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The abyssal fog that the Rächer of Solnari summoned to separate Flins from his companions was a cloying thing, thick and ashy and heavy, tendrils seeping through the gaps in the hewn-metal of his lantern and stifling the blue flame inside until it sputtered and flickered against the darkness that threatened to extinguish it.
He had barely managed to survive the Rächer of Solnari the first time. Like this, with the Sinner closer to his full strength, he stood no chance.
The vessel that Flins inhabited did not need to breathe, and yet, his useless lungs heaved and gasped for air in a futile, involuntary response to the swirls of the abyss choking and sapping the life force from his flame, the desperate tightness that wound around his chest and squeezed.
His mind oscillated wildly between the inherent knowledge that he needed to conserve his energy and the frantic desire to flare his flames as bright as he could as fast as possible, to break through the suffocating layers of abyssal corrosion long enough to grasp a trickle of fresh air -
Black encroached upon the edges of his vision.
He just needed - he just needed to last -
Legs buckling, his gloved palms braced against the ground, thin, shallow little wheezes rattling in his ears as the red and violet mist grew thicker, heavier, coating the inside of his throat like sand as he struggled against the weight pressing down on his body, the growing panic as his blue light shrunk and faltered and dimmed and dimmed -
Somewhere, at the edge of his perception, there were voices, muffled and faint, and Flins tried to push himself up, to crawl toward them, to move -
Only to collapse when his azure flames finally flickered out.
~
The Rächer of Solnari was gone.
Columbina’s quiet, triumphant, “We did it,” should have filled Aether with relief, should have elicited something like a cheer or a smile, but all he could feel was bone deep exhaustion as he wobbled and struggled to keep himself and Nefer upright, squinting past the muddled haze of his vision as Lauma limped toward them, as Paimon fluttered in frantic little circles around his head, as Albedo curled his hands around his shoulders to keep him from toppling over onto the rocky ground.
“Oh.” Lauma’s tearful gasp had Nefer stirring against Aether’s side, her blood-streaked face automatically turning toward the antlered woman who swept her up in an embrace, tenderly cupping a bloody cheek in one delicate palm. “Nefer. Nefer, your eyes -“
“Ha - it isn’t so bad, really.” Nefer’s voice was a painful, ragged croak that had Lauma letting out another mournful noise close to a sob. “Don’t waste your tears on me. I’m alive, aren’t I?”
Aether forced his heavy eyelids to blink, surveying everyone while Paimon hovered around him and chattered nervously on.
“Paimon thinks that none of you look very good - maybe we should find a doctor - Paimon can fly very fast! Paimon could get one -“
The sound of Durin’s voice - hesitant and terribly worried - piped up from somewhere behind them.
“Um, Mister Flins isn’t moving. Or… responding. At all.” A tentative pause. “Is that normal?”
Shit.
Aether whirled around, and, at the sight of Flins crumpled on the ground, unmoving, his stomach dropped like a stone.
He heard Albedo curse, and Paimon squeak out something distressed, but nothing else made it past the growing litany of no, no, no that echoed through his mind as he stumbled over, crashing to his knees beside Flins and frantically searching his prone figure for something, anything, that would indicate a sign of life. He knew that Flins’s physical body didn’t breathe or have a pulse, since it was just a vessel in place of his true form, but maybe, his lantern - ?
When he finally came across the lantern hooked to the lightkeeper’s belt, his heart spasmed in his chest.
Where blue flames had once bloomed in a merry, playful dance, there was nothing. Nothing but cold iron and a smoky glass shell, dull beneath the overcast sunlight.
Aether’s fingers started to tremble as he fumbled to unhook it, handling it as gently as he might a precious crystal amidst the sudden, wet blur that overtook his vision.
“Oh, no,” Paimon whispered, her tone tremulous. “Flins…”
A hard lump formed in his throat.
“Traveler.” That was Albedo, kneeling by his side, a hand coming up to grip his shoulder with too much strength to be human. “Traveler. He’s not gone yet. Look.”
Bereft, he did as commanded, not seeing much point, until the faintest glimmer from within the lantern caught his eye and had him sucking in a sharp breath.
It wasn’t flame, it barely even counted as an ember, but it was there.
Flins was still alive.
“Archons, Archons, fuck -“ And Aether swiped away his tears, mentally noting that he’d apparently spent long enough in Teyvat to instinctively default to their slang in moments of stress, before scrambling to his feet with the lantern clutched to his chest. “He’s still - we have to go -“
The world spun around him, and he hissed, slamming his eyes shut, Paimon’s little hands grabbing at his sleeve in an attempt to keep his swaying form steady.
“Be careful.” Albedo had shot up to hover beside him once more, gaze somber and brow creased with concern. “Are you certain you can walk? I can carry both you and Mister Flins with Geo constructs, if need be.”
While the chance to lie down sounded wonderful, Aether shook his head, ignoring the way his skull throbbed at the action.
“We’ll be faster like this,” he said, mouth set in a grim line. “Let’s go.”
~
The Frostmoon Scions were ablaze with activity by the time they arrived. Healers swarmed around Nefer and Lauma, other acolytes darting away upon barked commands from their superiors, Aether’s exhausted mind barely able to keep track of the whirlwind of chaos until Varka was right there in front of him, firing off questions, unbuckling his gauntlets and tossing them aside whilst moving to kneel by the blanket Albedo had set Flins down on, his chiseled features so devoid of any emotion it had Aether swallowing hard at the nervous goosebumps that prickled his skin.
“We found him like this,” he managed to force out. “Rerir separated us in Nefer’s domain - I don’t know what happened, but when we left -“ A shaky pause, fingers flexing around the near-empty lantern that he offered out with the care one might give a living creature.
Varka’s expression fractured at the sight, breaking his blank shield right down the middle. It only lasted a moment, and the shards smoothed away quickly once the knight had the lantern gently enclosed in his bare hands, but Aether didn’t think he would be able to forget the brief glimpse of fear and sheer grief in the eyes of a man who, so often, was the pillar of strength and optimism amongst them.
“There is some part of him still alive.” Albedo’s voice was subdued. “Unfortunately, I am not educated in the biology of Snowland Fae, and our normal methods of healing wounds were ineffective.”
They had tried, on the way, Aether attempting to channel his elemental energy into the lantern the same way he did when he was patching up his own cuts and bruises, but it made no difference, to the tiny speck of an ember or the body they carried with them.
None of them - even Paimon, who had a habit of interrupting at exactly the wrong times - dared to say a word as Varka gathered Flins up in his arms, gently stroking strands of indigo hair out of his face and placing a soft, lingering kiss to his forehead. It made Aether feel distinctly uncomfortable, to witness such an intimate moment clearly not meant for him.
The Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius proceeded to take the lantern and hold it against the chest of the unresponsive body in his arms.
The Anemo vision on his coat started to glow.
Swirls of teal wind coalesced around the empty lantern, around the callous-weathered fingers keeping it in place, building in strength and speed until fabric billowed and hair rippled with the force of the gale whirling around them.
Aether hadn’t known Varka very long, his only knowledge of the man coming secondhand, and he had met enough emotionally unstable people during his tenure on Teyvat for a flash of panic to sear through him, his forearm rising to shield his face from the wind as he took one step forward, two -
Only for a blue flame to burst to life inside the lantern.
~
Being forcefully ripped from the edge of death was not a pleasant experience.
Uncontrollable gasps tore from Flins’s lungs in heavy spasms, his whole body trembling against the frigid cold that stung him down to the core, the involuntary coughs rattling through his chest in time with the sputtering and crackling of azure flames, his eyes flying open to reveal yellow irises wide and wild with disorientation and fear.
It took a few moments, for Flins to recognize the steady embrace that held him close, the soothing murmurs, beyond his mind’s instinctual safe and warm and human, and once he did, he croaked out a reedy, confused, “Varka?“
“Yeah, Flins, I’m here,” was the immediate response, the familiar worry-creased, handsome features of the man in question swimming into focus after a couple of slow blinks.
“Where -“ Flins swallowed, lashes fluttering as his fingers reflexively rose to curl around the lantern on his chest, only to rest atop the scarred knuckles already there, feeling the heat of human skin through his gloves. “Where… are we?”
“The Frostmoon Enclave.” Something indecipherable shone within the summer-blue eyes that searched his. “How do you feel?”
A pause, and then a quiet, labored, “… Cold.”
Flins had never been bothered by frigid temperatures, before, but now it was as if his insides had been frozen solid, tiny shards of ice piercing him all over as his muscles trembled through an involuntary shiver.
“Okay. Alright, we’ll get you warm, sweetheart,” Varka murmured, lifting his gaze off to the side while tucking him closer to the heat of his body. “Albedo, see if you can find us a couple of blankets and a place to lie down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Flins tried very hard to stay awake, once a suitable cot and pile of blankets was found for him. Really, he did. He was a lantern fae - usually, sleep was unnecessary in his human vessel, since he disappeared into his lantern whenever he needed rest and reformed bright and fresh once satiated.
But -
He was tired, and cold, and Varka was so very warm.
Unfortunately, his source of heat wouldn’t let him sleep, gently tapping the side of his face until a high-pitched, inhuman grumble of protest left his throat, eyelids slitting open to glare, disgruntled, up at the knight whose lap he had claimed as his pillow.
“I’m sorry, I know, I’m terrible, I just need you to stay awake for a little longer, sweetheart.” The half-smile Varka gave him was soft and apologetic, gaze flickering up and back down again as he absently rubbed a thumb over the nape of Flins’s neck. “Can you tell me what it means when your lantern isn’t burning?”
“Hm. Dead.” The fae snuggled deeper into the blankets wrapped around him, oblivious to the way the thumb against his skin froze at his answer. “Or close.”
A measured exhale.
“And if it’s dim?”
“Low energy.“ His eyelids fell shut. “Just… need to rest.”
“Alright. Thank you for humoring me, sweetheart. Do you want me to take you anywhere? Back to the Final Night Cemetery, or…”
Flins didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, because he burrowed further into Varka’s human warmth and went right back to sleep, purring low in his chest as he did.
~
“… He just fell asleep, didn’t he?”
“I believe so,” Albedo responded. Delicately raising an eyebrow when Varka made no motion to remove or reposition the head pillowed on his thigh, simply letting out a soft huff of a laugh and gazing down at the slumbering fae that had taken him hostage with an uncharacteristic amount of fondness.
Albedo had known the Grand Master for a long time. Long enough to know that, while he cared deeply for the knights and soldiers under his command, this was something different. Personal. Despite his confident, extroverted exterior, Varka rarely allowed anyone past his immovable emotional walls, and what Albedo had just witnessed - the forehead kiss, the careful bridal carry, the pet names - was the complete destruction of them, all for the comfort of one mysterious Lightkeeper.
How curious.
Positioned out in the open as they were, with the Traveler passed out in another temporary cot nearby and an equally asleep Durin tucked next to him, Albedo made sure to keep his voice quiet when he spoke so as not to wake anyone.
“The lantern,” he murmured, watching Varka stiffen imperceptibly at the words, though the hand that he stroked over silvery indigo hair remained gentle as ever. “How did you know what to do?”
“I didn’t.” In that moment, the exhaustion that filled his sun-weathered features made him seem twice his age, and he was not young by human standards. “It’s a technique I’ve used on my knights with visions - gives them the elemental version of an adrenaline rush, until they can get to a healer. Figured it couldn’t hurt to try.”
Albedo suspected his thought process had not been so simple - the Grand Master was highly intelligent, in contrast to how he often presented himself, and never made decisions on a whim - but the hard set of Varka’s jaw indicated that perhaps it was best to let the topic drop. The last few days had been stressful for everyone, after all, and Varka had not slept through any of them, even whilst still recovering from his own disastrous encounter with Rerir.
“Is there anything else you need done?” Behind the innocent query, Albedo was already compiling a plan in his mind to get the Grand Master to rest - possibly by utilizing Flins as a convenient excuse.
“No, no, it’s just extra stuff, now.” Varka closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, as if staving off a headache. “I have to check-in with everyone. Nefer was badly injured - she probably needs an escort back to Nasha Town, if she’s not staying here for treatment - has the Traveler seen a healer, yet? His balance was off -“
“Grand Master Varka,“ Albedo interrupted gently. “Why don’t you take everyone back to Nasha Town when the time arrives? I’m sure Nefer and the Traveler would appreciate a familiar face, and -“ He gave the Lightkeeper curled up on the cot a meaningful look. “The Flagship will allow you a comfortable place to watch over Mister Flins while he recovers.”
A small frown creased Varka’s features as his gaze flickered down to Flins once more.
“He never ended up telling me where he wanted to stay. I don’t want to overstep and make him uncomfortable -“
“Sir, with all due respect, Mister Flins is currently using you as an oversized personal heater, and I sincerely doubt he would appreciate being left alone on a secluded island full of ghosts in this state.”
They stared at each other, the blue eyes of the Grand Master narrowing at the deceptively mild expression on Albedo’s face.
“Okay,” Varka finally agreed, begrudging and well-aware of the subtle manipulation as it was. “As long as you make sure Lauma and the Frostmoon Scions are -“
“I will handle everything else.” He raised a gloved hand to prevent him from saying any more. “Get some rest, Grand Master.“
~
It was not a violent matter, the next time Flins woke.
The breath he exhaled as he surfaced from the depths of sleep was soft, quiet, dark, silver-tipped lashes fluttering in time with the dance of azure flames in a glass cocoon.
Heat cradled his body, all syrupy and thick, and the firm surface his head rested on rose and fell like ocean waves, soothing and comfortable.
His eyelids pulled open.
There was a hand, thumbing through a set of papers braced against a propped up, muscular thigh, and a chest beneath his cheek, vibrating with soft, absent-minded hums as another hand stroked through his hair.
Flins didn’t need to guess who it was that held him so tenderly.
Yellow eyes blinked once, twice, before falling shut once again, entirely content.
~
Aether had slept for almost two days straight, and it was heavenly. He needed to get into life-or-death battles with all-powerful immortals more often if it meant he got to sleep like that.
Their ragtag crew had set up a small celebration at The Flagship, in honor of Rerir’s defeat, and Aether was halfway through cramming another cream-filled krumkake into his mouth when he belatedly realized there was someone missing.
“Hey,” he started, chewing and swallowing before wiping a dollop of cream from his lower lip. “Have any of you seen Flins yet?”
He’d taken Durin’s vacated spot next to Albedo in one of the booths, since the dragon-hybrid had gone off somewhere with Paimon, which provided him ample opportunity to turn his query to the Grand Master sitting across from him when Albedo voiced that no, he had not seen the Lightkeeper in question.
“He’ll show up,” Varka responded, half-distracted, as he’d been almost all night. “I told him he could -“
His sentence cut off when his eyes caught on something behind Aether, turning liquid-soft within moments as a very familiar voice entered their conversation.
“I apologize for my late arrival.” Like he’d been summoned, Flins appeared, offering one of his faint smiles to the group as he slid into the seat next to Varka. Rather than his usual uniform coat, he instead wore a slightly oversized dark sweater, which had the effect of making him seem much smaller than he actually was in comparison to the stupidly tall man beside him. “I’m afraid I lost track of time.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. Party’s just getting started.” The grin Varka gave Flins had the corner of the fae’s mouth twitching, unnatural yellow eyes shifting to gaze up at the Grand Master from beneath silver-tipped lashes. “You feel up for a drink?”
“Oh… yes, please. Red wine, if Demyan has any.”
“Gotcha. Be right back.” Varka pressed a quick kiss to his forehead before slipping past him out of the booth, leaving Aether to gape after him, and then at Flins, with another krumkake half-raised to his mouth.
The amount of couples he managed to come across during his adventures seriously needed to be studied.