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“Was I in that future you saw?”
Varka paused. His gaze swept over the shorter man before him, crossed arms with hands balled into fists. Each second that ticked on felt like the air felt colder, like snowflakes could fall into the ground.
Like the snowy plains he saw stained with black and purple, a future that he swore should not come to pass—
Varka swallowed the lump in his throat. “You were,” he said, contemplatively. “We were happy. Everyone was.”
“Then let me join you,” he declares. “You want fate to be changed—they didn’t say anything about changing who you had to bring with you,” Lohen says the words through his teeth, like he’s almost angry.
Varka knows he isn’t. And yet, he can’t help but feel he is. Maybe it's something close to betrayal—-Lohen laid his life on the line for Mondstadt to curb his bloodlust like Varka asked him to; why couldn't he be by his side to deal with a threat that went further up north with new dangers they'd never witnessed before?
It's betrayal, Lohen says to him without needing to even let a single word slip out his lips. I'm one of the best you have. You can't have everyone join you. Pick me, it has to be me, you have to pick me.
“Actually, let me wager, Grand Master-” he marched forward, one arm falling to the side, before splaying his hand on his chest and bowing down- “I’m the one you need the most.”
All Varka could do to himself was laugh. “In more ways than one,” he mutters, walking over the man he had found himself to truly start admiring, “I guess you’ll be under my wing.”
Lohen tilted his head up, a smile plastered on his face—
“Lohen, Vice Captain of the 5th Company—at your service,” Lohen says with something close to reverence laced in his voice. It might be something beyond all Varka knew, and perhaps he’d learn how much deeper it already was in the future.
For now, though, Lohen will lift that banner—of Varka’s symbol, watching his back as he leads everyone into a future not seen by that scryglass. Lohen would follow Varka to the ends of the earth, no matter how dark the sky could get from their eyes.
He’ll be fine, as long as Lohen is by his side.