Chapter Text
Blood— that tangy, rusted scent that he knows all too well— permeates the air, joining the signature foul stench of the Abyss. Nothing is fresh down here— from the half-rotted corpses of some wolf whelps, down to each withering, crumbling plant. He rips his blade— steadily formed, and completely unshaky, unlike his earlier attempts to control his gift— out of the abdomen of the wolf, and watches on with apathy as the flesh dusts away back into chalk. There’s no blood on the blade, only some sort of runny indigo substance that powders itself away as well.
He desummons his blade, and picks up his pack, as well as the scattered herbs and meats that have been strewn across the rocks during his tussle with the dark hounds. They’re thankfully untampered, and none of the hounds have managed to consume anything.
Thankfully— it’s his only hope of sustenance in this dead place. The very few plants and animals that manage to stay alive in the rotting dunes are scarce, and it’s taken him hours to hunt them down. It’s not like he can eat those strange wolves, either— any attempt to kill them off results in them disintegrating into throughly inedible chalk dust.
Such is the way of the Abyss, he supposes— if one doesn’t suffer to survive in it, then is it really the Abyss?
‘Master’ claims that this is not the original state of the Abyss. Whatever it was before, however, is of no matter to him now— now, the Abyss is a hellscape where only the strong survive. Or rather— only those who persevere survive. It’s no use merely being strong— unless one's strength was on par or even greater than that of the gods (and here was how ‘Master’ was the exception to the rule of the Abyss)— one must be determined to cling to life and never let go. Giving up is not an option, in the Abyss.
He treks his way back to their camp for the night— taking care to cover up his tracks as completely as possible. It wouldn’t do good for anything to follow him to camp— he’s far too worn-out after the fight with those wicked whelps to be able to fend off anything else today. ‘Master’ is waiting resolutely, sharpening her steel, with an utterly dispassioned expression.
“Half a cycle.” She hums, standing up— rarely does she speak in lengthy sentences, and he isn’t quite sure if she’s just not much of a talker, or if she deems words a waste of time on him.
“That’s faster than last time at least, right?” He grumbles, dragging his pack over to pick out his scavenged items. She doesn’t grace him with an answer, instead moving over to inspect the meats he’s carefully wrapped up.
“Don’t eat this— its blood is poisonous.” She says instead, dragging out the crimson, bloody cut he managed to scrape off a freshly-killed corpse.
“But I saw those spindly deer things eat from it.” He protests.
“Are you evolved to handle their toxins as well?” Master gives him a look, to which he wisely shuts up.
They prepare the rest of the meal in complete silence— Master has taught him well, on how to survive. He slices the meats with practiced precision, and he summons the aid of his gift once more to clean everything up. It takes a few tries, but the dry wood alights with a small flame nonetheless, and soon enough the food is cooking. It’s crude and it’ll all turn out completely tasteless and bland, given that he has nothing to season it with, but it keeps him alive.
When I get home, he promises himself. I’ll gorge myself on all the borcht I can ever want.
It’s his main driving force for living, right now. The Abyss is cold and dark, and Master keeps him alive but gives very little in terms of comfort— the only truly warm thing is the thought of returning home to his family. His mother’s too-tight hugs, his father’s warm, guiding hand… he has not experienced these in at least thirty cycles, and each cycle only amplifies his yearning for it. Up upon the surface he had refused these, feeling constricted, restrained, beneath these, wishing to be free, but down here, he dearly wants them back.
His gift— a Vision, Master had confirmed— glowed warmly at his hip.
“Don’t flash that thing so much down here.” Master said languidly, throwing another stick into the pile, reigniting the fire.
He made a face. “Why? If it’s hidden, I can’t use it.”
It was true— whatever this Vision was, it seemed that it could only gift him powers when it was uncovered and open to the world. Perhaps it could not ‘see’ when it was covered and ‘closed’— this was the conclusion he came to, after finding himself unable to use it in a pickle.
From then on it was proudly displayed at his hip.
“Look around you, kid.” She huffed. “Does this look like a place that likes Light?”
Instinctively— he looked up. It was true, for the most part. The Abyss was dim, and almost everything was coated in a sort of deep indigo miasma. Even the plants were a deep, warning red, and the animals were all almost completely blind, or relied on some…alternate methods of perception.
But it wasn’t as though it was compeletely devoid of light. It was dark, sure, what with the lack of a flaming sun, but in place of a sun or a mournful hanging moon, was a starry sky that far exceeded the glory of the above-world’s own. Swirling masses of colour swum across the navy blue pools, and little glimmering dots twinkled and winked at the Abyss below. Occassionally, he could see streaks of somethings shooting across the sky, leaving trails of sparkling dust behind— beings of realms beyond Teyvat, Master had told him on one of her more agreeable days. That endless ocean beyond Teyvat was boundless, beautiful, and filled with lights.
The Abyss wasn’t always like this, he remembers her saying. Somewhere along the way— and it could be hundreds of years, or thousands, thanks to his Master’s general detachment from the concept of time— the Abyss had been filled with the strange purple wisp, and corrupted by the mysterious sludge, which killed off half the native inhabitants and forced the rest to adapt. Was the Abyss lighter, then?
The Vision has been a light in the darkness of the Abyss for him, nonetheless. A beacon of hope is far too cliche, but it really is an embodiment of his determination to get back to his family. It’s kept him alive down here, and he decides he doesn’t care if the Abyss dislikes him using the powers.
“I don’t have anything else.” He says truthfully.
Master scoffs. “You do.”
He presses his lips into a tight, thin, line. He does, technically— he can feel that sliver of power, curling within his ribs, ready to assist. But he has little control over it— the Abyss’ Gift is nothing like the Vision. Where the Vision will give in to his command, the Abyss will resist. In using the Vision, it’s only a matter of his control over it— the waters will sing under his command either way, and the difficulty lies in learning how to apply it. With the Abyssal power thrumming in his veins, it refuses to follow the path he sets. It is tempestous, and absolutely stubborn— useless in assisting him in survival, in its current state.
“I can’t control it.” He protests. “I need to use the Vision.”
She gives him a hard look.
“The Abyss will not take kindly to this.” She says gravely. “Either you adapt to it, or it will take it from you by force.”
She’s eyeing his Vision as she says this, and so he does too, until that eye-watering blue glows so bright, it seems to take in his entire vision and subsume everything else.
Come home, child.
A deep, wistful whalesong sounded in the distance.
—
Childe wakes up in a cold sweat.
He’s panting heavily, and the Pneumousia-powered cooling system is doing zilch— it feels unbearably warm, still.
He can feel a breeze, on his arm, from said cooling system— it’s frigid, and freezing, but he feels so inexeplicably warm, as if his body itself was burning in on itself. He can feel the chill but it pales in comparison to the burning hearth that spreads within him. It’s uncomfortable, smothering, warmth, and it's all too familiar in the sense that he’s only felt this warmth a rare handful of times, and they’ve all been after using his Foul Legacy transformation.
He growls, and throws off his duvet in frustration— and quickly realises the issue at hand.
Tattered scraps of the duvet fabric are pierced and stuck on his claws.
Childe blinks, and quickly inspects his whole body, and- oh.
Archons.
Though, admittedly, with things of the Abyss, he wasn’t quite sure what the Archons could do. Especially– especially with this.
Somehow, in the night, he had partially transformed into the Foul Legacy— sans armour. The thick, chitinous plates that usually set themseves comfortably upon his arms, the sharp protectors that covered his hands— they were gone, revealing rather gnarly, black, claw-like things.
He turned his hand around carefully, back and forth. It seemed that they hadn’t changed in size like the usually did, but he was also pretty sure he wasn’t born with purpling, almost black, veins crawling down his arms. They were also stained a sort of starry blue as they descended further downwards into his hands, the same sort that his Master had on hers, except less translucent, and more, fleshy. His nails— usually trimmed short to keep them out of the way when fighting— were stained the same colour, though they gradually faded into a deep, lightless black, and ended in sharp, thick points.
He had never really seen his form without the armour— each rare time he summoned it was under duress, for fighting purposes. He barely had time to see the true body underneath— especially when he had more important things to deal with, like things attempting to kill him. And he had never really thought about looking at it, either. To him, it was always just a means to an end, another weapon in his arsenal.
Without the armour, though, it– it forced him to see how they connected to his body, really feel the sensation of being in the Foul Legacy. His hands— they didn’t feel like his at all, and as he inspected his hands, clasping and unclasping them, feeling the points of the claws dig into his palms, it felt as if though his brain was lagging, and it was difficult for him to accept and realise that they were a part of him.
They were a part of him.
Archons— he- he looked inhuman.
He took a deep breath. Felt something on his cheek— a little restrictive, a little wrong, as he exhaled.
There was more.
He rushed to the bathroom to take a look.
There— in the mirror, by the Archons he was— oh, Archons!
In that little polished reflection, his face stared back— but it wasn’t his. It was– corrupted, in some way, it looked wrong.
His sclera were the same lightless black as his clawtips, and more of that starry violet and indigo creeped up along the side of his cheek, contrasting harshly against the more orange tones of his skin. There were nubs of something, poking out from beneath his fluff of hair, and as he parted his bangs to get a closer look, he realised, from their crimson colour and slighty curved shape, that they were some shorter, smaller version of the horns he usually had in Foul Legacy.
Celestia, he looked horrible. He barely looked like a human. He looked like something that crawled out the Abyss— and he was, but he was so good at hiding it, at covering it up and pretending, but now it came back in full force. Like he couldn’t hide his true nature much longer.
He needed to hide it again. He couldn’t let anyone see. Gritting his teeth, he began reaching inside that well of power he rarely used, and tried to push it down, inwards, until these new appendages retreated.
It retaliated with a snarl, and rebounded.
WHY DO YOU DENY US? That horrible thing screeched, flinging itself (and it wasn’t literally, but it was the best he could describe that sudden, intermittent pressure he felt within) against him.
“Shut up. Dissapear.” He growls, yanking the reins, and pushing it back. He can’t walk around Fontaine like this. He can’t walk around anywhere like this. He needs to go back, back to his normal state. He needs to be human again. He can’t walk around like a monster.
TAKE OUR POWER! It continues, roaring, and it manages to loosen his grip, throwing him back. A blast of Abyssal energy surges forth, and he feels a vicious, stabbing pain. His head throbs now, and he feels a migraine coming up. His reflection in the mirror grows even more monstrous— the horns are slightly longer now, adopting even more of that familiar curve, and his irises are ringed with an electric sort of chromatic purple. His nails are no longer nails, instead, the hard keratin has crawled up to his entire finger, and they’re really just real claws now.
With a disgust and fear and a thousand hundred other emotions swirling around in an unhappy mixture in his gut, he clenches his hands tight, feeling the claws dig into his palms. He lets the pain, that stinging, burning sensation of sharp claws piercing the soft flesh, clear his mind.
In, and out.
“Shut up,” he mutters quietly, his hands shaking. “Let go of me.”
He wishes, dearly, suddenly, that his Vision is with him. Its soothing light is nothing like the Abyss’ Gift.
Still you insist on using the Light! Useless! Paltry! Leave it be, and come to us instead!
It tightens around him, constricting, and if it were real and not completely in his head he would swear it was choking him to death.
“My Vision hasn’t tormented me mentally.” Childe snaps back, exhausted and pissed by the pushing of the voice. He’s so, so, tired, and he can still feel the tear tracks across his cheek from the previous night. His eyelids feel swollen, and he can barely stand to look at his reflection. “Let go of me, now. I want to be human again.”
You even deny our protection! Foolish child!
“I don’t know how you’re protecting me with this.” He grits his teeth, trailing a claw over the ridged, hard (?!) purple skin almost crystallising the left side of his face. “This makes me a target. So I go out in Fontaine like this, what do you think will happen to me?”
(“What happened to my little boy? You’re not our Ajax.”)
“You know what happened with my parents.” He laughs dryly, slowly coiling the chain around his Abyssal core, commanding it to stay down. “No one likes to see a monster up here.”
It flays, and thrashes, screeching. You would deny us? You would rather side with the Light?
“I’m thinking about my survival.” Childe hisses, and quickly withdraws his tongue— feeling the sting of fangs drawing blood. Fangs. Archons, he can feel the points jutting out, not too sharp, but still sharper than any human he’s seen. He can taste the tang of iron pooling in his mouth. “So what’s it gonna be?”
Thankfully, it retreats, but not without a final snapping bite, and a hissed promise.
You will accept us soon enough…
“Zip it.” Childe exhales, his breath staggered. He watches the claws retreat, that sickly purple fade away back to his pallid tone. In the mirror, he sees the horns shorten into his scalp, dissapearing amongst his ginger locks. His eyes lose that black, and the white quietly slips back in. His teeth rounden, smoothen out, until his canines are a normal, acceptable length and shape.
Still, he looks no better even when he looks human: he’s haggard— now that the stark indigo has left, he can make out the dark circles beneath his eyes, the pale, tired skin. His lips are a greyish mauve, chapped and dry. He can feel his muscles ache, beneath his sleeping clothes— the result of his duel with Clorinde the day before. Every inch of his body feels weary, drained of energy. He can feel his eyelids throbbing, swollen, from the bout of crying the night before. He’s hungry as well.
Enough.
He forces those thoughts out of his mind— compartmentalises them, sets them neatly in their boxes in his mind. Seals them shut, throws them out.
The shower is frigid, freezing, this time— he doesn’t bother to turn on the heater, relishing in how the cool water washes over his aches. He can feel the frenzied heat receding, and once he steps out to don his usual sartorials— planning on making a stop to the Northland Bank to inform them of their resolved issue— he’s all but put away the events of the morning.
He slips out of his room, and then down, to grab a coffee and something from the breakfast buffet. It’s relatively full and bustling with guests, and the atmosphere is filled with rapid-fire discussion. It’s unlike the usual casual chatter, though. No, they are all clearly gossping about something quite major— he sees flashes of Steambird articles waved around (though he cannot make out the words), and cups of cold tea, their owners evidently too engrossed in riveting conversation to even care that their breakfast had gone cold. Surreptiously, he sneaks behind two ladies conversing animatedly to listen in— something has clearly happened, and he’s curious.
“And you know, there was no one else who could do it— the boy’s obviously guilty!” The lady with the sky blue hat explains excitedly.
“Oh, but he’s so young!” Her companion gushes. “How could he do such a thing, especially with a sister? Surely he wouldn’t endanger her by getting jailed!”
The other lady tuts and waves her hand. “No— unless the sister knew, and was in cahoots with him in the first place! They’re clearly co-conspirators!”
It seemed to be just another trial riling the public up. He has heard that Fontainians discussed trials and crime with rather strange demeanours, and treated justice like a part of a performance— but to hear it in person really surprises him. The rather blasé treatment of such matters is quite peculiar, he has to admit. However, it doesn’t seem like the trial itself is too interesting— just another paltry murder trial.
“Oh, but to commit such a heinous crime in the Opera itself! That magician is surely quite the dare-devil!” Her friend retorts back, placing a hand on her chest. “But it seems he met with fortitude— however did he persuade the legendary Traveller to be his attorney?”
The Traveller?
This was something surely far more interesting than he originally thought. Anything the Traveller is involved in is bound to be an event that Childe certainly cannot miss.
“Ever the troublemaker you are, huh?” Childe mutters under his breath as he attempts to fish out more information by listening on. However, they prove to be unhelpfully vague. There’s a lot of ‘you know’s’ and ‘that thing’ passed around by the two that are completely useless for his information-gathering purposes.
Childe decides he’s not going to find out anything else useful from eavesdropping the ladies— they’re clearly already well-informed, and he’d rather not try to piece together context from bits of information. He’ll just drop by Cafe Lucerne for his breakfast and pick up the morning papers there, before he heads off to Northland.
As usual, Arouet gives him a customary smile before handing off his croissants— stuffed with vegetables and the like— and a cup of steaming coffee. Childe takes it thankfully, along with his fresh copy of the morning papers.
He nearly spills his coffee in shock as he scans the front page.
MAGICIAN ARRESTED IN FREAK PERFORMANCE ACCIDENT AT OPERA EPICLESE, the blocky, printed letters proudly state. The picture is much more shocking— emblazoned across the front, covering almost half the page, is a frightfully clear monochrome image of Lyney and his…sister(?) being restrained by the Gardes, with the Traveller and Paimon trailing behind, slightly cut by the frame.
Was it intentional, on the Knave’s part? With the cunning woman, anything could go. It could be something unexpected, that just…happened, but it could very much be planned. Childe was not fooled by Arlecchino’s lacklustre presentation at the meeting. The woman was intelligent and adapted well to any situation, and she paired it with her multitude of eyes across Teyvat to be one of the most informed individuals. She knew many secrets, and understood the inner workings of those involved in her machinations to such a degree that she could almost dictate what their reaction to any situation would be. It was an arrogance well suited for the blaspheming Harbingers.
But perhaps that was not the key. Perhaps this arrest was unexpected, but with Arlecchino, it was sure that she could find a way to twist it to her own benefit.
Childe sighs, drumming his fingers. He feels partially sorry for Lyney and his siblings— they are clearly capable of handling themselves, but the chaos that is doubtless to ensue with Arlecchino’s plots will affect them the most, the agents at the centre of it all. Even on the edges of said plot Childe has still been affected— Arlechinno may think herself slick, but Childe knows what she’s been doing since he stepped foot in Fontaine. The signs are all there— a minute fibre of black silk wedged in between the flap of the envelope, something that none of his family members would be able to wear or even to afford by themselves, and nothing that he bought for them.
A chip of red polish, in the corner of the folded paper; nothing his mother would wear, as a working woman with far too much to do to bother with painted nails that would chip away just as fast as they were applied. Tonia didn’t like red polish, claiming they looked rather tacky and adult for her, and preferred blacks and pinks. And— at one point— a longish strand of rather recognisable white hair. His father never wrote to him, and his mother’s hair hadn’t started greying quite yet. And, try as she might to cover it up, Childe could scent a faint whiff of char and smoke on his letters, and lingering traces of Pyro. Of course, she could pass it up as some rogue Pyro agent or something, but Childe knows that it was her. He can’t quite prove it if he was, say, in a court trial, given all his ‘evidence’ was circ*mstantial, but he knows without a doubt that only Arlechinno would dare tamper with his letters.
…Apart from the ‘spy’ that had completely wrecked the Fatui bases a few years back, who also wielded a Pyro Vision. But they haven’t been seen for years, having melted into the shadows after their brief reign of terror.
Nonetheless— Childe isn’t as gullible as the other Harbingers thought he was. He knows his reputation– bloodthirsty, brutish, childish. He is not completely blind. But this is how he sees it: the very moment his father had sold him off to the Fatui, his loyalty has been bound to the Tsaritsa. At first: the recruit, meant to be trained into a disposable pawn for Her Majesty to throw into battle, to comprise of the thousands that would, soldier by soldier, place Snezhnaya firmly on top in terms of power. Then: the star spy, to be honed even further, to please the Tsaritsa even by committing heinous actions, by covering up anything she demanded of him. Lastly, now: a Harbinger, to carry out the highest of her orders, the Vanguard, to lead her forces into the grand battle she let only brief scraps of information out on.
He is meant to be her weapon, her blade, her tool. And he doesn’t mind it— this sort of responsibility, this loyalty, it fulfils the yearning within his heart for an attachment, a connection, to be needed. His family is always his top priority, of course, but they never– they never needed him. His lavish gifts and his wealth are simply a bonus, something to give him a reason to visit, to keep the connection. But once the last of his family— Teucer, Tonia, Anton— realises his true nature, he will be cast away just like the rest have done.
And so if Her Majesty points at a threat, and tells him to dispose of it, if Childe revels in it just a little, what is the matter? It helps him shake off the edge, the humming in his brain.
He understands his position in Liyue, as well. He had suspected it, of course— but he had been blinded by other variables. Led astray. Allowed himself to think he was in control.
Never again.
Childe sighs. Despite all the power and knowledge he’s accrued, far more than any layman could ever dream of having, he’s still playing catch up in this world of gods and immortals. He’s not dumb enough to pretend like acknowledging his position means he is no longer shackled. No— he is simply aware that he is being pulled by the current, sucked in by the riptides, but it doesn’t stop him from being trapped within it, being taken along with it. Still, he’s foolish— or idealistic— enough to still want to resist it. To take charge of his own fate, to break the boundaries of what a mere mortal can achieve.
…He wishes he had his Vision on him right now.
Even now, in Fontaine, he doesn’t have all the cards. He only has a bare awareness of the events coming into play, a mere brush of the threads in Arlechinno’s web.
A column in the newspaper catches his eye.
Oh. How coincidentally peculiar that this appears. As if the universe itself is mocking him.
ALL THINGS ASTROLOGICAL, is tucked into the last page of the newspaper, and though Childe would usually dismiss something like this, he feels…drawn to it, somehow.
It’s by someone named Mona Megistus, and she has a rather impressive set of credentials— having recieved many accolades and awards by the Rtawahist Darshan from the Sumeru Akademiya, all helpfully printed underneath her introduction. The column itself is littered with all sorts of astrological information— from how to read star charts to types of planetariums. She even has a section where she replies to readers.
What really caught his attention, however, was a section she’s placed in a little corner, titled CONSTELLATIONS.
After a section of rambling that Childe admittedly was vaguely aware of, thanks to reports he swiped from the Doctor’s investigation into the weird meteorite-star things years back, she finished off with a musing:
Perhaps, she writes, the ‘compatibility’ of two Vision Holders may be divined— that is to say, how their lives are intertwined.
Childe pauses for a moment, an unbidden thought creeping into his mind.
Did that mean that he could know if he had a chance with Zhongli?
He shut down that line of thought immediately. He had already determined that Zhongli was— well, he just knew it. Zhongli was a god. Childe was simply a mere mortal acting in his grand play. Nothing more, nothing less. He wasn’t some sort of fool, fool enough to believe that Zhongli loved him in the way Childe yearned for it. And either way, he was sure that he wasn’t that special in Zhongli’s eyes. It was extremely common for mortals to fall in love with gods. With looks like that, Childe doubted that Zhongli didn’t have any admirers.
He stamped down on the torrent attempting to surface. He couldn’t— he couldn’t think about that man now. It was hurting him and he needed to stop.
Why does he care what Zhongli thought of his silly little crush anyway?
Childe peels his eyes away from the newspaper and puts it down with a sigh. He’s doing far too much thinking on his trip. He was meant to kick back and relax, but it seems that unlike Inazuma, where he had experienced a hedonistic lifestyle, filled only with pleasant sightseeing, hazy battle, festivals and food, supplanted only slightly by his side-mission of hunting down the Gnosis thief (which ended up being completely useless halfway into his trip in Inazuma, the Doctor having acquired the Gnosis through dubious means with the still enigmatic thief)— in Fontaine his troubles are determined to follow him.
Ah, but perhaps he has already dug his grave by attempting to follow the Abyssal call in the first place. By accepting its summons Childe has already embroiled himself into chaos— it just so happens that his emotional turmoil is also coming to surface at the same time.
Childe exhales, slowly, before folding up the paper and tucking it into his inventory.
Today, he decides, he has had enough thinking about Zhongli. He resolves to put the man away, out of his mind. And it starts with doing his job for once— well, he knows he’s technically on vacation, but he has promised the Northland Bank that he’ll make those Confrerie bastards pay up, and he hasn’t even handed over the loan payment he snatched from their unconscious bodies the last time he beat them into the ground.
He slowly makes his way over to the Bank, and sweeps past the bank tellers and the customers engaged in hushed conversation, and immediately goes to the receptionist once more. He can sense the guards’ watchful eyes on him— they have the excuse of security, which makes sense, but Childe also knows that these are more than the average Fatui runts. These are most definitely Hearth-trained, and therefore also Arlecchino’s personal eyes. She has many of those, scattered around Teyvat— her children compose of a good third of all Fatui informants, and their deference to the Tsaritsa is only marginally above their frightening, unquestioning loyalty to their Father. Childe knows she has a tendency to utilise her agents for work outside of the Tsaritsa’s orders— but who is he to judge? All the Harbingers have their own personal agendas. He would be a hypocrite to judge his colleague for having ambitions outside of the Tsaritsa’s edicts.
Still, ever since he’s stepped into the Court of Fontaine he has been quite aware of the eyes set upon him. They don’t follow him— it would be utterly foolish to do so, flagging their intentions immediately— but they pass by occasionally, and he can feel their searching eyes taking in as much information as they can to squirrel it all back to the Knave. Clearly, Arlecchino is taking some care to keep an eye on him.
Childe sighs. It seems that no one quite trusts him not to get up to trouble— which, he thinks, is quite fair, considering that whatever Abyss business he’s gotten himself into can very much be considered as trouble. Still, it’s quite irritating to be watched like this. He’d rather they ask him directly or something, instead of this song and dance.
The receptionist, finished with her discussion with a bank teller, quickly reorganises a spade of leafed papers, all rows and columns of numbers Childe is far too uneducated to understand. A spark of recognition flashes in her eyes as her eyes rake across his mask.
“Ah, Lord Tartaglia.” She greets with a voice he can only describe as robotic, with her relatively stable tone and lack of emotion (?) and inflection. “How may I assist you today?”
He despises her.
“I have the loan repayment from the Confrerie that you requested me to find a few weeks back.” Childe informs, removing the bag of mora from his inventory.
“Thank you for your assistance, Lord Tartaglia.” She continues, though her expression remains placid. “You may leave it here, and I shall take it into the vaults to be recorded.”
He gives a nod in acknowledgement, and departs the Bank with a sorrowful (?) feeling in his chest.
As he leaves the chilly halls of Northland Bank, returning once more to the summery, fresh breezes of the Court of Fontaine’s streets, Childe cools down slightly.
It isn’t the receptionist’s fault that Childe’s reacting this way. By all accounts, she followed protocol and ettiquette to a tee. Respectful, perfunctory, efficient. All the things a good agent would possess.
It was just— she was so far divorced from Ekaterina. Where Katya would throw a sarcastic remark, remind him to drink up water, insult him, there was nothing but professionalism. Childe wasn’t quite sure why he preferred Katya better— perhaps it was the camaraderie afforded by her devil-may-care attitude that he missed. To be referred to without care to his station was a luxury that he was not afforded very often. Even back in his hometown people treated him in a fearful manner, treading carefully around him. He understood it— as a matter of survival, it would only make sense to be cautious around a person of a rank as dangerous as him. However, he missed people being comfortable around him. Now, even his own family members, bar the younger children, were terrified of him.
What else made him miss Liyue was the guards, too— Childe wished he was back in the company of Victor and Nadia, instead of whatever peering eyes were following him back there. Back in the Liyue branch, he was affably friendly with most of the guards stationed there, and it came to the point that by the time the Traveller arrived he was already having weekly after-work dinners with the crew after long days. They would swap stories over shots of Firewater, and take turns cooking dishes from their respective hometowns. Even Andrei, miffed as he was at the beginning that he was no longer the highest authority in the place, warmed up to him, and soon enough he was telling jokes with the gang over their dinners.
Liyue… it was a good two years so pleasant Childe had a hard time believing that it was ever real. It sounded more and more like an idealistic paradise he had imagined up out of sheer longing.
It just seemed that Liyue was far warmer than Childe had ever experienced before.
He missed it, he realised. He missed Liyue far more than he thought he did. It was horribly humid and sweltering in that place, and the Tianquan hated his guts more than anything, but it was more of a home than the one he was so desperately trying to hold onto in cold, unfeeling Snezhnaya.
The Abyss has a home for you.
Childe nearly jumped out of his skin with the sudden invasion of the whispering Abyssal core.
Enough, he thinks. It’s rather irritating.
Why deny us? You are in danger, in the eye of the storm.
Wasn’t the danger the Abyss itself? Why the hell would he join the very thing calling him to battle, to destroy him?
You have heard the song. There is not much time left.
Oh, that was wonderful, wasn’t it? Again, the danger came from the Abyss— why the hell would it give him a warning like this? Is it mocking him?
Foolish child, we are not endangering you. Do you not hear it? They call. It is not us.
Who was calling? Childe cannot not help but recall the strange dreams he’s been having as of late. It all ends the same, the same mourning song in a language that’s not of anything in Teyvat at all. It’s not even the forbidden language of the Abyss, and it sure as hell isn’t Celestia. It’s something different, otherworldly, something that grated at his ears each time he heard it, as if he was hearing but a slice of something larger that he was definitely not meant to hear at all.
It wasn’t the Abyssal language at all.
It really wasn’t.
We shall protect you. Give in. We shall defend you. We shall equip you.
Whatever had been calling him— Childe had been mistaken in thinking it was just another one of the tricks of the Abyss. But just because it was tugging at his Abyssal core did not mean it was of the Abyss.
No, this was from something much more.
He’d come into this thinking that he would have to fight the Abyss, somehow, something from the depths of Teyvat, but he was sorely wrong. The reason the Abyss had been rising up within him, poisoning his thoughts and whsipering things to him— it was to protect him all along. It was warning him.
Something big was happening— Childe could feel it. And it didn’t come from this world, and it didn’t follow the laws of this world.
And that something was coming to Fontaine.
Come back to me.
This new voice— it was not the Abyss.
It wasn’t supposed to be here, not yet. How had it breached his dreams, into reality?
Was he imagining it all?
Childe woke up from his daze.
His ankles were submerged–— and he was staring out into the vast expanse of water, the peaks of Erinnyes faded in the distance, and the deep waters of Fontaine felt more like home than ever before.
—
Opera Epiclese
—
Lyney was growing quite worried. Extremely worried, in fact. Though Father had assured of their safety he couldn’t help but doubt her— being set on trial, under the scrutiny of Lady Furina de Focalors herself…his ‘family’ could be in trouble. Despite all her pomp, Lyney knows she’s quite meticulous when it comes to preparing for trials. No secret is left hidden, no stone unturned. Lady Furina is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to trials, which is precisely why she rarely acts as the prosecutour— she claims that the ‘drama’ would be compromised if she were to always win. The side effect of this is that any trial she does play prosecutor attracts a great number of people, and thus Lyney’s pretty sure all of Fontaine knows by now that he’s on trial for murder.
He sighs, and takes a sip from his cup of tea to refresh himself— and his expression. He can’t show a single sliver of weakness— no, that would only give Lady Furina an advantage.
Why is it that the only time he hasn’t committed the murder he’s acquitted for it? This whole affair is extremely troublesome. Though he at least has the Traveller on his side, who seems pretty invigorated to be his attorney— which will perhaps serve Lyney better than any pro bono would— it’s only a matter of time before Lady Furina arrays his secrets out for the world to see, and the Traveller abandons him too. He knows, after all, what the Fatui’s reputation is like.
Lyney drums his fingers against the balustrade, keeping all his frustration in. It wouldn’t do good for him to lash out— or he’ll only drag himself further into the boiling pot.
Even if he wins his case, he’s not going to come out of this unscathed.
He scans the crowd below— all eager audiences shoved in their seats, ravenously chasing every new development like hounds to a bone. Despicable. He’s never liked the spectacle of the trials, funnily enough. He’s a magician, a performer— but he sees no place for false platitudes and grandiose acts in trials, in justice. After all, spectacle is what allowed sleazy, slimy bastards to escape with their bad deeds, to continue abducting children, and act innocent in the face of all of it.
The Oratrice is a farce— not even powered by any divine magic, and he’s checked in that darn thing, there’s not a hint of Gnosis anywhere within its dastardly gears— merely a glorified weighing scale for audience favour. Yet it is the grandest attraction of them all: justice is almost commodified into a game show each trial, as the audience anticipates the ‘weighing’ of the scales.
Lyney despises it. Trials are already flawed ways of obtaining justice, but there is truly no better way: this, Lyney understands. But this is Fontaine, presided over by the God of Justice. If humans do not have a method of meting out justice, it is understandable. But the divine— if they were truly ‘divine’ and ‘englightened’— then why has their God made a mockery out of their justice? It is, after all, Lady Furina’s meddling in the trials that has brought down the exalted justice system down to a mere show.
Perhaps this is why Father had chosen Lyney as her successor.
“You already understand that the ‘gods’ are not what they claim to be.” She had said upon his appointment. “That seed of distrust is exactly what I believe makes you perfect in this position.”
Lady Furina’s dramatically useless monologues during this trial is a prime example of her utter incompetence, Lyney thinks. He will be beheaded if he voices any of this— not by the law, but by her deranged fans who cannot think beyond a pleasing performance.
He has no issue with her performative behaviour, her massive personality— if she kept it to the stage. But no, as a god, Lady Furina embodies all the ideals of the nation— the nation’s ideals are hers— and that, Lyney cannot accept. After all, performers must keep their private life and their public persona separate.
He taps his fingernails, and continues to simmer as Furina enters yet another one of her accusatory soliloquies.
He waits, as always. Counts the number of Hearth informants Father has planted in the audience, poised and prepared to report back to the Knave before the papers are even hot off the press.
Waits for the god to drop the Sword of Damocles above him, and turn the Traveller against him as well.
—
Childe’s been filled with a restless humming in his body ever since he found himself facing the sea.
It’s the same feeling as going weeks without the sensation of blood beneath his fingertips, or the symphony of screams from his victims. Some sort of motion, the urge to embody movement, to act, to strike something.
He supposes this means that the danger that has been pulling him towards Fontaine is approaching, ever closer.
And that– he realises, means that he will have to fight it, somehow, with his rather paltry command over his Abyssal powers. His most powerful weapon, the pride of his arsenal— his Vision— is completely gone, and even if he had it, it would be unreliable. His Delusion enhances his combat capabilities, but it's far too volatile and risky for him to use it for long periods of time. What that leaves him to fight with— barring physically beating up whatever otherworldly creature came for him— and stand a chance to survive…is the heretical powers he was gifted in the Abyss.
The Abyssal core seems to be more amiable to him recently, given that it did show some semblence of protectiveness over him, but he still struggles summoning his Abyssal energy without feeling absolutely devoured and fatigued after using it. It’s less a matter of the ‘devouring’ aspect of the powers of the Abyss, and more a matter of ‘stamina’ and ‘practice’— his Abyss powers are rather like a muscle, and though they are strong, in their current state they certainly cannot hold up for long lengths of time.
He hasn’t quite practiced his transformation in a regimented schedule. This was partly due to sheer spite— the Abyssal core got very annoying in his earlier years about using his Vision— and partly to the fact that he had no space in Zalpyarny to practice (without the prying eyes of the rest of the Harbingers, chief of all Il Dottore.), and during his Harbinger days in Snezhnaya he got extremely busy in between honing his other skills, beating up dissidents, entering undercover operations— that he got far too fatigued to even attempt summoning the transformation.
So he needs to train it.
That is why he’s currently in the comfort of his hotel suite, the king-sized bed swamped beneath a mound of charts and maps. Childe knows this is rather blaise treatment of the maps, and if he wants to keep them in good condition he should probably move it all to a desk or the floor, but he’s quite shaken by his whole ordeal and would rather the soft embrace of the pillows and the duvet.
Fontaine stares back at him— dozens of maps, all displaying different places in Fontaine. Childe traces the geography, catalogues which would probably fit his needs.
He needs to practice utilising his heretical powers, but he’s also hesitant— fatigue is not novel to him, and he can push through it in favour of improving his prowess, but he’s also lacking places to unleash his Abyssal power without attracting the attention of the Abyss Order, or those pests of hounds. There’s not many places in Fontaine he can do it— certainly not in any urban spaces, where his corruption would eat away at the common folk.
He can possibly use one of the many open, rural islands. Erinnyes is a no-go— Rocky and Rouge have warned at length about the forces afoot in Erinnyes. The forests are filled with their own kind of mysterious magic, and he would rather not see what happens if the Abyss manages to get itself into the mix, if it hasn’t already. The Court of Fontaine— he doesn’t want to go anywhere near that failed science experiment. Already volatile compounds mixing with the Abyss? That, Childe thinks, is a recipe for another disaster. Mt. Automnequi isn’t possible, given that he’s consulted his maps of Fontaine already and while it looks like a prime spot to practice, with its wide, open fields and grassy plains, there’s a human settlement marked there: Poisson.
He also cannot practice in the Ruins— anything of ruined civilisations is sure to be eyed by the Abyss Order, and he’s not too keen on accidentally hitting a wall or two when training. Mount Esus, he remembers, (from a rotation and assignment list he swiped from one of Arlecchino’s agents on the ride to Fontaine) is currently the station of quite a few Fatui, and he’d rather not expose grunts— or Arlecchino’s spies— to the secrets of his heretical power.
That essentially leaves… Elynas. Observing the contour lines, it’s rather rocky, but Childe spots a few relatively flat spaces that he could probably unleash his strength in. It’s relatively unpopulated, with the exception of one ‘Merusea Village’. A quick reference to Teyvat Travel Guide: Fontaine Edition tells him that it’s the village of the Melusines, Fontaine’s race of elementally-attuned beings. That might spell slight trouble for him. However, a quick check of Fontaine: a Guide For The Weary Traveller shows that the village is quite far a ways from the ground, nestled deep in the earth. Most likely far enough that whatever he does will not affect the Melusines in any way, especially if he’s careful not to let any residue from his miasma seep too far into the earth.
He’s got a good practice spot now. Confident, Childe rolls up his maps and scoops his books back into the little shelf next to his bed. Then, he rifles through his luggage for the set of clothes he uses for training. It’s virtually no different from his usual sartorials— to the uninformed eye. The only change, he’s heard people proclaim, is the alternative colour palette. The outer coat and the trousers are a dark grey bordering on black instead of his usual greys, and he’s traded his usual maroon undershirt to an off-white thing. Back in the brief moments he was still in Liyue after the whole Osial fiasco, the Traveller had cornered him after one of their weekly spars with a raised eyebrow and a judgemental look.
“Do you really need to change outfits just to use your Delusion?” They had asked, tone dripping with sarcasm and judgement. To everyone, his outfit change seemed rather much like a vanity-driven change— when the truth is far from it.
Childe grimaces as he glances at his forearms— it’s barely noticeable, especially since it’s been years since the incident, and Liyue has tanned his skin enough for the faded lines to blend in neatly, but it’s there. Long, jagged, lines running from his wrists to his forearms— the mark of a Delusion mishap. He remembers they used to look far more violent in his younger years— especially in Snezhnaya, when his skin was especially pale, the lightning figures would stay stark against his flushed skin.
It had taken six months to recover fully— six months of being unable to grip the handle of a weapon, feel the weight of a blade beneath his fingers. It was sheer agony anytime he wanted to touch anything. He had resorted to wearing gloves everywhere to reduce friction, but even then it was barely enough to perform basic tasks.
That was also the year he completely mastered the catalyst, which taught the more…opportunistic lot of the Fatui that he wasn’t out of commission just yet.
Either way, Childe had learned a very painful lesson that attempting to run a one-man Electrocharged for an extended period of time could have drastic consequences on his physical health— and it had frustrated him to no end. He had never cursed the Tsaritsa’s name before, but during that time, he had come extremely close to rushing to her office and begging for another Delusion elemental type. He had held his tongue in the end, of course— considering how Her Majesty had declared at his inauguration that Electro would be the best fit for him, and who was he to go against his goddess?
However, quite sick of the thought of having to essentially burn himself with lightning each time he attempted to use his Vision and Delusion simultaneously, he had inquired of one of La Signora’s suboordinates on how to procure a uniform material of similar make to her own— elementally resistant, to prevent the wearer from absorbing the aura of their own element. The Crimson Witch of Flames, after all, also required such tailoring— however her situation was quite different from Childe’s. In her case, even her Delusion could occasionally fail to supress her fiery inner nature, and lest she go up in flames prematurely she had devised (or rather, ordered her subordinates to devise) the fabric.
Childe had never particularly liked La Signora (especially after her role in that mockery of a confrontation in Northland), but he had always felt a sense of camraderie with her on that end.
When consulting with the fearful tailor that La Signora had utilised (who eventually relaxed after Tartaglia’s fifty-sixth time meeting him— having accepted that he was, indeed, much more pleasant outside the battlefield compared to the Fair Lady), Childe had decided that it would be much easier on him if his outfits were differentiated by colour, so as to allow more ease when attempting to search for the darned thing. They eventually settled on the rather tasteful black-and-red colour scheme, which Childe thought, paired with the harsh violet glow of his Electro Delusion, looked wonderful.
Now, after explaining this in length to the Traveller, the other had (instead of clapped in amazement, as Childe thought he ought’ve) given him an even more questioning look.
“Then why don’t you just wear that uniform all the time instead of this one? It doesn’t make quite much sense.”
The answer was this: Childe did in fact wear that uniform most of the time….back in Snezhnaya. Unfortunately, in Liyue, the material was just far too stuffy to parade around in all the time, so he had resorted to falling back on his older uniform, the standard grey-and-white. So he had to simply carry the outfit around with him in his inventory anytime he wished to really get serious about a fight. It was a bit of a hassle, but much better than burning up in Liyue’s wonderful idea of summer.
Being a winter-borne Snezhnayan, Childe cannot not fathom people such as Zhongli, who walked around in full three-piece suits in—
—Childe snuffs out the thought. Enough about Zhongli.
Childe carefully folds the training uniform and places it in his inventory. He unhooks his Delusion, and places that, too, into the space. It’s a source of comfort to him now, in a twisted way. It occupies the spot where his Vision used to sit, with its soothing, rushing waters. His Delusion attempts to do the same, but the jolting sparks feel like a cheap imitation of it. He takes it anyway— he cannot afford to lose another source of power, especially with whatever is chasing him down from the Abyss. He’ll need all the advantage he can get.
Inventory stocked with healing potions and uniform ready to go, Childe stretches, flops into his covers, and reaches deep inside his heart where he knows the familiar writhing core lies.
Well— used to writhe, that is. Right now, though, it seems to be sulking, or something.
Nevertheless— it is right. Childe cannot ignore it too long. The core is but a link to the Abyss, a mere representation of his nature as something that crawled out of its deep depths. Ignoring the core never leads to good things, no matter how much Childe wishes to put it off. The issue is that the core can tend to sound rather sinister, creepy, and alltogether much like how Dottore used to cajole him to let him study Tartaglia’s Foul Legacy form.
He tugs one final time at the little link, and the core, the Abyss, cradles him and answers.
Child, you seek us out?
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Sure.” Childe mutters, still hesitant to converse with the thing. It’s been a plague and a curse his whole life, and having to bow to it now so that he can find out more information about the thing chasing him down is frankly humiliating.
We only wished to help.
He scoffs. “Yeah, like how you ‘helped’ me by triggering severe hunger and goading me into fighting every man I saw until you got me kicked out of my own family.”
There’s a mournful sentiment that descends down the bond.
Childe sighs, and runs his fingers through his hair.
“You know what? I’ll put that aside if you just answer my questions.” He says instead.
Anything within our power to assist our child.
“What exactly is the thing chasing me down?” Childe starts, opting to get the more difficult questions out of the way first. “So far all I know is it has some creepy-arse singing, and that’s it.”
From outside the Dome, a creature! Not of the Abyss, not of the Light Realm!
“The…Dome?” Childe mouths the new word slowly. “What is that?”
The Dome, the Dome! The fruits and the roots!
It seems that it will not be useful on this end. Childe groans, and picks another question.
“Okay. This– creature thing. How is it threatening me if it's not in the Abyss or… I assume the Light Realm is Teyvat?”
The creature can breach the barrier! The Dome is nothing to it, and so is the soil between the roots and the fruits.
Once more about this ‘roots and fruits’ thing. Childe’s getting pretty sick of it, but it’s not as if though he can reprimand the personification and embodiment of the Abyss. And it seems whatever terminology it is using is something of a language barrier— he cannot fault it for not knowing the terms of the people above and outside the abysss. And he can always infer. This…creature… can ‘breach the barrier’— and given that this is in response to him asking if it can chase him all the way to Teyvat and reach him, he assumes that it means the creature is powerful enough to forcefully tear open the pathways betweeen the different realms.
“But what has this got to do with me standing in the sea? Why did it bring me there?” Childe asks the Abyss one more time.
It takes longer for it to answer, but it sounds more ominous, frightened.
The sea is the gateway to the Sea. The Sea is where you will meet it.
Great— Childe thinks. Another dead end. Clearly, there is something lost in translation here, because Childe isn’t grasping a lick of what they mean. But their words do hold some clue to his current dilemma.
If the creature can reach between realms to chase him, why does it have to lure him to whatever place it wants to lure him via the sea to?
The motivations of the creature remain frustratingly unknown. The Abyss has been mildly helpful, but still its words are cryptic and indecipherable. He tugs on the bond-link-chain again, but only more mournful emotions wash through. It seems that he’s reached the limits of what the Abyss can tell him.
Still, he counts this as a victory. For years, his attempts to communicate with his Abyssal core have only resulted in horrible and completely unusable suggestions. Questions such as ‘what weapon shall I learn first?’ resulted in answers such as ‘why use a weapon when you can use your bare, Abyss-enhanced hands?’— which was a fun idea and all, but he wasn’t about to reveal his Abyssal powers to every person he fought.
For the first few years of his connection to it, it was extremely resistant to him using his Vision for anything, with chants to discard it during battle often plaguing him as he fought. It was only when he was in true danger, perhaps, that it saw fit to shut up about it. After some more training, and shortly after his induction as a Harbinger did he manage to figure out a method to supress its complaining. Now, it only surfaced rarely, the most recent (barring a few hours ago) being his duel with the Traveller in Liyue.
It was a strange thing, the connection to the Abyss. Childe had expected that it would align itself with those wretched Abyss Order agents, but it seemed to carry a certain distaste for them— it often tugged at the connection anytime he got too close in proximity with any of them. He had little clue why— considering those of the Abyss Order could clearly wield the power more aptly than any other.
And though it was often quite irritating, with its constant calls for blood and violence — he liked those two things more than anything, but they were especially unhelpful during a mission where he was explicitly ordered to keep them alive— it is also quite… parental, in a sense. It fusses over every injury he had, calling him ‘child’ constantly… it was rather touching, in a sense.
Despite all its faults, at times it is far better at showing care compared to his actual parents.
Either way— Childe is satisfied, for now. In the days ahead, he’ll alternate his time between honing his Abyssal powers and researching about the possible locations of the ‘gateway’ the creature will enter through. All he has to go on is one word: the Sea. There’s a whole lot of sea in Fontaine— it is, after all, the Archons-damned Nation of Hydro— but Childe will find a lead. Somehow. After all, with how the Abyss had worded it, this ‘sea’ was no ordinary sea.
Childe sighs. It’s going to be a long week ahead— if he even gets a week. The creature could be coming any day now— so he has to put his all into his training.
Childe stuffs the pillow under his chin, staring on his nightstand. There, the damned box of chopsticks lie innocuously. Still meticulous, still spotless. Still more expensive than a house.
He’s gotten over Zhongli— he swears. Zhongli doesn’t love him, Childe does not care. He cannot care. He’s a Harbinger— his heart should have frozen over the moment he became ‘nothing’ again. Just like the Fair Lady. Just like the Regrator. Just like the Tsaritsa herself.
Yet, Childe knows deep down he is only fibbing to himself. In his heart, nestled next to the Abyssal Core, he can feel a droplet of love, threatening to burst into a storm within his heart. And— to his horror, he finds himself cradling it, nursing it, despite its inevitable death.
It is just the way of the world, Childe supposes. Mortals fall in love with Archons from far away, and it is never reciprocated. He feels like the protagonist of some tragic love story Tonia would enjoy. Teyvat continues its cycle of day and night, the stars remain fixed in their trance-like tapestry, and a mortal is in love with a god.
Morax— untouchable, stone. Zhongli had taken him to an opera, once. Yun Jin had starred, as a lithe woman, with a countenance so fragile she looked like she could be knocked over, yet a resolve of steel and a wit unmatched. The yin to his yang. Her brains to his brawn— completed each other, a matched set. They were a great love, a story so tragically beautiful, an epic told over and over again despite the passing thousand years. That was a love story worth telling. A tale of gods.
Childe…was simply human. Despite all that corrupted him, he had been birthed painfully mortal. Fragile and weak, and nothing compared to a god. His love for Zhongli was not worth mentioning— a mere fantasy, really. Rex Lapis was a monolith, and Childe was but mere graffiti.
Yet he cannot help but think of Zhongli. Kind, if a bit buffoonish. Unaware and all-knowing at the same time. Zhongli held his hands as they had strolled down the street, Zhongli was the one to tell of stories of the gods with such grandiosity and yet turn to Childe and claim that he matched those gods in vigour and vitality. Zhongli had been the one to nurse him in his sickness, Zhongli was the one who listened attentively, with a pensive silence upon his lips as he took in Childe’s every troubles. Zhongli was the one who had approached him as he was covered in blood and viscera, and then asked unabashedly if Childe should like to wash off the blood before they were to go to lunch.
Zhongli, Zhongli, Zhongli. It had been two years, and yet somehow he was ever so difficult to let go of. Water eroded stone, and yet Childe was the one who had lowered his barriers inadvertently. He would consider it a betrayal, and he did, that Zhongli had made him so vulnerable and then invalidated it— but he also wondered if it was intentional.
“One thing I cannot fathom” Childe had commented after Zhongli had told another tale, “is that the god would do such a thing to a person they loved.”
“The gods,” Zhongli had said with a gravity that Childe felt was all too personal, “are often used to seeing mortals as pieces to be played. Even if you loved a piece, would you not sacrifice it to see to your goals? Holding such great power can desensitise very quickly: on such a grand scale, mortal lives can suddenly seem very insignificant.”
“Well, I for one think that the god was just using the mortal.” Childe huffed, tracing a finger on the rim of his cup of wine. “The god wanted to experience something novel, and obtained it through the mortal. Once they were finished, they discarded the mortal, as usual.”
He took another shot. He thought about the Tsaritsa’s cold hands, her searching eyes. He thinks about the fact that she made him sit down in her study, once, and describe his entire life story, each gory detail to the next. He was young, back then— and he would never dare to go against an Archon either way, it was foolish. He remembers the restrained excitement in her eyes, as if his life was but a book, and she was one of Tonia’s tittering girl friends.
“It’s always like that with gods.” Childe laughs. “They yearn to understand us, but in the process they break us, you know? For the god in your tale, they wanted to understand love, so they performed ‘love’, unknowing that the mortal would be hurt when it all came crashing down, and not caring either way.”
He thinks about the fact that the Tsaritsa has always attempted to be his second mother— she calls him ‘child’ more often than anything, refers to him the most warmly, yet he can sense all her empty platitudes. There’s always a certain coldness to each of her words— and well, a more concrete proof would be the fact that she still sent him off to Liyue, knowing what would happen there.
Childe cannot claim to know of her grand plan for Teyvat, but he does understand her motivations very well. A mere few years of serving her has taught him enough: she loves playing dollhouse with her Harbingers. Pantalone and Dottore think they’re slick, hiding away their illicit not-quite affair, but Childe remembers what they forget— Zalpoyarny is her palace.
“It has also turned to ‘nothing’— the absence of love, the turning away from it. That, too, I have presided over, for the past five hundred years.”
‘Presided over’— to watch, was what she meant. For how could a god ever know ‘Love’? The truth was this: Barbatos was the God of Freedom, but he had learned of freedom from a mortal bard, lost to time. Baal’s transient Eternity was obtained from the observations of the fleeting yet full lives of mortals around her. Morax was the God of Contracts, but he was only ever the witness of them at first: the first true contracts forged in the hands of mortals seeking solace and protection in each other.
The Tsaritsa had lost sight of her own Ideal— in becoming ‘absence’ she had given up the knowledge of how it was to be ‘everything’, since absence was the loss, was it not? Desperately attempting to understand her very own Ideal she took to observing the mortals around her once more…
Childe is far more observant than most think. But mortal as he is, what is the point of knowing? For all he is the riptide, the force of nature, he is but one man in the face of the grandest story of Teyvat.
Zhongli takes a sip from his cup. Childe pretends not to notice the pained expression obscured behind the tiny porcelain.
“Perhaps the god did love the mortal.” Zhongli murmured. “But the god was so used to the watching and puppeteering that the god himself forgot that the point of love was to care.”
He had a far-off look in his eyes when he said it, and somewhere along the way, he had taken Childe’s hand. Childe could feel him trembling, shaking. The ever affable and composed Zhongli had broken away to reveal a man so raw and real — and the fact that he had let down his guard around Childe of all people…
Childe felt wanted again.
The Archons were separated from humanity, yet their hubris was so painfully human. And perhaps that was what Childe had gotten attached to.
“Of course, I have been enjoying the bright sun and clear sky today, as well as the warm breeze, but when I saw you, I realised it would be more enjoyable to spend my day in the presence of a good friend.”
Zhongli could have been a farce, a mask. But Childe, foolishly, clung onto hope that it was a facet. Perhaps it was nothing but false hope. But he could not help it. His days with Zhongli were bright and beautiful, and Childe did not even need any romantic feelings for Zhongli to understand that he loved the man all the same. Friend, lover, anything.
And perhaps Zhongli had felt the same. Perhaps it had started out as a curiosity to understand mortals, but Childe found it hard to deny the affection Zhongli had afforded to him in the later days of their companionship as genuine.
Childe sighed, taking his eyes off the chopsticks.
Pheonix and dragon, the motif haunted him.
Pheonix and dragon. It probably didn’t mean anything.
“The pheonix and dragon is a common symbol of properity in marriage.”
It didn’t mean anything.
But Childe, Archons damned it— he wished it did. He wanted to believe it.
“It was common, around two thosuand years ago, for those who could not afford a dowry to instead offer a whole Starconch as a measure of their love.”
Did Zhongli love him? Could he love him?
It was foolish to hope.
Zhongli had hurt him deeply— he had no reason to.
“But the god was so used to the watching and puppeteering that the god himself forgot that the point of love was to care.”
It was painful. But could Childe forgive it as an accident?
—
He sets out bright and early to Elynas. Actually— it is barely bright. The sun is but a little thread of yellow along the hem of the horizon, and the sky was a dusty rose fading to navy black. The aquabus ride to the island is a silently pleasant one, the Melusine heads it quietly directing the aquabus without much fuss, as compared to her more chatty partner in the daytime. Childe feels mildly bad for jumping off in the middle of the ride— he hopes she wasn’t too inconvenienced by it.
The cool dawn winds directs his wind glider swiftly to his destination. He touches down upon a rather grassy patch, partly facing the lapping waves. His back is to the towering, sloping, rib-like tusks of calcite jutting out and curving. Now, the sun is cresting the waves, and it is rapidly getting brighter out.
He swept his eyes over the area— no hilichurls, no agents, no monsters. Perfect. He well and truly is alone here.
Pale-red-and cream-yellow petaled flowers sway gently in the breeze, and the scent of the sea wafted over. The light shadows of seagulls briefly pass over, and he can hear their tell-tale calls.
Feeling the cool wind carress him, he allows himself to sink into his mind. Childe breathes in, and pulls.
The Abyss greets him like a welcome friend, and rushes to follow his command. He feels its power bulk up his strength, filling his veins with excitement.
Carefully, he forms his standard double-ended spear. He does not borrow any Electro from his Delusion as usual, though. Today, he’s concentrating solely upon training his Abyssal strength. Without the guiding sparks of the lightning, however, Childe finds it much more strenous to command it into the shape he wishes to. It’s not resistant at all, unlike battling the will of pure resentment from his Delusion, but it’s simply tiring.
No matter. It is, after all, the goal of his training today. He desummons the spear, and runs through his usual bout of warm ups first. By the end of it, he can feel his heart beat faster, his mind clearer.
He summons the spear again. Evidently— the warm up had afforded him better concentration, and it is slightly easier to muster the strength to whip it into shape. He refines the blades even further, honing it until it is razor-sharp. He gives it a couple cursory swings— the blades cut the grass around him, but he doesn’t quite take notice of it, only focused on the motions of it all. He feels the strain in his not-quite muscles as he swings it around, almost comparable to the strain of swinging a claymore. He senses the tell-tale buzzing in his fingers as he stretches himself beyond his limits— well, not his limits, but when the power starts taking from him. It’s partly why the Foul Legacy transformation he was gifted is so dangerous to his physiological health. Each iota of power is stolen from his very strength—— not quite his lifeforce, as perhaps his Delusion is wont to do, but his…stores, per se.
He has always had difficulty expressing what exactly is being drained from him, but he knows that it is drained and he knows this directly correlates to how much his body will hurt after he dispels the Abyssal energy.
But it is not reaching the level it was at when he was fighting with the Traveller. For one, he isn’t using the Foul Legacy transformation just yet, only the Abyssal power that drives it. He doesn’t need to go all out today— no, what he needs is to go back to the basics, just like when he was but a recruit.
He carefully regulates his breathing as he goes through another set of spear movements, pushing through the light burning sensation within his muscles. It’s easy to lose himself in the motions— flowing one movement into the next.
The spear, on the other hand, is not quite as malleable. Often, it fizzles out, the blades blunt, the energy becomes more volatile. Occasionally, it spills back into a sort of miasma-y plasma, and the little sparkling galaxies within the energy become more prominent. It refuses to play with his movements, lagging behind irritatingly. It takes all his energy to force it to move with him, and it's nothing like the eagerly anticipating Electro energy, nor the agreeable, flowing Hydro energy he’s used to manipulating. He rarely does this, preferring to summon his weapons out of the power he has more control over, but he has to.
If he wants to survive the thing coming for him.
Still, the Abyssal energy stays stubborn.
Childe sighs. “Will you work with me, or not?”
The Abyss responds. Our child treats us like the Light Realm. We are not the Light Realm.
Childe groans. “First of all, I still don’t know what in Her Majesty’s two frozen tit* is this ‘Light Realm’ thing! Second of all, how does that help? Aren’t you sentient? You should be easier to work with!”
The Abyss curls up. The Light Realm is our antithesis. We shall not follow your methods.
“Don’t you want to help me?” Childe asked with no small amount of irritation in his voice. “Being obstinate about my ‘methods’ isn’t helpful at all.”
The Light Realm, it practically screeches, is everything abhorred!
And it promptly hides itself from the connection in a hissy-fit.
Childe growled underneath his breath. “Okay, be like that. I’ll get you to work either way.”
He angrily summoned his spear again. It was even harder to do so this time.
Childe gave a guttural hiss.
“Father says that you are going about it all wrong,” A fragile voice says behind him.
Childe whips around in surprise— there shouldn’t be anyone here. In fact, it's completely illogical— most would avoid an obviously dangerous opponent.
The Melusine in front of him is obviously the exception. Childe, wisely, lets go of his spear, allowing the shimmering stars to fade back out of the realm.
“What.” He manages out.
The Melusine stares resolutely back. “Father wishes for me to inform you that you are not doing it correctly.”
“Aren’t you guys…” Childe tries. “Like, spawned into the world? Wait, no, that’s insensitive— um, I wasn’t aware you had parents…”
She shakes her head slowly. Her hair– a lighter tint of his own— sways along. She pats down her artist’s smock— splattered with dried paint. “There is no ‘Mother’— but there is ‘Father’ for us. But no one else except for me can converse with him anymore.”
“Who is your…’Father’?” Childe says, still trying to work through the situation through his still battle-focused mind.
She tilts her head. “Father is Father. Do you not recognise Father? He is here right now, with you.”
Childe scans the surroundings for any Melusines. He comes up with nothing. “I don’t see any Melusines around here.”
She huffs. “Father is not Melusine. Father is Father of Melusines.”
Childe scratches his head. “O-kay, so he’s not a Melusine. But I still don’t sense anyone around here except for you and me.”
She observes him with a mournful look. “Father is right here with you. You are with Father.”
She seems to struggle to express whatever sentiment she is attempting to convey. She squints, and then shakes her head. Breathes, and exhales.
She looks calmer now.
“Father told me to say that you are ‘on’ Father as of now.” She says.
On… her Father? It couldn’t be an innuendo… right? No, it was probably more literal. On her Father. If what she was saying was to be taken as true…
“Your Father is the island of Elynas.” Childe lets out a gasp of understanding. The Melusine gives a relieved nod.
It makes sense— the god Orobaxi of Inazuma’s corpse had become an island as well. But perhaps Elynas was special in the sense that he could still communicate with people…to an extent. According to the Melusine in front of him, she was the only one of her people to be able to speak with him.
But how could Childe know if he was to trust this island-god(?)-corpse thing? What did it know about handling the Abyss that Childe did not? To his knowledge, celestials were not quite acquainted with the Abyss.
“Father says you may make contact with him for a brief period of time.” The Melusine says, her eyes boring unnervingly into him. “If you are to summon a bit of that energy in your hand, he can attempt to link to you.”
Now that was concerning. Only Abyssal creatures could ‘link’ to him via his Abyssal energy: he has never heard of gods being able to connect with him. Whatever this ‘Elynas’ truly is, he is not a god. Not at all.
Still…it’s his only lead on how to manage this energy. If he has to take advice from a fellow Abyssal being, so be it. And unlike with the Abyss Order, his core isn’t reacting to anything, isn’t writhing in anger and disgust.
It should be safe.
Childe relents, and summons a wad (?) of Abyssal energy into his palm, watching the stars swirl within.
He immediately feels it, when something connects.
–
The trial.
—
Her dear successor has been declared innocent. Arlechinno feels a grin curl up, but she controls it. It is only fair, she supposes. The Nation of Justice did indeed give a fair judgement this time— good, as it would not do for her children to be acquitted for something they never committed.
However mentally gruelling it has been for her children, however, Arlechinno has to admit that this trial has been quite a boon to her and her goals. For years, she had collected data on the seedy Sinthe business in hopes of uncovering the secrets of the Primordial Sea that so threatened Fontaine with its flooding waters— she had found its true culprit already, in fact. But there was no opening. Arlechinno preferred to stay in the shadows— accusing a wealthy, well-liked merchant of being the mastermind behind Fontaine’s most insidious plot (a lofty position, considering the other…pests Arlechinno had already eliminated) would only backfire on her. The public had been quite too used to false accusations and innocent men being framed for the act— moving before would have simply been to set herself up for failure at the very start. Most likely he would have won the trial, and then gone on to have an even more solid alibi, being declared as innocent and unlikely to ever be arrested for it again. The evidence she had, though damning, also exposed far too much of her workings than she would risk for a mere businessman, no matter how disgusting. It was not worth it to sacrifice the network of agents she had built up over the years.
So she waited and bided her time. And lo and behold, though Arlechinno was not the religious sort at all (considering her origins, how could she?), it seemed the heavens had bestowed upon her the perfect opportunity to enact a plan to bring the man down once and for all. With the buzz of Lyney’s trial Fontainians’ interest in the dissapearances, and the hope of actually catching the culprit, blazed and fired up.
Perfect. Arlechinno’s red-tipped nails, harsh and stark against her curse-ridden hands, drum idly.
It was now time to begin his defeat.
But who will she pick, as the bait, the lamb, the honey? She can certainly select one of her agents— but she is loathe to. Besides, they are all far too young to be even considered the culprits. No, she either needs someone aged— a rarity in the ruthless environment of the Fatui— or someone with a widely horrible reputation that no one would blink an eye to being accused of such a plot. She has many people to choose from— decades of blackmail material at her fingertips— but third-party contractors can be…unreliable.
But who was left?
A knock on the door of her study.
“Come in.” She replies.
The door creaks open, and one her ever-dutiful agents, her prized Snezhevichs, enters, clutching an envelope gently.
“Father, I have intercepted the latest letter to Lord Harbinger Tartaglia.” He bows, handing it to her, before departing swiftly, silently.
Her grin turns wider.
How could she not have thought of this earlier?
She had her bait.
She tucks the letter into a box of its comrades— she has to admit, that god certainly has persistence. Is it blasphemy to steal a god’s possessions? Arlechinno finds she doesn’t particularly care. She is the last person to care about blasphemy.
“Oh, child, apologies, but you shall have to be the tool of destruction once more.” Arlechinno laughs as she takes out her stationary, penning a missive summoning her colleague. “I feel slightly bad— but there’s nothing I can do, after all. We are harbingers, and perhaps you will learn the difficult way how to prevent yourself from being used.”
