mondstadter like you will not be eaten by the sandstorms, at least, but there are other dangers! Scorpions, ruins, people who mean harm. Spirits.”

“Wait.” Diluc leans closer. “What do you mean by a Mondstadter will not be eaten by sandstorms?”

The merchant waves his hand. “I meant what I meant. Your god is the god of wind, no? And what are storms if not wind?”

“Perhaps, but Sumeru is far from the Lord’s domain.”

“Eh.” The merchant smiles, wrinkles all over his face. “The wind is everywhere, young man. It always listens. I’d believe someone like you ought to know that?”

Ignoring the chill clutching Diluc’s spine, he decides to ignore the comment and slides the food into his backpack. When he looks back up, the merchant hands him a scarf made from thin fabric.

“To cover your nose and mouth with,” he explains. “You might be a dead man walking, wanting to go into the desert alone, but at least when you die, this will spare you from swallowing sand just by breathing.”

Diluc is frozen for a moment before taking it. When he glances around, he realises that many people have half of their faces covered. He returns the merchant’s smile. “Thanks.”

Feeling several gazes on his back, Diluc makes his way through the village further towards where the Wall of Samiel slowly bleeds into the desert. He checks several times whether his water skins are full – enough to last him for several days, if he drinks sparingly – and ties the scarf around his face. Then, he passes the last guards, both eyeing him in surprise at the notion of walking into the desert alone, and begins walking.

The silence is perhaps the biggest change. Whereas in the past weeks, his surroundings where always filled with noise – voices and animals and rustling and water rushing – now it almost seems eerie to trudge down narrow paths, holding onto smaller parts of the wall for support when it gets too steep. There is barely any sound to be heard in the canyon of the wall. The sand swallows every echo until even thinking sounds deafened.

It does not take long for Diluc to make it past the wall obscuring his sight. When he finally reaches the top of a hill, legs burning from the exhaustion, he pauses to take in the view.

Below him, the desert stretches far and wide. The sunset paints it orange and red; as if it bled out over the sand, encouraging the foreboding sense of doom in his stomach; as if the sky and its vast depth knew the many fates forgotten in the sands. Old structures, tall and empowering and ancient from up close, are small in the distance, shadowed by the approaching night. The stars are a silvery web on not-yet darkened hues. They are merely dots on the gilded sky, barely shimmering in existence. On top of a pyramid, there is swirling storm, twisting higher and higher in blazing colours. It dares to touch the heaven’s hilt.

It must be a god’s work, Diluc realises. It must be one of the ruins of Deshret that he heard about on his travels, older than any of Sumeru’s structures, and yet still not conquered by any soul. The storms must be deafening in person; howling and screaming and all-encompassing. They must be strong enough to tear someone apart. The building must be tall enough to cover the entire sky, if stood beneath it.

But here, it is small.

Here, where Diluc stands, breath taken, heart beating, only a mere shadow outlined by dusk, small and smaller in the face of an endless horizon and ancient sands and a barren land whispering of buried legacies, it is small and soundless.

He knows that the desert’s people were mighty, once. He knows that there are millions of lives never known, and yet fully lived somewhere, somewhen in history, quivering in the land below. He knows that the silence is one that comes when the air once held sound; when it has grieved. He knows that that silence lives in graveyards.

Diluc tilts his face into the wind. Stories, murmuring in the wind; stories, as many as the grains of sand beneath his feet; and his, only one of them.

Patience, Venti would say. Time and patience.

There is nothing in Snezhnaya.

Only the barren, snow-covered tundra awaits Diluc. Past the hill he has climbed, the sky is grey and voiceless. It is so bright, he has to squint to not get blinded. The cold is a treacherous thing. Even the wind does not sing. It bites his face and freezes his fingertips. It bears him no comfort – nor does he seek it.

There might have been summer, beneath all that snow, once. There might have been warmth and there might have been virtue. They are gone, those summers with their winding rivers and betraying brothers and all the sweet fruits they promise upon trees that have long since rotten in the winter.

It is better this way.

It makes what he is about to do much easier.

There is something pleading in the way the wind beats against his face – as if it wanted him to turn around, to steer clear of the path he has set himself. It is a wailing noise. It sounds like crying.

Diluc pulls his scarf deeper into his face and moves along.

After two days of freezing nights and restless days spent waiting for the sun to leave its peak, Diluc finally, finally catches up to the Eremites.

He can barely believe his eyes when he spots them beneath a cliff, searching refuge from the scorching heat of the afternoon. For a moment, he is frozen, breath caught in his throat. He blinks, wondering whether he is dehydrated enough for hallucinations to show, but when the dull voices rising to meet him don’t disappear, he quickly gathers his footing again and presses himself flat against the rocks.

It is not a big group by far. He counts six Eremites and two merchants in total, along with a few sumpterbeasts and camels – just as the people he gathered information from along the way told him. They have assembled tents by the cliffside. He spots the remnants of a fireplace, probably from last night – they must’ve been here for a while, then. Unlike him, they are in no hurry to reach their goal.

The two Eremites closest to him are chattering in tones much too low for him to pick up. Thankful for the shadows of the cliff hiding his hair, Diluc scans the camp for any sign of precious goods but comes up empty. They must've hidden the vial in the tents, then, along with whatever other stolen artifacts the merchants plan to sell in Fontaine.

Working his jaw, Diluc turns his attention towards them. They sit apart from the Eremites, dressed in simple but expensive-looking travelling garments. Their laughter drifts over on the breeze – they are playing a game of Genius Invocation TCG. Diluc almost wants to huff at the absurdity of the situation. Two men, seeking to sell goods ripped from their homeland, waiting with the patience of complete confidence for the sun to sink lower so they can continue their travels.

Diluc looks up at the sky. Well, they have every right to be confident, he supposes with dread. It is true – barely anyone would dare to venture out into the desert on their own, let alone try to steal something. There are six Eremites hired for their protection – each of them with lean, muscular bodies and sharp blades on their hip. Trying to outpay their salary would be foolish. Trying to steal from them would be impossible. Trying to fight them would be akin to a death wish.

There have been times when Diluc wished for death.

There have been times when he defied it.

Before Diluc can bring his spinning head under control and settle his thoughts, though, one of the Eremites closest to him suddenly raises her voice. “Hey! You lurking there!”

Before he can even take the chance to get his legs beneath himself on the uneven rocks, the two have come up to him and grabbed his arms. He does not resist as they pull him towards the camp. All conversation has died – as they push him onto his knees forcefully, he senses eight pairs of vigilant eyes on him.

“A thief!” one of the Eremites calls in Common.

“Or a spy!” another joins in.

The woman who spotted Diluc scoffs. “What would a spy be doing out here?”

“Well, he’s certainly not from the desert,” her partner comments, raising an eyebrow at Diluc. “Much too pale. No Sumerian man would be caught dead with a sunburn like that.”

“Fatui, then?”

Before Diluc has the time to be offended, one of the merchants steps forward and eyes him with suspicion. When he speaks, his Common is tinted with a slight Fontainian accent. “What are you doing here, stranger?”

Diluc clears his throat and slowly rises to his feet, shaking off the Eremites’ grips. “I mean no harm,” he says. “I’m merely looking for an object.”

“If you mean no harm, why were you lurking around our camp like a snake?” the Eremite interjects, but the merchant raises his hand to silence her.

“What object?” he asks.

Diluc sighs to himself. Bargaining it is, then. “A vial.”

For a moment, the group is silent. Then, a slow wheeze escapes one of the Eremites, followed by full-blown laughter that echoes strangely against the cliffside. Diluc lifts his chin as even the merchant grins with amusement, sweeping his arm around. “A vial, you say? Like in a chemist’s lab? We don’t have that here, sir.”

“Yes, you do,” Diluc argues. “I have traced that vial’s path ever since it disappeared from Mondstadt, from where it was stolen. I asked several reliable sources. I know that you have it.”

The merchant’s laughter dies as he narrows his eyes. “Did you really travel all the way out here for a vial, young man?”

One of the Eremites giggles. “The sun must’ve scorched away his brain!”

“It’s not just any vial,” Diluc says, “but I’m sure you know that. It’s said to contain Barbatos’ breath.”

There is a flicker to the merchant’s expression before he schools it back into indifference. Diluc almost wants to smirk. He can spot a glint in the merchant’s eyes, then, like an angler sensing his line being pulled taunt.

“Alright,” the merchant says slowly, “let’s say I have a vial like that. What would make you think that I would give it to you, out here, in the middle of the desert as you appear like some spirit from the rocks? It is a very precious vial, you see, containing a god’s breath – I have many distinguished buyers lining up in Fontaine.”

“I can pay you more than them,” Diluc says.

The merchant scoffs. His gaze travels down and up again, taking in Diluc’s worn clothes and sun-burned skin. “I doubt that.”

“I wouldn’t, if I were you.” Diluc tries to keep his voice at a levelled tone.

“Who are you, then?"

Diluc takes a deep breath. “I am Diluc Ragnvindr, owner of Mondstadt’s Dawn Winery. Believe me when I say I can pay – in more than just Mora.”

For a moment, it is so silent that the wind whistling through the sand is the only sound to be heard. The merchant blinks, taken aback, before he laughs again.

“As if I’d trust any guy who coincidentally has red hair and a Mondstadtian accent. Who do you take me for, a fool? What in the Hydro Archon’s name would the owner of the Dawn Winery be chasing a vial for, not to mention in the depths of the desert?”

Diluc pauses at that. He despises the way his throat tightens at the question – because it is true. What is he doing, chasing a vial that is probably just another fraud anyway all across Teyvat for months? His excuse to Kaeya – that he is doing it for Mondstadt, for the culture he has felt so distant from for years – tastes like a lie to his own tongue. He’s left his home and his business and his friends behind without a second thought only to be cornered by a merchant who won’t sell.

He’s never thought about what he will do once he gets the vial back. Return to Mondstadt as if nothing ever happened, find out that it’s fake and let it gather dust until a new hint appears on the horizon? Talk to Kaeya again? Spend his days behind desks and bar counters, his father’s face haunting every shadowy corner he catches a glimpse of?

He can almost hear Kaeya’s voice then, taunting in the back of his mind. Was it ever about the vial at all?

Diluc is violently pulled out of his mind when one of the Eremites pushes his shoulder. “A thief and a liar,” the man says. “I’d call that bad news.”

The merchant clicks his tongue. “Eh. Scam artist or lunatic, I don’t care. Let’s leave him be. He can’t be much of a threat on his own.” He raises a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “The heat’s getting more bearable. How about we pack our things and move along?”

Diluc stares at him in disbelief. He searches his memory for anything he could show that would prove his identity – an insignia, a document, something to show that he is his father’s son – but he knows deep down that it is fruitless. His backpack is that of a simple traveller’s – dried fruits, water, bandages, a spare set of clothes.

How ironic – so many times, he’s tried to hide the fact that the sole surviving Ragnvindr is travelling through Teyvat, and so many times, he’s been discovered; but now, that it actually counts, no one believes him.

He is just another lonely man in the vastness of the desert.

The merchants turn back around to their game. The Eremites scatter again, slowly beginning to unhook the tents. A familiar heat gathers in Diluc’s throat. It burns through his bones and into his veins. He knows it too well now, that rage – it embraced him the night his father died. It embraced him when he was out in the eternal cold, keeping him warm. It carried him all the way here, simmering deep down where he cannot reach, but always present. It is dormant, most of the time; but just as Lord Barbatos sleeps for centuries, it is never quite dead.

His father had called it foolish that rage; said that one day, Diluc would burn himself with it. Kaeya had held him back when the fire overtook, and Jean had brought a cooling hand to his forehead, back when they were young. He’d found serenity in prayer and the knowledge that whatever life would bring, it would be a bountiful harvest.

But his father is gone, now. Kaeya is a traitor. Jean is a stranger. The god Diluc used to pray for sits drunken in a tavern – perhaps to drown his own sorrows – and Diluc is all alone in the desert, the sun unbearable on his back, and he is only meters away from his goal, and he will not let it be taken from him like everything else he once held dear has been.

If there is one thing he has learned during the barren years in Snezhnaya, is that when words fail, blades speak.

In one swift motion, Diluc is on his feet and by the first Eremite’s side, unsheathing her sword from her sheath. She cries out in surprise, but it’s too late – with one twirl, blood splattering onto sand, he has slashed the skin of her stomach open, and she goes down.

Immediately, the other Eremites jump into action.

There is heat. There is fire. There is a burning in Diluc’s throat, sand aching down his windpipe. Every breath, dry and heaving, stings. He lets his body take charge as he ducks away from one punch and uses the motion to hit one Eremite’s temple with the blunt edge of his sword.

The weight is odd in his hand. It’s lighter than the weapons he’s used to, curved and jagged instead of clean and straight. The wounds it leaves on his enemies’ bodies are nasty – skin ripped open, blood gushing and spraying. It reminds him of the slitted arrows the hunters of Springvale use to have their prey bleed out instantly. It is cruel and raw and against everything the Knights of Favonius have ever stood for.

Any other man’s honour would seep into the sand with every drop spilt, but not Diluc’s. He’s long left it in the eternal snows years ago. His father’s legacy lies frozen and forgotten with the wide-eyed Fatui he’d slaughtered.

Somewhere, one of the merchants cries out. Diluc ignores it in favour of narrowly avoiding an Eremite’s blade. It goes past his stomach, metal glinting in the sun, but the Eremite does not lose his footing. Sweat drips down Diluc’s temple as he blocks another blow, deflecting it and cutting another one’s arm open in the same motion. He steps backwards towards the tents. Before he can reach them, though, pain hits him in the side.

He whirls around to find the merchant with a throwing knife in his hand. A fierce grin rests on his face. Blood seeps through Diluc’s shirt, sticky and hot. The Eremite attacks again, two others following in tow. He brings his arm up in the last moment. His muscles tremble under the pressure.

They circle around him like haws upon prey. He barely deflects their blows, suddenly achingly aware of the empty space at his back. Bursts of colour overtake his vision as flames escape from his blade and fingertips. His Vision burns at his hip. The Eremites stumble back, shouting as their clothes catch on fire. For good measure, he sends another wave, air whistling around the sudden heat like a falcon’s scream, and when he spots an opening between the frantic men, he dives right through.

The tent is only two steps away. Diluc brandishes his sword, ablaze and bright, to cut it down. Beneath the heat of the burning blade, his palm screams, skin too close to the fire. He raises his arms, vision pulsing-

Something hits him in the back and knocks the air out of his lungs.

Diluc stumbles. Suddenly, the nerves of his hand are completely numb. The sword lands in the sand, fire dying. Stomach rolling, Diluc peers down to find an arrowhead protruding from his shoulder.

When he whirls around, there is one of the Eremites – the final one, the one he must’ve overlooked – with arrow and bow notched. From a distance that short, it has completely broken through tissue and skin with enough force to knock him back.

Dazed and trying to blink away the stars in his vision, Diluc doesn’t see the Eremite from earlier coming until it’s too late. For a moment, everything is dark. When he comes back to himself, he is on the ground, nausea rising and head pounding. The Eremite lowers the blunt edge of his sword with a self-satisfied huff. His clothes are charred, but most of his skin is unharmed.

Diluc commands his limbs to move, but the pain tearing through his temple is too searing to feel a single muscle. Distantly, he is aware of the blood dripping onto sand. The blazing sky is split in two. The faces of the Eremites gathering around him blur.

“Should we kill him?” one of them asks the merchant somewhere off to the right.

“Don’t bother,” another says. “Look at him. The desert will take care of him. There’s no need to waste your blade.”

“Speaking of blade.” The first Eremite bends to pick up the sword Diluc dropped. “He wounded Amira with her own. He doesn’t deserve a quick death.”

The Eremites murmur in agreement and vanish from his sight. Diluc blinks, attempting to piece his head back together. The sounds of them packing up their camp are dulled, as if he was under water. Oh, how he wishes for water. His throat is parched and dry as paper. There is a wheeze to his laboured breath.

Gaze blurred, he watches helplessly as they fold their tents. Darkness creeps into the corners of his vision. He blinks, and they glance at him once more, speaking in tongues that he does not understand – either because it is one of Sumeru’s languages, or because he has no consciousness left within himself – and blinks again, and they are gone, and the sun has passed further in the sky.

Diluc squints against it. Nausea swims in his gut. Blood sticks to his clothes, warm and sticky and drying. Sand clings to his wounds, but he can barely feel it. His arm has become a single nest of tingling, tangling wasps, numbness trickling through. Despite the heat, he feels utterly cold. It chills him down to the bone.

The cold and blood – it is a familiar sensation. Half-alarmed, half feeling the snow already landing on his face, Diluc is tempted to lift a hand to wipe it away and shield his eyes from the sun. It is soothing, that shadow, even when he briefly realises that it is not his palm, lying motionless and numb by his side, but oblivion coming to bring comfort.

Like the breeze brushing away sand, he doesn’t even fight it.

There is a boy in the snow.

He is weaponless. He is frozen in fear like a deer caught in a meadow. He is crying, silently, ugly, and his swollen skin is red from the cold. His face is round. He bears Snezhnayan stitches to his hat that his mother must’ve made, and he bears the sins of an insignia that means nothing to sixteen years of childhood, and he bears the sight of his comrades around him, twisted and bleeding out, on shoulders too frail to withstand the winter.

He is weaponless.

His rifle rests in Diluc’s hand, and the barrel rests to his head.

Diluc’s breath goes heavy. The boy’s goes even heavier. He tried to run. Unlike the others, who picked up their rifles and fired away at the red-haired witch they’ve come to know about through rumours, he turned and ran. The silence of the forest – white, wide, vast in its secrets and stories never found – is penetrated by both their wheezing. There should be the stench of death in the air – of sweat and fear and blood and urine – but there is only the stinging cold, aching in Diluc’s lungs.

The boy stares up at him. He has the eyes of the children that play by the fountain. He has the eyes of Kaeya at midnight, peeking around the chapel’s corner in the candle’ light. He has the eyes of those who have not yet seen what sin their existence brings; that want, more than anything, to go home.

Diluc cannot recall the months anymore he has spent hunting, now. He cannot remember date nor season. It is eternal, this winter, and so is his chase. There is too much blood for a warmer spring to wash away.

Spring – something a child still has.

Diluc regards the rifle. It is not even a noble thing – it is a simple hunter’s rifle, made for game, not people. To kill someone with their own weapon; Diluc remembers gleaming swords in the afternoon sun, laughter and order. It is in another life, now, and all the honour he gained there lies long frozen by the bottom of a Snezhnayan lake, drowned. And yet...

With eyes blown wide, the boy opens his mouth. It is in Mondtstadtian, and heavily accented, and almost quiet enough for the snow to swallow it whole, and yet it rings through Diluc’s entire being.

“Please.”

Diluc, ever the coward, ever the crowned, drops the rifle and flees.

Diluc opens his eyes to the breeze.

There is no sense to his limbs. There is no word in his mind. There is the ever-pounding pain in his skull. There is a voice in his ear, and it grows, grows.

“Diluc,” he hears the wind whisper, driving sand into his eyes like sleep. “Diluc, come home.”

A cool palm touches his forehead – so lightly, so feathery, it could very well be the breeze. He leans into it regardless, and when he blinks, there is a face above his. It is the face of old, wine-stained tales in the light of oil-lamps. It is the face of the morning sun streaming through stained glass. It is the face of yellowed pages in an oaken library, dust and tales. It is the face of old and young and of everything that haunts him.

“Barbatos,” Diluc manages to bring out from between cracked lips.

Barbatos smiles like spring. His voice is not a voice at all, but rather the shifting of sand, the tinkling of the desert embracing itself at dawn. “Perhaps.”

“The vial,” Diluc says. “I tried. I promise, I tried.”

Barbatos does not move his sky-like eyes. “I know.”

“And I got so close, and yet I...” Diluc trails off, regathering his breath. “I’m dying, aren’t I?” Clarity overtakes him, strikingly clear and aching as the blue sky above. “They say Barbatos’ breath brings soothing, and his kiss brings death. With which you are born, you shall leave, too. You are here to take me.”

Barbatos hums. It rings through Diluc’s head. “Soothing and death. Is that not the same thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“To kiss, one needs to breathe, no?”

Diluc stares up at what must be Barbatos, what must be the sky. “What are you, then?”

“I am called many things – life, death, the hand of the clock. I am what you have been searching for. What you have been running from.”

“I’m not running from anything. I’m hunting.” Diluc closes his eyes against the strain of light, of song. “Hunters don’t deserve comfort for all the lives they’ve taken, and so, as a hunter yourself, you must be here to take me away, too.”

Barbatos chuckles. It is the evening breeze whispering through the vineyards, bleeding into dusk. It is the rustling of leaves on a warm spring’s day. “You are no hunter, child. No one is.” His voice turns deeper, then, more chilling, and Diluc feels his father’s hands on his eyes, soothing his fever. “You are merely here to rest, and let me rest.”

The sun burns down on him. Childhood dives into a pond, the sun glittering from above and the world secluded from beneath, and rocks him in its gentle, dulling waves. The wind picks up and the sky vanishes.

Diluc cannot tell whether the shadow that falls over him, jostling him, the voice murmuring, is his Lord, his father or death. Someone’s heart is beating by his chest. The winery is dark at night, when the guests are downstairs and he is carried to his room, half-asleep and doused in golden lights and golden futures. He can barely sense when they cross the threshold, for his father’s arms are warm and steady.

He can much too easily find home in them again.

The fire has burnt out. The autumn has passed into winter. The frost has gathered on the windowsill, patterns to paint death into the hut.

Diluc is blazing. Diluc is freezing. Diluc is many things at once, and his dreams are husky things, following him into reality with rough voices and soundless screams. He does not eat. He does not drink. He waits as the sickness rages through him, and yet does not end him, and at some point, when his breath barely fogs the air and his tears barely make it past his lids, he even prays.

Like that boy in the snow – because he is a boy in the snow, shivering, weeping – he pleads into the silence:

“Please. Please. Please. Heal me. Kill me. Lord Barbatos, please.”

– and listens as the silence devours itself in response.

The next morning, Diluc awakens to the sun falling through the frost-curtains, a broken fever and a broken faith.

Perhaps that is the last of childhood’s deaths.