Chapter Text
Hello hello! IMPORTANT NOTICE BEFORE YOU DIVE IN
!! TAGS WILL BE UPDATED AS MORE CHAPTERS RELEASE!!
All of the oneshots will be:
-CANON OR CANON COMPLIANT
- FEATURE NO UNCONFIRMED SHIPS
- HAVE THEIR INFORMATION CITED FROM QUESTS, CHARACTER STORIES, VOICELINES, or BACKSTORIES.
Everything will be a healthy smothered mix of fluff, angst, wholesome vibes and backstory expansion. Expect each chapter to total between 1k-6k words at the very most. A ll chapters will be lone-standing oneshots.
This story is co-written by me and my wonderful sister! (Who has also authored other stories on the account.)
Happy reading dearies- we hope to bring all characters some justice and show everyone some love.
“...are you sure this is wise, Cyno? I appreciate the trust you place in me, but... you’re aware this is hardly a place for... ah, beginners. I haven’t exactly made plans to teach preschool-level courses.”
Animosity festers not in spite of the obvious displeasure. A foreign man’s voice- Tighnari- Cyno had called him on their way here. It puzzles her- this arguing that isn’t really arguing.
“She needs help, Tighnari. Guidance. Mondstadt was a safe place for her for a while, but... she needs stability. I’ve cleansed the Archon Residue from her system- but my job won’t allow for raising a child. She’ll be much better off with you.”
Amber would have told her not to eavesdrop—would have clucked her tongue, gently, and ruffled Collei’s moss-green hair. But Amber isn’t here, and Mondstadt lies thousands of steps behind them.
Collei huddles closer to herself, Cyno’s cloak draped around her shoulders. She’d woken up in it after they’d spent the night roughing it out in the wild. It was getting very cold, Cyno had told her. The campfire had gone out sometime early morning. A wonder, Sumeru’s climate; blistering in the day and frost-dewy without the sun. Unwelcoming to outsiders, Collei remarks, like Inazuma.
Blowing a bitter breath, Collei forces dirt-caked bangs out of her eyes. Moss green, though it dyes brown if she goes long enough without washing it; the color of diseased bark. Her heartbeat rests somewhere comfortably between a carved-out ribcage and the door perched flat against her back. It knocks, rapping against the wood, beckoning entrance, being denied it.
The walls of Tighnari’s quarters are thin, the wood uneven and poorly insulated. Gandharva Ville is nothing but a bunch of wooden huts. Through the gap between the door and the frame, the continued discussion bleeds out of the room—soft but not quite soft enough. She wonders if they think she cannot hear, if they believe that her ears, like her body, are failing.
“Oh, Archon’s sake- Gandharva Ville is not a daycare, Cyno.”
“And Collei’s not like other children. I think you’ll see that if you just give her a chance.”
They bounce back and forth, not quite arguing, not quite on equal footing.
Collei imagines getting on her feet, walking out and running. What’s the point of waiting to be told what she knows she’ll hear?
Neither of them want her, surely. All that’s missing is the formal verdict; we cannot house you, cannot help you, do not want you. Leave, you burdensome child .
A child, Collei thinks. She is a child, really, but it’s easy to forget that. A child, she thinks, is something small and bright, something that laughs easily and cries without shame. She is none of these things. The Fatui hadn’t cared about her age- why did Mondstadters and Sumarians?
Exhaling, Collei presses her little forehead harder against her knees, squeezing her eyes shut until stars spark behind her lids, tiny, flickering lights in the darkness. Maybe if I push hard enough, I can force my eyes to forget everything they’ve seen, she wonders.
The words behind the door vomit into one another. They come in waves, breaths, gasps that Collei can make out- “Mondstadt….” - “Forest Watchers-” - “...Cannot, what about Sumeru City-“ “Fatui-” …. “She’s ill, Tighnari, the symptoms-”
It all feels a little jarring. Being talked about. Being told to wait, given a blanket, a ration-packet of foreign food she hasn’t touched. No, actually, Collei isn’t quite sure how it feels at all. Afraid, perhaps. Amber had told her it was alright to be that.
Suddenly, the door creaks open, a wash of light spilling into the narrow hall where Collei huddles. She flinches, on instinct, leaping to her feet to make herself look bigger than she is. A wildlife tactic.
Cyno steps out. Behind him, the man with her fate in his hands. He looks like someone used to being obeyed, someone whose patience is a finite resource. Collei wonders if he will snap at her, if he will tire of her clumsy attempts to fit in, if he will cast her out the first time she drops and breaks something or the first time she wakes up screaming from a nightmare.
“Collei, this is Tighnari,” Cyno introduces. ”He’ll be helping you get settled here. You’ll learn a lot from him.”
Collei eyes him- this “Tighnari.” Her chest does a brittle, butterflying flutter. She’s never seen a human with fennec fox ears before. The wariness theroever isn’t masked. Why should it be?
Tighnari crosses his arms- uncaring, or perhaps used to such skeptical glares. “I heard you’ve had a rough journey,” he says simply, “You must be tired. We’ll find you a place to rest for now.”
Collei blinks. He might as well have spoken a foreign language.
Tighnari raises an eyebrow. “You do speak, right?”
“I- y-yes,” Collei stutters, fumbling to collect herself. Her hands twist in the hem of the cloak, knotting and unknotting. It’s been too long since she last cared about people caring about her. She’s scared, she realizes, of saying the wrong thing.
Tighnari clears his throat. “Right. Well. You’ll be staying in the guest quarters for now. There’s a bed and some spare clothes. We’ll start your studies once you’re settled.”
Cyno catches her eye for a brief moment, his expression softening ever so slightly. Collei falters. The General Mahamatra is a terrifying man, she thinks, because someone with such a talent for invoking fear and blade can so easily hurt her. Best to steer clear.
“I’ll come back when I can,” Cyno says. “You’ll be alright.”
Walking over, Collei ducks to shield her head from his hands as they come toward her, but Cyno doesn’t strike. Just reaches over to ruffle her hair and leaves. He doesn’t ask for the cloak back before shutting the door.
Tighnari rises, sighing, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well... I’m not much of a caretaker, but I suppose we’ll have to make do. Are you hungry?”
Collei’s stomach wails and cries. Cheeks warm, she sutters: “A… a little, maybe.”
Mornings come early to Gandharva Ville. The sun wakes its busy bees. For most, this is when the day begins—when the birdsong is at its liveliest light first kisses the ground to life. But by Tighnari’s standards, the sun rises much too late. He keeps a busy schedule- annotating maps, patrolling for poachers and illegal loggers, treating the wounded and tending wayward travelers having consumed all manners of strange mushrooms.
The head of the Forest Rangers leaves early and returns late, fur flecked with mud and leaves. One night, Collei had walked in on him running a brush through his tail to keep it from matting, applying oil to the ends. It turned into a lecture over the importance of proper hygiene. Collei snoozed off somewhere halfway, mysteriously waking up in her own bed the morning after.
Tighnari retreats to his quarters to work that evening- journals, reports, letters from Sumeru city. Whatever urges. An oil lamp bleeds light through the door’s crack. It’s long past Collei’s supposed bedtime. Still, she lingers at the threshold of the door. Half-in-half out, half wanting to be acknowledged, half unsure if she is welcome.
How does one go about asking why have you not tossed me to the lions in the forest yet? You sigh at all the inconveniences I cause you, but you never call me burdensome or incompetent. What did Cyno promise you in return for letting me stay? Why am I here? Why do you care for me?
Collei doesn’t dare announce herself, listening to Tighnari’s quill rabble off against the paper instead.
Then, without looking up, the man calls: “It’s late. You should be in bed, Collei."
Receiving no reply, he sighs. Glances at her. “Need something? Close the door, then. You’re letting the bugs in.”
Busted.
Collei shuffles sheepishly inside, bare feet padding softly against the wooden floor. Apples of her cheeks tinted pink, she sits cross-legged on the edge of the woven mat near Tighnari’s desk, careful not to mess up any of the tinctures and papers he works so hard to keep organized.
For a long while, neither of them speak. Collei’s not really sure what to say. It feels like she’s being given permission to ask for something, but she doesn’t know what for.
Tighnari breaks the silence for her. “Do you know how to read, Collei?”
“Huh?” Torn out of her thoughts, her heart stutters in her chest. “A… A little?”
She’s illiterate. But who admits to that?
“Hm.” Tighnari’s eyes flick to the small girl, contemplative. “That won’t do. If you’re going to survive here, you’ll need to be able to read my notes. I can’t have you wandering into a Fungi infested area because you couldn’t read a warning sign.” Tapping his quill to the side of his cheek, Tighnari stands to skim his bookcase. “I’m afraid I don’t have any suitable reading material for your current level. I’ll need to pop by Sumeru City tomorrow.” He said, making a note of it.
Collei stares. “But… for me? Why would you do that?” It slips out, a tad too loud to pass for a mumble.
“Hm?” Tighnari turns his head. “Buy you books? That’s a silly question- I’ve promised to take care of you, after all. I wouldn’t be doing a very good job of that if I neglected your studies. Education is important.”
The words linger, and the questions she had showed up to ask burn and dissolve at the back of her throat. Amber had laughed once when Collei asked if she was the only kind person in the world.
“Of course I'm not the only kind person in the world, silly! You’ll see that when you head to Sumeru and get to meet with a bunch of new people. There’s kind people everywhere.”
“Up and at it, sprout,” Tighnari barks one morning, parting the curtains from Collei’s window against her will, tail flicking impatiently. The hut lays in sleeping silence, save for the soft chirrup of insects waking beyond the walls. “You’ll be shadowing me on patrol today.”
“Hmmng?” Collei mumbles, rubbing sleep from her eyes as she sits. She blinks at her teacher, and he tosses her a small-sewn garment; standardized Forest Ranger uniform. “I’m coming with you?” Collei blurts, suddenly awake.
Tighnari huffs a little exasperated sigh. Smiles faintly. “Well, you can’t stay cooped up here forever. It’s not good for your health.”
And so he cooks them Pita Pockets for breakfast, get Collei changed, and set out on patrol. They trek a fair bit out and climb a narrow path to a lookout point. Tighnari pauses to snap a leaf from a passing branch. He holds it out to her. “Collei. Do you know what this is?”
“A... leaf?”
Tighnari’s tail flicks, an impatient twitch. “Yes, but what kind? What purpose does it serve?”
Collei stares, dumbfoundedly. It looks like any other ordinary leaf. She takes it in hand, prompted, glaring even harder. Thin veins, a skeleton sprouted from the stem, healthy Dendro-green color… Nope, nothing conclusive. It still looks like a leaf.
“Uhm… “ Collei fiddles, ”I don’t know?”
Ears flattening slightly, Tighnari lets out a small, exasperated sigh. “A shame. You’ll have to learn. Here.” He presses the leaf into Collei’s hand. “Keep it. Study it. We’ll review tomorrow.” Jotting something down, Tighnari snaps the notebook shut and throws it back into his satchel. “Keep up now. Try not to trail too far behind. There are wild beasts around here that wouldn’t mind a scrawny little snack.”
Collei nods, used to such comments now. For as much as Tighnari can prove strict, at times, he is not cruel. A demanding teacher, certainly, but not an unkind one. He never asks Collei to do anything he would not do himself, never hands out scoldings that are not well-deserved. Curious , Collei thinks, scribbling the thought down in the letters Tighnari has only just started to teach her: Is there as many ways to be kind as there is to be cruel?
It’s ineligible. No one but Collei can read it.
Collei dreams of the desert that night. She’s wandering again, barefoot and blistered. Before returning to Sumeru, Collei had wandered for a long time. The decisive difference between wandering and traveling, of course, lies in that the former bears no designated destination. She’d wandered, homeless- not because she’d lost a home but because she’d never had one.
Children groan and cry around her, aching from their own scars.
Collei recognizes some of their faces, pale and gaunt, hollowed by the same sickness that eats at her insides. What a sorry sight they make; cheeks streaked with blood and sweat, mouths cracked and dry. They are the others who had crawled from the same wreckage, survivors in the loosest sense of the word, the ones who had escaped the Fatui’s grasp only to find themselves thrown into a wilderness that cared not whether they lived or died.
One by one, they fall. The sand claims them, the heat claims them, the twisted remains of their own bodies claim them. Collei tries not to look back, to see the thin, desiccated limbs half-buried in the dunes.
And then she is at the cliff. The wind howls through the narrow passage, rocks and mosquitos eating through her exposed skin. She is not alone. There is someone beside her, another survivor, a girl about her own age.
A low, beastly growl cuts them off up ahead. Collei feels a rough shove against her shoulder and then the sudden, stomach-churning sensation of freefall. She pitches backward, arms flailing, fingers scrabbling desperately against the cliffside. She catches hold of a thin, spindly branch, her entire body jerking to a halt as her weight yanks at her shoulders, pain flaring down her spine.
“Help me!” She cries, voice raw.
The figure above her hesitates. Stands there and stares her down like rotting meat strapped to a butcher’s hook. Collei dreads; not here, not like this, not while I’ve left so many dead behind and promised to walk in their stead. She glances to the girl, thinks pitifully, naively;
Surely she will help me.
The girl turns. She runs.
Above where Collei hangs, the beast’s roar crescendos, followed by the wet, tearing sound of flesh parting beneath sharp, merciless fangs. Then: the high, keening scream of her last companion cut brutally short. Then: silence. She can feel her nails breaking, the skin of her fingers peeling back, blood trickling down her wrists, but she holds on. There is no hand to haul her up, no one reliable to call for. Weeping, Collei swears beneath her breath:
I will never reach out to anyone again.
Collei thrashes awake in bed. The sheets cling cruelly to her limbs, unwanted hands on unwanted skin. She kicks it off, desperately, bolts upright out of bed. Another nightmare. She despises the term. Calling it that paints a much more hopeful picture than what it actually is. She can’t snuff out her fears with the excuse of a dream. All the terrible prospects her head paints behind closed eyes have happened.
Collei’s pulse thuds in her fingertips, beats the back of her throat. She tastes heartbeat in her mouth. The walls lean in, glaring at her, the ceiling dips, the edges of it folding down like the molded pages of a book. She teeters, standing unsteadily on her own feet, for the world is fraying, swaying, sinking- a giant mouth coming to clamp down on her. Collei throws her hands around her head and sinks to the ground in a ball. She rocks back and forth, keening softly, pathetically.
She does not hear the door creak open, does not notice hurried footsteps as Tighnari enters the room, does not catch his ears as they flicker in alarm. Only faintly, far off, his voice:
“Collei. Collei. Collei, breathe. You need to breathe.”
And so for a second time that night, Collei startles awake, eyes snapping open. Suddenly there are a pair of hands cupped around her shoulders, keeping her grounded to the bed, a pair flickering, worried eyes.
“M-master Tighnari?” Her voice shakes, sounding not like her own, but a frightened child’s. “I-I-”
“It’s alright. You’re safe. We’re back at Gandharva Ville, you see?” Tighnari talks in a tone of voice that suggests having talked many a terrified creature down from the brink. “I’ve been keeping night watch, nothing unusual going on. Well, save for what I heard in here that made me worry.”
Tighnari quiets as he sits down beside her. The hour bathes him in a new light, softens the usual hardened edges. He plonks the oil lantern down by the table. “What happened, Collei? I’m here to help.”
Collei answers honestly, swallowing. Just hearing his voice puts some space between her and the memory. “I… I had a bad dream.” She says. hugging her knees to her chest “I was- me and the others who escaped, we were wandering and trying to help each other to survive, but we couldn’t, and so they died, they all died but me-”
Around the words, her throat ties itself into a knot. Nothing more than that will get out, but nothing more than that needs to be told.
“...Nightmares?” Tighnari asks softly. He releases his grip slowly, one hand moving to settle lightly on Collei’s back, the other gently guiding her down onto the edge of her cot. “Do you get those often?”
Collei doesn’t answer that. Of course there are nightmares- ripe and grinning with sharp teeth from behind closed eyes, haunting her sleep. They’ve rotted the rational part of her brain that knows she has long since escaped that Experimental Fatui Facility.
“Sometimes,” Collei continues, barely, “I feel like... like I’m still trapped. Even when I’m not. I thought I was free when escapted to Mondstadt, but then I got here and... I don’t know. I’m just... so scared all the time.” Her hands tighten around her knees, nails digging into her skin. “I hate it. I don’t want to feel like this anymore.”
Tighnari’s hand moves in slow, gentle circles on her back. He’s quiet, not from a lack of things to say but from a need to say things right. His eyes flicker briefly to the unbandaged scars on her arms.
“You know,” Tighnari says, his tone thoughtful, “in the wild, there are trees that grow so close together that their roots intertwine underground. It makes them stronger—if one tree falls, the others help keep it upright. They survive because they share the burden.”
Collei looks at him, unsure where he’s going with this.
“It’s the same for people,” he continues. “We survive better when we’re not alone. When we let ourselves trust each other, even when it’s hard. Sometimes you’ll be the one holding someone up, and sometimes you’ll need them to hold you.” And then he brings back his hand and holds it out to her. “I’d be happy to help you do that. If you want to stay in Gandharva Ville, of course.”
Collei stares at Tighnari’s hand, at the open invitation of it. She’s not being forced anywhere, she realizes all too late. There’s been no locked doors, no chains, no watchguard, no orders. She’s been welcomed openly to Gandharva Ville, capable of leaving at any time should she deem it unfitting. And when she had left, someone had trailed after because they worried for her safety.
Collei sniffles softly, and before she can stop herself, her cheeks run wet. “I don’t know what to… do. I’m not very good at anything. I’m going to be a lot of work.”
Face softening further, Tighnari he leans back and onto both palms. “That’s alright. There’s no rush. We can take all the time you need to learn. Being your teacher means I need to help with all the things you don’t know- that’s just the nature of learning. I once had professors to guide me where my knowledge lacked, too.” He sighs, “I get exactly why Cyno brought you here. I’m not happy about the way he went about it, but I am happy that you’re here, Collei.”
At that, Collei quiets, wiping her eyes into her sleeve. Amber’s voice finds her.
“Of course I’m not the only kind person in the world, silly! You’ll see that when you head to Sumeru and get to meet with a bunch of new people. There’s kind people everywhere.”
Collei, coming to believe it, thinks quietly to herself:
I want to be a kind person, too.
The information in this chapter was taken from Collei's character story 1 and 3, for anyone curious :)