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The first sensation that comes to him is the cold. It cuts through the haze of his mind like a shard of glass, waking him rudely from the stupor he’s been in since he’d passed through the strange rift under the Fortress of Meropide. The chill permeates his consciousness as he struggles toward awareness, keeping him from sinking back into his dream.
Childe tries to move his fingers, feeling the water around them swirl as his knuckles twitch. Still in the water, then. Strangely enough, he can sense a source of light through his eyelids. He tries to open them, but his eyes are so heavy, it feels almost impossible. He’s tired, tired in a way he hasn’t been since he’d escaped from the Abyss all those years ago. Despite that, his mind is slowly revving itself up, his thoughts starting to race as he gets a hold of his environment.
He had known right away when the makeup of the water around the Fortress had changed. He holds his Electro Delusion close to his heart and the Abyss has claws too deep in him to ever extricate, but Hydro is his element. For over a decade he’s honed his control over water, molding its shape and meditating on its nature. He knows it like he knows himself. What he doesn’t know is the roiling power of the Primordial Sea, an ocean of pure energy, barely solid enough to touch.
For what could be hours or mere minutes, he floats, concentrating on gaining back control of his body. The low roar of water in his ears fades into background noise as he regains his strength, testing his limbs and his sense of the water around him.
The water reacts almost more like his Abyssal power than normal Hydro, something with a will he must understand before he uses it. When he extends his senses through the sea around him, the currents carry the tendrils of his power with them, as though they’re trying to help him along.
It takes a long time until Childe understands why. Suddenly, the currents around him are disturbed, and he senses a massive form gliding through the water before his awareness snaps back into his body like a rubber band. It’s jarring, and he’s still disoriented when the light around him is blotted out. He redirects his focus back into opening his eyes. As they finally flutter open, a new chill races down his spine, freezing his heart as he recognizes the form above him.
The monster, that monster, is sailing through the sea above him, the silhouette that’s been burned into his memory casting its shadow over him once again.
Above him, the narwhal begins to sing. Its call is low, mournful, and the reverberations shake him to his bones. It’s the same call he’s been following all these days. Deep in his chest, he feels something in him settle, like he’s exactly where he’s meant to be.
If there was air to breathe in this place, he’d laugh. When he’d found out the form his constellation took, in a hidden corner of Snezhnaya’s capital where even the Tsaritsa’s gaze did not fall, he’d fully burst into hysterics. The graying fortuneteller had eyed him warily, seeming of a mind to kick him right out of her cramped apartment. Childe hadn’t cared, too caught up in the hilarity of it. Monoceros Caeli had followed him since the moment of his birth, his fate ordained by the stars above.
Now, it seemed fate had finally caught up with him.
Childe grins. The time for him to keep his word and fell this majestic beast has come, and he’s not wasting another second. Clenching his fists, he calls the Foul Legacy to him, cloaking himself in an armor of stars. He forms in his hand a swallow of pure Electro, pouring manic energy into his delusion until sparks dance across his twisted body. The narwhal’s shadow passes from over him, and in the returning light he makes out the creature’s massive eye, trained directly on him.
Good.
He winds up and propels himself through the water, following in its wake.