Work Text:
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought you along," Dainsleif says as he and Vedrfolnir stroll down the main avenue of the business district. "I was the only one who didn't leave his drink untouched. I think Rerir is too reserved to spend his free time with a colleague he doesn't know well. It was so awkward..."
Vedrfolnir remains impassive. He just walks beside him, gaze fixed straight ahead. Dainsleif waits a few moments for him to speak, but after a while it becomes clear that he won't. He rolls his eyes. A gesture he would never make under normal circumstances, but the glass of wine he’s just drunk is still warming his blood, loosening his tongue.
"I just wanted you to have a bit of fun, but it seems you weren't having any either," Dainsleif continues.
"No. It was lucky you brought me," Vedrfolnir replies.
Dainsleif blinks and turns to look at him. "Lucky how?"
Another silence. Dainsleif knows it's related to a prophetic vision. He never says a word about them. Only the king has that privilege. Not even him, his own brother, has ever heard one. And Dainsleif has always been curious. Maybe Rerir is right. Maybe the Twilight Sword is a gossip after all. A shame Vedrfolnir won't talk. There is no point in insisting. They walk past a closed bookstore, and Dainsleif stops to look at the brightly lit window display. Vedrfolnir stops with him.
"My birthday is coming soon," Dainsleif says.
"Tell me. Which of these books do you want?" Vedrfolnir asks.
Dainsleif laughs. "Can't you see it in one of your visions?"
"Don't be frivolous," Vedrfolnir says, but there's no annoyance in his voice.
There's a book in the center of the window. A beautiful angel descending from heaven and and a soldier with open arms, waiting with an adoring expression for it to fall into them.
"What if I said I want one of your prophecies?"
"It is not right to reveal the future to individuals. Only for the sake of the masses must I do it. What is it that you want to know so badly?"
Dainsleif continues walking with a smile on his face. Vedrfolnir is going to scold him again, but his aim is to tease him a little, after all. "When am I going to meet a girl? I thought girls liked soldiers, but I seem to be mistaken, for none pays attention to me. Am I doomed to be a bachelor forever while everyone else se—?"
Vedrfolnir stops dead in his tracks. Dainsleif does too, and looks behind him.
"What?" he asks, and Vedrfolnir exhales, as if something has suddenly taken his breath away. "Vedrfolnir?"
"You will meet a girl," he says finally, but his voice is much colder, much more stern than before.
Dainsleif's eyes widen. His brother, who has never revealed anything about his prophecies, who detests using his power for trivialities... Is he answering one of the most frivolous questions he has ever asked?
"You'll be in a tavern, drinking alone. She'll approach you from behind and introduce herself. At first, you'll ignore her, because you are you. Then she'll tell you she's a traveler, and you'll turn around... And your eyes and hers will meet for the first time."
Dainsleif watches his brother, unable to even blink. "That's oddly specific," he says, still stunned. "And you say she's a traveler? Ah, do I have to be this unlucky? Unless she gives up her life as a traveler to stay here with me, am I supposed to live waiting for her to return?" He strokes his chin. "When will I meet this girl?"
"Five hundred years from now," Vedrfolnir says and continues walking.
For a few moments, Dainsleif stands there dumbfounded. He's just been tricked. Vedrfolnir has just tricked him when it was supposed to be the other way around. Dainsleif bursts out laughing and follows Vedrfolnir.
"Hey, well played! For a moment I actually thought you were serious. I'm tipsy, but not that tipsy!" he says, catching up to him and nudging him with his elbow. "To be honest, it did sound like something straight from a cheesy romance novel. Strangers don't just walk up to you and change your life. Anyway, lesson learned. I won't ask you any more frivolous questions."
Five hundred years later, sipping a drink alone at Angel's Share, Dainsleif has long since forgotten that conversation. That is why he doesn't find the situation familiar when a stranger approaches him from behind and says:
"Hi, I'm an adventurer with the Adventurers' Guild."
Dainsleif doesn't reply. He isn't there to talk to strangers. Much less to “the people of the Seven,” to whom Teyvat now belongs.
After a pause, the voice tries again.
“How do you do? I’m an Honorary Knight of Favonius…”
So, the Knights of Favonius were finally investigating him. Not that he hadn't already suspected it, but he wasn't about to make things easy for them either.
“Wow, he's got no intention of paying us any mind, huh…” said another voice, higher-pitched.
There was an awkward silence. He raised his glass to his lips.
Then.
"So, uh, I'm a traveler..."
Dainsleif's hand freezes, just before the glass touches his lips, and a long-ago memory crashes into his mind like a tsunami. Laughter. A bookstore on a deserted street. Vedrfolnir's voice.
You'll be in a tavern, drinking alone...
Dainsleif turns faster than he ever has, and their eyes meet. And nothing could have prepared him for meeting a face he knows so well. After all, for centuries, he walked every road in Teyvat alongside this person's brother. The resemblance is impossible to ignore. Those eyes. That golden hair. Dainsleif's heart clenches painfully. That prophecy, which he always dismissed as a joke, returns to his life in the cruellest of ways.
She must have been the one who purified the dragon they call Stormterror of its abyssal corruption. The person everyone's talking about, the one he traveled to Mondstadt to find out more about, unaware of who she actually was.
The Lumine Aether had told him about so many times.
"A traveler... you say? And why are you traveling?" Dainsleif manages to say when he regains his voice.
"I'm looking for my lost relative," she says.
History has this absurd habit of repeating itself. Dainsleif takes a deep breath and composes himself.
"Well, that's as good a reason as any... Sit down over there, then."