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The sky is on fire.
The sky is on fire like it’s summer.
The sky is on fire like the sun has come down to play with them.
Its light paints the valleys scarlet. Smoke ascends from the villages and becomes their dance partner. They move to the tune of crackling trees and shrieking tenors. The wind following along. A zealous breeze. A playful hurricane. Serenade and hymn and lullaby. Durin joins in the song, the world cracking under him. How joyful a moment. How romantic a melody.
Mondstadt is set ablaze the way newborn stars are, all full of promises for those wishing at night, when the moon is sweet and its gaze warm, perfect confident for dreamers awaiting the dawn. Now sunset has arrived dressed in flames and miasma rivulets, an ice baton at its hand. It conducts the orchestra that is the land. The fleeing families and the burning vineyards. The boiling lakes and the poisoned air. Sing! It tells Durin with a flourish of its icicle and Durin sings, sings, sings! He brightens the world with his voice, each note a new bonfire.
How joyful! How beautiful! The choir of screaming knights accompanies his voice. One high note held to the sun, prayer for more light. More fire. More dancing. More tornadoes. More melodies. More singing!
Durin intonates the requiem his mother created him with. His ebony bones resonate with the words. There is no flesh left in him to feel the wind, but its caress meets his blood. Oh, sweet bard. Oh, bejeweled dragon. Their waltz amidst the stygian clouds brings awe to their audience as Dvalin deftly leads their march: across fields, over the creeks, among frozen sea and snow-covered paths since long untraversed.
Twirling and spinning and communing through dance, Durin’s only lament is his lack of hands with which to hold him. His movements are not less careful for it, though, when he puts him to rest on the white mountain and seals his Fate with the act of a gentle lover.
Blood floods his mouth like a mighty river. Warm, viscous essence of life. The flesh of his neck has received his fangs without resistance and Durin rejoices in the compliance. The flavour of scales and freedom and pain that descends his rotten throat and washes over his bared heart, like rain over a desert.
How lovely this dragon is. How delightful his taste on his withered tongue. How precious his squirming body between his teeth. The crack of his bones is a symphony on its own.
And Durin drinks and drinks and drinks until he chokes.
Durin wakes up coughing, his throat is overflowing. It’s something thick and acidic threatening to collapse his lungs and it doesn’t matter how much he gets out, there is a waterfall of it pouring into his mouth.
He stumbles out of the closet to fall on his hands and knees, limbs shaking and body spasming out of his control. His stomach is turning over itself and with it the rest of his guts. If only he could spit his lungs out, but when he opens his mouth all that falls is a dark, inky mass that splatters onto the ground. Abyss pollution oozes out of it in purple trickles, corroding the wood around it.
The essence is unmistakable; it’s his blood.
There is something wrong with him.
With the impulse of his wings Durin sits upright and then bolts towards the door, the hallway beyond it is dark but Durin’s eyes are made for the night. He makes the trip to the next room with a hand over his clasped lips, fingers dripping jet-black drops into his shirt.
The bathroom light blinds him as he approaches the sink, his vision needs a few blinks to adapt before he can see his own reflection double over and vomit blood clots into the white porcelain. Finally, his organs don’t feel like they are fighting for space under his skin. Yet, the sting of a wound remains inside his mouth as it does the gushing of blood. Durin doesn’t dare to gulp it down.
However, he dares to open his mouth wide and watch another glass worth of pitch-dark poison drop down. What he notices once the excess is out of the way, are several deep cuts going across his tongue and that the blood leaking from them fills his mouth faster than he can spit it out.
With no other choice, Durin stands there, jaw slack over the sink, letting blood dribble from his tongue. It’s the first time something like this happens and he isn’t quite sure how to proceed. His skin is tough enough that bleeding wounds aren’t usually a concern, still, he doubts the normal treatment of smearing ointment and wrapping it would work. Can tongues even be bandaged? Albedo told him to not stick anything weird in his mouth…
“Durin?”
Hat Guy appears on the threshold like a sunbeam breaking through the clouds and Durin receives him as such.
“Ha’ guy-” he struggles to say, words strangely wet and wrong in every way. “I ‘it ma-”
“I can see that.” His friend cuts in that snappy, no nonsense tone of his that doesn’t manage to hide his concern. “You’re making a mess.”
“I don’ know wha-”
“Stop talking.”
Durin obeys, but not without first uttering one of those whimpers Hat Guy says sound like that of a kicked puppy.
With a huff and a frown over worried eyes, Hat Guy provides a basin from the cabinet and pushes it into Durin’s hands. “You shouldn’t leak any more Abyss corruption into the pipes.”
The realisation startles him, but his apology gets lost among the gurgling.
“I told you: Stop. Talking.” His harsh words contrast with the gentle palm that settles under his wings and guides him out of the bathroom. Durin accepts it with a floppy tail and sunken shoulders. He feels scolded and, now that he isn’t supporting himself on the sink, kind of dizzy.
Hat Guy walks him to his bedroom where the lights are lit and the windows are open. A cool breeze comes from them and Durin approaches them on his own. He didn’t notice it at first, overwhelmed by everything else, but his skin is heated. There is sweat on his forehead and down his back and he feels gross; even worse than when he played in the mud with Klee after a sudden rainpour.
It’s all too similar to that afternoon not so long ago.
His gums ache inside his mouth, craving to close around something, anything. What is Dvalin doing now?
He… probably shouldn’t entertain that train of thought.
“You are going to fall over.” Durin jerks himself straight; he was tilted sideways. “Here.”
Hat Guy gestures towards a chair he has moved next to the window. So close Durin only needs to step back to sit on it. Like most furniture in the students' residences, it is made of wood and leaves. Unlike other times, Durin could take a nap on it. His body feels heavy in a way he isn’t used to, as if there was more of himself, instead of less. So weird after bleeding this much. So strange with his head feeling this light.
On his lap, the basin is slowly turning inky black. The coagulated blood resembles tiny tenebrous mimesis. Durin decides to stop looking at them.
With his gaze pointed beyond the window he spies the moon shining through the branches, its silhouette framed by the billowing curtains, watchful and kind like a distant guardian. He wonders what the colour of Miss Columbina’s blood is.
“Press this to the wound.” Hat Guy hands him a small towel. Durin does so reluctantly. The fabric is uncomfortably coarse on his raw tongue. It will have to do, though, it isn’t like Hat Guy has gauzes or bandages in his apartment and Durin isn’t fond of the Birmarstan after those Amurta scholars tried to kidnap him for research purposes.
Not like they can allow normal humans to handle Abyss waste, either.
“O’ggy” Durin tries. Hat Guy dismisses it with a tsk.
He disappears into the corridor, leaving Durin alone with his thoughts and a bowl collecting his own blood. Is it odd that he is getting hungry? He wants to eat a steak, a big one, he could probably devour a whole boar all on his own.
Thankfully, Hat Guy returns not long after, twirling a little, dark vortex around his finger that he quickly commands into the basin. Oh! So he used his anemo to retrieve the Abyss residue from the pipes; how smart. Durin’s attempts to voice his admiration end up muffled by the towel, which makes him feel pretty dumb. Albedo would be disappointed. He wouldn’t voice it, of course, but Durin has learned his tells.
“Is it still bleeding?”
Hat Guy leans over him as Durin moves the fabric away. He appraises the damage with quick, thoughtful eyes.
“Seems to be stopping.”
Durin dares to glance at the towel: it is a mess of black and purple stains, oozing miasma as if it had been burnt to a crisp . He grumbles before returning it to his mouth.
There is a hint of humour in the diminute perk of Hat Guy’s smile. “How did you even manage to bite your tongue this badly? Were you dreaming about chasing squirrels?”
He is quick to shake his head No, no, no, no. Never! Not squirrels! His first friend ever was a squirrel, he wouldn’t dream about chasing them, or eating them or-
Well, he just dreamed about biting Dvalin’s neck, who is his friend, so he isn’t really sure about the limits of his imagination right now. Maybe tomorrow he will wake up to claw marks on the floor after dreaming about terrorising little critters.
“Hey,” Hat Guy’s tone is soft, the same as his expression when Durin looks up at him. “Was it a nightmare?”
Durin shakes his head again. No, he wouldn’t call it that. He knows what nightmares are, he has felt them creeping up his spine and pricking at his brain. Insidious little ants gnawing at his flesh from the inside. A breath that cannot be exhaled, air that doesn’t reach his lungs. His body crumbling like paper under the rain.
This… he doesn’t know what to call it.
“It wasn’t-” Durin tests his tongue before continuing, it stings a bit, otherwise it’s as good as new. What a relief, he doesn’t want to lose his tongue in his first year as a human. “It wasn’t a bad dream.”
His friend raises an eyebrow. “So you were dreaming about stuffing yourself full?”
“No. I mean- not… really.”
The purple eyebrow raises higher.
Instinctively, his wings swift to cover him.
“It was a strange dream where bad things happened, but I didn’t feel bad about them.” He hangs the towel on the brim of the basin. The blood inside has started to crystallize, obsidians and amethyst surging from within the clods. “I think I was happy.”
The admission settles, heavy, at the bottom of his stomach. Like hard truths usually do.
For his part, Hat Guy sits on the bed close to the chair. The bedding is untouched beyond the creases created under his weight. Durin wonders how much he actually uses it, if he sleeps at all, that is.
“There are all kinds of bad things” his friend comments, not conversationally, but also lacking any accusation. His tone is easy, his posture unburdened as he leans backwards on his hands. This doesn’t have to be a difficult subject, it seems to say.
Durin is grateful for his easy acceptance, his unfaced reaction to the worst things Durin could turn out to be. Sometimes, when he talks to others, he fears what they could sense in him. A being so artificial it could only be created by smashing monsters’ parts together until they took the form of a human. Some days Durin thinks he is tricking them into loving him, deceiving them into feeling safe around a poisonous beast.
His gaze falls to the bowl. He is filled to the brim with venom.
“Mondstadt was burning,” he begins, remembering flames like eager hands reaching for him. “And then I killed Dvalin.”
At his left, Hat Guy’s eyes have gone slightly wider. “So even someone like you dreams of revenge.”
“No! No- not revenge!”
“It is revenge.” Hat Guy claims with finality. Durin whines as he hunches over the basin; he doesn’t want to be vengeful! No matter how proud his friend sounds. “He killed you first, so now you dream of killing him.” He makes a vague gesture with his hand, akin to an impatient teacher signaling at a chalkboard. “Retribution.” He says, like the word is an explanation on its own.
It might not explain much to Durin, but it weighs on his shoulders like a boulder.
“I don’t want to kill Dvalin.” Of that he is completely sure. Why would he want to kill his friend?
Yet again, why would he dream of killing his friend?
…
Why would he dream of enjoying it?
“Do you want to burn down Mondstadt?”
“Of course not!” He came close one time while playing with Klee, but it was an accident!
“Maybe you were hungry,” Hat Guy offers, the forced neutrality in his words tell Durin that he is enjoying this more than he is letting on. “And dreamed about eating the biggest piece of meat you could think of.”
Oh, how Durin would want to have a rebuttal. Sadly for him, his tongue goes over his teeth faster than he can think of a good defense. He tastes mostly his own blood; traces of something else lingering on the back of his fangs. A memory of a bite that never came to pass. “He was tasty.”
Hat Guy’s eyes go even wider. This way, they look glassy and doll-like, too artfully crafted to be human. A little bit like Durin, as well as nothing like him at all. He is quick to school his expression, though, back into his practiced composure.
“You should eat something after losing that much blood.”
“Is it normal to taste things in your dreams?” He wonders.
“How would I know?” Hat Guy gets up from the bed and Durin’s gaze follows his retreating figure as he crosses the room. “Go to Buer with questions like those.” There is no heat in his words, really, it never is with Durin.
His friend disappears into the corridor and Durin is left alone, again. With his mind marginally clearer than before, he is capable of appreciating the details in the room. The neatness of it, not single item out of place. The smell of early dewdrops setting on the branches outside. The warmth radiating from the lamp and the books opened on the desk next to handwritten notes. From his chair, Durin is able to tell apart a few annotations written in Inazuman along the margins. How much coaxing would be needed for Hat Guy to teach him his native language? Probably not much.
Durin gets up on unsteady feet, leaving the basin on the chair to approach the only closet in the room. Inside, Durin finds bundles of clothes and a group of dolls pushed to the far end, as if wanting to hide them from view, without truly putting in the effort. Durin appreciates their craftsmanship for a moment, before taking the one made specially for him.
He closes the closet and makes his way to the desk; his body is asking to be splayed on the ground and he is all too happy to comply.
The space under the desk is pleasantly cramped, narrow and dark like dens ought to. He coils himself as tightly as possible, tail around him and wings as a blanket, the doll a comfortable pillow under his head. His fangs itch to dig into the cotton, but it’s too precious a gift to succumb to the impulse.
His jaw is restless in a way the rest of him isn’t, aching and uncomfortable in its hollowness. Would Dvalin be mad if he tried to bite him? Just a tiny nip? With his current size, he wouldn’t even notice the scratch against his scales.
The idea is ridiculous. Durin huffs, frustrated with the lack of something to crush under his teeth, and with himself for desiring it in the first place. He needs to talk with Albedo about this, he can’t go around wanting to bite his friends.
Approaching footsteps distract him. From his napping spot Durin has a wide view of the room, and so, he watches as familiar wooden sandals walk inside, face different directions and finally step toward the desk. Not even a second later, Durin has purple, unimpressed eyes meeting his own. It’s not the first time he has slept here, although he was admittedly way smaller before.
“I’m a little tired.” He tells his friend, who exhales a small puff of air (that Durin knows is fond and not at all exasperated) and slides him a plate of tulumba. Most likely leftovers from the evening coffee he and Nahida like to share. It isn’t meat, but Durin will take anything at this point. “Thank you.”
Durin pushes it closer with his tail, under his wing and near his hand. He practically shoves the first one into his mouth, luckily, that half of his face is hidden from Hat Guy’s assessing stare.
His inspection lingers the five long seconds that take for his teeth to demolish the sweet into smithereens. Durin’s eagerness for a second bite seems to soothe whatever had him worried, because he lifts himself from being on his hunches and goes to retrieve the chair.
Even with his back turned, Durin tries to repress his disappointment. The fried dough is too soft for what he craves.
But what does he want, exactly?
“What do you think my dream meant?”
“I think” Hat Guy begins as he puts the chair on its rightful place on the desk, effectively caging Durin in, “that you should talk to Buer.”
Durin gnaws at the sugary pastry, feeling the easy give of its crust under his pointy fangs. His tongue is still a little too tender to enjoy the sweetness. His thoughts too bitter to be placated by it. “Won’t she think I’m a bad person?”
The sounds of his friend rummaging through his desk come to a sudden stop. Durin feels the silence stretching thin, akin to a string about to break. Then, a quiet chuckle concealed as a scoff snaps the tension in half and the noise of papers being moved from one place to another becomes a calming lullaby.
“You couldn’t be bad if you tried.”
After that, it’s easy to fall asleep.