#genshin eleazar

[mania-sama]

rule #29 - throne room

Rule #29 - Throne Room - Fish in a Birdcage

➼ information ❧ Genshin Impact ❧ Pairings: Candace & Kaveh ❧ Tags: ruins collapse, whump, implied/referenced medical experimentation, blood and injury, broken bones ❧ Summary: Kaveh explores Dar al-Shife, the abandoned Eleazar hospital in the Sumeru desert, to gain a better understanding of the structural layout of hospitals in that climate. It doesn't end as well as he hoped. ❧ Word Count: 2,495 ❧ Cross-posted from Archive of Our Own ❧ Original post date: 13 October 2023

➼ whumptober 2023 ❧ Day 13: Crushed ❧ Previous Day ❧ Next Day ❧ Masterlist

As a diligent and thorough architect, Kaveh likes to cover all of his bases before starting on any project. If he wants to build a house, he examines dozens of different styles and draws out a hundred unique layouts. If he wants to erect a tower, he studies lighthouses and skyscrapers. These buildings may come in the form of contemporary or ancient architecture, and Kaveh investigates both with equal vigor and intellect. This way, he can combine the knowledge of all the architects before him and create a new masterpiece with every finished building.

It’s how he finds himself in the ruins of an old hospital in the Sumeru desert, located southeast of Aaru Village and completely abandoned. He’d been commissioned with an extremely generous base supply of mora to build a new hospital in the desert, and with the exploration restrictions lifted by the Akademiya, Kaveh pounced on the opportunity to survey one of the oldest hospitals in Sumeru history

A Matra guard trails behind Kaveh. She shifts uncomfortably as they stop at the entrance of the Dar al-Shifa, by all rights looking like she wants to be a thousand kilometers away from the hospital. Kaveh can’t help but take pity on her; in order to explore the ruins, a scholar must take a Matra member with them for their safety. The ruins are generally unstable and hostile creatures still lurk in the area, ready for their next victim.

Kaveh can protect himself, though. He has a Dendro Vision, a claymore, and years of exploring architecture under even worse structural conditions. So, he offers her the only mercy he can:

“You can wait here and guard the entrance,” he says. She looks at him hesitantly, biting her lip and tensing her shoulders in a speech about how she is required to stay by his side. He pushes on. “If anything happens, which I’m sure nothing will, I will scream for you. The hospital will have an echo, so you’ll hear me clearly. Besides, by standing at the entrance, you’re still doing your job. It’s the equivalent of guarding the outside of a room at night rather than standing directly by the scholar’s bed.”

The last addition manages to convince her, and her body sags with relief that Kaveh would find funny if anxiety wasn’t also curdling his stomach. It’s not the instability that worries him, he knows. It’s the hospital itself.

Dar al-Shifa emits an aura unlike any other abandoned building Kaveh has explored. Just from standing outside of it, unnatural chills make goosebumps rise up and down his arms and neck. The hospital has a driving wind of its own, like the current coming off of the sea at the port. It feels both horrifyingly alive and dead at the same time.

If Kaveh hadn’t been born Kaveh, he would’ve long turned away by now. Instead, he nods his head to the Matra guard in farewell and sets off to study the cold interior of the building. He was asked to build a hospital, and by the Archons he will do it with the Dar al-Shifa as the ancient structural base.

Ruins in particular benefit Kaveh in two ways. He can observe what the architects did right to make the structure look both beautiful and functional, as well as what they did wrong. Where were their calculations wrong? What caused one area to fall apart faster than the rest? What paint did they use to last hundreds upon thousands of years, and where did they find the resources to build their floors, ceilings, and beams?

All of these questions can be found within the hospital of Kaveh only looked. Unfortunately, the uppermost layer appears to be the worst off, with the ceilings falling away and the stucco floor and walls left to dry up and crack in the heat. The hospital is situated in a gloomy corner of the desert, sure, but the burning sun is as inescapable in the desert as water in the ocean. There isn’t much to note about this layer of the ruins other than the fact that Kaveh will need to use the reinforced stucco now more commonly used by modern architects to protect the buildings from cracking in the dry heat.

The stairs leading down to the second floor are as ominous as they can get. He swears he can hear a low whine in the breeze that sounds remarkably human, but it's gone the next second. Kaveh pushes aside his nerves and takes the steps one at a time, careful to not trip over any loose rocks that have been slowly pushed inside over the decades of abandonment.

The second floor is immediately cooler than the first one, though not much darker. Light filters in through the caved-in holes of the first floor, allowing the sun to reach far corners. Kaveh can find separate rooms now, and it's in the third room he explores that he finds the first bed. Maggot and bat-consumed holes dot the mattress. The sheets are brown, unrecognizable from the color they were originally. The frame is all but rotted away.

Kaveh leaves the room as quickly as he came. It’s a useless endeavor, he knows; there will be many more rooms to go, and they will all be necessary if he wants a full scope of what this architecture may have looked like in its prime, and why it's reduced to the flayed shell it is now.

Getting a hold of his nerves, Kaveh forces himself to work through the rest of the floor. Other than the occasional bed and table, there aren’t any artifacts to speak of. Even the insects seem to have left this layer behind. The real challenge, and subsequently more fruitful information, will be in the bottom third and fourth floors. Kaveh finishes his notes with a rising heartbeat, and he descends another set of stairs.

Dar al-Shifa seems to breathe on its own, sending a breeze through Kaveh’s hair even though he’s well below ground level at this point. He’s far from the sand and wind of the surface. It’s more unsettling than he thought it’d be. His hands tremble as he keeps a tight grip on his quiver, and he moves much slower than he had on the previous two floors.

It’s darker, he notes. The sun doesn’t reach this far anymore, and what little makes it through only settles by the stairs. He infuses his Dendro energy with Mehrak and lights the way. For once he’s thankful it cannot experience emotions like humans can. Kaveh wouldn’t want it to feel fear or the creeping dread that a zombified patient would come from the walls to eat him alive.

He jumps at the slightest of sounds, even though he knows logically that zombified patients are not real, and the only known “zombie” in the world is a little girl who can barely remember her own name. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Still, his heart pounds rabbit-fast as he takes notes of the hallways and rooms. His previous assumption about the bottom two layers was correct; fewer people have been brave enough to explore the ruins at this depth, so more artifacts are still present. He finds vials of soured liquids, shattered bottles and vases, medical machinery, and operating tables with the faint impression of dried blood.

Of course, he also finds the carvings on the walls and the notes left behind. He tries to focus on the preservative qualities of the stucco rather than the words themselves, but it’s impossible. He reads their pleas for help, the tick marks of the days going by, the vain scratch marks from insanity, and he feels sick. The faded ink on the papers is almost worse as they detail the “treatments” the Eleazar patients endured. They list names lost to history, long since buried in their righteous graves. At least, he hopes they’ve been buried. It’s the respect they deserve after their years of pain and suffering.

Kaveh manages to push on to the last floor of the hospital. The anxiety gnawing at his skin grows, and he’s nearly overcome with trembles when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. He doesn’t make it two steps in before he hears a tell-tale groan and the crack of stucco breaking apart.

He doesn’t have enough time to escape the falling ceiling. The little distance he makes protects his upper body from the main crash, but his legs still are caught by the debris. He falls onto the floor face-first. The air is knocked completely out of his chest, searing hot pain explodes through his body, and he screams. A hunk of hard, rotting wood lands directly in the small of his back, thwarting the desperate attempt he was making at crawling out from under the stucco, metal, and beams of wood.

His bones must have broken, for every time he so much as twitches, he cries. He can’t take in more than shallow breaths, both from the wood crushing his back and the sobs constricting his lungs. His heart pounds out of fear a piece of broken sternum will pierce the beating organ. His legs are entirely unmoveable. Any attempt at tensing or shifting them sends stabbing pain all over his lower body.

“Sir Kaveh! Are you — Oh my gods! Are you okay?” His Matra guard exclaims in horror. She got to his side in an instant and heaved the wood off of his back. It alleviated only some of his breathing restrictions; his chest is definitely broken, and he can’t quite push himself up with his arms without them immediately failing. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you! This is all my fault! I’m so sorry!”

Kaveh can’t respond to her even as she apologizes over and over for something he urged her to do. She didn’t make the ceiling fall, either. If anything, it was Kaveh walking on it after so many months or years of being undisturbed that caused it to collapse. He knew this going in — he should’ve been better prepared to make a mad dash.

His gasps come in fast and hard, every breath harder than the last. She clears the smaller pieces of debris on his arms and head, but the larger chunks crushing his legs remain stuck in place. Her efforts to move them only made it hurt worse, if that’s even possible. Every time they moved in an inch, electric shocks spasmed his body.

“I need to get help! It’s too heavy and I — I can’t do it on my own. I’ll be right back!” The guard tells him, kneeling to the ground and grabbing his face with her dirty, blood-stained hands. His blood. “Stay alive,” she demands. Then she runs up the stairs quickly as a hare.

He does everything he can to not let her down. He slows his breathing the best he can, and he tries to pinpoint the exact points at which the most weight is bearing down. It only lasts for a while. Most of his time is spent in a pain-induced delirium, thinking about the mistakes he made and the people he left behind.

He imagines Cyno telling a God-awful joke that nobody laughs at, but Kaveh still manages to find humor while underneath the rubble of the ceiling. Faruzan tells him about the various ways to get out of the predicament he’s in, though they all require more energy than he has. Then Tighnari sits down next to him, reminding him to stay awake and breathe.

It feels suspiciously like Death is keeping him company, with the way the hospital’s breath settles over his broken body like a cold hand. His vision swarms, and the same Death that took away the Eleazar patients kindly numbs his broken bones. Head buzzing with overwhelming exhaustion, he lays his head on the ground and stares listlessly at the debris and dust lying in heaps in front of him.

Then Alhaitham pinches his cheeks hard enough to leave bruises. “Do you really think you’re going to die here?”

Kaveh wakes to Hydro overtaking his senses, stuffing his nostrils, and bringing pain back into his body. He gasps, his broken sternum stabbing into his lungs, and his vision sharpens in on golden sandals. The weight on his legs releases with several groans of effort, and he can’t hold back his cries as an entirely new ache settles in his bones.

“I thought I almost lost you,” Candace says, her sweet smile showing through her voice alone. “Thank you for holding out until I could get here.”

Death’s cold embrace is replaced with Candace’s warm hands pulling him clear of the rubble. Hydro flows consistently from her Vision, closing the bleeding wounds from the sharp edges of the debris and binding, to some degree, his broken bones and torn ligaments. That doesn’t mean the process of moving him doesn’t hurt like he’s the sacrifice to a particularly violent deity, but the pain at least reminds him he’s alive.

Candace and the doctors she brought with her set up a temporary camp outside of the hospital grounds while still remaining in the general area. It’s too risky to carry him too far until they have the proper equipment, like a rolling stretcher and splints. She holds his hand when he can, letting him soak up her Hydro energy like a cat does the sun. It’s not a fix-all solution; her healing powers are limited in comparison to the strength she produces.

She was likely the one doing most of the debris removal, too. Kaveh wonders how he was able to make allies with the strongest person in the nation, someone who would come to him in his hour of need without a single complaint on her lips.

“Thank you,” he says when he’s lying down. His chest still aches with every inhale, and his breaths are still too short in comparison to normal breathing, but he needs to say this. He needs to express his gratitude for her saving his life.

Her heterochromatic eyes fix on him, and there is nothing less than comforting warmth in her gaze. “I was only helping a friend. Please, rest. I’m sure you’re in a lot of pain.”

“Whatever I can do,” he wheezes, “to repay this debt. Tell me.”

She smiles at him and crosses her legs on the chair situated at his makeshift bedside. Her hands rest in her lap. “I want you to recover and build our hospital. That is the debt you owe me.”

Kaveh closes his eyes and lets blissful peace wrap over his aching and broken body. It is not Death that keeps him quiet this time. It is the promise of a debt to be paid, a hospital to be built, and friends to heal for. It is Candace’s prevention of Dar al-Shifa’s final attempt to claim one last victim that puts his mind at ease.

[prettybbychim]

analysis: is haddo afflicted with eleazar?

spoilers discussed and mentioned:

secret summer paradise event

veluriyam mirage and it's NPCs

sumeru archon quest

eleazar

duel! the summoners' summit! event

nahida's story quest

haddo is a hydro eidolon - a physical manifestation of the real haddo who visited the mirage in the past. we do not know how long ago he and his brothers visited. this means we cannot rule out eleazar based on timeline. if he visited prior to the deletion of forbidden knowledge, then he could possibly have eleazar. if he visited after, then it is impossible for him to have eleazar, as it was completely cured and no longer an issue for current and future residents of sumeru.

i don’t recall any mention of what haddo had besides being the “sickly brother.” he exhibited only fatigue and frequent coughing to us. i cannot find any information regarding that online.

with that said, this post will continue under the assumption that there was no mention of what ails him

eleazar’s main symptom is hardened scales covering the skin, which causes nerve damage, stiffness and numbness, as well as clumsiness and fatigue as a result. it will slowly overtake the entire body until the afflicted becomes paralyzed. they may become comatose. there was no cure that humans could provide, only treatments to ease suffering.

though eleazar affects the whole body, character models in-game only showed bandages on the hands and/or forearms.

dunyarzad prior to being cured. the bandages are gone after eleazar is erased.

gulab (left), one of the creators of genius invokation TCG.

emira (right), featured in nahida’s story quest

on the other hand, there are those with no visible bandages.

kumar, an NPC found in vimara village. it seems he has a band of scales around his wrist but he does not have it covered.

collei, a playable character, who really needs no introduction. however, her clothing does cover her hands and forearms, where eleazar presents on the NPC character models.

now we look back at haddo.

haddo has no visible bandages.

just like collei, his sleeves cover the area in question. his hands are bare, but as we’ve seen with kumar and emira, it doesn’t have to show on the hands, it could present on the forearms only.

it’s impossible to compare his physical features to his brother’s, ferdinand and jeroney, as they too wear the standard adventurers’ guild uniform.

it was never mentioned where the three brothers were born, if they were residents of sumeru. eleazar is unique only to sumeru, as it’s a manifestation of the withering on the body.

could it affect anyone living in sumeru, including those not native born?

in conclusion, there is not enough evidence to suggest haddo had eleazar. if he arrived in the mirage prior to the cleansing of irminsul, he could be hiding the affected areas under his uniform. at this point however, it is inconclusive.

[cosmichawk]

past and present

[boilingrain]

I like taking photos in various places all across Teyvat, but I can't help but feel like exploring the Eleazar hospital with Collei was kind of mean of me to do

[blood-orange-juice]

Crumb of Sumeru lore.

Has anyone more knowledgeable than me dug into the etymology of Eleazar? It's a Hebrew name meaning "god helps/god has helped".

One of people with this name in Tanakh was the son of Aaron, the second High Priest in charge of the Ark of the Covenant during the Exodus. And when people say that Teyvat is a bastardised Hebrew "ark" they mean that ark. The box with the scriptures.

(there was a post by a Jewish fan about it but I can't find it now. iirc, it's a word that has oddly specific uses)

I'm not sure what to make of it.

Why give this name to a disease caused by Forbidden Knowledge. To symbolise that it's a divine punishment or a way to contain the corruption?

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

pocket-sized Foul Legacy except you’re fragile and sickly

you met the tiny Abyssal moth when you first moved into your house- at first you thought you had a mouse problem, but you immediately know that’s not the case when you see a small bundle of armor and glimmering fabric huddled in the corner. Childe takes to you very quickly, happily soaking up your kindness and keeping you company, which turns into a wonderful bond; there’s no one he’d rather spend time with than you, even if that time is perching on your shoulder and reading the documents you write for work.

but over time he begins to notice how frail you are, how often you fall ill and are confined to your bed, the countless days you have to send a letter to your place of work apologizing for not being able to attend. yet even on the days you’re burning with fever, too sick to walk, you still smile gently to a frantic Foul Legacy, petting his head with a finger to reassure him that you’ll be alright.

sometimes a man with long brown hair drops by to take care of you- Childe’s heard you call him “Zhongli”- and Foul Legacy watches from the shadows as Zhongli makes you tea and brings you medicine. the moment he leaves, Childe attempts to mimic his actions, fluttering around the house to fetch small snacks and any pills you might need- he peeps worriedly when the food goes uneaten, nudging your hand towards it. you must eat something, you’ll wither away if you don’t!

sometimes you’re awake enough to hold him in your hands, grip weak as he leans against your warm skin, too warm for a human mortal. he hates how useless he is, how he can’t do anything as you suffer time and time again, reminding him of just how quick and fleeting human lives are. you simply smile, tired but still with so much love to give, and scritch under his chin with a finger, lulling him to sleep so he doesn’t hear the sharp, jolting coughs you let out a few moments later.

[zarpasuave]

Collei going over to Mondstadt to do a botany masters (i know in canon she she wants to be a doctor so imagine these are Tighnari’s delusions for his pupil🤭)

[isnt-it-pretty]

Fingernails the Colour of Rust Chapter 5 (aka, Eleazar!Cyno)

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Rating: Teen & Up

Catagory: M/M

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Cyno/Tighnari, Cyno & Taj Radkani, Cyno & Kaveh, Cyno & The Matra

Characters: Cyno, Tighnari, Taj Radkani, Kaveh, Alhaitham, Dehya, Collei, Lisa

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Established Relationship, Chronic Illness, Terminal Illnesses, Sickfic, Major Illness, Near Death Experiences, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Worried Tighnari (Genshin Impact), Hurt Cyno (Genshin Impact), Worried Kaveh (Genshin Impact), Eleazar (Genshin Impact)

Summary:

It began with fatigue, with shaking hands and malaise that haunted his every step. Annoying, but not unmanageable– Cyno was raised in the desert, after all. He’d been through worse. So he fit a couple more hours of sleep into his already overfilled schedule and waited for the symptoms of whatever minor ailment he contracted to abate. They didn’t. - AU where Cyno has Eleazar

Read from chapter 1 here

It's here!!!!

[honorary-fool]

realizing that in a Ride the Cyclone AU, Scara/Wanderer would be perfect as Jane (being changed to John Doe, most likely)

bro is literally a puppet / often drawn or headcanoned with doll/BJD-like limbs, so we know what head he'd be replaced with, if he didn't look exactly the same

[aroacenezhaanddainsleif]

apparently thinking about Collei at 3 am has become a ritual for me but regardless

"what if Baizhu and Pantalone were brothers" this, "what if Kaeya was related to Pierro" that. Hear me out:

what if Collei and Baizhu were related?

think about it: a boy in a poor and sick family, watching his younger sister get taken away to "cure" her illness yet never see her again and believes her dead

he also gains a similar fatal illness (runs in the family), just not Eleazar. dunno what happens to their parents, but Baizhu decides to study and sell medicine to make up for him and the sister he couldn't save. he gets a bit obsessed with money and rather amoral along the way, but it's all means to an end

but back in their home, his sister is alive, but neither of them have any way of knowing that.

[lilyandthegenshinbrainrot]

Hi bffs, today we're going to be talking about Enkanomiya's "Vishap people" and the curse of King Deshret's people, the birth of Eleazar bc I can't stop thinking about this possible/not likely correlation

Eleazar produces scales as a manifestation of divine punishment, for knowing "forbidden knowledge." It slowly paralyzes the patient and causes severe nerve damage.

Eleazar is positively related to a person's elemental "content", which I would gather means that people with eleazar has more elemental capacity/resistance or elemental synergy.

What does this have to do with the Vishap people? Well, I'd ask you to recall the Vassals of Watatsumi, and Tsumi the snake-masked shrine maiden from the Enkanomiya Event way back when in 2.4. Tsumi tells us that she was a reptile, a descendant of the Vishaps that had grown and evolved to further their advancement against humanity and Watatsumi. Vishaps are some of the oldest creatures in Teyvat, species wise. They are noteable for their ability and relation to elements, as they are biologically connected to specific elements. (Azhdaha, and the Dragon of Water legend of Watatsumi).

It's curious that there is a similar line between Eleazar producing scales and Vishap people, as Eleazar is divine *punishment* and Vishaps are the divinely *punished,* being that the Primordial One sent them away from the rest of the world.

a side note to relate this to irl include: the wiki calls Eleazar is a Jewish name, meaning "god has helped" /el'azár.

This is a curious decision by HYV given that Eleazar is, technically, proven to be mediated by "archon residue/ a god's remains" by the notorious Il Dottore

[prettybbychim]

jiaoqiu is a prime target for a future whump piece 😌 they were even kind enough to provide us with a doctor’s report detailing his injuries and ailments, symptoms and recovery plan And what attitude he’s presenting to the docs (lingsha iirc) (his healing process is slower than they anticipated i’d bet he’s been sneaking chili peppers into his diet despite being advised otherwise)

[dreampearls]

do you ever think. about how collei was subjected to experimental abuse precisely because she was disabled & that dottore's "cure" ultimately traumatized her & put her under immense mental anguish that fed into a self destructive cycle of hatred. that she was seen as able bodied thanks to the archon residue but she was worse off than before. and that it was only after sealing the residue that she was finally allowed peace of mind & a normal life, that she was sent to tighnari precisely because he was a physician who could take care of her once her eleazar came back, that there was no longer any forcible conformation of her body to fit whats deemed as "normal," that allowing her body to exist as it is & just trying to support that was ultimately the safest and best thing for her & what ended up happening after the webtoon

[cinnaniyoom]

more disability rep <33

Collei will always be disabled to me🩷🌱🍄‍🟫✨ her chair is powered by dendro !

[magically-maddie]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Collei & Cyno & Tighnari (Genshin Impact), Background Cyno/Tighnari (Genshin Impact) Characters: Collei (Genshin Impact), Tighnari (Genshin Impact), Cyno (Genshin Impact), Forest Ranger Characters (Genshin Impact) Additional Tags: Chronic Illness, Disability, allergic reactions, Anaphylaxis, Eleazar (Genshin Impact), Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, medical ACCURACIES, Set Before Traveler Arrives in Sumeru (Genshin Impact), Canon Compliant, (mostly), in which the author attempts to make medical things sound in-universe Summary:

Collei has Eleazar, sure, but there’s something more beneath the surface that no one can quite figure out. Throughout it all, Tighnari and Cyno never, ever give up on her.

[crystallinestars]

How They React to Your Death

My HCs about how I think the Genshin boys would react to your death. I wanted to write Kaeya too, but ran out of steam.

This month has been terrible to me, so I was in the mood for angst. I don't know how well these turned out, but they were fun to think about.

Part 2 here.

Characters: Alhaitham, Childe, Heizou, Kaveh, Lyney, Neuvillette, Venti, Wanderer/Scaramouche, and Wriothesley

WARNING:

Reader has death descriptions. Some are more graphic than others, but I don't get into the nitty gritty details.

Spoilers for the backstories of all the mentioned boys.

MAJOR SPOILERS for Act V of the Fontaine Archon quest in Neuvillette's part.

Childe's part contains mention of suicidal thoughts.

Kaveh's and Venti's parts contain alcoholism

🎧 Alhaitham

Despite Alhaitham’s considerable wealth, no amount of money could cure your Eleazar sickness. His money could only buy treatment that prolonged your life a little bit, but ultimately your many years of battling the illness ended when he got news from the doctors that you had passed away in your sleep.

Alhaitham had accepted the news fairly quickly. He knew your death was inevitable, could see you slowly wasting away each time he visited you in the hospital over the past few months. So it was no surprise to him when the day finally came. The other patients and staff thought it strange how Alhaitham had no visible reaction to the news, but some chalked it up to shock when in truth the Scribe was simply accepting of that fact. There was no use denying something that already happened.

When Alhaitham came home that day, the house felt silent and empty. It reminded him of how the house felt when his grandmother passed away when he was younger. The sensations were similar. However, he did not cry over your death. Instead, he carried on his life as normal, or as close to it as he could now that you were no longer a part of what he considered ‘normal’.

At first glance, people thought that Haitham was unaffected by your death. Nothing about him changed. Not his mannerisms, his quality of work, or his expression. He remained the same reserved, stoic Scribe who had no time for trivial nonsense or extra work. He also never talked about you to others aside from confirming their question if you were truly gone. Alhaitham was like a well-oiled machine that worked efficiently like clockwork, keeping up the same even rhythm.

What they don’t see is how he comes home with the expectation of hearing your voice greet him upon entering, only to be faced with a defeating silence that makes his heart sink. They don’t know that Alhaitham wakes up throughout the night, expecting to find you snuggled up next to him in bed the way you used to before your sickness got worse, and you had to be hospitalized. However, you weren’t there no matter how many times he looked towards your side of the bed, and the Scribe could only sigh and try to fall back asleep while ignoring his aching heart.

No one sees how Alhaitham gets too lost in his books in the mornings and accidentally makes two cups of coffee instead of one due to force of habit. Or how, for once, he finds the silence of his house bothersome without your voice and the sounds of your activities resounding within the walls, and it’s enough to distract him from reading. He could be found reading at the House of Daena and Puspa Café more often from then on.

During his afternoon naps, Alhaitham sneaks back home and cradles your favorite blanket to mimic the sensation of holding your soft body in his arms the way he used to when you joined him for naps. He listens to recordings of you talking with him just so he can hear your voice again. He was glad he made the decision to record your voice at the hospital before you became too weak to speak. It gave him the chance to hear you one more time even if the sound of your voice made his chest hurt so much that he occasionally had to stop the recording to collect himself.

Nobody sees how Alhaitham finally picks up the fiction books you recommended him because they were your favorite. He prefers non-fiction, but these books are the last things he has left through which he could connect to your mind and way of thinking. He reads them all cover-to-cover even if he finds the story lacking or the writing not to his taste. He will learn to treasure each and every word because you once did.

What someone might see, as Kaveh did when he moved in with the Scribe, is a bookshelf filled with a few journals, a thick book with an emerald cover, and an assortment of fiction books that exist nowhere else in the house. Alhaitham never talks about these books unless asked, but their well-worn covers are a sign of frequent use, and sure enough, one can catch him reading a rare fiction book during one specific month each year.

🐋 Childe

You went missing after going out to collect some firewood in the woods near Childe’s home. A search party was arranged to find you with Childe in the lead, and he was also the first one to find your remains. Your body had been torn apart, blood and innards splattered across the snow, no doubt the work of some rifthounds. Usually, Childe would relish in such a gory sight, but not this time. Not when it’s your blood and flesh painted in the snow.

The sight leaves him numb. He’s numb when the search party comes to retrieve you, numb when he sees your parents weeping over your gruesome death, and numb when he takes on the duty of exterminating every rifthound he finds around Morepesok.

He wants to cry too, to grieve for you the way he needs, but refrains. He doesn’t want to appear weak and unreliable when his younger siblings mourn and cry over your death. You were like family to them, and your death broke their little hearts to pieces. Childe didn’t want to burden his siblings further by breaking down in front of them. He needed to remain a reliable older brother who could support them through this tough time, even when his own heart bled and he cried in his sleep when he dreamed about you.

Childe’s underlings noted that the Eleventh Harbinger became colder and more irritable after your passing. Any mention of your name would garner the speaker a harsh glare, and if Childe assumed what said person said about you was disrespectful, he didn’t hesitate to start a fight and beat the other person within an inch of their life. He became violent and unhinged, much like how he used to be when he returned from the Abyss as a fourteen-year-old boy.

Childe knew his behavior was irrational, and it pained him to see even his own family fear him due to his violent actions. He felt restless. Spending time at home among your belongings summoned feelings of longing and sadness, but even so, he couldn’t bear to throw anything away. He lived among the ghosts of your existence, however, it drove him mad with grief.

Childe needed an outlet for his emotions, so he took to fighting monsters and other strong opponents. He became even more reckless in battle. If before, the Harbinger sought out strong enemies to test his mettle against them and grow stronger as a result, now he sought out an opponent that would be worthy of taking his life.

Childe didn’t want to abandon his family. He loved them dearly and wanted to see his siblings grow up to be happy and successful people, but life without you felt so hollow. A part of him wanted to return to his family, but the sense of his family feeling incomplete never left him. You were just as much of a family to him as his siblings and parents were. He had plans to start his own family with you. But now… now, a part of him yearns to reunite with you in the afterlife. He promised he would stay by your side no matter what, and Ajax is not one to break his promises.

🔍 Heizou

Heizou was one of the first to hear about your stabbing that occurred in an Inazuman alleyway late that evening. You were rushed to a doctor to have your wound treated, but the robber who attacked you hit a vital area. Your blood loss was colossal, and it wasn’t long after arriving at the doctor’s that you succumbed to your injury.

To Heizou, the news brought on a sense of deja vu. He’s already lost a friend to crime in the past, and now he lost you to crime, too. The knowledge made him furious and heartbroken. He was angry at the robber for stabbing you just so he could steal some money that you didn’t want to part with, and he was angry at himself for failing to prevent this. After his friend passed away, Heizou swore to nip crime in the bud by discouraging criminals from committing crimes with the threat that he would find and capture them no matter what without fail. But what good did his resolve do if you still died because of an armed robber?

The heartache and guilt he felt ate away at him as the memory of your ashen face during your last few moments haunted him. He lost you. Never again would he get to spend time with you and make you laugh, kiss and hug you, or tell you he loved you.

His anger drove him to capture the murderer in record time, but hearing the criminal’s subsequent sentence for theft and murder didn’t comfort the detective. No amount of jail time would ever atone for the loss of your life.

After that day, Heizou lost his playful demeanor, becoming somber and reserved. He threw himself into his work, feeling pressured to capture as many criminals as he could in as little time as possible. However, his grief and exhaustion caused his mind to dull and make mistakes while investigating clues. It got to the point where Kujou Sara had to forcibly send him on vacation so he could take a break and properly process your death.

Despite his protests, Heizou knew he wasn’t much use in his current state, so he took this free time to visit your family and mourn together with them. He apologized for not doing a better job of protecting you, fully expecting your parents to lay blame on him for not protecting their child. To his surprise, your parents didn’t blame him at all. They even thanked him for catching the murderer and helping them to feel a little more at peace. Heizou’s interaction with your family helped him feel a tiny bit less guilty about your death.

The experience left him feeling a little less broken, so in the following days he sorted through your belongings in your shared home. He packed away some items to return to your parents, some things he put in storage, and others he gave away that he remembered you wanting to get rid of. A few of your items he kept for himself, one of which was a scarf you mentioned you bought because it was the same shade of green as his eyes which reminded you of him.

Heizou wore your scarf as a keepsake and good luck charm and would hardly be seen without it when he finally came back to work. What once served as your reminder of him, now served as his reminder of you, the person he loved with his whole being. But with the memories of you came the reminder of how you died. Though the memory was painful, it helped Heizou work up the will to keep pursuing his goal of eradicating crime. Even when the case was extremely tough with conflicting clues, your scarf would remind him to not give up, to not let another incident like yours happen again, and Heizou would persevere. He would continue to persevere no matter how long it took because he didn’t want innocent lives like yours to be snatched away so cruelly. Maybe one day, he will see you in the afterlife and proudly tell you all about how he achieved his dream. Until then, he will work hard to be worthy of the title of Inazuma’s best detective.

🍷 Kaveh

Kaveh had a lot of work to do. He was saddled with creating drafts for another large project while also trying to work on the commission for constructing a library in Aaru village for the children. Wanting to help alleviate his burden, you offered to take the finished drafts over to Aaru village yourself so he could focus on finishing up work for his other project. Kaveh tried to object, saying you really didn’t need to trouble yourself on his behalf, but you insisted, expressing your desire to help him finish his work sooner so the two of you could spend more time together again. After some deliberation, he let you go to the village by yourself, confident that you could make the trip since you accompanied him there several times before.

A few days later, Kaveh received news that you had died on your return trip from the desert. When he heard the cause of your death, his stomach roiled. You perished in quicksand just like his father. You died doing something for his sake, just like his father did.

Whatever future plans he was building together with you, whatever progress you made in helping him slowly heal from his trauma, it all came crashing down around him. Your death reopened old wounds Kaveh was only starting to heal from, as well as left new scars that tormented him every waking moment.

The first few weeks, Kaveh couldn’t stand to be in your shared home. It was full of memories of you, and each and every one of your belongings would stab at his heart like a blade. Moreover, the house felt so silent without you around. It reminded him of when his mother left for Fontaine, leaving him alone in a house too big for only him to live in. Now, he was reliving that moment all over again, but it was worse this time because, unlike his mother, he would never see you again.

Kaveh also couldn’t stand to look inside his sketchbooks. The pages were covered in various sketches of you, and looking at them only made the anguish and guilt grow in him tenfold. He blamed himself for your death, attributing it to being his fault just like he attributes his father’s death as his fault too. No matter what anyone says to console him, he will never stop believing it’s all his fault.

Fueled by guilt and self-loathing, Kaveh spent several weeks visiting Lambad’s tavern practically every day. One could even say he lived there since the architect seldom went home. He used what little money he had to buy alcohol, especially of the stronger kind. He wanted to numb the pain in his heart and to pretend that you weren’t really gone from this world. The alcohol helped to muddle his mind until his intoxicated brain conjured happy memories of you together, and Kaveh would mumble your name in a drunken haze. Other times it didn’t help, and Alhaitham, Cyno, or Tighnari could often find a drunk Kaveh quietly crying while slumped over a table and trying their best to drag him home while listening to his drunken babble of self-loathing and regret.

It will take a long time for Kaveh to feel okay again, and even then, he will never be the same optimistic and cheerful person he used to be. You were his muse, the one who made him feel like maybe he was deserving of love after all. But with you gone, he lost his creative spark. His designs no longer held the same extravagant and artistic flair they used to. Now, they’re more tame by comparison. With your passing, you took with you the little bit of joy he felt towards the world, and it seemed more bleak than it used to be when he was with you.

Kaveh refused to seek out love after your death. He’s lost too many people he held dear and has been left alone over and over again. The pain of being left behind and of feeling like he will only bring misfortune to those he cares about, made him seal off his heart. He doesn’t want to let people close to him like that again, and neither does he want to replace you. You were, and still are, very special to him.

Despite numerous years going by after your passing, Kaveh never forgot you, and he didn’t want your memory to be forgotten either. He built an art school and dedicated it to you in honor of being the one who inspired him so much in his creative endeavors. He hopes that your name will live on and continue to inspire future generations of artists long after he is gone from the world.

🎩 Lyney Having grown up in the House of the Hearth with Lyney and Lynette, the twins were practically like family to you. Though admittedly, Lyney and you developed romantic ties rather than familial ones the more you got to know each other. It was no surprise to anyone when the two of you became a couple, and Lynette even encouraged it.

Being a member of the Fatui, you were often sent out on dangerous missions to infiltrate enemy territory and report your findings back to Arlecchino. You were good at your job and had major successfully completed missions under your belt, but even the best slip up sometimes. After infiltrating enemy headquarters, you regularly reported your findings back to the House, however, one day the correspondence stopped. You went completely silent. The thought of you being caught immediately crossed Lyney’s mind, but he was hopeful that as an experienced agent, you would manage to find a way out somehow. You always have in the past, and after having worked together with you during joint missions, he saw first-hand how capable you were. To pass the time, he focused on polishing a magic trick he wanted to show you upon your return.

Days go by, and just as the magician is about to lose his patience and run off to try and find you, news about your body washing up on a riverbank reaches his ears. The heartbreak Lyney experiences upon hearing the news is indescribable. He felt lost, disoriented, and anguished. A part of him refused to believe the facts, but after witnessing the gruesome sight of your corpse, he had no choice but to face reality.

You were dead.

Lyney wondered at length about the cause of your death, and while his own guesses made his stomach knot, the autopsy report he read a few days later made him livid. Numerous torture and abuse marks were found on your body. It seemed that the enemy had captured and tortured you, hoping to force you to spill some of the Fatui’s secrets. Judging by the severity of the most recent wounds, you must have kept quiet because more brutal torture methods were used on you until the enemy figured out they wouldn’t get anything out of you, and disposed of you. Lyney knew how loyal you were to your family. You would never betray them even at the cost of your own life, but in that moment, he really wished you would have treasured your life more. Maybe then you could have survived. Maybe then he would have had the chance to hold you in his arms and tell you he missed you while you were gone. Maybe he would have had an opportunity to show off the magic trick he created specifically for your eyes only. But now, he’ll continue to miss you until the day death comes for him too. Lyney’s initial reaction upon hearing of your torture is overwhelming fury. Lynette had to hold him back from recklessly running off to take revenge against the enemy. It took a lot of reasoning on her part, but eventually, her brother calmed down.

Once his bout of anger passed, Lyney broke down. Lynette didn’t hide her own tears as she held her brother in her arms while he cried. The siblings both missed you dearly and mourned your loss, but Lyney took your death especially hard. He felt broken. One of his most precious people was taken from him in such a cruel manner, and the mere thought of how you must have spent your last few waking hours made him feel horrible.

He was anguished and angry, and the potent concoction of negative emotions weighed down on his heart and mind. Gone was his cheerful smile and outgoing attitude, replaced with a cold and somber frown. His calculative side took center stage. Though his initial burst of outrage passed, he wouldn’t give up on his desire for revenge until the act had been carried out. Aside from the twins, Arlecchino also refused to take your death lying down. You were her precious child, someone she put in a lot of love and effort to raise, and this transgression angered her as much as it angered Lyney. Together with Arlecchino, Lyney and Lynette infiltrate enemy headquarters and make every person a part of that organization pay. The magician ensures that the perpetrators experience the same pain you went through during your torture, and by the time they’re done, not a soul is left alive.

Even after exacting revenge, Lyney barely feels a smidge better. Though your captors have been neutralized and won’t hurt anyone the way they hurt you ever again, it doesn’t satisfy Lyney. At the end of the day, all he wants is to have you back in his life. He consoles himself with pieces of your clothing. Your clothes smelled like you, and Lyney hugged one of your items every night, breathing in your scent and soaking the material with his tears as he quietly cried. It takes a long time for Lyney to get himself together and act like himself again. Though he could easily put on a fake smile for his audience, his heart still aches inside. He misses you no matter how many months go by, and Lynette has her hands full comforting him when he breaks down at night and cries about how much he wants to see you. Lyney would have had an easier time accepting your death if you had passed away more peacefully, but knowing you were tortured to death will forever haunt him.

Once he feels more like himself, Lyney incorporates the magic trick he originally wanted to show you upon your return into his magic shows. He only performs it during special occasions so it would leave a great spectacle upon his audience. It was once made to awe you, but now it awes his audience, and a part of him feels some semblance of catharsis in knowing he could inspire others to feel the same joy you made him feel using just this trick. At times like these, Lyney feels as if a part of you was still there with him, enjoying the show he secretly dedicates in your honor.

⚖️ Neuvillette

You were visiting your friend Navia in Poisson, when the Primordial Sea flooded the area and caused a great catastrophe that took the lives of many of its residents. Neuvillette was aware you were in Poisson when the disaster struck, and he tried to get there as quickly as he could to check on you. He would have arrived there immediately were it not for the pressing matters he had to settle prior. He hoped the Traveler and Paimon would find you and keep you safe since they knew you were the Iudex’s beloved.

When he finally made it to Poisson, to his morbid surprise, he found neither you nor Navia, but some Fatui members helping to mitigate the damage. When he asked about your whereabouts, he was told that nobody had seen you. Immediately, his thoughts ventured to the worst scenario, but he refused to believe in his fears until he could get confirmation. He held out hope that you were alright, and went in pursuit of Navia and the Traveler, hoping that maybe you were with them, or they knew what happened to you.

It wasn’t until he was saving Navia from getting dissolved in the Primordial Sea water, did he catch a glimpse of your face. You were trying to protect Navia from certain death, along with Silver and Meluse. At the time he was too anxious about saving Navia to fully register the implication, but an unsettling thought sprang in his mind that maybe you really were— No, he didn’t want to accept it.

When Navia regained consciousness, Neuvillette asked her about your whereabouts. Her answer pierced through him like an ice-cold lance. With tears in her eyes, Navia recounted how you were helping Silver and Meluse rescue the residents of Poisson when the Primordial Sea flooded in, and how she saw your body dissolve in the water along with her loyal subordinates with her own eyes. The news settled in Neuvillette’s stomach like a boulder, causing it to sink and make him feel nauseous. Dread filled him, but he could only muster a quiet “I see…” and stare off into the distance. He felt crushing sadness, but he wasn’t given time to properly process his emotions and your death until he managed to make it out of the ruins.

That evening, Fontaine was hit by a torrential downpour that lasted several days. The rain fell in heavy sheets, flooding the streets and urging most of the citizens to seek shelter in their homes. Only the Chief Justice had the gall to stand outside and let the rain seep and soak through his clothes.

Neuvillette let the water droplets cascade down his face, imitating the tears he wished to shed as the realization that he would never see you again settled in. It was strange. Though he was on land, each waking moment he was pursued by a constant feeling of drowning. His chest felt heavy as if burdened by a great weight that made each breath he took feel like a herculean task.

Neuvillette felt a lot of emotions he couldn’t find the words for. He was frustrated and angry that innocent civilians had died in the flood because nothing was done to prevent it. So many people died. You died. If nothing else, he wanted to get justice for your and the others’ deaths.

However, Furina refused to provide answers to his questions despite his probing and insistence that now was not the time to keep secrets that could potentially help prevent an even greater catastrophe. That was when he turned to seeking aid from his companions, in the hopes that Fontaine could still be saved. Neuvillette lost and gained many things in those few days. The citizens of Fontaine were freed of their curse, and Neuvillette had obtained a position of complete authority, however, it all came at the cost of the lives of innocent civilians, Focalors’s life, Furina’s mental state, and… your life. Those were great prices to pay, and Neuvillette mourned each and every sacrifice.

Now that he had some time to himself to process his feelings, Neuvillette recognized that what he felt was grief and longing. He wanted to see you at least one more time, to feel you in his arms again. To have you taken from him so suddenly was too painful. He never got to tell you one last ‘I love you’, and he could only hope that his words reach you wherever your consciousness might be now. Fontaine will see frequent rainfall in the coming months. It won’t be easy for Neuvillette to get over your death, and some part of him will always ache and yearn to see you again. But one thing he can do is strengthen his resolve to make Fontaine into a nation that both you and Focalors would be proud of. A nation where tragedies like these will never happen again.

🍃 Venti

Venti liked to climb up on high places like his statue in front of the Favonius church, the rooftop of the Cat’s Tail, or the great tree at Windrise. Today, you found him high up in the tree, absentmindedly strumming a new tune on his lyre. Wanting to surprise the bard, you tried your best to climb the tree as quietly as you could, but right as you were about to pop up and surprise him, the branch you were on snapped, and with a heart-stopping shriek, you plummeted down to the ground.

Your scream alerted Venti. He felt your presence before you even started climbing the tree, but he failed to foresee the danger until it was too late. He didn’t react fast enough to summon a gust of wind to safely lower you down. The sickening crunch of your skull hitting the ground made his stomach roil, and for a brief moment he felt as if the blood in his veins turned to ice. He felt frozen in place.

Snapping out of his momentary stupor, Venti rushed to your side to check on you, but the enormous pool of blood blooming around your lifeless body made him throw up.

Not again. He lost someone he loved once more. The painful emotions of losing you triggered a cascade of memories of seeing the broken body of that one boy he called a friend thousands of years ago. The same boy whose face he now wore as a way of honoring his memory and giving him an opportunity to live out his dreams of freedom through Venti.

Venti felt that same feeling of heavy emptiness once again as he cradled your lifeless body in his arms, your blood smearing the white sleeves of his shirt. One of the bard’s hands cradled your still-warm cheek, and he wept. To have you taken away so easily through such a small accident… it was too much.

Venti didn’t attend your funeral. He couldn’t bear to. However, he forced himself to watch from a distance as your loved ones gathered around your grave. He fully empathized with their grief.

In the following days, one could often find Venti at a tavern. He started with Angel’s Share, but after consecutive days of heavy drinking and drunken ramblings about how remorseful he felt and how you deserved better, Diluc put a stop to Venti’s visits. The Anemo Archon wasn’t getting any better from drinking himself into a stupor until he could barely hold himself upright. It was heartbreaking to see.

Even after being banned from the Angel’s Share, Venti would visit other taverns in the city and rinse and repeat. He so badly wanted to numb the pain in his heart and forget the awful memory of your lifeless body. Only after several bans did Venti finally stop coming to the city altogether. He disappeared for a while, and nobody was able to find him. Only after many weeks did the bard suddenly pop up in the town square with his lyre in hand.

During his absence, Venti wrote a few songs as a way to cope with his grief, and after a while, finally felt well enough to play them. As a bard, he was well-known in Mondstadt for playing cheerful and beautiful tunes, but this time his melodies were melancholic, even sad. They listened to him sing about a love he can no longer say ‘I love you’ to anymore, someone he can no longer forge new memories with and can only carry on in his heart as a memory. The music he played captured the attention of every member of the audience and touched their hearts so deeply that they, too, could feel the sorrow the bard was trying to convey through his melodies. His pain became their pain, too. The heartache was so profound, so raw and crippling, that many people couldn’t hold back from crying.

Venti wasn’t playing the songs to earn money or share his sadness with others. He was playing them for you. He hoped that his feelings would reach you wherever you were and that your memory wouldn’t fade away even if he remained the last person alive who knew of your existence. His songs will keep your memory alive in the hearts of the Mondstadt citizens, never to be forgotten.

☂️ Wanderer

You have been fighting chronic sickness for months, but despite the treatments, each week you seemed to get worse and worse. Neither the doctors of Sumeru nor even Nahida herself could figure out a cure for your condition. You were bedridden with barely any strength to move. Wanderer took responsibility for nursing you back to health by helping you get to places you needed, cooking all your meals and feeding you, as well as getting your medicine and administering it.

Despite his efforts, you could tell you wouldn’t last long. While you still had the strength to talk, you apologized to him for being forced to part from him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed, with a frown pulling at his lips. “Rather than talk about such nonsense, use that energy to get better instead.”

He didn’t want to face the facts, to accept the reality that you could disappear from his life. But then came a day where you no longer opened your eyes when he called your name, nor stirred when he tried to shake you awake. Your body was cold and stiff and so unlike what he was used to seeing you as. The life you possessed was gone in all senses of the word.

Something in Wanderer snapped that day. Falling to his knees, he let out a guttural scream that tore at his vocal cords. He unleashed a wail that carried all the anguish and misery he’d been keeping bottled up inside for hundreds of years. He’s lost so many people he cared for in the past. Each time he met someone he grew attached to, fate would always tear them away from him, and you were no exception.

He cried bitter tears in the privacy of your shared home, cursing Fate for doing this to him over and over again. He was angry and heartbroken. Though he lacked a real heart, the sensation in his chest felt like something inside him broke into a million tiny fragments. As if sharp needles pierced through his non-existent heart and caused him to scream until he lost his voice.

He wanted revenge, but how can one get vengeance against Fate itself?

You were gone, so cruelly torn away from his side despite his best efforts to keep you alive. You were the little ray of light that never gave up on him no matter how cold he was towards you or how much he pushed you away, and helped him heal little by little. You accepted him in his entirety and wormed your way into his non-existent heart, so how dare Fate mock him like this? Wanderer truly felt as if Fate was purposely torturing him by taking away all those whom he held dear.

Helpless and anguished, Wanderer reverted to the days when he used to be Scaramouche, the sixth of the Fatui Harbingers who was infamous for his callousness and mercilessness. His roiling emotions spurred him to repeat these spiteful acts against anyone who got in his way. It was the only way he knew of how to vent these overwhelming emotions that made him feel like he was choking on his grief.

It took Nahida’s interference to calm him down and get through to him that you wouldn’t want him to be like this. The Wanderer you fell in love with wasn’t such a hateful person driven by negative emotions, and though he was loathe to admit it, the God of Wisdom was right.

Having quelled the initial burst of wounded anger, Wanderer would think more clearly about what he should do from now on. He could keep all your items, photographs, and letters, but they would never replace you, only help preserve some of the memories attached to them, which a puppet like him had no need for. He won’t forget even the smallest thing about you, not as long as he’s alive.

Wanderer becomes a regular visitor of your grave, taking care of it so your name won’t be erased from the gravestone by time too quickly. He would frequently bring your favorite foods and flowers and place them in front of your grave, before taking a seat next to it and staring off into the distance without saying a word. He did this mostly at night so he could stargaze, just like how you both used to when you were alive.

Even centuries later, when everyone who knew you took their memories of you to their graves, Wanderer will remain to watch over your final resting place, unwavering in his devotion.

🐺 Wriothesley

You accompanied Wriothesley on another one of his swims out in the open waters surrounding the Fortress. Since you weren’t a vision holder, you had to wear a diving suit to breathe, unlike your beloved Duke. You’ve had these private little swim dates a few times before, so your guard was down when you swam through some jagged areas of the Fortress’s scaffolding. The shoulder of your diving suit caught on a sharp edge of metal and tore a hole in it. The tear was fairly large, and you panicked when you felt water rush inside your suit. Wriothesley was quick to freeze the hole and pull you up to the surface to get the suit off of you, but by the time he did, it was too late. You had inhaled too much water and were unresponsive. Wriothesley tried to keep his anxiety at bay and utilized all the CPR knowledge he learned from Sigewinne to try and save your life. He breathed air into your lungs and did chest compressions with enough force to hear your ribs crack, but even after 30 agonizing minutes of trying, you wouldn’t wake up.

Wriothesley had no choice but to accept the fact you died. Wriothesley doesn’t cry for you. He’s no stranger to death. His exposure to it in his younger years made him all too aware of how easy it is to die, and that death came for all without exception. As a result, he was able to accept your death a little easier than most, but it doesn’t mean he made peace with it. The staff and inmates at the Fortress all said Wriothesley looked the same as usual even after your death. He kept up his laidback yet intimidating demeanor and busied himself with the variety of work someone in his position was required to take care of. Only Sigewinne could tell that Wriothesley was not alright despite all the strained smiles he gave everyone. The bags under his eyes grew more prominent by the day, a clear indicator he wasn’t sleeping well. She saw how he threw himself into his work, barely taking any time to rest properly, as if wanting to keep his mind busy from the horrible memory of seeing your corpse. Though he tried to mask it, in truth, your death affected Wriothesley deeply. He had frequent nightmares about watching you drown and being unable to save you, and they would keep him up at night. He usually awoke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding from intense panic and dread until his mind cleared, only to be replaced with a stone-cold reality that made the feelings of guilt come rushing back. Out of habit, he turns to your side of the bed to seek comfort in your presence but seeing it cold and empty served as yet another harsh reminder that you were gone. Wriothesley can’t sleep after his nightmares, so he opts to work out or fuss over his gauntlets to distract himself from his feelings. It takes all his self-control to keep a lid on his emotions and not become the angry, irritable mess he knows he will be if he’s not careful.

When he makes tea, Wriothesley accidentally makes two cups out of habit. One for you and one for him. Even weeks after your passing, it was still a difficult habit to break. For the first while, Wriothesley would even stop drinking your favorite tea blend because it reminded him of you. Rather than enjoy the flavor, all he tastes is bile in his throat. The flavor of your favorite tea makes him nauseous because it makes him think about how you will never taste this again or have another tea date in his office.

There was one occasion when he tried to drink your tea shortly after your death. He thought maybe the flavor would remind him of the happy times he shared with you, but all it resulted in was a broken teacup from the force of his grip, and Sigewinne fussing over his cuts and burns. He didn’t drink your favorite blend for a long time after that, only being able to find enjoyment in it again many years later when the startlingly clear memory of your death didn’t hurt him as much. Wriothesley felt lonely without you. You were the friend and confidant he told his deepest and darkest secrets about his past, the comfort he sought after a difficult day, and the soothing presence that made him feel accepted for who he was without all the embellished titles. But after your passing, the Fortress of Meropide seemed cold and gloomy, as if devoid of the warmth it once had that made him call it home. It was as if your death snuffed out the little ray of warm sunshine he felt when spending time with you.