Chapter Text
Hine sleeps through the night for the first time when she's four months old.
She's still distraught about not being held so the only person who gets more sleep because of it is Xilonen, but Xilonen has been threatened with some kind of unspecified punishment from Miko if she has the effrontery to feel bad about that. So she just appreciates getting eight straight hours of sleep and tries not to make a big deal of it for Mualani and Chasca's sakes.
It's over a week of so much sleep later that she learns Makani has been doing it for a month and Mualani didn't want to make her and Chasca feel bad either.
"It's fine," Chasca says. "I tend to wake up to check nothing's creeping up on my location anyway. I'm sleeping pretty normally for me. I think this is the most nights in a row I've ever slept indoors."
"Your place is starting to look pretty nice," Mualani says brightly.
When she moved in, Chasca had a camp bed, an infant bed for Cusi, and one chair. That lasted until Kaia saw it.
"Yeah, it's kind of over the top," Chasca sighs. "It'd bug me more but Cusi deserves to live somewhere nice. I'm just worried I'm getting soft."
"In what way?" Xilonen asks, because she can't imagine that's actually true.
"Last night I didn't even register the guy in my living room as a threat," Chasca says like it's an actual problem.
"You mean Kaeya," Xilonen clarifies. "The guy who lives on your couch."
Kaeya isn't even keeping his room at the Weary Inn these days. He actually lives on Chasca's couch. Xilonen told him he could use some lockers in one of her storerooms for storing anything he wants to keep that won't fit in his corner of her living room but she has no idea if he's actually doing that or if he's just living out of his one bag.
It's not like she's going to check. The lockers are now allocated as Kaeya's space, there's labels on the doors, he gets to have privacy. Poor guy's living on a couch, it's not like he gets it anywhere else right now.
The weird part is that he actually seems pretty happy. Chasca's doing better these days and does actually spend time with Cusi when she isn't feeding her, and as far as Xilonen can tell she's totally civil to Kaeya so long as they're talking about the baby.
Not so much when they aren't.
But Cusi's birth record includes him as the father (it looks weird, there isn't a traditional thread pattern for Mondstadt so it's all picked out like a name, Kaeya Alberich of Mondstadt, but it's there) which means he now has actual rights to Cusi, so he's not just putting up with it so he can see her.
"Yeah, him," Chasca says. "Walked straight past him, didn't even reach for a knife."
Xilonen and Mualani share a look.
Do we talk about this?
No, I think this is progress but she'll only get stubborn if we say anything.
Chasca is trying. She talked to Jean and arranged for Cusi to have a Mondstadt birth record too that gives her dual citizenship, even if she then made Xilonen and Mualani tell Kaeya so she wouldn't have to be there to see it if he was happy about it. (Which he was.)
The triplets are all with their fathers, and Xilonen doesn't want to ruin this time getting to hang out just the three of them, anyway. They're in her workshop. Xilonen is going over Soulsniper, because after so many months of disuse she doesn't want Chasca taking it out without Xilonen having checked it thoroughly.
Neither Chasca nor Mualani really needs to be here, but it's not like they get these opportunities often lately.
Xilonen actually needs to replace a part here, she thinks - not even from the period of disuse, it's a wear issue. The others watch her hammer a piece of metal into shape.
"Sooo," Mualani says, very clearly changing the subject, "Professor Venti is coming for the trip to the islands. Benny's really looking forward to it."
"Me too," Chasca says. "It'll be nice to get out and, you know... do stuff."
"I'm worried it's going to be too difficult to make it work with Makani." Mualani doesn't miss a beat as Xilonen holds a piece of red-hot metal towards her, just flicks Hydro energy at it to quench it.
For some purposes it's better than using actual water, anyway, but also Xilonen hadn't thought she'd need to forge anything and the quenching trough is empty. She didn't light the forge, either, just used some of the Pyro energy she gets from Mavuika now.
"I'm sure the kids will be fine," Xilonen says. "We're taking all of the supplies we could possibly need and we're not going to have time pressure on going around the resort." The timing for this is a little weird with the babies, but there's an important side-project that's waited long enough and they might as well get a fun break out of it.
She doesn't mention: and I'm sure nothing can go too badly wrong, we're taking two Archons, because the others only know about one of them. They're definitely going to be taking everything they need, because Xilonen is packing her kettle, not a bag.
Mostly she's adding baby stuff. It already has enough tools and raw materials that she could be dropped on a barren island in the middle of the ocean with just her kettle and she'd have automatic fish-catchers and a water distillery for supplies within a day and then she could build herself a ship. Or a flying machine. Or a palace. Or a palatial flying ship.
The kettle lives in her workshop, mostly, but sometimes she also takes it home with her. It's just more convenient for storage than the more distant Stadium storerooms, and the nearby ones are all full. Xilonen's ability to fill storage space expands to the amount of storage space she has available, because it means she'll have conversations that go Hey Xilonen, we had a load of ore that was supposed to go to a buyer in Liyue but he cancelled, so before I talk to that guy from Sumeru I thought I'd check if you want it? Sure Pacal, that sounds awesome, I'll definitely use it, can you bring it to the Stadium? Absolutely, it's easier than getting it to the pier at Ameyalco Waters, you're doing us a favour and then there's six wagonloads of pretty good ore getting unloaded.
Xilonen had to bring in Alom to help her teach Nepecha and Tlalli how to smelt ore properly without the use of Geo Visions, although the answer as to how you assess the quality of it without one is kind of you don't, at least until you take your apprentices to Sumeru to study with their alchemists and learn how to do some complicated testing Xilonen didn't say aloud looked horrifically tedious.
Using the kettle also means that Mavuika doesn't actually have to start sorting through her puzzle collection and throwing some of it out to make room for Xilonen to have more of the storerooms that are intended for the use of the Archon, because she's ridiculous and offered even though Xilonen could clear half of a quite large room just by saying, "Hey, next time someone's setting up a bonfire they could take all of this wood. It's all technically scraps and offcuts, I'm just keeping it because it's all cut from good lumber and it might be useful."
(Counterpoint: her apprentices love raiding the scrap piles and seeing what they can make, which is also great practice for them, and sometimes Xilonen does need a small piece and gets it from the pile, and that totally justifies her three storerooms full of wood offcuts and scrap metal.)
Xilonen fits the new part to Soulsniper and tests the motion of the mechanism is smooth. "Make sure you do a few controlled test flights before you take it into combat," she reminds Chasca. "You've been out of action for a while. Loss of conditioning is no joke."
"Yeah, of course," Chasca says. "Are you going to remind me to break in my new boots and check the heel strength?"
"Not now." Xilonen shoots her a grin.
Chasca wears boots with custom heels that lock into Soulsniper for stability and control when she's going to use it. Xilonen wears shoes with enough thickness in the sole and spike in the heel to give her ground clearance for her skates.
Mualani wears platform-soled shoes because she's short and will apparently never be over that.
"Xilonen?" It's Kachina, coming from the back of the workshop. "I can't figure out why this isn't working."
Xilonen takes the rather large piece of machinery and examines it while Mualani tugs Kachina over to the workbench she's sitting on so she can hug her.
"You're getting so tall," Mualani says. "If you keep growing much longer you're going to be taller than I am."
She will never be over it.
"Let me guess," Xilonen says. "You're trying to power up the drive rotor." She grins. "I admire the ambition, but there's a reason I left the power level where I did."
"I thought it was because you didn't want it to be too much for me when I was smaller and it was new," Kachina says uncertainly.
"Nope. I knew you could handle yourself." At least she's making a new section and didn't try to modify Turbo Twirly directly. "It's because to power it up you have to add weight, and you can't balance it in the available space without making the whole thing about thirty percent bigger. Which I did reject as a plan because it would be too big for you, but it still would be. Give it at least another year."
"Oh, okay. Thanks, Xilonen," Kachina says, with just a hint of a sigh.
Xilonen hands the piece back. "Tell you what. Draw up your plans as a proper schematic. I'll go over it and show you how to spin up the power levels higher than this, and then if you can grow another few inches we can build Turbo Twirlier fully amped."
"That sounds awesome!" Kachina perks up immediately and takes her piece back to the apprentices' drafting tables.
"Fully amped," Mualani echoes. "Out of interest, how old do the triplets have to be before you'll start building worryingly dangerous things for them?"
Xilonen gives her a look. "There's no way to know that until we know what kind of stuff they're into. If they want a Turbo Twirly, probably about twelve or fourteen. If they want a flamestrider thirty-five and if they want a Soulsniper I'm thinking sixty."
It's questionable whether she'd agree to make the bike for Mavuika if she asked now, or if she'd tell her no, love of my life, that's so dangerous and I want you safe and I will distract you with sex every time this question comes up for as long as I need to, but at the time Mavuika pestered her until she hit the point where she figured if she crashed it and got horribly injured it would serve her right but the Archon was tough enough to survive it.
And also Mavuika was showing her all the schematics she'd found and Xilonen really wanted to figure out how they worked, and overcoming the incompatibilities with her Pyro energy was actually a really interesting challenge, but she's still not admitting that to Mavuika.
Soulsniper is different. She's fine with Chasca having it, because Chasca is Chasca and for her it's not unreasonably dangerous at all, but Xilonen doesn't want any of the kids to have any of the experiences that would be required to convince her they could handle it.
"That's fair," Chasca says, because neither does she.
A few weeks after they're supposed to get back it'll be Mavuika's birthday. Xilonen didn't want Mavuika to have expectations and be disappointed, so she let her know well in advance that she isn't getting a special puzzle this year because Xilonen already gave her a child, and Mavuika said she fully understood and that was definitely more than enough of a gift.
Xilonen is still organising a party with their friends before the big party across Natlan. This year she's inviting the Heroes and Kachina and Citlali as well as Benny and Kaeya - she was ready to tell Chasca to shut up about it, but Chasca didn't even say anything - and Mualani's parents and Benny's dads, and there's also an international guest list that's starting to look kind of crazy.
Miko and Ei barely needed inviting, they already know they'll be there, and they're bringing Mizuki and Kokomi. Neuvillette and Wriothesley and the Caspar de Fontaines and their children are coming, of course, and Escoffier is fun at parties. Dehya is bringing her girlfriends and Alhaitham can't make it but he and Nahida told Dehya to take the teapot to the desert so she can bring her wife to meet everyone as well, and Xilonen's really looking forward to that.
Jean comes to Natlan every week or two. At first it was clearly just to check on Kaeya, but Xilonen is pretty sure Mavuika and Jean have bonded over being public-spirited workaholics who seem like they think way too highly of themselves except they actually are as good as they think they are, and now they're friends. So she's invited Jean and Lisa, and also Amber and Diluc and Venti. Chasca won't be thrilled to see Diluc but she'll get a choice about how often Kaeya's people get invited to Natlan when she's willing to take over being nice to Kaeya herself instead of leaving that to Xilonen and Mualani.
Xilonen sent Zhongli a note that says It's Mavuika's birthday and we'd love to have you but Neuvillette is coming, so and he sent back a very polite note thanking her for thinking of him with a gift for her wife and apologising that unfortunately he won't be able to attend. Granny Ping and Xianyun are coming and bringing Yaoyao and Shuyu. Xilonen also invited Xiangling and Yanfei, because they're delightful people with Pyro Visions so obviously Mavuika loves them, and then she went back to the Fontaine postal system to send an invitation to Arlecchino.
She's been learning things about the Fatui. She has thoughts. She's absolutely certain that no Harbinger is going to try to cause trouble at a party attended by multiple Archons, the Hydro Dragon, the Heroes of Natlan, the Witch of the Purple Rose and the Dandelion Knight, and Arlecchino specifically isn't going to start anything at a party attended by two toddlers and three babies as well as five older children.
Xilonen also invited Charlotte, but on condition she can take pictures and report on the Natlan celebration in the evening but not the private birthday party earlier because there are limits, Charlotte, we get to have private lives too, Charlotte, and also I'll give you ten minutes for an official interview if you promise not to try and interview anyone else and was slightly surprised she agreed.
It should all be great. Xilonen still feels slightly weird about giving the guest list and some instructions to the Speaker's Chamber staff to do most of the rest for her, but she has the resort stuff to finish.
None of them particularly want to do the boat journey with their children, but the resort has taken on a lot of aphids and saurians in staff roles which means Ororon and Ifa are going, and Ororon is cool with taking the teapot for them so the rest of them can just go straight there.
Xilonen kinda figures that it'll spoil everyone's fun if she's going along to all the attractions, since she designed almost all of them. It's like the puzzle thing. Also, Mavuika turning up for the big opening ceremony thing is supposed to be a surprise and if everyone sees Xilonen going around they'll probably assume Mavuika is there too, and Xilonen wants to check that the things that could be really dangerous if they haven't been set up properly have in fact been set up properly.
So when they actually head out the others go to the entrance and Ororon drops off the teapot at the stage area for Xilonen.
She definitely intends to have a holiday too, just her plans involve more finding places to have some truly excellent naps.
Mualani, Chasca and Benny took Kaeya and Mualani's parents to help with the babies while they enjoy the attractions - with Miko, who thought it sounded fun. Venti is heading over but he's already made excuses for meeting up with them a little later.
Because Xilonen's life is deeply weird, the person she's going to have with her who has volunteered to hold Hine when Xilonen needs her hands free is Ei. Which might seem weirder to everyone else but it's unlikely anyone will recognise the Electro Archon and Almighty Shogun of Inazuma while she's holding a baby and dressed in the casual Natlan summer outfit Miko somehow talked her into wearing.
Xilonen was surprised at first that Miko talked Ei into this at all but it turns out she wanted to tour the setup for the stage and equipment. Since Xilonen built her new body for her Ei is way more interested in Xilonen's work. Which does make sense, since Ei has become much more aware that Xilonen's pretty good at this stuff, but is also doing nothing to help Xilonen lose the vaguely maternal feelings.
She's used to thinking of Ei as kinda... Miko's wife, Mavuika's friend, just sort of a friend by association to Xilonen, but now she has all this affection for her. They spent a lot of time talking just the two of them during the construction, and Xilonen made that body while making a daughter and it clearly did things to her brain.
Her plan was to show Ei around and then find a place to take a nap before she really got started, but something about the Dance-Off Stage is off.
She says so aloud. "Guess I'll have to check it out. How many times have I told them to actually read the manual when they're operating this thing?" She sighs. "No-one ever listens to me, yay."
Which...
Look, she's said that kind of thing before, it's just... this has always been her life, the list of people who've been fully attentive to the documentation she's included with something is Chasca and only Chasca and Xilonen was really intense about the importance of her paying attention to Soulsniper's maintenance because it was her life on the line and Chasca is capable of recognising a) that people care about her and b) that Chuychu would have murdered Xilonen if Soulsniper had been the cause of Chasca getting hurt, so.
The statement, in short, is a rhetorical expression of frustration, even if it's also technically true.
However.
Raiden Ei, Almighty Shogun of Inazuma, God of Eternity, and pretty damn good engineer in her own right, does not quite understand that this is just Xilonen's life.
"They do not attend to the instructions issued by the designer of these machines who is also their Archon's wife and Chosen," Ei says disapprovingly.
"Yeah, no-one ever does." Xilonen starts walking towards the stage. "I'll - Ei?"
Ei has overtaken her, walking briskly with the curious mix of grace and implacability she gets sometimes.
Xilonen stops. She remembers Kuki Shinobu at the setup for Miko's wedding, yelling at the crew to get it right and check the manuals. At least some people in Inazuma do take things seriously.
Ei goes to the lead tech, but she doesn't raise her voice. Xilonen doesn't hear the first part of what she says, it takes her a moment to start chasing her again.
"... endanger lives and safety in your unacceptable disdain for the authority of your Archon's Chosen. This disrespect for the power of the forces engaged in the function of these systems is foolish. The potential damage caused by structural failure should not be trifled with in this way. Your laziness is an act that violates good sense, the rights of due authority and the will of the Pyro Archon. You will review the manual and correct your errors. You will do it now. If your errors are not promptly repaired I will personally inform the Pyro Archon of your disdain for the safety of Natlan's people and for her wife."
Xilonen watches the tech look from Ei to Hine, who's awake and giving him the judgemental stare that four-month-old babies appear to have for anyone they don't know.
Well. Hine and Cusi do. Makani smiles at everyone, and everyone, including strangers, thinks Makani is the most precious darling in the history of the world. According to Kaeya, people who see him with Cusi think she's adorable, at least. People who know Xilonen tell her that Hine is beautiful, but people who don't tend not to make unsolicited comments because, well...
Hine is pretty distinctive, as babies go, what with the faintly-glowing sunbursts in her eyes that were in the pictures that circulated all over Teyvat. Here and now, the fact that Ei is holding the Pyro Archon's daughter is a clear indication that this is someone who knows Mavuika.
The tech looks at Xilonen.
"Better get on that," she says, because she's tired of dealing with this kind of thing and she doesn't actually have any control over Ei, and honestly, Ei is right. This is a safety issue and Xilonen shouldn't be having to fix it personally.
Having Ei there to berate the techs for her does give Xilonen time to check over all of the systems. Some of them are pretty complex, and the construction was mostly left to her apprentices. Xilonen doesn't want to take the risk that any mistakes slipped past when she checked on their progress. She was sleep-deprived with a newborn, she wasn't at her best, and her apprentices are apprentices. It's Xilonen's responsibility to make sure nothing goes wrong here.
After the opening ceremony Xilonen will definitely take a couple of days off with Mavuika. She's pretty sure she can talk Mavuika into finding the most private patch of beach around and Xilonen can take a nap in the sun and in Mavuika's arms. Right now she's working while her friends explore the resort, and that's cool.
In a couple of months they're going to have to start Hine on solids, and Xilonen thinks that will actually make it harder for her to work away from the Stadium. Right now she needs someone to hold Hine and change her as required. When Hine gets hungry, Xilonen can just feed her. She always has Hine's food source with her. She is Hine's food source. They don't have to bring anything.
She gets hungry more often than Makani or Cusi do. Xilonen worried that she wasn't producing enough milk, or something, and got to the point of weighing the babies before and after they were fed to see if there was a real problem.
Which... Xilonen doesn't know if there's a problem, but if there is it's not in volume? Hine's eating more than the other kids, which also explains why Xilonen is hungrier than usual and constantly thirsty.
According to Citlali, Sigewinne and several other midwives and healers, it's all fine. The triplets are all growing well. Hine wants more food but she's getting it, and it's almost certainly something to do with the fact that Hine is a chimera and the other two are human.
And she ends up eating more often because Xilonen has a finite storage capacity and so does Hine.
Xilonen finds she actually really enjoys spending several days with Ei going over the systems she designed for the resort. Ei is interested, and actually appreciates that these designs are really cool actually when most people take it for granted that these things just happen, that Xilonen will take their ideas for "you know what would be awesome, if..." and don't actually stop to think that yeah but Xilonen actually did that.
Ei is impressed and that's actually a really awesome feeling, because Xilonen is familiar with Ei's work and it's incredible, and Ei's praise feels good like nothing Xilonen has ever experienced. The closest she can remember is her old teacher Teyiz, and Teyiz was impressed with her potential, not her accomplishments. Teyiz probably would be proud of her now, but that's not the same thing.
This is the admiration of someone who's here, now, and really understands what Xilonen has done.
In the evenings they reunite with Mavuika, who's been working, and with Benny's Adventure Team, who've been enjoying the resort and helping get a bunch of the resort areas up and running.
They've also been finding some oddities - traces of past adventurers and things that aren't supposed to be here. They even got attacked in a cave, although with Benny, Mualani, Chasca and Miko they weren't in any real danger.
"That's weird," Xilonen says. "I thought this whole place had been swept and cleared."
"It was supposed to be," Mavuika says. "And nothing strange was discovered during construction."
"Very weird," Xilonen concludes. "Probably just as well it was found by Benny's Adventure Team instead of by some random people who'd get killed. Not a lot is going to take you four on and win."
There are three Archons here and Citlali's on her way and Xilonen just doesn't think it seems like something she personally needs to worry about.