Chapter Text
The air in the Grand Master’s office was heavy with the scent of aged parchment, ink, and the faint, lingering aroma of pine—a scent Lohen normally ignored, but today, it scraped uncomfortably against his heightened senses.
He sat at the corner desk, his posture rigid, his crimson eyes narrowed at the stack of logistical reports in front of him. A quill twirls between his fingers, the motion sharp and agitated. He was the Vice Captain of the Fifth Company. The “Frontline Suppression Officer.” He was the sharpest arrow the Knights of Favonius had to offer, the one who dove headfirst into the fray with a spear and a grin, leaving nothing but devastation in his wake.
And yet, here he was, relegated to pushing paper because his biology had decided it was time to remind him of a reality he despised.
Lohen was an omega.
It was a fact he kept buried beneath layers of bloodlust, cunning, and an unyielding refusal to conform. In a world where omegas were expected to be docile, nurturing, and safely tucked away in the office or the library, Lohen was an anomaly. He thrived on the battlefield. He relished the scent of blood and the thrill of the kill. He was a master of poisons, traps, and ambushes. He acted more like a rogue alpha than anything else, a deliberate choice designed to turn off any potential suitor who might look at him and see a prospective mate.
The very idea of it made his skin crawl. To submit to an alpha, to be tied down by the oppressive instincts of his secondary gender, to be defined by his ability to bear pups… It was a cage he refused to be locked in. He would rather take a hilichurl’s club to the ribs than surrender his autonomy.
But biology was a stubborn adversary, and every other month, his pre-heat symptoms hit him like a blunt arrow. The feverish ache beneath his skin, the heightened sensitivity, the maddening instinctual pull that he had to fight down with every ounce of his willpower- it grated at his pride. And because he was the only omega in a high-ranking, combative position, his temporary displacement was glaringly obvious.
“You’re glaring at that report like you expect it to spontaneously combust, kid.”
The deep, rumbling voice broke through his thoughts. Lohen didn’t look up, though his grip on the quill tightens.
Varka, the Knight of Boreas, sat behind his massive desk, his twin greatswords resting against the wall nearby. The Grand Master was an alpha, of course. His presence alone was enough to fill the room, a commanding aura of frost and old wood that was usually comforting but currently set Lohen’s teeth on edge.
“If I glare hard enough, maybe it will,” Lohen replies, his voice clipped. He finally tosses the quill onto the desk and leans back, crossing his arms. “This is a waste of my time, Grand Master. I could be out there tracking the remnants of the Abyss Order near Wolvendom, not calculating how many sacks of flour the quartermaster needs for the next month.”
Varka chuckles, a low, hearty sound that reverberates in his chest. “The Abyss Order isn’t going anywhere. And neither are you, not until you’re back to a hundred percent. You know the rules, Lohen. I’m not having you pass out in the middle of a skirmish because you’re too stubborn to admit when your body needs a break.”
“My body is fine,” Lohen lies smoothly, ignoring the dull throb in his lower abdomen and the slight tremor in his hands.
Varka raises an eyebrow, his piercing gaze cutting right through the bravado. “Right. And I’m a novice who doesn’t know how to swing a sword. Look, kid, I’m keeping you here because I know you’d overwork yourself the second I let you out of my sight. Consider it an order.”
Lohen scoffs, looking away. “An order to rot in a chair. How benevolent.”
Varka didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he set his own pen down and leans forward, resting his elbows on the desk. His expression softens, the usual boisterous energy giving way to something more thoughtful.
“You’ve been pushing yourself harder than usual lately,” Varka notes, his tone conversational but probing. “More night patrols. Taking on solo commissions that should require a full squad. You’re trying to prove something. Or maybe you’re running from something.”
“I don’t run,” Lohen snaps, his eyes flashing back to the Grand Master. “I hunt.”
“Fair enough. But even hunters need to rest.” Varka pauses, tilting his head slightly. “You know, you’ve never really talked about what you want out of all this. The future, I mean. Most knights your age are thinking about settling down, finding a mate, starting a family. But you… you dodge the topic like it’s a poisoned blade.”
Lohen stiffens. The air in the room suddenly felt suffocating. It was a rare moment of vulnerability, brought on by the haze of his impending heat and the disarming earnestness in Varka’s eyes.
For a long moment, Lohen says nothing. He stared at the wood grain of the desk, his mind racing. He could brush it off with a sarcastic remark. He could throw a smoke screen and deflect. But looking at Varka—the man who had seen through his tricks, who had taken his poisons and laughed them off, who respected his strength rather than his biology—Lohen found himself exhaling a slow, ragged breath.
“I’ll likely never take on a mate,” Lohen admits, his voice quieter than usual, stripped of its usual mocking edge. “And I’m certainly never having children.”
Varka looks genuinely surprised. “Never? That’s a strong word, kid. Why not?”
Lohen let out a dry, humorless laugh. He looks up, his crimson eyes locking onto Varka’s. “Did you just forget who exactly I am?” he asks, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.
Varka frowns. “I know exactly who you are. You’re the Vice Captain of the Fifth Company. You’re a brilliant tactician, a fierce fighter, and a pain in my neck.”
“I’m an omega who fights like a bloodthirsty lunatic,” Lohen corrects, his tone turning sharp. “I use poison. I set traps. I stab people in the back when they aren’t looking. I don’t play by the rules of chivalry, and I certainly don’t play by the rules of my biology.”
He stands up, pacing the short distance between his desk and the window, the movement restless and agitated.
“Look at me, Varka. Do I look like the kind of omega an alpha wants to bring home? I’m not soft. I’m not submissive. I don’t want to be tied down by unrealistic expectations or chained to a mate who thinks they own me just because they have a knot and a bite.” Lohen’s voice rises, the frustration of years bubbling to the surface. “And kids? I’d be a terrible mother. I’d probably fuck up their childhood before they even learned to walk. I belong on the battlefield, not in a nursery.”
He stops pacing, gripping the windowsill tightly. In truth, the idea of a mate- someone who understood him, someone who could match his intensity- wasn’t entirely repulsive. The thought of a family wasn’t completely alien. But the reality of it, the societal cage that came with it, would drive him more insane than he already was.
Varka listens in silence, letting Lohen get it all out. When the younger knight finally stops, chest heaving slightly, Varka stood up. He walks around the desk, his massive frame imposing but unthreatening.
“You’re right about one thing,” Varka says, his voice calm and steady. “You don’t play by the rules. But you’re wrong about everything else.”
Lohen turns his head, glaring defensively. “Oh? And what makes you the expert on my life?”
“Experience,” Varka replies simply. He crosses his arms, looking down at Lohen with a mixture of amusement and respect. “You think being an omega means you have to be soft? You think having a mate means you have to submit? That’s the kind of narrow-minded thinking I’d expect from the old guard, not from you.”
Varka takes a step closer. “You’re Lohen. You’ve never let anyone dictate how you live your life. If you took a mate, you wouldn’t submit to them- you’d make them earn every inch of your respect. And as for kids? You’d teach them how to survive. You’d teach them how to fight, how to think for themselves. You wouldn’t be a conventional mother, but you wouldn’t be a terrible one, either.”
Lohen stares at him, the words sinking in. The feverish heat beneath his skin seemed to cool slightly, replaced by a strange, unfamiliar warmth in his chest. He looks away, crossing his arms defensively.
“You’re overly optimistic, Grand Master,” Lohen mutters, though the bite was gone from his voice.
“I’m a realist,” Varka counters with a grin. “I know talent when I see it. Whether it’s on the battlefield or anywhere else.” He reaches out, clapping a heavy hand on Lohen’s shoulder. “Now, sit back down. You still have three more reports to finish before I let you go back to your quarters.”
Lohen rolls his eyes, but he didn’t pull away from the touch. The scent of pine suddenly didn’t seem so abrasive anymore.
“Dictator,” Lohen grumbles as he walks back to the desk and pickes up his quill.
“I prefer ‘Grand Master,’” Varka laughs, heading back to his own seat. “And Lohen?”
Lohen pauses, looking up.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Varka says, his eyes serious. “You’re more than just a weapon. Even arrows need a place to land.”
Lohen doesn't answer. He simply lookz back down at the paperwork, the quill moving smoothly across the page. But for the first time all day, the silence in the office didn’t feel like a cage. It felt, strangely enough, like a challenge.
And Lohen never backs down from a challenge.
Lohen returns headquarters Tuesday morning, precisely twelve days after his heat had forced him into seclusion. Twelve days of locked doors, suppressed instincts, and the maddening awareness of his own body betraying him. Twelve days of silence, save for the occasional delivery of meals left outside his door by a discreet beta attendant who knew better than to knock.
He walks through the corridors of the Knights of Favonius with his spine straight and his expression carved from ice. His uniform was immaculate, his spear polished to a mirror shine at his back, and his crimson eyes dared anyone—anyone—to comment on his absence.
No one does. They never did, not to his face. They had learned.
His desk, however, had no such restraint.
The pile of paperwork waiting for him was obscene. Reports, requisition forms, patrol summaries, incident logs- stacked so high they threatened to topple. Lohen stood before it, his jaw tightening. He had expected this. Every cycle, the same indignity. While he was locked away fighting his own biology, the work piled up because no one else could, or would, handle the Vice Captain’s duties in his absence. It was a silent, systemic reminder that his position was always conditional. That his seat could be empty for two weeks and the world would simply route around him.
He was still offended.
Lohen sits down, pulling the first report toward him, and begins working through the stack with mechanical efficiency. By noon, he had cleared half of it. By evening, the desk was bare, and his hand ached from writing.
The next morning, the patrol assignments were posted. His name was there, slotted into the rotation for the northern perimeter, a route known for Abyss Order activity and hilichurl encampments. A task befitting the Vice Captain of the Fifth Company. A task befitting him.
Lohen should have felt relief. Instead, he felt the ghost of Varka’s hand on his shoulder and the echo of words he couldn’t shake.
“You’re more than just a weapon. Even arrows need a place to land.”
The thought lodged itself in his mind like a thorn buried beneath the skin—too deep to pull out, too sharp to ignore. It pricked at him during patrols, during drills, during the quiet hours between dusk and dawn when the barracks fell silent and his thoughts grew loud.
What did he truly want?
He wants to be strong. That much was certain, as immutable as the cryo that crystallized at his fingertips. He wants to be seen as strong. Capable, dependable, indispensable. Especially now. Especially after Adorno.
Adorno, who had believed in him before anyone else. Adorno, who had guided the arrow before it left the string.
Adorno, who was dead now, taken by the same trials that was supposed to prove Lohen’s worth. The old knight’s absence was a wound that refused to close, and in its place grew something hard and unyielding—a refusal to be anything less than what Adorno had seen in him.
If Lohen falters, if he softens, if he let his omega nature pull him into a quieter life, then Adorno’s faith would have been wasted on a coward.
So Lohen pushes harder.
It started small. An extra patrol shift here. A solo reconnaissance mission there. Volunteering for assignments that should have required a full squad but that Lohen completed alone, returning with blood on his spear and a sharp grin that made the other knights look away.
Then came the comments.
They always came, eventually. Whispers in the mess hall, murmurs in the training grounds, spoken just loud enough for him to hear but quiet enough for plausible deniability.
“He’s impressive, sure, but how long can he keep this up? Eventually he’ll find a mate and settle down. That’s just how it is for omegas.”
“I heard the Captain’s position might open up next year. Think they’d really give it to him? What happens when he goes into heat during a campaign?”
“It’s a shame, really. He’d make a fine Captain if he weren’t… you know.”
Lohen’s response was immediate and violent.
The first knight who said it to his face, a beta from the Second Company who had the audacity to clap him on the back and say, “Don’t worry, Vice Captain, I’m sure you’ll find a nice alpha to take care of you before your next promotion”- found himself pinned against the training yard wall with Lohen’s forearm across his throat and crimson eyes burning inches from his own.
“Say that again,” Lohen whispers, his voice silk over a blade’s edge. “I want to make sure I heard you correctly.”
The knight stammers an apology. Lohen held him there for three more seconds—long enough to make the point—before releasing him and walking away without a backward glance.
The second incident was worse. A visiting dignitary from Fontaine, an alpha with more perfume than sense, had cornered Lohen at a diplomatic function and suggested, with a smile dripping condescension, “a pretty omega like you must be eager to find a strong mate to protect you.”
Lohen broke his nose.
The diplomatic fallout was handled by Jean, who said nothing to Lohen about it beyond a single, weary sigh. But the message was clear to everyone in attendance: Lohen would not be spoken to as though his future was already written for him.
And yet, beneath the fury, Varka’s words circled like vultures.
“You think having a mate means you have to submit? That’s the kind of narrow-minded thinking I’d expect from the old guard, not from you.”
Of course Varka would say that. Varka was an alpha, the alpha, the strongest in Mondstadt, perhaps in all of Teyvat. He had never once in his life been looked at and found wanting because of his secondary gender. He had never been told his ambitions were temporary, that his career was a phase he would grow out of once the right alpha came along. He had never had to prove that he deserved to exist in the space he occupied.
What did Varka know about fighting to be seen as more than a womb with legs?
Nothing. He knew nothing.
Lohen took the Grand Master’s words—words that had been meant as encouragement, as reassurance—and twisted them into proof of the gulf between them. Varka could afford to be generous with his philosophy because he had never needed it to survive.
The thorn dug deeper. Lohen pushed harder.
The mission was supposed to be routine. A scouting report had identified an unusually large concentration of Abyss Order operatives in the ravines east of Stormterror’s Lair. The Fifth Company was tasked with reconnaissance and, if the opportunity presented itself, disruption.
Lohen was supposed to lead the advance. Instead, he went alone.
He left before dawn, telling no one. His reasoning was sound—or at least, it sounded sound in his own head. A single operative could move faster, quieter, and with less risk of detection. He could assess the threat, identify weak points, and if the numbers were manageable, eliminate the problem before it required a full deployment.
It was the kind of logic that had served him well a hundred times before. The kind of logic that made him the “Frontline Suppression Officer.”
It was also the kind of logic that assumed he was invincible.
The Abyss Order encampment was larger than the reports suggested. Three times larger. What should have been a dozen operatives was closer to forty, supported by two Abyss Heralds and a Lector. Lohen assesses the situation from the ridge above, his eyes narrowing as he counts heads and calculatz odds.
The smart thing to do was retreat. Report back. Return with reinforcements.
Lohen grips his spear and descends into the ravine.
The first wave fell easily. His cryo burst shatters through their ranks, and his spear found throats and joints with surgical precision. He was a blur of frost and steel, moving too fast for any single enemy to track. For a few glorious minutes, it was everything he lives for—the rush, the rhythm, the raw proof that he was exactly as strong as he claimed to be.
Then the Heralds closed in.
The first one caught him with a hydro blade across the ribs. Lohen twisted away, but the second Herald was already there, its attack slamming into his shoulder with enough force to send him crashing into the ravine wall. Stone cracked behind him. Something in his chest cracked too.
He fought on. Of course he did. Lohen didn’t know how to stop. He took down one Herald with a cryo-infused thrust through its core, but the effort cost him—his vision blurs, his breathing turned ragged, and the Lector’s electro attacks were finding their marks with increasing frequency.
By the time he killed the Lector, Lohen could barely stand. His left arm hung useless at his side, dislocated or broken—he couldn’t tell which through the haze of pain. Blood ran freely from a gash above his eye, and his ribs screamed with every breath. The remaining Abyss operatives had scattered, but Lohen’s legs gave out before he could pursue them.
He collapses against the ravine wall, his spear clattering from fingers that could no longer grip. The world tilts sideways. Above him, the sky was a narrow strip of grey between the cliff edges, distant and indifferent.
Get up, he told himself. Get up, you useless—
His body refused.
Lohen lay there in the dirt and the blood, staring at the sky, and for the first time in years, felt something dangerously close to despair.