Chapter Text
Nod Krai—a land of no laws and no rulers. The place where the rarest mystical creatures reside by the indigenous people in an island, with much of the land is covered with blues and greens and the purest forms of kuuvakhi. Simulatenously, it is also the land where kuuvakhi is used to funnel complex machinery, leaving the land depleted of its resources and marked with the bitter smell of petroleum. Two starkly different sides of a coin of mora.
An interesting land, for sure. Naturally, Mondstadt’s Grandmaster had been drawn to this land—why? For its infamous Moonshine, of course. Well, that and a couple other issues in Nod Krai, but that wasn’t his problem!
After disembarking on his ship, he stepped onto the harbor and dry heaved for a couple of seconds. Barbatos, the sea was truly ruthless! Varka had spent half his trip teetering over the edge of the ship, for he refused to stay inside the cabin despite his rampant seasickness. Unfortunately, the other knights accompanying him had no choice but to oblige in their grandmaster’s shenanigans, on multiple occasions having to pull their esteemed leader away from the railing after he nearly toppled over into the blue sea. In hindsight, it was a terrible idea, but Varka did see many beautiful whales circling Nod Krai waters, so it was a small win in his book.
Thankfully, his large ship had just reached Nod Krai, docking onto the harbor. Mondstadt’s largest vessel—made of the finest woods and stocked with all of Monstadt’s horses, a quarter of its men, and enough food to feed them for days—made Nod Krai’s old dock look like a toy, and passerbys, upon seeing such a large ship painted with the Knights of Favonius’s logo, began whispering amongst themselves.
Naturally, Varka disembarked first, puffing up his chest as he coolly handled his blood-red claymore over his shoulder—yes, this was the same man who vomited on board the ship a few hours ago, but he had a reputation to hold. His domineering presence immediately quieted everyone in the vicinity as he jumped down the boat and onto the pier, smirking.
Turning around to face his ship, he pointed to an unnamed knight currently holding a box of goods, yelling, “hey, you!”
The knight stumbled over his words for a moment, before letting out a small “yes, sir?”
“I…” Varka began, his face turning more serious, “I have to use the toilet, so handle the unloading!”
The whole boat of a hundred something men and the surrounding peoples went silent as they watched Mondstadt’s powerful, almighty leader scurry away to the toilet while holding his balls.
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Varka lied. Okay, it wasn’t a complete lie: he didn’t need to use the toilet, he just wanted to slip away and find the closest tavern—or whatever Nod Krai’s equivalent to a tavern was—but after drinking his heart out, he would surely need to use the toilet after, so was it really a lie?
After moving out of sight, he entered Nasha Town. Varka knew the town was a pioneer of technology in Teyvat, but he didn’t expect it to be covered head to toe in robots! Maybe Mondstadt could learn a thing or two from Nod Krai.
Then, he felt something approaching him and bump into his back with an “oof!”
”Eek! I’m so sorry!” the childish voice yelped as Varka turned around to face it. There, he saw a little girl with light pink hair similar to that of the bartender’s at the Cat’s Tail that was maybe around the height of of Klee.
“Don’t worry, that was my fault,” Varka chuckled, his hearty voice assuring the girl, “I shouldn’t have stood in the middle of the street.”
The girl only solemnly nodded, before seeing Varka’s huge claymore. Her eyes immediately glimmered with mischief as she made grabby hands towards it.
”Uwaa, what’s that, sir? Let me see!” she cutely asked, jumping up to grab it but to no avail, for Varka was too tall.
”Ah, this ol’ thing? Just my awesome, demon-destroying claymore, is all it is.”
The girl pouted, saying, ”no way! Mine’s cooler, right Ineffa?”
“Ineffa?” he asked, turning around to be jumpscared by a lady—wait, maybe a robot? “WOAH! Where’d you come from, uhm, lady?”
Varka internally cringed at himself, just realising that it was, in fact, a robot.
The robot intoned, gesturing to itself and the girl, “apologies, my name is Ineffa. I am a robot designed by Aino, this girl here.”
“You’re good,” he chuckled, sweatdropping, since he didn’t hear a single footstep she made. If she had bad intentions, he would’ve been dead in an alleyway on his first day in Nod Krai. Hopefully age wasn’t making him senile, he hadn’t even reached 30.
”May I ask who you are? I don’t recognize you in my databases,” the robot questioned, cocking its head like a confused puppy.
Varka grinned, flashing his teeth: ”the name’s Varka, Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius.”
Perfect execution. He’d been practicing that in his room the whole day to make sure he sounded cool, and it worked, watching the two’s mind gears turn and click into place—one literally and one metaphorically.
”Woah,” Aino squeaked, “that’s so cool! So you kill bad guys and stuff?”
”Yep! I’m the strongest of the strong,” Varka cockily replied, his ego content, “anyway, you don’t happen to know where the nearest tavern is, do you?”
Ineffa piped up robotically, “0.1 miles away, the Flagship. Continues forward for 52 meters, then turn left and head left for another 79 meters, then turn—“
”Ineffaaa!” Aino drawled, stretching out the “a” sound, “you’re confusing people again! Just walk him there!”
“Sorry, Aino,” Ineffa said, storing the information in her database before gesturing Varka to follow as they began walking to the Flagship.
Varka, seeing no other option, decided to follow the odd pair of a little girl genius that literally made a sentient, humanoid bot and said mentioned bot. If you told the Grandmaster he would be doing this right now, Varka would think you had too many glasses of dandelion wine.
Nod Krai sure is a funny place.
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“Illuga?” Flins carefully asks, seeing his comrade casually leaning on Flins’s lighthouse, “what brings you here?”
Illuga momentarily looked for the source of the voice before locking eyes with Flins, smiling: “don’t worry about your shift, I’m covering it for you.”
“…Why?” His companion’s jaw dropped.
”Eh!?” Illuga said, “your sweet comrade takes over your shift for you, and you can’t even say ‘thank you, Illuga!’?”
“Oh, thank you,” Flins said, bowing his head softly, “but I could handle it myself.”
“‘Handle it’ my ass!”
”Language.”
”When’s the last time you slept?”
“…”
”And the last time you ate a full meal at our dinners together? And yes, we notice you don’t eat—you’re not slick.”
”…”
”Exactly,” Illuga finished, dropping a sack of coins in Flins’ gloved hands, “go to the Flagship and treat yourself to something nice.”
”You all pitched in…?” he muttered, shocked at the show of affection.
“Yeah, we figured you didn’t eat a lot because you wanted us to have a bigger portion, so we decided to treat you.”
The display was heartwarming, yes, but Flins wasn’t eating out of the goodness of his heart, it was because he literally couldn’t. The only way a fae like him can eat is by absorbing the nutrients through a catalyst, which in this case was Flins’s lantern, so they physically couldn’t swallow food.
As Illuga shooed Flins away from his station, Flins shook the bag, listening to the coins inside jingle around. How much mora did they give him? He couldn’t even use it on food like they wanted. Well, if some coins were old enough, maybe he could add them to his collection and then use the rest to splurge on a small gemstone, but the other lightkeepers would surely ask for receipts that Flins really did eat something at the Flagship, leaving the fae in a pickle.
Sighing in defeat, he turned himself into a ball of energy and let the wind guide him to Nasha Town.